This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.

Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.

What can we do?

  • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    106
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    10 days ago

    Greenleaf is pretty massively exaggerating about the extent of defederation, as only a handful ever get defederated regularly, certainly not enough to call it ‘wars’.

    As for UX, there’s definitely room for lots of improvements, especially in making it easier to explore another instances local communities from within your own insinstance without explicitly subbing to them all or using lemmyverse.net.

    But I don’t think the very concept of different instances is truly a barrier or bad UX, that other user is just giving lazy excuses for not switching away from Reddit.

    If that was a legitimate issue, MMO’s (which also often have servers the player needs to choose) wouldn’t have the userbase they do. Nor would Email have taken off.

    Even if Lemmy was one big simple centralized server, that user would just come up with another reason they couldn’t switch.

    “Oh, it’s too small, my niche communities aren’t there”

    “The UI isn’t as nice”

    “The mod tools aren’t as good”

    Etc.

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      10 days ago

      The only real federation dramas I can think of were relating to Hexbear and Beehaw. If Greenleaf was on one of those instances then maybe it could explain their skewed perspective. Otherwise yeah, I don’t get it.

        • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          9 days ago

          That’s fair I guess. I remember that. That was around the same time as well, so someone registered to say Beehaw or Hexbear during the Threads fediverse announcement period would probably get the idea that federation wars is all that’s going, at least if they stopped visiting Lemmy shortly thereafter.

      • OpenStars@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        9 days ago

        Those went on and on and on and on for years though - it was only 3 months ago that Discuss.Online finally defederated from Lemmy.ml, making it the first top ranked instance that would be suitable to recommend to Redditors. And even then lemmy.ml still remains to bully and abuse the potential users with tankie BS (bOtH sIdEs SaMe don’t ya’know).

        Also before those two started there was Lemmygrad and Exploding Heads, and others I cannot recall off the top of my head but they really do go back a ways - defederation fights is kinda Lemmy’s whole main entire deal. Sadly, I am not kidding: it’s a Nazi bar effect where you can’t convince people to join a bar that welcomes Alt-Right Nazis (although in this case it’s Alt-Left tankies), bc they are turned off by such.

        It’s fine if we ignore what those users want btw, it’s just less so if we don’t acknowledge who we really are, and then wonder why nobody likes us - that kind of incel culture is not okay, at least not with me, and I will stand by that.

    • .Donuts@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 days ago

      If that was a legitimate issue, MMO’s (which also often have servers the player needs to choose) wouldn’t have the userbase they do. Nor would Email have taken off.

      But in an MMO, you still get the same content no matter what server you choose. Over here, it directly impacts what content you can interact with based on (de)federation.

      • hemmes@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        9 days ago

        I’m on three different instances and the sort by All-hot feed is nearly identical.

        I’m not on Beehaw or Hexbear, but those instances make it pretty well known they block a lot of other instances.

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          9 days ago

          Some instances have very different rules on them that would affect your experience. Like not allowing downvotes, for example. Blahaj users can’t see downvotes or downvote anything themselves.

          • hemmes@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            9 days ago

            Yeah, true. But that’s cool. Having choice like that is great!

            But I suppose that’s the issue. Trying to keep signup simple to help drive user engagement. How much do you try to wrap someone’s head around such nuanced differences, and when do you say “just join me on my instance”?

      • OpenStars@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 days ago

        PvP v. PvE seems like it would make s difference, probably? :-P

        But yeah I get you: the list of varied options is too large, and worse yet opaque.

        Fwiw Blaze most often just recommends 2-3 options to current Redditors, to KISS (Keep It SimpleS:-).

    • hinterlufer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      9 days ago

      eh, back when the “exodus” was happening it felt like every second post is about defederation. Nowadays you don’t hear much about it anymore, but if you only looked back then I see how you could come to that conclusion.

    • Amju Wolf@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      9 days ago

      There are definitely issues with Lemmy but these users specifically seem to just be complaining for the sake of complaining. They want Reddit without the parts they currently don’t like, not realizing that they also need to get rid of the parts that eventually made Reddit go to the shitter - because otherwise it’d just repeat.

    • static_slabs@feddit.rocks
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      8 days ago

      Ah yes, because telling people the reason they don’t join your platform is invalid is sure to make them change their minds. 🙄

      0 marketing sense. People like you are why the Reddit userbase mostly steers clear.

      • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 days ago

        Was going to post this. They’re just burying their heads in the sand.

        Lemmy’s onboarding is trash and so is the main UI. Get away from that and it’s actually great. BUT, most people used the Reddit app when Reddit still allowed 3rd party apps and access so you HAVE to appeal to the masses, no matter how dumb you think they are. Don’t complain about not having mass appeal if you don’t want mass appeal or listen to them and make the change they’re asking for.