It’s been a long journey, but here we arrive. Welcome home.

  • Breakpr0d@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    I realise that this is unpopular. But personally while I disagree with the decision to charge (exorbitantly) for the api and appalled at the slander hurled at the dev, I think that is an business choice and one more item that I have to disagree and live with.

    But I am very excited about the rise of the fediverse. I know that a company will eventually make a decision that I feel very passionately about, but I will be stuck making a difficult choice. With the fediverse, it provides the users with the opportunity to have control. This power of course often comes with various other costs (lack of a dedicated sre or moderation teams, etc). But I expect that over time this will evolve into options where paid offerings will come up that allows for higher QoS where required.

    • totallynotsocsa@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Honestly, if spez hadn’t already sold the site to white supremacists, I’d be a lot quicker to defend this.

      • itty53@vlemmy.net
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        1 year ago

        The api changes really were about protecting their gold mine of data from ai data models scraping for data. Reddit wants to use that data to create its own models and then replace moderators with those models. The ultimate goal here is to turn the existing dataset into an automoderator on steroids that they could sell anywhere. Trouble is someone else is going to beat them to it.

        There was a reason these changes lined up so nicely with Google doing the same thing. Everyone’s realizing they’ve been spouting their gold from firehoses for any machine to pick up, and they’re being reactionary and turning them off asap instead of just like, accepting it as a facet of having a public social network.

    • vinniep@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I’m also very optimistic right now. The challenges I see are more around funding, as continued work on the code bases and hosting seem to be the largest hurdles and ultimately easier with money than without. The Fediverse feels like an incredibly natural next step for a lot of users that are coming from a Reddit or Reddit-like background. Everything else (robust collection of communities, moderation, 3rd party tooling, etc) comes with the crowd and from the community, not from the “owner”, and will only take time if we can solve for the funding/scaling challenges.

    • DidacticDumbass@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      It is just the catalyst we need to transcend the status quo and normalize technology that respects its users.

    • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev
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      1 year ago

      People are so confused and overwhelmed about the fediverse mechanics though.

      Maybe there is room for a product that is an aggregator for aggregators. Like, a centralised service that scrapes and collects all Lemmy instances into one super instance.

      • hal@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Its actually simple. Tell them, its like Email. You have an email account at gmail, but can perfectly fine have email conversation with someone on outllook. Lemmy instance = the same as a web email interface of any email provider. Most people will get their head around that.

      • l4sgc@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Pardon my confusion since I’m new to the fediverse as well, but isn’t every Lemmy instance like the super instance you are describing? You can access any community on any instance from any other; there are commentors in this thread from beehaw.org, lemmy.world, lemmy.sdf.org, programming.dev, and many others.

        • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev
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          1 year ago

          Nah those are like sibling instances. I’m talking about a parent instance that combines all the children instances with a new community that aggregates multiple remote communities.

          Just thinking out loud, haven’t really fleshed out the idea yet.

          • Balthazar@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            That already exists. ATM, the thing you’re confusing it with is that there are 4-5 “gaming” subs, but eventually if one gets big enough or the others get taken in by one this will happen, and it’ll look like this instance “Technology@Beehaw.org” (p.s. I’m accessing this from Sopuli, so not on Beehaw).

            • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev
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              1 year ago

              I guess its just a natural progression of being absorbed by other communities that are larger. What I was getting at was a new feature that combines multiple communities into a single one on the backend and presents them as a single one (with interleaved posts/comments from all 5 communities or whatever)

          • Headless3638@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Yeah, I think I get it - there’s a bunch of smaller gaming@<lemmy-instance> kind of things, you’re talking about a master c/gaming that combines all of the smaller lemmy instances of gaming channels, right?

        • Setarkus.MX@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          From what I know, the instances share the posts between each other, but they need to have had contact with another instance somehow before they can get posts from there. Something like a user searching for an instance that isn’t yet known to their “home” instance yet or following a link to it.
          As I understood it, this lets the instances know of each other. Posts of unknown instances won’t show up on your instance until the connection has been made.
          So maybe a super instance could somehow include a newly created instance as soon as it has connected with any other instance already in the super instance.

          (might not be too coherent since I know little about this all as of now ^^)

      • patatahooligan@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think such an aggregator is required. Interoperability is smooth enough that you don’t have to think about different instances most of the time. I’ve only really noticed two points that would be confusing:

        • the sign up process
        • the “local”/“all” distinction

        So I think what we really need to do to make this platform intuitive to people that aren’t already familiar with it is:

        • Somehow streamline signing up. The process from googling Lemmy to having an account on an instance should not be confusing or intimidating.
        • Filter by “all” by default. The default should cater to the users which are less likely to figure it out themselves. If you don’t understand what instances are and what “local” vs “all” means, then you are probably here for the “all” experience. If you understand and really want “local” you are probably fine having to set it yourself.
  • l0st-scr1b3@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Gonna be honest it’s kinda weird to me as someone who did just move over that there’s a bunch of posts from people who just found the Fediverse claiming it as home while there’s people who have been here since it’s creation. It’s got the implication that this was created as some sort of next jump from Reddit which doesn’t really seem to be the case from my perspective.

    • vinniep@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      That feeling makes sense, but I think everyone knows that the Fediverse wasn’t created specifically to give them a landing in this event, just like Reddit wasn’t created to catch the Digg refugees, etc. More of a “next phase in the evolution of this concept”, and while it took a catastrophe, they’re ready to consider that it’s time to move on now.

      The trick is going to be walking that line between preserving what made the Fediverse great and not alienating the newcomers. I think there’s room for everyone, though, and really the big advantage of the Fediverse - we don’t have to agree to co-exist, and can even co-existing completely separately if needed.

      • l0st-scr1b3@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I think you bring up a pretty important point about federation in that it allows for and even encourages expansion in some ways, so that’s a good way to keep optimistic about it. I guess I just feel a little embarrassed. Especially when you look at posts like the recent one asking Lemmy users how they feel about the reddit refugees, and it’s flooded with responses from Reddit refugees instead offering unsolicited feedback about design choices. Then you have threads like this with people laying claim to the fediverse more or less. It just feels like some kind of a Christopher Columbus situation. While I realize that might be a little tone-deaf it’s the best analogy I have for it.

        • Kalkaline @lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          Any community is a sum of it’s members, good bad, or otherwise. I think there will be a wave of us Reddit refugees, but also word is going to spread to other places like Meta and hopefully bring in even more people. Getting people sorted into servers that are going to be able to handle the load, or even better getting them to host their own servers is going to be the way to go. Sorry if we’re stumbling all over your garden in the meantime.

          • vinniep@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Getting people sorted into servers that are going to be able to handle the load, or even better getting them to host their own servers is going to be the way to go.

            That part still worries me a smidge, and it’s somewhat related to my other concern about funding/scaling. As more of the general public discover and move over, the % of the general population willing and able to host their own instance is going to steadily decrease. Not saying that we’re all gonna die or anything, but it’s going to be a shift and we’ll have to continue to adapt.

              • vinniep@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                I expect that in time, that’s exactly what will happen. Some instance somewhere will offer guaranteed availability and performance for a monthly fee to it’s members. That feels icky at first blush, but why should it? It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but no one is forced to use that instance to be part of the larger community, and one instance can’t hold the community hostage like a single company social media company could. They’ll have success right up until they don’t and the Fediverse will sort it out through migrations of users and communities.

              • oyenyaaow@lemmy.zip
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                1 year ago

                or make a non-profit. archiveofourown have ~20% of reddit’s traffic and run purely on donation.

                • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  1 year ago

                  That might work too, but I feel like it could be tricky to fundraise if there’s 1000 equivalent large-ish instances.

        • vinniep@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          kind of a Christopher Columbus situation. While I realize that might be a little tone-deaf it’s the best analogy I have for it.

          I definitely get the sentiment. Everyone is looking for how to make this what they “need” (want) without enough consideration for what it already is and who got it there. It’s going to be a journey, that’s for sure.

    • hadrian@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I see what you mean to an extent, and I also just moved over, but it’s worth remembering that Digg -> Reddit was the same afaik. Like Reddit had been around and established for a decent amount of time before the fall of Digg. (This is second-hand info because I wasn’t around at the time)

      • DarkwingDuck@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I’ve been on reddit for a couple years before the flood from Digg. The quality of content and especially comments went down right then, and never recovered.

        Personally I skipped Digg entirely.

        • HQC@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Depends entirely on the subreddit, in my experience. Places like AskHistorians didn’t even exist when the great Digg exodus occurred. My favorite sub was /r/cfb which also benefited greatly from the mainstream popularity.

          Not coincidental that both of these are relatively strongly moderated compared to many of the biggest/default subs.

  • MobBarley@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Renegade BBSes -> IRC -> slashdot -> digg -> reddit -> imgur -> discord -> mastadon -> lemmy
    with plenty of side quests along the way

    • oyenyaaow@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Pre search engine time on Geocities trading mutual linking on each other websites, reams and reams of messages and emails

      • Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        1 year ago

        It’s hard to tell… it doesn’t feel like one, but it remains to be seen.

        But I feel like the other alternatives to Reddit and the fediverse are more of a sidequest at this point.

  • Troy@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I skipped Fark, but my progression is largely the same. Once in a blue moon, I still visit Slashdot. It’s like checking up on an ex to see how they’re doing.

  • 🐝🇭🇪🅻🅻🇪🇧🅴🆁🇹🐝@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Tried the official Reddit app today and boy people weren’t joking when they say it sucks. I thought it’d just be the usual experience plus some ads but I was totally wrong.

    The official app doesn’t respect your subreddit subscriptions at all, instead force feeding you feeds of whatever their algorithm thinks will drive maximum engagement just like a shit version of Facebook. The “hot” etc functionality is completely stipped from it entirely.

    Guess I’m here to stay on the fediverse now.

    • SharkEatingBreakfast@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      What absolutely sucks about this is that I had carefully curated my subscriptions on RIF in order not to exacerbate my dumb mental health issues.

      Hell, I’ve read angry posts about people in recovery from addiction and alcohol saying how they keep seeing ads for beer or gambling and things like that.

      It’s horrifying!!

      • remi_pan@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        The algorithm really doesn’t work when you are critical or sceptical over a subject. For instance crypto sceptics from r/buttcoin being shown binance ads. Yes, they do show an interest in crypto, but may be the least suceptible persons to that ad.

        • SharkEatingBreakfast@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          It’s different with subs focused on addiction & recovery though.

          Maybe it’s a very bad idea to targeted knife ads in a suicide watch sub, you know? Susceptible people and all.

          • remi_pan@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I completely agree with you, and your example is very good indeed. (Maybe my previous comment was not clear ? English is not my mothertongue)

      • Spzi@lemmy.click
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        1 year ago

        people in recovery from addiction and alcohol saying how they keep seeing ads for beer or gambling

        Not that this is how it works, but I imagine a diligent algorithm looking at those individuals and that content, and then thinking “mhhmm this will generate maximum revenue!!”.

        • SharkEatingBreakfast@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I think that’s absolutely how it works (in part). Ads curated toward your demographic! Maybe it’s not inherently purposeful, but it’s harmful, nonetheless.

          In a subr×ddit about alcohol recovery? “Our algorithm detected that your post history contains the word “alcohol” or “beer” a lot! We will tailor your ads to cater to your interests for maximum profits!” Boom. There you go.

          It takes the human aspect out of the community and drives it to become harmful at worst and soulless at best.

    • Dan_Rachevaski@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      you don’t mention the copious, copious amounts of ads and sponsored contents

      wow thanks reddit, you are more and more Facebook-like now, congratulations.

      • Yeah, that’s pretty bad too but I was at least willing to accept there is a valid reason for that to keep the lights on.

        However, when they go as far to break the core functionality of the website and turn it into another Facebook with psychological manipulation at its core then that’s a whole other thing entirely.

        • Dan_Rachevaski@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Agreed. Honestly, if I want a FB-like Reddit, fuck that, I’ll going to Facebook.

          Enshittification sucks I would say.

  • Lowered_lifted@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I had the same journey but I’m pretty sure I found Slashdot by way of boingboing which I found by way of Diesel Sweeties blog posts when I first got a DSL connection in 2002 and was looking for comics and blogs to fill up my trendy new RSS reader lol

  • koze@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    It’s funny to read this article about the death of Digg again:

    In reality, Digg changed their business model and pretended that they didn’t. That is something that is unacceptable with communities and won’t be forgotten. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian hit the nail on the head in an open letter to (now former) Digg CEO – Kevin Rose:

    “You chose to grow with venture capital and you’ve no doubt (I hope) taken some money off the table in your Series C round. I say this because this new version of digg reeks of VC meddling. It’s cobbling together features from more popular sites and departing from the core of digg, which was to “give the power back to the people.”
    

    https://searchengineland.com/digg-v4-how-to-successfully-kill-a-community-50450>

  • h14h@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Digg -> Reddit -> Lemmy

    After experiencing the death of two “power to the people” platforms due to profit-driven VC-backed corporate meddling, here’s hoping the third platform is the charm Lemmy & the fediverse.

    • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think the Fediverse will suffer the same demise as Digg and Reddit, precisely because it’s not owned by a profit-driven VC-backed corporation, but there are a couple of other serious threats to its longevity:

      • Moderation. If the Fediverse isn’t adequately moderated, it will quickly be overrun by Nazis, pedos, and spam. That’s what killed Voat and Usenet.
      • Funding. This isn’t like IRC, where a modern server can support tens of thousands of users in its sleep. Running a system along the lines of Reddit or Twitter requires a lot of computing power, and that’s expensive. Where’s the money going to come from?
      • Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        1 year ago

        I think smaller instances of a maximum of 1-2000 people are the way to go for the future. Most instance owners are hosting it because they want to and they have a lil extra cash to throw at it, the 500-2000 people instances are usually funded by the likes of a patreon ko.fi or other donation setup.

        These instances aren’t big enough that the cost is of an instance isn’t massive and can therefore avoid the likes of Venture capital and Angel investors, and if they start to reach the level where funding is getting a bit short even with donations, they can close new account creation untill the number of donators increases beyond a point

        TL;DR: Essentially instances should be welcoming new accounts in waves. So that their growth doesn’t outpace donation income.

    • _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works
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      I was on reddit before digg, but left reddit for digg until diggv4, then I went back to reddit lol. The decentralized nature of Lemmy and the fediverse seems like it will be more resistant to that sort of bullshit though.

  • KNova@links.dartboard.social
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    1 year ago

    I think even calling it Lemmy is not the right move. Yeah, Lemmy is the server software running on a bunch of instances. But we also have kbin, and new softwares will pop up and fork and come and go over time. Once we can do some kind of account or community level migration, it won’t matter whether you are on Lemmy or kbin or the next great thing. Everything will be federated so it will inter-op beautifully. If an unfriendly instance admin comes along, we can collectively cut and run with minimal interruption.

    Thats still a way off from where we are now but the hard step was getting to the Fediverse in the first place. So, welcome to the newcomers among us.

        • Borgzilla@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I still use both. 99% of Usenet is spam, but there still a few active groups (especially under comp.*). The BBS scene on the other hand, is booming. I see new users every week on my favourite board.

          • cvr@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            How does a current day BBS work? Landline phone connections are a thing of the past here.

            • duncesplayed@lemmy.one
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              telnet or ssh (usually telnet)

              If you’re connecting from a modern computer, you just get a telnet client that does the appropriate code pages/ANSI/zmodem/etc. If you’re connecting from a real vintage computer, you get a little dongle that pretends to be a modem (and often accepts AT commands, including fake phone numbers), but secretly connects to WiFi and relays through a telnet connection.

              Some BBSes do still have landlines, and there’s the occasional ham radio BBS, but 99.999% of it is through IP-based telnet or ssh these days.

            • duncesplayed@lemmy.one
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              Sadly most people CAN’T connect through dial-up, even if both parties have all the equipment. A lot of telcos have redone their entire network in VoIP stuff (with heavy compression) which makes it hard to keep a connection even at 300.

    • Melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      I think the concept of the Fediverse is still really alien to people, even the people who are using it. Everyone is still so used to their centralized platforms, so they still think of the Fediverse in terms of platforms rather than as a whole.

      You still hear people say “Mastodon” to mean the microblogging corner of the Fediverse even if they’re not actually on Mastodon, and now people say “Lemmy” to mean the link aggregation corner of the Fediverse even if not everyone is actually on Lemmy.

      • MetalAirship@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but the word “Fediverse” leaves a sour taste in my mount just because it sounds so much like the stupidity that was “Metaverse” (yes I know they are completely unrelated)

        • blindsight@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I agree, but fur slightly different reasons. “Fed” and “verse” are both fairly loaded root words, “Fed” especially. It also sounds a bit arcane/technical/out there.

          “Lemmy” and “Kbin” are both short, cute, and come without any baggage or expectations. It’s a lot easier to create an identity with a term that doesn’t have any existing associations, imho.

          I think it makes a lot of sense for the technology to be called the Fediverse, since it’s descriptive once you understand it, but I think Lemmy and Kbin will have quicker uptake with new users. They’re better brands to advertise.

      • sillypuddy@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Are you saying there’s other reddit-like/inspired webservices that are part of the fediverse that aren’t Lemmy? What are those?

      • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I recently found and like the term “threadiverse” for reddit-like federated software

    • Be Here Now@beehaw.org
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      undefined> calling it Lemmy is not the right move.

      Spankin’ new here, so what do I know, but while the semantics might not be completely accurate, that is not an uncommon occurrence. And Lemmy sounds personal, with a bit of a Motorhead edge to it.

      Maybe we’ll all be called Lemmies web slinging in the Fediverse one day.

      • speedrun@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Yup, having a name is a pretty important aspect of growth. And while the fediverse could certainly work, it’s not very intuitive for new users and also covers such a broad range of functionalities that it won’t help people who are specifically looking for a Reddit alternative. Sure ‘lemmy’ is a misnomer, but it’s better to have a name being used incorrectly than no name at all.