How is the size of Lemmy’s userbase changing? Is it growing or shrinking? How diverse is it? What do the current trendlines look like as we approach a year since Rexxit?

I feel like I used to see graphs on this sub fairly regularly, but haven’t seen one recently. There was also some ambiguity in the numbers as commenting and voting were added to the active user totals. Now that most (all?) instances have switched to 0.19, do we have a better idea of where things stand?

Aside from sticking around and posting, commenting, and voting, is there anything users should be doing to help grow the platform? (!lemmygrow would be a good name for a sublemmy, if anyone wanted to organize something)

In any case, thanks to everyone who has helped grow Lemmy to its current size!

  • MBM@lemmings.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Anecdotally, the communities I’m interested in are getting more active in a way that seems sustainable (as opposed to last year, when it was a always a single person posting some, getting no responses, and leaving). I’m pretty positive about the state of Lemmy and the wider threadiverse.

  • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.alEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Lemmy is growing. Not exploding, but showing steady growth. It’s interesting because Lemmy tends to grow in sputters. The good thing is though, is that the growth is organic and after a bit of friction, we get new people that stick around.

  • chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.netEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    At least from the nerd side of Lemmy, communities pertaining to technology, self-hosting, etc. — which I’d imagine to be the larger drivers due to how complicated it is to join compared to a traditional centralized setup (see also same hurdle for mastodon vs Twitter; which doesn’t gain adoption until Thread and BlueSky started to attract the less technical users), I’m seeing troubling signs of slowing down and shrinking.

    If people actually want Lemmy in these areas to grow, it is important to be a lot more inclusive, and understand when to not participate in order to foster better community growth.

    What I mean on the inclusive side is those FOSS advocates need to back off with the “You don’t understand FOSS, and go make your own instance” comments so other users don’t just bounce right off and leave after being bored with nothing to interact with.

    What I mean by understand when not to participate is literally don’t participate in niche communities that doesn’t apply to you. So many Android users commenting irrelevant anti-Apple sentiments in Apple Enthusiasts community, for example. This is driving away actual users who are interested in discussions.

    The charts don’t lie. Lemmy is shrinking, not growing. After getting a new lease on life with 0.19 due to what is essentially clever accounting, the community is still slowing down/shrinking. And for the nerdier side of the userbase, unless the community by and large start to interact more inclusively, the whole thing is sadly going to be just a small blip that’ll soon fizzle out.

    • ANNOFlo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Yeah, it’s something I observed, too. I’m new here, coming from a STEM field myself - Many places give off a tech-elitist vibe, though.

      Customization options for Firefox get reactions like “nobody needs this”. I like it here so far, but the tech-bubble is obviously super prominent here, and in many places it simply seems very “If you’re not a tech-y don’t talk to me because I know better”. It’s worrying because it will lead to people leaving again when they get the cliché reactions of “use Linux, don’t use Windows” or “ewww, Reddit”. People should be less hostile, but I guess that’s just a problem of the Internet in general and doesn’t just apply here.

      I hope to see it succeed, though!

      • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
        01·
        3 months ago

        Open source culture remains the biggest problem with open source software, sadly.

        • SorteKanin@feddit.dkEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          It’s really a major problem. Every time I mention how a lot of open source software suffers from bad UX, I get a lot of down votes instead of agreement and calls to improve things.

          • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
            01·
            3 months ago

            But at the receiving end you’ll have a talented backend developer who has created something impressive, and who instead of being recognised and motivated for her work just receives a bunch of shit about the UX being awful. Which is not great either.

            It’s a tricky thing to get right.

  • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    There seems to be more competition, not much for Masto, lots for Lemmy, or so it seems.

    I was interested in Firefish but it seems to have fizzled out. Gotosocial looks to have promise.

      • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        It just gives current stats, not historical trends. I don’t think it is any answer to OPs question.

        EDIT: I was wrong, it was an issue on my side.

        • Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          If you scroll down it does give historical trends on comments, posts, monthly active users, etc.

          What I meant is why do the graphs look so janky.

          For example:

          What happened in October 2023 that made so many users join?

          and

          What happened in February 2024 that made so many people stop posting?

          Edit: March -> February

          • seaQueue@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            3 months ago

            Sept/Oct '23 was the Boost lemmy mobile client release. A lot of people signed up and many of them bounced off shortly after.