first I wrote

Is there a good way to scale the X axis? 7 days is meaningful but I'd *at least* like to see 1M and 6M.

I clicked Home which helps, but view options would be nice.

I read at some point the definition of active users here required posting, while reddit cites users as unique visitors. Anybody have insight on this?

it’s just not as content rich as reddit at the moment

This can change fast.

You should’ve seen it two weeks ago.

The very minor and surmountable technical barrier of joining the fediverse will do wonders to screen out users capable only of the lowest effort.

I joined lemmy.ml because the join-lemmy site gave me extremely little to go on. It was a coin toss between this and beehaw.org once I realized how few instances were established and not right-wing.

That was only 2 weeks ago and already I’ve seen the site force 2 server upgrades, even as the admins have strongly encouraged new users to join elsewhere to prevent centralization.

The instance list desperately needs a few columns added, including whether new signups are encouraged or discouraged.

This will hopefully start to create some quality content.

Important note here not directed at you: Quality content is something we all have to pitch in on. We’re in the thousands, not millions. We’ve all got to make a few posts and make a few comments. Self-sustaining communities can form pretty quickly with our current numbers but the onus is on us to make an effort to prime the pump of engagement, so to speak.

No, my subscription to !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com. I’ve been able to sub to other instance’s communities fine in general. In this case I wondered if it required approval because I see this:

How do I move my subscription past the pending status?

What do we need to do to move forward?

Accept that much or most of reddit will look normal tomorrow. Reddit will proceed by projecting that everything is normal, whether true or not. Lemmy will continue to be an alternative with FOSS benefits and much smaller communities. Your own habits have to reflect what you want and there’s no wrong answer.

I’m personally elated to find the smaller communities with higher-quality content. Thoughtful comments aren’t buried under piles of karma-seeking horse-beating jokes.

At the same time, reddit continues to offer historical reference that won’t be matched elsewhere anytime soon. I’m not going to rant as if the place has no value, or as if it can be replaced in a few weeks.

Lots to consider.

Are we defining failure by their standards, or ours?

When my favorite communities were wrecked by being moved to front page, default-for-new-users and flooded with low effort content that may as well have been bot spam, it failed me.

When they made an API policy that ostensibly allowed profitability (despite charging far beyond what they might make from ads on the official mobile app) and avoided training by AI (despite refusing to grandfather in known 3PA and offering to approve new ones), it failed me again.

If I’m soon unable to access the site via the old.reddit interface to avoid intrusive ads, it will fail me yet again.

I won’t be surprised if others add more failures to this list.

Maybe reddit makes money hand-over-fist from these changes without me, you, nsfw content creators, licensing / API fees from all current popular 3PA apps, and whoever else. I’m not eager to characterize this as success because VC’s get their money back.

There are sorts by hot and top, yes. I don’t know the details of voting and/or replies that score comment order.

We waited for our images to load one line at a time and we were grateful, dammit!

There’s no accumulated karma score though. People should be less sensitive about downvotes and I’m hoping it will mitigate low effort karma-seeking content, at least somewhat.

Pffffft maybe you, but I don’t have cognitive biases! Anchor pricing doesn’t work on me either because, raises nose, I know all about it.

Reddit is already ashes of what it once was.

I think reddit peaked around the time it started changing which subs were front page (8-10 years ago now?). One place I was very active at the time moved from being a medium size, great community to being overwhelmed by people who had no sincere interest in the topic but were happy to karma removed.

The sub became larger than ever by capitalizing on the community that built it but its value about its topic evaporated. Reddit has been making similar moves ever since. Karma-removed dominates pretty much every non-niche sub now.

*The removed that caught the filter refers to the act of getting something in exchange for performing an act eyeroll

Reddit has announced they are making an API access exception for apps devoted to accessibility. They will have to do the same for moderation tools.

That’s fair to point out, but it implies the only utility users provide to the site is ad impressions. I see a couple of reasons this is not the case.

Mods make up a tiny portion of users but are disproportionately 3rd party app users and rely on 3rd party tools. But if any meaningful portion of the mod community leaves? The remainder were going to have a much bigger job without the tools. To attempt the bigger job with a smaller workforce is a double-whammy. Their only option will be to focus on their favorite subs and elevate more members to mods. The inevitable result will be experienced mods being far outnumbered by new mods, all of whom will have to stick to tedious tasks for subs to not be overrun by spam and hate speech. It’s hard not to predict the same result as what’s happened to Twitter’s content.

Now consider nsfw content, which has always made up a huge chunk of reddit’s traffic. Moderation is even more difficult there to begin with and could easily melt down for the same reasons, even setting aside reddit’s growing distaste for it. Reddit is largely young and male and while many users may have no interest in it, the combination of nsfw imgur links going dead, moderation challenges, and the likelihood of reddit cracking down on nsfw is a combination that may cause reddit to be less attractive for many of the young, male userbase to visit.

I think your point still has merit - reddit won’t miss many of the users seeking alternatives. I would say reddit’s casual “I didn’t even know there were 3rd party apps / old.reddit.com” users are also likely to be turned off by the ultimate results of their changes.

What really stands out from reddit’s statements is the conspicuous lack of disagreement about the alleged charges to 3rd party apps. They can keep trying to characterize it as fair but the factual numbers in the conversation make it plainly obvious that they are instituting a model that makes it impossible for existing 3rd party apps to survive.

Reddit trying to go the slow route, removing one thing at a time, will make it easier for lemmy to scale and grow to accept all the users.

If they did API, old.reddit, and nsfw all at the same time it would be absolutely impossible to accommodate.

I have enough faith in the moderators and the structure of the platform itself that there shouldn’t be too much of a toxicity problem.

My concern: Are there enough moderators for the deluge coming?

A VPN will get all the browsing data that could otherwise be collected by an ISP. I feel like the difference is a VPN is a self-selected group of people who are willing to pay for anonymity, which implies both juicier data and more likely to have money. I’d kinda rather not identify myself that way. Especially since it’s legally established that you can’t identify individuals by IP address (in the US).

TOR is its own debate. It’s as secure as the node you’re using, and my understanding was a significant proportion of them were controlled by US LEO which kinda compromised the point.