Lemmy growth is crazy!

Blahaj zone (the Calckey instance) has been running for around 6 months now. We’ve had a slow but constant growth of new members, with a big spike when Calckey drew a lot of attention. And as a result, even though we’re not a huge instance, we are one of the larger Calckey derived instances around.

lemmy.blahaj.zone on the other hand has seen crazy growth! In the last week, our lemmy instance has gone from almost no members, to nearly as many users as our Calckey instance. The mind blowing part though, is that the lemmy instance isn’t even close to being one of the largest lemmy instances. We don’t even appear on the first page of Fediverse Observer! And the sheer number of lemmy instances online now is huge compared to where it was a couple of weeks ago.

And that’s before we even talk about kbin and the threadiverse as a whole, of which Lemmy is only a part

I can honestly say that this whole thing has shifted my view of just what the future of the fediverse might be. I assumed it would always be microblogging centric, but now, I question that…

#fediverse #lemmy #kbin #threadiverse #calckey

@[email protected] @[email protected]

  • maegul@calckey.social
    2·
    2 years ago

    @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

    Nice and interesting to hear! Random thoughts:

    1. Is there something here about the intersecting dynamics between platforms and communities? Like, if the needs/desires of a community lead to alternative platform choices, does that community have more of a chance of thriving in an ecosystem with less of a dominant platform and central instance? Even though the “threadiverse” is basically #lemmy + #kbin, they’re not at all dominant on the fediverse, and so most probably know about other things like mastodon etc, while how many mastodon users know about anything else?

    2. I think there’s interesting questions about whether “thrediverse” platforms (those more like forums/reddit than twitter, IE, the start with conversation threads rather than following users) are a better fit on the fediverse.

    For one, there’s the engagement problem. Arguably it’s easier to find people when spaces based on interests are the essential structure.

    Second, I wonder if it smooths over federation issues better by “chunking” what’s seen and visible at a larger scale, that is at the community/sub-reddit/group level. I don’t actually know how true this is technically, but I would imagine that once you follow a community/magazine on lemmy/kbin, you and your instance see everything from that community, not just some arbitrary sub-sample of replies like with microblogging.

    Third, given the above, it maybe allows one to be more accurate when they say “it doesn’t matter what instance you join”

    Fourth … there’s a counter dynamic here which is that a community/group requires a certain threshold of activity to be compelling, which can be tough to get off of the ground. This is where /kbin is interesting as it fuses both microblogging and “threading” … which IMO is the master format for a platform ATM.

    • Ada@blahaj.zoneOP
      4·
      2 years ago

      @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

      Even though the “threadiverse” is basically #lemmy + #kbin, they’re not at all dominyant on the fediverse

      This is the part that I believe might change. I’ve seen several people effectively move from micro blogging to the threadiverse, as well as many people who never used twitter, and who are experiencing the fediverse for the first time through kbin or lemmy.

      Combine that with the crazy growth of those spaces even before reddit shuts down the APIs makes me wonder if micro blogging might end up being “one of the features” rather than the default feature.

      I don’t actually know how true this is technically, but I would imagine that once you follow a community/magazine on lemmy/kbin, you and your instance see everything from that community, not just some arbitrary sub-sample of replies like with microblogging.

      Bingo! And due to the dedicated interface, you’re not trying to find a reply from amongst a timeline, but you instead have a sorted listed of threads, with the whole context right there at a click. It makes it much easier to drop in to a conversation that happened when you were asleep etc.

      It’s not as personal, so it doesn’t give you the same “connecting with friends/audience” feeling that microblogging does, but by the same token, that makes it easier to drop in and out of without any existing history or connection to the space.

      This is where /kbin is interesting as it fuses both microblogging and “threading” … which IMO is the master format for a platform ATM

      I agree! That is a killer feature. I am hoping that there is a way of changing the interface on the microblog posts to thread them in with the main posts, rather than hiding them away on a distinct tab, but either way, having both options there is fantastic! That is the killer feature of kbin, and also the reason that some people have been able to leave dedicated microblogging platforms in favour of kbin