cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19004972
Let’s be honest, the real reason Lemmy build most of its traffic is because of Reddit users. But the thing is, outside of the mass exodus in the west that too from the PC era… people discover and join Reddit not because it’s another social media like Facebook or Twitter that people need to reserve their usernames on like a brand or celebrity but because Google Search is kinda… actually absolute trash by SEO and machine learning crawlers.
Most of the world (I am from India btw, hello~) join or even discover reddit because they’re trying to search for actual solutions, recommendations, advice or even reviews by actual experienced people without having to go through another YouTuber which can stem from troubleshooting a router, finding an actual FOSS option or seeking immediate solutions to the recent CrowdStrike fiasco for example. After having to visit reddit every time whenever using a search engine including for education to career advice, I ended up directly signing up with reddit a decade ago.
Recently, Reddit even restricted its search results to Google only in a business partnership meaning those using Bing, DuckDuckGo to Ecosia or even SearchGPT wouldn’t be able to access Reddit answers anymore. Say, if someone searches for how to block ads on chrome as example - Solutions like uBlock Origin come into existence and continue to exist because of the combined community in Reddit that Lemmy is trying to preserve.
Unlike others, am not saying Lemmy would be dead but it would be pretty much like Discord-Telegram or Tumblr instead of wiping Reddit or correcting Facebook. Reddit is not something you discover from word-of-mouth or join from peer pressure unlike other social media which is even truer for Lemmy but because it actually helps and is useful to people.
Lemmy can’t be taking the path of 𝕏 (Alone Mask’s Twitter) but any of the good platforms were before the Enshittification with Facebook’s way~
I’d rather Lemmy burn to the ground than become famous, seriously watching AND experiencing twitter, reddit, Facebook, MySpace, my-yearbook, and (does Skype count?). I would like to make Lemmy my forever social media. Only time will tell if it lasts though.
Yeah. Last thing I want is to deal with all the anti-environment, anti-EV pro-extremist right wing toxic-macho shit bots.
Quality, not quantity. With too many people, moderation begins to fail
I really don’t want it to become worthwhile for the Russian troll farms that want every discussion to turn into a shitfest.