I told somebody I know who knew about Reddit’s API changes about Lemmy. He has a master’s degree in Computer Science and works as a software engineer. But then, he told me that it’s too confusing to get into, even for someone like him. This is great feedback and I hope that these issues will be fixed in the coming months.
It took me five minutes to find an instance and sign in. I figured out (mostly) how instances work over the course of a couple of days. I dont have a degree. Sounds like youre friend just doesnt want to give it a shot
Agreed. I struggle with new things and have had some frustrations figuring out Lemmy, but like… It’s really not that hard. And I’m not young and hip anymore, nor have I ever been very tech savvy. But I figured it out.
Dude just has a lack of give-a-damn.
I have a master’s degrees, but I doubt that matters. My experience mirrors yours: five minutes (except for waiting times to get approved). I agree with your conclusion.
I tried signing up under multiple instances and they never went through. Finally got one though and it’s pretty easy for the most part. I do think the linking needs to work better as general kinks being you directly to that instance vs. viewing it from your own this requiring you to log in or go back to your insurance and try and find the post/community.
Just to get it out of the way: there are obviously some issues with lemmy discoverability and quantity of content
But to be blunt: this is not the kind of user lemmy needs right now, he won’t be missed. He doesn’t want to join a community, he wants to scroll a feed that is pre-curated for him. And to be honest, that is most redditors, for better or for worse, but the core of the site, what gives it most of its value besides just scale, is powerusers and mods who will see: “oh there isn’t a formula1 comm yet? I’ll make one”. Boom. Problem solved. among a userbase of thousands there will be other people who want to talk about F1, but you need at least one person to be engaged enough to create the community and post to it once in a while.
This perspective is fundamentally self-defeating if you want to get an alternative off the ground. It will take off if people get into it, and it won’t if they don’t
Yeah, this site is in early stages and if someone just wants to be babysat… we literally don’t have the manpower for that yet! A smaller dedicated userbase is more important at this stage than mindless growth.
I do agree that the average Redditor will not only not switch, but will probably continue to use Reddit, at least until the 30th. We’ll see what happens after that. That being said, I think that’s a good thing. Reddit has 500m MAU. Not sure the fediverse is up to the task just yet.
In the meantime, Lemmy as a platform can benefit from this by fostering a solid community from the refugees that do make their way over. I imagine there’s a fair few software engineers who may now be interested in working on this project, which I think will be healthy for things in the long term.
I cant even imagine that Lemmy could handle one million users. But there will probably be ways in the future, after all Mastodon managed it somehow.
The fediverse is not suited at the moment to fixed mindset types.
Personally, I find that refreshing. It reminds me of my earliest interactions with the Internet on BBS. The web for a long while has felt very consumerist; first curated spaces becoming walled gardens and then the subtle shift from web services as products to our attention & data as the Internet’s main product. We lost the magical sense of exploration and experimentation that made the early Internet so special. The fediverse is the first instance (pun half-intended) I’ve come across that speaks to that spirit.
It’s not so bad once you start using it. Signup was a nightmare on the app but besides that it’s been okay so far. I wish there were more people though.
I agree that it sounds like your friend doesn’t want to put in the effort. But he’s right on a couple points. Lemmy is easy to learn and use, but that fact that you have to learn at all will scare most people away. People are used to immediate gratification. Sign up, maybe fill out a 2 sec questionnaire for your interests, enjoy. Lemmy isn’t streamlined to that level yet.
He has a master’s degree in Computer Science and works as a software engineer.
:O
I think your friend just doesn’t want to put in 5 minutes of effort. And honestly, that’s fine. I think the average reddittor has been kind of trending that way for a while, and I wish him the best of luck hanging out with people who can’t be assed to put in 5 minutes to figure anything out. I might be wrong, but especially for technical content I think the mean will drop much further on reddit.
Lemmy needs creators right now, not consumers like your fren. They’ll follow.
I agree it’s not user friendly (at least not as userfriendly as centralized platforms are) but I’m sorry I really doubt he has master’s in CS and if he does he bullshitted his way through to get it
Tell that guy for me that he’s a moron and he can suck my asshole.
Please. Being toxic is not gonna help things.
