Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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Its an illusion of control and if lemmy grows their elitest sentiment will fade. They can go make a fringe instance with all the arbitrary knowledge requirements they want but the most populated instances on lemmy should be there for the layman users that want to do better than reddit.
Why, with an established federated platform, would we not want to be the replacement for corporate social media? If they are so proud of registering on lemmy then idk if they are all that smart.
You make good points. I agree.
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I feel like most the old school redditors have long migrated, I've only ever heard good things about the new UI from relatively new users.
Lemmy is old reddit, if not OG internet ethos.
New Reddit gets a lot of complaints too (loading issues, freezing), but it's aimed at Reddit as a whole since newer users don't know that old Reddit is an option.
At the same time, if I only ever used new Reddit, I would also think that old Reddit looks wrong
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The reddit concept of subreddits also doesn't work well with federation IMO (at least no Lemmy's implementation).
Want to talk about video games? Well, there's no /r/games, instead there are bunch of different /c/games on different servers with varying amounts of activity. You basically gotta make the "pick a server" decision again whenever you post something. If you make the wrong choice, your post might not get seen by anyone, and even if you post to the biggest sub, you'll be missing out on eyeballs from people on other servers who aren't subscribed to that instance for whatever reason.
For example, lemmy.ml/c/linux_gaming and lemmy.world/c/linux_gaming have around the same number of subscribers. Should I post to both? Maybe the same people subscribe to both, so that's pointless? Or maybe I'll miss out on a lot of discussion if I post only to one? There's no way for me to know.
For me, it makes Lemmy less useful than reddit for asking really niche questions and getting useful answers. For posting comments on whatever pops up in my feed though, it works great.
I don't have any good solutions to this, and I'm sure it has been considered already. When I first joined, I remembered seeing people bring this same issue up, but it doesn't seem like it went anywhere? (Or maybe it did?)
This isn't really a federation problem, and more that there isn't a clear "winner" yet.
Even on centralized platforms, you end up with multiple communities for the same topic, until one of them grows enough to beat out the rest. Then eventually a scandal might cause it to fragment again. There are also separate communities that keep going independently because of ideological differences. See the various international news subreddits
The movies communities here were like that, but now there is a pretty clear "main community"
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This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
Good keep those numb nuts away. Reddit sucks not only because of Spez and his greedy overlords, many of the users suck as well and I bet there is a big overlap on the Venn diagram between people who suck and people who think lemmy is confusing
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None of that affects me, but if I switch, which one should I switch to?
Really it doesn't matter if it doesn't effect you. I use Jerboa and I'm sure most other apps work the same, you can switch between logins within the app. So if you want to join another instance, say dbzer0, which focuses around Piracy and Anarchy, you create a login from their page then sign in in your app. Switching between accounts is fluid and then if an instance you use does something to piss you off, you can slowly stop using it.
I like to think of it like a playground. We want everything spread out a bit and not all on one instance. So if the owners of that instance start to do things users don't like, you can just replace the softball field,, and keep the slides, swings, soccer fields, walking track etc. Each one of those I would be considering your main subs you are interested in. So if someone ties ads or starts being foul on that softball field, we walk away from the pitch, and onto another softball field and you keep your logins if you weren't based on that softball field. Everything else stays good.
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This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
I don't get how people get hung on choosing a server when people have been chosing a starter Pokémon since 1998 without any major issues. And you get just about the "same" amount of practical info.
Really, what tiktok does to a generation...
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Could have auto versus manual server choice. Can always maintain option for granular selection, but "normies" could walk into a quiz when migrating?
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Top three things you used Reddit for? (List of maybe 10+ things, servers can maintain their feature list to empower this)
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Do you like A) talking to everybody about days topics B) talking to a smaller group of like minded people
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Do you like A) a MORE moderated space B) a LESS moderated space, realizing you may see more spam and controversy
And then calculates a server that meets needs, if multiple, then random number generator to assign a server. On user side, all they see is a quiz followed by a typical registration screen. This would help with distribution of users across niche servers, but feel lighter for user. They also would assume a more curated experience, regardless of where they end up. Servers could have to opt in to be fed users from search of they were afraid of impact on cost to maintain server.
The above likely aren't the right questions, but this framework could be effective
The problem with that is there is no centralized website you go to for Lemmy. The closest thing to that would be the various apps you use for Lemmy so my question would be where would you put this quiz? I think when people talk about joining a server being hard it's just hard for people used to a centralized social media to get used to the idea that one social media platform can be made up of a bunch of different websites and it becomes overwhelming to even figure out where to go. They're very used to just going to reddit's website so if they can't just look up Lemmy and click the first link to join it's gonna be too complex.
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This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
Which server do you want to use is like asking "Do you want Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo for email?" it really isn't that big of a deal, but maybe people these days have a hard time doing that too...
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Reddit being popular is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy.
When you get right down to it: people don't care that Reddit is selling their information, that the site itself is a piece of garbage, that running the site requires a bunch of no-life weirdos whose numbers will only increase going forward and whose power will likewise, or that the design actively encourages bots to the point of disincentivizing actual human beings from using it.
They want their memes, they want their news, they want their niche little interest subs and they want their porn. The simple fact is that lemmy is a smaller version of Reddit with fewer options and to the majority of people who don't care about their data or the objectively dogshit running of the site, there is no reason to cross over to Lemmy.
Until Reddit takes a Musk-type turn into being totally unuseable, lemmy will only see a trickle of users who are burned by Reddit.
I'm fine with that while it lasts. Having millions of active users would increase the feed, but it's not going to increase the likelihood of me talking to anyone smart
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Unfortunately, Sync for Lemmy is basically dead. Hasn't been updated in nearly a year. I'm currently looking for a good alternative
Thanks for the heads up, seems like it might stop functioning properly in the future according to posts on the Sync community. Guess I'll look around for some alternative in case that happens.
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Something like https://phtn.app/ really should be the default
Disclaimer: Photon is great and the dev does a fantastic job.
However, there as still issues induced by not using the default UI. One of the instances I used added photon as p.instance for a while
Photon was still in early stages, and there was a bug preventing it to load for some people (Firefox users IIRC). In the end the admin switched to Tesseract.
https://lemdro.id/ has photon as a Default, but it took them a while to the latest version, for quite some time it wasn't ideal. I would still go to https://l.lemdro.id/ just because the Comments view was available, or because some other info was missing/hidden.
Lemmy releases new versions quite regularly, and there are usually a few bugs. Photon development is independent, and the Photon dev has to catch-up with those. Add admins sometimes limited availability to the mix and the experience can really become subpar.
Super ui!
Kudos -
Have tell new users just sign up on your instance. Make it less confusing by sending them to a specific website and not just telling them about the software.
I swear to God, there are so many tech people here that overthink it because they know details that the average user would not give a single fuck about.
I like my instantce
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The problem with that is there is no centralized website you go to for Lemmy. The closest thing to that would be the various apps you use for Lemmy so my question would be where would you put this quiz? I think when people talk about joining a server being hard it's just hard for people used to a centralized social media to get used to the idea that one social media platform can be made up of a bunch of different websites and it becomes overwhelming to even figure out where to go. They're very used to just going to reddit's website so if they can't just look up Lemmy and click the first link to join it's gonna be too complex.
Sure, the app that nailed this might separate itself as the popular option for zeitgeist to grab onto, but then it distributes users to many servers (as the app itself is an aggregator that's agnostic to server. But yes, rush of that single app becoming "Lemmy" in many people's minds.
But you likely need to treat migration and understanding nuance of the tech as two different user journeys. Rather than solving problem though, likely better to stop and ask why we even want more users (if we even do?).
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I don't get how people get hung on choosing a server when people have been chosing a starter Pokémon since 1998 without any major issues. And you get just about the "same" amount of practical info.
Really, what tiktok does to a generation...
I would love info/data-sheets about all the instances, that would make the decision process easier:
- who de-federated who?
- who hosts most content related to topic X?
- number of users and their distribution of joined communities
- posts/second average user activity …
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This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
What can we do?
File issues on the GitHub for how to improve the UX, and put thumbs up reactions on issues so the devs know which issues to prioritize
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues
Or even better, make pull requests if you're a dev
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I don't get how people get hung on choosing a server when people have been chosing a starter Pokémon since 1998 without any major issues. And you get just about the "same" amount of practical info.
Really, what tiktok does to a generation...
Nothing to do with TikTok or this generation. Most users find it complicated and insulting them won't change reality. I've learned that the hard way from my years trying to convert people to Linux.
What Lemmy and Mastodon need to do is to have one canonical instance that they manage well themselves. Everyone gets signed up to that initially and those who want to transfer to another instance afterwards can. That alone could have prevented BlueSky taking the lead the way it did.
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Good keep those numb nuts away. Reddit sucks not only because of Spez and his greedy overlords, many of the users suck as well and I bet there is a big overlap on the Venn diagram between people who suck and people who think lemmy is confusing
Technical aptitude != emotional maturity
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I could see merit to that argilument if the sign-ups process was kind've a pain, but honestly it's so easy to create an account on Lemmy it's hard to give that too much credence. Most servers just want a username and a password, and many don't even require an email to verify. If putting in a username and password somewhere else because they didn't like their first instance is too much for them, that's a pretty flighty user to begin with, and they would probably leave for a host of other reasons too.
Saying that, a better way to narrow down that initial choice of server would not go amiss, but ultimately people will need to understand that this is all run by volunteers and there may be more bumps than a corporate controlled platform, but the other advantages (if they appeal to this theoretical user) are worth it.
Even with a better server picking tool, and even if they pick a server they like the first time, it's possible that server has to shut down some day due to unforeseen circumstances, and that user will have to either accept that they have to create a new account somewhere, or decide that's not an ideal UX and never come back, which would be a shame, but impossible to prevent.
You tell that to a normal user (and I mean NORMAL) and they will lose any interests in making the effort of attempting to pick a server... I know it sounds far fetched, but that's my experience with normal users, unless they have someone willing to hold their hand at every moment and every change, all these things scare them, no matter how simple they seem for us.
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Cofigure swipes to hide posts and just swipe them out? Idk, it's not hard.
You can say the same thing about reddit but people still bitch about it constantly.
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Nothing to do with TikTok or this generation. Most users find it complicated and insulting them won't change reality. I've learned that the hard way from my years trying to convert people to Linux.
What Lemmy and Mastodon need to do is to have one canonical instance that they manage well themselves. Everyone gets signed up to that initially and those who want to transfer to another instance afterwards can. That alone could have prevented BlueSky taking the lead the way it did.
Everyone gets signed up to that initially and those who want to transfer to another instance afterwards can.
That's the second big problem hidden in this model: account migration doesn't currently work (nor do I know of an ETA for feature release).
Not to mention the first problem: this heavily promotes centralization which is what caused this whole mess in the first place.
