Let's be real, most of the growth of Reddit over the last 5 or so years haven't been the type of folks generating good content and discussion anyway. Even if Lemmy gets like 1% of the userbase this place is going to thrive.
A large majority of the content posted there seems to be from bot accounts. No matter what you think Reddit's active userbase is, it is heavily inflated.
Was using RiF and reddit for 12 years. Been on lemmy for a few weeks and I don't miss reddit. Certainly not going to try to use the official reddit app. So probably not using reddit even if I wanted to in the future.
I will be. Haven't deleted my Reddit account yet. Still want to pull out some saved posts. But I've unsubscribed from everything so my home page is literally empty. It has no more value to me beyond that.
I'll be here, this place definitely has a lot more potential than Reddit does. Even though people may complain about federation this method is more stable in the long run, since individual sites can come and go and may fall victim to the same plague that Reddit is facing.
Hmmm the main question is whether it can get it's content to show up in search results - this being the main selling point of Reddit and other platforms.
Right now, if you help someone fix an issue it's pretty much walled in and unavailable.
im seeing content from both my instance and beehaw's in google's results. stands to reason every instance is in there. I expect that the software likely needs optimizations before everything is properly indexed. before reddit google simply indexed thousands of phpbb and invision boards.
Yes, getting lemmy's link high enough on google that it can even be compared to reddit's is a critical but immensely difficult battle to fight since the latter has 18 years of inertia, I guess it all comes down to a matter of pumping the OC and high quality content consistently for a very long time
i’m fairly certain that it really just depends on the google web crawlers to find and index pages. but if the posts are public that’s just a matter of time.
even with reddit, a post has a new URL so takes some time to be indexed by google or other search engines.
so maybe it’s just a matter of delivering relevant content over time so that lemmy results get preferred over others
It's annoying - I saw someone using ' (intext:"modlog" & "instances" & "docs" & "code" & "join lemmy" | intext:"powered by kbin")' which works if you put it after your search term in Google, or Whoogle.
For another engine, just appending 'lemmy' helps...
This isn't true. SEO has been optimized to find good content that engaged users. Long gone are the days of cramming together keyword lists and throwing a few meta tags to rank high. Write high quality (preferably long form) content and it will pay dividends.
Source: I've worked in digital marketing too long.
Lemmy will last because it was already around. I don't think it will die in a few weeks. Today is my first day using it and I love it. I'm sure anyone who tries it will like it, too.
Lemmy existed before this current reddit fiasco, so it will exist after
there are a critical mass of users now, and imo the userbase will continue to grow, with more and more unique content added
Android / iOS apps are out, and in development. Mod tools are coming (iirc). As fediverse becomes less technical / easier to use, it's only going to attract more people
I think it's likely that we're only seeing the first wave as well. The ones most affected by third party app shutdowns are the ones that are posting all of the content and doing the moderation. Once the apps go away, it's likely the most valuable of reddit's users do as well. I have been on reddit since like 07 I think, and once I can't use Apollo any longer my use of reddit is effectively gone. I'll still occasionally browse on desktop, but even then the only way I can tolerate the desktop version is with a bunch of add ons and old.reddit which I assume is next on the block.
We've already seen this on twitter. Now it's just an echo chamber for nazis, increasingly fewer celebs, and marketers (which, tbh it kinda always has been, it's just worse now.) Moving over to mastodon wasn't fun for a week or two, but now there is a critical mass and basically everything I got from twitter I can get from masto now. Twitter still has tons of users and dwarfs masto, but that's a lot of chaff for not a lot of wheat.
In terms of apps, some are out, but there is still nothing that comes close to Apollo especially on iOS. With the dev of Sync and I think RIF announcing Lemmy clients, that's about going to be a done deal. Quite a lot of my regular follows from twitter didn't move over until Ivory and a couple of other good clients came out, so as soon as there is a comparable set of Lemmy clients, I'd say it's pretty much done.
All that said, Reddit's already a shell of what it was even a few months ago. It's maybe not as easy to tell, but as someone who's been there forever, you can tell this is different. And I know personally, even though I used reddit like junkies used meth, I'm now checking rss again, discord for various communities, Lemmy, kbin, and even a few specific forums and so forth.
Spez running an absolute master class in how to ruin a business.
undefined> Spez running an absolute master class in how to ruin a business.
It kinda feels like watching a slow-motion car crash. Fascinating, horrific, hard to look away. It really is quite incredible how he manages to bumble his way from fuckup to fuckup... yet still has his job.
Like you say, 1st July will be interesting to see just how much of an impact closing the apps has on their userbase. I've dipped my toe back in and it feels like the discourse has gone downhill bigtime, which doesn't surprise me... users set the tone of a site, so if a large exodus of people who have some sort of belief in doing the right thing happens, the 'power users' left are not going to be the nicest of people. Some will just be too busy / numb to give a shit, but many of the ones left will be bootlickers by nature.
I think the app part is the biggest factor. I'm using Jerboa, and while it's still good and useful, it definitely has some bugs (crashing when uploading photos has been annoying). I'm still sticking with it, but I can see a more average internet user getting frustrated with that or with the somewhat weird sign-up process and learning how federation-y stuff works.
It'd be sick to have a standard "this is how you sign up" tutorial built into each app!
undefined> I can see a more average internet user getting frustrated with that or with the somewhat weird sign-up process and learning how federation-y stuff works.
Yep this is it. Just got to be patient and keep doing what we're doing, being helpful / polite when communicating, adding content where we cant. Rome wasn't built in a day!
Personal opinion: activity will spike around now, then plateau not much lower than its peak. It'll probably never be as popular as Reddit. I imagine most people will run into some minor inconvenience, then never try to use it again, and the rest of us will be here for years.
I think it's here to stay, and it makes me hopeful that we can get a somewhat mainstream version of the Internet as originally envisioned. The corpo hellscape we have right now is garbage.
I'm ride or die once my 3PA stops working, so I hope it sticks around.
Gotta say, it would be more attractive if every other post wasn't a meta post about the platform and/or reddit. I hope we get some bots capable of ripping reddit posts and slapping them into Lemmy communities. As much as I'd like to pretend I'm a man of culture, sometimes I want shitposts and Tiktok reposts of someone's dog being stupid...
That's funny, because I am quite interested in the meta reddit posts. It's interesting to see how things are unfolding. Though I do think it will of course settle down with time
I don't think it'll die... but it is a community that needs to be built basically from the ground up, while both the Lemmy/fediverse backend technology and infrastructure are actively being developed. Reddit refugees who want a drop-in alternative to doomscroll will probably be the first to leave.
The success or failure will be determined by the number of people willing to make an effort to post. Whether Lemmy (or the fediverse in general) will exceed the numbers of other services... I doubt it, but we wouldn't be here if we only cared about numbers.
I’m having fun here and it’s scratching my online discussion itch. I’ve barely been back to Reddit and when Apollo dies I think I will not go back at all. 16 years on Reddit and almost 300K karma.
I think the entry barrier is still higher than reddit. So I doubt we'll see reddit users migrate by the millions because not everyone believes in free and open platforms like most of us do. But I'm excited to see what happens on Saturday when 3rd party apps shut down.
undefined> because not everyone believes in free and open platforms like most of us do
It's more the "masses" don't care, they want instant and easy gratification. Doesn't matter in the least platform the content is on as long as it satisfies their needs/wants at that moment.
While everyone wants to constantly cry about it not being Reddit - the fact that people are flocking here hand over fist over the more direct 1 for 1 Reddit clones shows that people do understand that we need to go back to a more decentralized web. Even if this doesn't hit critical Reddit size mass, there's enough of us to keep each other company ❤️
I think and hope the fediverse will thrive in the years to come. It's the only way for us users to keep control over the platforms we use and feed.
It's time for the healthier internet we deserve. Networks like Facebook and Twitter have pushed toxic content to their users solely on the purpose of creating engagement. The World would be a very different place if that content had been moderated correctly instead of being pushed toward suggestible population.
I think people will vent and quite a decent percentage will return to reddit eventually. Like it happened with twitter since Elon did his thing.
But lemmy will stay. It has been here before all the people migrated from reddit and the fediverse in general will keep having a right to exist. And it will.
AFAIK, Mastodon actually did gain a sizeable amount of users that actually stayed, even though the number of users has dropped since the peak.
I personally think something like Lemmy works better than Mastodon, since content is more important here than the users, which I think makes it more easy to have a self-sustaining community.
Definitely will stay around, yet, realistically speaking, I don't have much expectations about this endeavor even scratching reddit's monopoly in the next 1 ~ 3 years (I hope I'm mistaken), who knows what will happen in 10 or 20
Yep, got to think long-term, the hardest part is building a big enough community to make spending time here worthwhile, which is just about there imo. But growing to Reddit size is going to require a lot more features and polish, which I'm sure they're working on, but it's all going to take time.
I'm here to stay, and Reddit was my only social media before. But was on that site so many years and it did get shitter over time. Lemmy isn't overrun yet, it's nice.
It won't die in "a few weeks", simply because the likelihood of everybody abandoning ship in such a short timeframe is pretty much zero.
It will almost certainly become irrelevant after some years (we just don't know how many) because almost nothing remains relevant on the Net for more than a decade or two, though even "irrelevant" things still attract a few people so they rarelly "die".
Edit: Also and as a side note, I've actually been questioning just how many people needs to be around here for it to be a good place to be in. I don't think the "millions" of people of Reddit actually added to it and suspect that a few tens of thousand of users are enough for the place to feel interesting to be in and participate in, except perhaps in very obscure and niche subjects were you do need millions of people around for there to be a handful that are interested in such subjects.
I don't think Lemmy will ever get the mainstream attention that reddit has to get big celebrity AMAs, but that may be a good thing, if it stays a genuine place like it is currently, people will come.
I'm leaning on content I've seen thus far but-
If this becomes the place where content holds people, they will stay. To replace -the other site- Lemmy needs to be the place the general internet comes to for information and community questions. In this early stage people need to cement "this is where to come for answers" with regards to....everything. eli5, me-irl and even ask-reddit needs to come here. We joke about how Listicles hijack Reddit content but that's a sign of healthy creation at work. It gets the average non-reddit user conscious of the product and to come there when they have a question.
What needs to happen (if lemmy wants to replace Reddit) is lemmy needs that. It needs to enter the public conscience as an information nexus. To what degree is up for debate of each Instances admin. Beehaw straight said "nope"
FWIW, some celebrities have took part in the fediverse, specifically Mastodon, to varying successes. Some have stayed and integrated with their communities while others have been chased out. Generally I think if you respect the culture of the fediverse you won't have that much of a problem, celebrity or otherwise.
While I plan on using this platform for the forseeable future - I don't have too high hopes.
I think it will probably go the way Mastodon is going. A few weeks of being "hot", then dropping off until it's pretty much business as usual, as it was before being the hot new thing. Don't get me wrong, I want Lemmy to succeed and replace reddit, but I wouldn't bet money on it.
I'm in a similar boat. I'd argue Lemmy has had more success than the other platforms from the other times this has happened, but whether or not that equates to its longevity remains to be seen.
In truth, I'd rather have something different to Lemmy, as there's various annoyances I've had and worries I have with this platform. At the same time, it's my current best hope for a Reddit replacement, and it's not so egregious as to be unusable.
It will last. I plan to stay here. I hope everyone else does too. Even if Reddit totally went completely back to how it was, I deleted my account because I don't like their attitude. I also find the conversation better here. And it's all open source, which is always my preference.
Same with Twitter, I still use it to follow F1 drivers but that's it. 99% of my socials is done on Mastodon now as there are more people there who share my interests and it's open source.
I have high hopes for Lemmy sticking around. The explosion in users around all the Reddit drama will likely have some of them stick around, which will be a net positive. It may not be good for “doom scrolling” any time soon, but it’s really nice to see some lively conversations in communities that are just starting to really blossom.
Lemmy has been around for quite a while, well before any of the recent issues. The userbase will probably die back once people get bored and go back to Reddit but some of us will still be here
If lemmy can get the search algorithm to work well, it'll be good for a decent while I think... I hope for the sake of the internet
everything needs to have some form of competition, and if Lemmy truly becomes the new reddit, hopefully we all learn what they did wrong and can make it better so that we as a collective have the best website/forum/memebase that's humanly possible
It all depends on us. I hope for more servers that FEDERATE - I'm trying hard to cut /r/ out of my life... if we do that, lemmy and the fediverse can live on...
Will you?
It depends on the growth curve. Right now it's exponential, which means it will keep growing. When you see it stay linear for a while, it'll probably start to flatten. At that point, it's either big enough to stick or it's not.
I hope they're going to find a way to make the whole federation thing less messy, otherwise I don't think Lemmy is going to be as big as Reddit ever was.
Also they have to solve the front page, where new topics are loading in from the TOP pushing everything down. Really annoying.
This seems to be fixed in the new 0.18 release. Haven't had this problem on other instances.
I hope lemmy won't become a reddit clone. Reddit was nice as long as it lasted, but it was a corporation. Lemmy feels more like the way internet should be.
Seeing a post like this with over 100 comments makes me think that it's going to last, but scrolling down and seeing 25+ posts in a row with zero comments concerns me.
It could be a federation/Jerboa/other issue though, I'm still not 100% on everything works and connects, plus I imagine the sudden rapid growth is hurting it for now but that should settle eventually
Alot of bots posting, or certain communities bulking out their posts at once. Scroll by new and you will see 5 or so posts to a sub in a row by the same person.
It all depends on if Reddit continues to make decisions with disastrous optics. If this is the one and only user bump Lemmy will get off the back of Reddit, I can see it dying down in the future, but if there's more I think it'll take flight and eventually start snowballing on its own merits. I'm not sure if it'll ever be mainstream, but it'll persist - as it was before all this.
I think its community has grown permanently. It just depends how much of who's here is part of that growth. When the dust settles, I bet people will go back to reddit or somewhere else. But when that time comes, who will be part of the remnants? 50% of us? More? Less? I have no idea.
I think an important step in pumping that percentage up is to stop asking about this. Every day seemingly dozens of people ask this same question about Lemmy's future. This might be pessimistic, but at this point I'm beginning to think many people are either expecting or hoping for Lemmy to fail.
I’ll be here. I like that it takes a little more effort, it’s a little cumbersome or gatekeepy, but it also seems to keep the vibe more like the early internet and less like whatever it has currently turned into.
It reminds me of crypto spaces but without the incentive and monetization of action that seems to lead to a scammy and disingenuous feel to the content.
I'm confident that the Fediverse will last. Sure, there's a lot of challenges with having nodes that can choose to not federate with each other; However, a large majority should federate over time so there can be cross-collaboration. At its worst case, we'll have some segmented nodes that, while unfederated, will still foster good communities. Nodes will come and go.
While these large, centralized services for social media exist, people will always gravitate toward convenience. Unless catastrophe strikes, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. will always exist. But the fediverse gives us choice in a system where we generally had no choice but to use those platforms. After all, the alternative was old Forums that still had a solid userbase while other Forums collapsed and disappeared. If you provide a similar or better service to centralized services that is also convenient and user-friendly, then people will join the fediverse.
At the moment it is nascent, complex, and requires some confidence. Things that seem simple such as searching for another Community on another instance and joining it can be difficult for users to grasp. Over time this will get better.
Having grown up alongside the internet in its infancy, I've been very appreciative to experience the way in which it has changed over time. We're seeing another gradual shift, and a massive user base will associate with the fediverse. It's not going anywhere, but it certainly will never topple these massive corporations that have invested heavily into centralizing power, capturing the regulators and markets, and establishing themselves as information cartels that feast on the flow of money in the economy (read: parasitic leeches).
At the end of the day, I couldn't care less about these other social media platforms. I've embraced decentralization and am having a blast here with the fediverse. It reminds me of the earlier days of the internet. I'm excited to see where this evolves and also watch it grow.
The Fediverse will live on as long as two people want to share content. Users ebb like waves on the shore, and the sea level is rising.
I didn't have Twitter, but moved back into the Fediverse once that imploded. I had another account years ago but it was too quiet. Mastodon's growth has been crazy to watch. I suspect Lemmy will be an echo of that, maybe this time or at some point in the future. It's no matter, though. The Fediverse is slow social media, which is a good thing.
I'd favour Lemmy for mass adoption in the long run, mostly because Twitter was never actually that big, and people can just microblog on Facebook or Tiktok. Reddit has far more users that might want to look at alternatives and their realistic options today are this or Tildes, who doesn't seem to actually want most people to join.
Lemmy is really the only solution because it is becoming as indepth as reddit is/was. What sucks is it will still be like a splinternet situation, having to spread all of our solutions across the internet.
Lemmy isn't going to "die" anytime soon, it has already been around for about 4 years now, it's not going anywhere..
Maybe activity will significantly slow down, maybe it will go back to being a super small community, but I don't see it completely getting killed anytime soon.
If we stay engaged and committed to lemmy, then it will survive. There's already a lot of growing activity here, let's hope it's the flywheel the platform needs.
I sure as hell hope so. After everything that's happened over at Reddit I don't feel like going back. I'm not one to come back to an abusive relationship ya know? So like yeah I hope Lemmy lasts it seems to hold up well against the Sands of time at the very least, if it lasts as long as Reddit and things go south instead of having to jump ship, you can just migrate servers. Plus, at least at this point in time, there have been no red flags, all we need is for the userbase to participate.
If that happens I'm going to see it as an opportunity to go no-social media for a year. I've done this with other things, for example not buying clothes for a year, and my habits have changed permanently with each exercise. I'm convinced that if you can do it for a year, it starts to become part of the fabric of who you are, and if that's preferable you're unlikely to backslide.
Well, as long as I am around it is not going to die as a I am not leaving Fediverse. And I am specific about it being the fediverse as even if Kbin and/or Lemmy die, there will be others that will take over, I am 100% sure. Whether it will actually surpass Reddit, I have no clue. But I am not sure whether I even care.
And not because I hate Reddit or anything like that. I am just really into what fediverse stands for and even a week ago with half of the users it scratched my itch as Reddit had done previously.
Like honestly, I don't even feel that strongly about Reddit and spez but Lemmy provide all I need so far, from meta stuff, through inteligent conversations to memes.
I remain sceptical about the fediverse for a number of reasons. Some may turn out to not be a big deal, I don't know yet.
I worry about discoverability and search engine indexing, the main usefulness of Reddit for me was the ability to find answers to questions already asked by others.
I worry about the potential for federated servers to turn into small insulated islands, due drama between admins.
I worry that I'll need to keep track of a multitude of accounts and websites on a fractured internet, what with lemmy and kbin and whatever other services show up.
Centralization has its issues, but it also comes with a great many benefits, and I'll wait and see if the fediverse can make up the difference.
I like it. It's not reddit and I like that about it most. I think it will stay and grow. I think we know what we don't want now and Lemmy could just be it.
I only ever used rif, and I loved that app. Never really "loved" an app before, so ya I think that says a lot. Really great no non sense and intuitive.
Will definitely loose some users because of small things that come with using something like this. At the end of the day, people are attached and will go back to reddit. That doesn't mean though, that there won't still be a bunch of people using lemmy.
I belive that enough critical mass has been reached for Lemmy to stick around. I sure as hell am not going back to reddit. But, to see Lemmy grow, I feel it would be better for users to be spread out across multiple instance.
Im new here on Lemmy. So far it seems a little confusing coming from Reddit. But I really hope it lasts. From what I can tell there is a good community here.
Maybe, but I think that the branding of the "fediverse" + difficulty of use will make it unlikely to surpass reddit or any other alternatives. It will almost certainly still be around for years to come, but I doubt it'll be much more than niche, despite me hoping for the contrary.
I will say I hate the difficult to use part. it's no harder than email it's the same @ symbol and everything. i don't see people having an issue signing up for yahoo or Gmail. I agree it's a branding issue but the question is who is branding it that way. seems more like fud to me. is it aa feature rich? no that is valid and will improve in time. once jerboa fixed /c urls I don't even search for them I just find them organically now.
I don't think Lemmy would die even if Spez gets fired and they write a public apology for the users inconvenience and step back with the API changes....
Honestly even if they fired Huffman, reversed all his bad decisions, and even went open source again it would still never be the same. They would never be able to fix the damage that they've done.
That's what happens when you stab your users in the back like this.
Yeah, it's not as though the third party app devs would suddenly all be like "oh thank god we can keep working with this company". The bridges are burned.
My previous experience doing something similar was with Voat, Lemmy userbase is more mature(less bigotry and bullying), and the fact is not centralized on one guy that has other stuff to do, leads me to believe there is better chance this time.
On the other side of the fediverse that's more like Twitter, Elon Musk pissed a bunch of people off and we've seen a few waves of new users. How it has worked is there's an inrush of people, some people go "Wait a minute, this isn't my old platform! I don't like it!" and go back, some people stick around.
Once people start to realize how friggin' cool the fediverse as a whole is, I think a bunch of people stay. Especially realizing that it takes all power away from corporate overlords and gives a lot of power to people who run their own instances.
We'll have to wait and see but I think this last issue with Reddit has given Lemmy enough of a boost that it will get the required amount of momentum.
It won't be long before a lot of the classic subs are reproduced over here and new users will be able to turn up and slot straight in and carry on doing what they were doing over there all pretty seamlessly.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the most active posters made the jump as they are likely providing a much higher percentage of the content than the average user. It's those people that will really make a difference.
I also think having Fediverse alternatives to so much corporate social media and how well it cooperates with each other is also key. I am busy moving myself over to these services and I am liking what I see. It will always occupy a layer under the corporate one but that might be a good thing - like them act as the bullet magnet and let us just get in with things.
I think it will keep growing for the next couple of months following the third party app shutdowns, and it will probably see another boost when Reddit goes public. But I don't know what will happen after that. I mean there's plenty of valid reasons to prefer decentralized social media over regular social media, but in terms of user experience, your average Joe is always going to prefer Reddit over Lemmy because it's just more addictive.
I don't know about you but I'm here to stay. Also, you need to define "die", since lemmy existed long before reddit drama and will be here after their downfall even if users leave it'll continue to exist.
I just edit bombed my reddit account. No going back... Unless reddit undos my edits... Which apparently they're undeleting comments, so it's a possibility. I'll just do it again.
Mastodon is there. And there are enough people to interact with. Not as big as Twitter by any means, but for now it's big enough to use if you find a good Community.
Lemmy would be similar, for now won't even come close to reddit size. But if good communities move here those would stick around.
Mass migrations are always uphill battles. I've seen too many similar cases that appeared to start strong but lacked the momentum to put down their roots. We'll have a much better chance if just a handful of the top r/ can convince their u/ to move here.
I'm here for the long haul. Reddit was simultaneously the best and worst of the internet, Fediverse seems to be prioritising the best.
Now that the apps are starting to hit the public, there's no going back.
I would like to think this is my new home, but I still have a lot of learning to do about the fediverse. I won't be going back to Reddit and using their garbage app and site, but I also still need to learn how to maneuver this new land before it can be a true alternative for me
My pessimist is coming out here, i think that most reddit users will just use Reddit as always as they like the site too much or aren't aware of alternatives. Also, such a high MAU hitting the fediverse could take a decent portion down
I think it will slowly grow overtime unless something drastic happens. Enough people migrated to jumpstart it and create something lasting. There will also probably be a bump in users on July 1st after hardcore 3rd party app users will be left bleeding.
I don't even think that Reddit reversing the changes would hurt Lemmy at this point.
While I hope it doesn't get too big too fast (which likely means getting overrun with bots and astroturfers), I think it has established itself rather nicely as a good Reddit alternative with a (so far) great community, this being the most important part IMO.
I'm not tech savvy enough to predict the longevity of the fediverse, but I'm certain that Reddit is headed for a collision course that is either days or approximately a year away (based on what, if any, concessions Reddit makes to existing mods/3rd party apps).
If it's a quick death, I think the centralized reddit copies have the edge since they're more familiar/easier for the avg user. If it's a slower death by declining quality, then Lemmy can sort out the kinks and get a solid 3rd party app developer to bridge the knowledge curve.
I've just arrived on the fediverse 2 days ago and the number of new groups and contents is increasing with a wild speed. The update of the apps is also crazy fast.
I think for Lemmy to really pop off, some proper iOS apps is needed. There's a few in testflight (using memmy atm) but that's far too complicated for a regular person to do.
I'm also finding a lot of things a bit unintuitive, especially after being used to how reddit works.
Might just be the app I'm using, but finding new communities and content is a bit cumbersome.
Same benefits we got with RIF/Apollo over Reddit. I'm not gonna mention any specific ones but the idea is that the devs of Lemmy can focus on working out site bugs etc. while app devs can focus on adding features not currently available on the web.
I almost hope it "fails" to replace reddit, since reddit was/is crap. I'd perfer if lemmy remained relatively small, without the toxic userbase and spammy content of reddit.
Definitely will die. I just don't see how instances will be supported financially. The fediverse is nice but at the end of the day, the instances are running somewhere and there are bills to pay.
Lemmy is turning into a left-wing echo chamber. The mods have declared that right-leaning opinions are not welcome and are defederating from any right-leaning instances. If you declare that half the population is not welcome, you're really limiting your reach. It's also going to be a pain to have two logins, one for lemmy.world and one for the free speech instances.