this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Lemmy
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Actually I'd say it's the other way around. It's hard to switch a social network, since it only makes sense to switch if the people you want to follow are also on the new network (The Network Effect).
However, for sites like reddit, it matters less. I don't care who posts the cute kittens in !aww@lemmy.world, as long as they're there. Much lower barrier to join. Once a network is primed with good content, the people will come.
More inline with OP: it also helps that there was already a huge exodus from twitter to mastodon a few years back, so they've got a bit of a head start.
I would argue normies follow people to new networks. People don't go seeking out content on lemmy.. If you google search stuff you end up with redit content hits not lemmy content hits for nearly every topic.
To move off Twitter, one person will potentially bring hundreds.
To move to Lemmy you need a bunch of people posting useful content..
Auto posting content without discussion also doesn't seem to stick.. I was looking at Lemmit which is mostly bots reposting reddit stuff and there is 0 discussion there.
In my experience people only follow people to new networks when enough other people have made the switch. Try convincing people to use signal or telegram instead of WhatsApp, for example.
To move off twitter, one person will make the journey, find out that most of the people they want to follow (or be followed by) aren't on mastodon, and go back to twitter.
People don't actively seek out content on Lemmy (yet). But if they do check it out, they will be more likely to stick around if they feel they don't miss out on stuff they were used to on reddit.
For some things like text posts and questions, comments / discussion is great. For other, more content based posts like photos, game discounts or adult content, I don't mind one bit not seeing other people's comments.
Lemmit is meant to become obsolete in the long run, but it can help prime the network with content that makes it easier to switch over.