Aotearoa Weekly Kōrero 10/09/2026
(piefed.nz)
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RESULTS - 2025 Instance Census for lemmy.nz
(self.newzealand)
Thanks to everyone who took the time to complete the 2025 Lemmy.nz Census survey! Apologies it has taken me this long to get it out. There were a lot of questions, though once I got some good base python scripts the analysis speed started to pick up.
For reference, these are the 2024 Lemmy.nz census results.
All fully completed surveys are included in this summary, if someone didn’t submit, their partial responses are not included. No questions were mandatory so if someone didn’t answer the question, it’s not included in the results unless specified.
Overall, we got 61 responses, slightly less than last year's 69. On average (mean), it took 12 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the survey, compared to last year's 5 minutes 40 seconds. This year's had many more questions, though if we remove one outlier then the average was just over 10 minutes. The median was 7 minutes 27 seconds, compared to 4 minutes 39 seconds in 2024. The longest was 2 hours 25 minutes, and the shortest was 2 minutes 46 seconds.
You can see here the number of submissions each day in blue, and the running total in red. There was a spike when first posted, and further spikes when I posted each reminder post.
What represents you the best?
All the "Other" responses indicated they access logged out, which is where we can improve the question for next time. So 86.9% of people are either accessing Lemmy.nz or they participate in our communities through another instance. The other respondents have selected that they came across the survey (e.g. in the All feed) but don't normally participate on Lemmy.nz.
I'm a bit disappointed with how few non-Lemmy.nz participants filled it in, even though I wasn't really pushing for it. With more I've be able to analyse two groups, but due to the low number of responses the analysis below excludes this group unless specified. There are parts where I have assessed this group, but with only 8 respondents in this group there isn't a lot we can conclude so largely I have grouped them in with the other respondents when this makes sense. If I want to chase down this wider Lemmy angle, perhaps next year I could post the survey in other communities on other instances if I can find appropriate ones.
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Section 1: Where is everyone from?
Country
83% of respondents indicated they are from New Zealand. Two extras indicated they are from New Zealand, now living overseas.
Last year, we had 89.6% of respondents from New Zealand.
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Region
For NZ respondents, over half of us were from either Auckland or Wellington. The results are similar to last year, and similar to the population spread of the country. Wellington remains the outlier here, over representing it's population share, however, Auckland has now overtaken Wellington (which was the largest group last year).
What size does your region fall under?
Most of us live in urban or suburban areas, with some write in options. Nationally, around 15% of us live rurally, and this is similar to our results. Interestingly, this was around 7% last year, so our rural population is now better represented on Lemmy!
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What is the speed of your main internet connection
It makes me feel old that <100Mbps is our slowest category, but here we are, in the future where over 80% of us have internet faster than 100Mbps, and over 25% have internet 1Gbps or faster.
The average speed was 524Mbps.
We had 12 users report their up speed as well, with the average up speed being 230Mbps.
How many people live in your household
Pretty close to a bell curve from 1-5 members.
Who lives in your household
Most of us live with our families. The other option here indicated it's them and their partner, which is good feedback for a tweak to this question to make it clearer which option to choose.
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If you have pets, you may talk about them here.
We have a total of 56 pets across the 25 respondents. Among them are two bunnies that hate the other two bunnies that live there, a cat that doesn't like the other cat, a clingy dog, and a housemate's great dog. To the person that asked if they can claim neighbourhood pets, of course!
To be honest I expected more talking in the responses, most people just answered factually.
Section 2: Who are you
What is your ethnicity?
We are still 92% white, just like last year. As I said last year, the 2023 NZ census showed around 44% of people identify with Māori, Asian, or Pacific ethnicities, so we are remarkably different from the general population. Two people indicated they preferred the term “Pākehā” to “NZ European”, though these are grouped together based on the Stats NZ categories.
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What age range do you fall into?
Interestingly, our average age has become a bit younger since last year. We now have a larger following in the 20-29 and 30-39 range, and have a drop in the 40-49 range.
What gender do you identify with?
Last year, 87% of respondents identified as men, 9.5% as women, and 3.2% as non-binary. This year is similar, with just under 85% men.
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Are you someone with trans experience?
Last year 95% of respondents said no. This year we had 93.5%, which is probably not a statistically significant difference.
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What sexuality do you identify with?
Last year we had almost 85% of people identify as straight. This year just 75.6% of respondents identified as straight, led by big increases in asexual and bi respondents. The number of respondents is low so the margin of error is high, so this change probably isn't representative of anything other than the particular people who decided to do the survey.
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Do you have a disability?
Last year we didn't have this as a question and instead only asked for what people's disability was. Almost 38% of respondents last year indicated some disability. This year, just 25.5% indicated they have a disability.
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What is your disability status?
Interestingly, many users answered no in the previous question then went on to list things in this question. This potentially indicates differences in what people consider a disability. These results include all answers, including those that answered No in the previous question. A user may have indicated multiple items, therefore the total will be larger than the number of respondents.
This year the categories depression and anxiety are a lot larger than last year. This could be because they were listed as options this year, and last year we had a free text entry. Therefore people may not have thought to include them last year.
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Are you currently studying?
A bit over 12% of us are studying, compared to 10% last year. Most of the studiers are doing bachelors or higher.
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What education have you attained?
Though the question was multi-choice, I have done this based on the highest level achieved.
Last year, 75% of us had a post-secondary school qualification. This year we have a significant change where we have tried to align the list with Lemmy.ca but I seem to have messed it up, it's not clear what you would select if you have a post-secondary school qualification such as those needed to be a plumber, electrician, etc. Next year I will reconsider this list.
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What is your employment status?
Last year, 75% of us were employed full time, 12.5% self-employed, and 1.5% employed part time, a total of about 89% of us in paid work.
This year, that total has fallen to about 79%.
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If employed, what is your field of work?
About 51% of our employed respondents work in IT. This is lower than last year, when it was around 57%.
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What operating system do you use on your desktop(s)?
A massive 73.2% of us use Linux in some way. I was expecting a higher than average number, but considering the average number is about 4% on a good day, to have almost three quarters of us using Linux is crazy high.
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Distros
Many users indicated the version they were using. For Windows users, three people indicating Windows 11 while two people indicated Windows 10.
For Linux users, there were some specific use case distros mentioned such as Proxmox or Home Assistant OS, but largely they are desktop distros.
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What operating system do you use for your mobile device(s)?
The vast majority of respondents are using Android. We also see over a quarter of people using custom ROMs on at least one phone.
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Section 3: Instance usage
Which Lemmy.nz communities do you subscribe to or participate in?
Of the respondents that said they have a Lemmy.nz account, four indicated they do not subscribe to or participate on any Lemmy.nz communities.
None of the people who indicated they don't subscribe to c/newzealand (including those with accounts on other instances or lurkers) subscribed to other Lemmy.nz communities. i.e. only people subscribed to c/newzealand subscribed to other communities on Lemmy.nz.
Out of the respondents that indicated participation on Lemmy.nz, 88.7% were subscribed to c/newzealand:
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Less than half of respondents are subscribed to our second biggest community, c/politics.
If you moderate any communities, how many?
For this question, no answer is assumed to be none. Only three respondents indicated they moderate a community, and only one moderates more than one. It's worth noting lemmy.nz doesn't allow users to create communities, so for users with their account on Lemmy.nz there isn't a lot of opportunity to be a moderator. But those with accounts on other instances don't moderate much either.
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What existing community do you want to see more people using?
I'll just list the responses here as they are varied and there aren't that many. I have included people who indicated no participation on Lemmy.nz.
- Sewing/DIY/art communities. The few I have found have 1 post per six months :(
- bunnies/rabbits, mechanicalkeyboards
- Aotearoa on lemmy.nz!
- HFY
- lemmy.nz
- any. This place is is seldom used.
- All of them lol
I believe this is the HFY community, with the last new post 6 months ago: !hfy@lemmy.world
The most active mechanical keyboards community seems to be this one, but with many instances defederating from lemmy.ml it may be a bit quieter than expected. Still, it seems to have recent posts: !mechanicalkeyboards@lemmy.ml
Here is !bunnies@lemmy.world and a much less active !rabbits@lemmy.world.
Here is !sewing@lemmy.world and !sewingrepairing@sh.itjust.works.
For DIY there is !diy@beehaw.org and perhaps !diy@slrpnk.net.
For art, perhaps !artshare@lemmy.world.
If you're trying to find new communities, check out this search: https://lemmyverse.net/communities
In terms of getting the Aotearoa community more active, invite your friends!
How often do you visit Lemmy.nz?
Firstly, I have filtered this question to just Lemmy.nz users, who are more likely to come each day:
Then looking at all respondents, weekly is the most common. The most common "Other" answer was to say they don't access Lemmy.nz and instead access content via their own instance, so perhaps some clarity on how to answer this question may be useful for next time.
How do you access Lemmy most often?
Over three quarters of us use mobile as our most common way to access Lemmy. This is similar to last years' results.
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On average, how much time do you spend on Lemmy each day?
Most people are using Lemmy for less than 2 hours a day, and this hasn't changed much since last year, though the average seems to have dropped a little.
On desktop, which interfaces do you use?
Almost 29% of users don't use desktop at all. Of the ones that do, over 4/5 of us just use the default Lemmy website. This is lower than last year, when over 90% of desktop users used the default Lemmy website. The "Other" option indicated they use Piefed.
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Is there another interface you would like us to add?
No answers here. I'm aware of one called Blorp that is new and we don't have it yet, but other than that I'm not aware of other web interfaces that we don't have.
On mobile, how do you access Lemmy?
Around 5% of us don't use mobile. Of the remaining users, Voyager is by far the most popular app.
If you primarily access lemmy.nz through a different instance, please list it below
There are quite a wide variety of instances here.
How does your main instance speed compare to other websites you use?
Pretty positive here, 80% of Lemmy.nz users and 75% of all users find Lemmy a similar speed to other internet browsing. That's pretty impressive considering the Threadiverse is run by volunteers and most of of the rest of the internet that people use is run by corporations.
Of the Other responses, one indicated the speed seemed fine and the other (a Lemmy.nz user) indicated that they occasionally need to reload the page if it stalls. The Lemmy UI locking up is a known issue, we have two UI containers running and a load balancer to pick between them which seems to have mostly solved this issue that was a lot worse earlier in the year.
Lemmy.nz users:
All respondents:
Other than the main instance you use listed above, which instances do you have an account on or visit, and how much time do you spend there?
There were a range of answers here, but largely people indicated they only used their other instance accounts occasionally, as a backup, or not at all. A couple of people used their other accounts regularly, for example to browse for and find new communities that might not be on the instance their main account is on.
What other decentralized / federated platforms do you use?
Similar to last year, Mastodon was the most commonly used followed by Matrix (maybe these Matrix users can join us in the Lemmy.nz Matrix room?). Pixelfed seems to have taken a hit, with less respondents using it this year. PieFed and Bluesky have popped up in the rankings (last year Bluesky didn't make the list as the 2024 census was only a few months after the Bluesky public release). The only write in option for this one was one user that uses XMPP.
Where did you hear about the Fediverse?
This was a free text question but I've grouped them up. Over 80% of respondents heard about the Fediverse on Reddit.
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Where did you hear about Lemmy?
This question was only to be answered if different from the previous question. Almost everyone heard about Lemmy on Reddit, with only two answers that did not:
- Linux Podcasts
- Was interested in a self hosted reddit clone years ago
Have you donated?
Out of 55 responses, 35 indicated they haven't donated and 6 users indicated they didn't know how and wanted to learn more. Only two of those users have their account on Lemmy.nz, but for those interested, donations can be made to Lemmy.nz following the instructions here. Currently we piggyback for hosting, but the host has stopped taking donations with the intent of stopping hosting. When this happens we will need to move to our own hosting, so I have set up an account you can donate to so we can start building up some cash.
If your account is on another instance, most will have a way to donate. Look for this in the side bar on the home page of your instance.
One answer said "Am broke" - if this is you or you're in this position, please don't donate. If you can afford to pay $5 or $10 without it affecting you, then donations are appreciated to spread the load of funding the instance, but please don't donate if it materially affects you, and don't feel bad for not being able to donate as the monetary cost of running an instance is not significant, and a single user doesn't change the cost much if at all.
Of the 55 responses, 11 have indicated they have donated to their instance (including four Lemmy.nz users). Thanks!
Also, you can donate time instead of money. If you use an app and find a bug, report it! You can also contribute translations. Check the github or source code page of your app. To translate Lemmy, check out the lemmy weblate page: https://weblate.join-lemmy.org/projects/lemmy/
You can also hang out on the repository page for Lemmy or your favourite app, and read through the discussions that are happening. You may find technical discussion, but you should also see discussion around UI design and user experience and things like that. Speak up when your experience can be used!
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Do you use centralized versions of this platform (e.g. Reddit, Hacker News)
Respondents tend to use the Fediverse more than Reddit or other centralised versions, but there is still a lot of use of the centralised platforms.
Where did you hear about Lemmy.nz, and what made you want to join?
This was a free text field, but I have grouped them into common themes:
- Reddit: People who indicated they came across Lemmy.nz on Reddit, about half indicated this was on r/NZ
- Searching for community or instance: People who found Lemmy.nz by searching for an NZ instance or an NZ community
- Came across on Lemmy: People who randomly stumbled across the Lemmy.nz instance or communities on Lemmy such as in the All feed
- Joined due to NZ connection: These people indicated that the NZ connection was why their joined the community or the instance, such as because they are in NZ or because they are expats.
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Do you have any feedback about Lemmy.nz, this survey, or anything else?
There were 14 responses here. Half of these were saying no feedback, good job, thanks, or commenting on the nice bunch that hang out here.
Last year we had 20% or responses commenting on how they were confused about Lemmy, federation, or similar. This year, no comments about that, I guess everyone has worked it out?
One user said they like the idea of the census so long as don't sell or abuse the data - this person also indicated a licence to share their answers under. This is a good thought, if the data set is released (for respondents who gave the OK) then it could have a licence, this user has put "non commercial share alike". Last year no one showed interest in doing their own analysis so the data wasn't published, but if it does get published then a licence like this seems like a good idea.
One user commented "no desert question?". This year we went for the music genre question, and hopefully I spelt it right :P
One user mentioned difficulty with the "Where are you from" question, as people don't spend their entire life in one place. This was discussed with the Lemmy.ca team, who suggested being purposely ambiguous makes the survey less intimidating. People can interpret this in a way they are comfortable answering, as opposed to "where do you currently live" which is more direct but people may be less likely to want to answer as it may be seen as too personal. Happy to hear other thoughts on this for next year.
One user mentioned Memmy shouldn't be in the list as it's abandonware. Though it seems a different user indicated they are using Memmy, I wonder if they know it's abandoned?
Another user mentioned there should be a note on the financial status of the instance - this is something I will do as we eventually move to our own hosting, but for now here's an update: Domain is already paid through 2027, I paid this myself at approx $35NZD per year (the cost recently went up so on next renewal it will be more like $45 a year). Emails cost near $0, we only get charged when go over 1000 a month which we almost never do, and then it's only $1USD per 1000, so a non-issue. Backups are on Backblaze B2 storage, about 530GB stored (it includes the image cache as Lemmy doesn't have an easy way to only backup user uploads). This is $7USD per TB per month so about $3.50USD a month. Hosting is piggy-backing off the team who were running a bunch of NZ fediverse instances like Mastodon.nz, Pixelfed.nz, etc but they have been slowly stepping away, shutting down services or handing them to others. Eventually we will have to move to our own hosting but for now it's free to us and they have cancelled any reoccurring donations to them. I've set up a separate donation page so we can start gathering some cash for this eventual move.
Would you like to share your results as an anonymised data set?
Last year 76% of people said yes, this year the number is 84%. A couple of the "Other" results asked for it to be non-commercial, something not mentioned last year and that I hadn't thought of until now. Last year no one else showed interest in doing their own analysis so I never released the dataset (since it's a bit of work to prepare it, remove people that said no, remove things people have asked to be removed, etc), but if someone wants it this year I'm sure we can apply a non-commercial licence to it.
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Have you encountered any accessibility related challenges while using Lemmy?
Most people have not. One user mentioned the screen occasionally doesn't load properly but doesn't happen much anymore, that's good to hear. I do notice an occasional error still, but a lot fewer than there was earlier in the year so we've made good progress.
Someone mentioned the grey background on new comments on the darkly-red theme. I don't normally use this theme, but I think this same issue could be said for the reply boxes as well. I'm curious to understand people's thoughts on if this is a design choice (and people can choose a more accessible theme if needed), or if we should try to work out who's responsible for the theme and if it could be adjusted.
One person mentions certain websites not loading in the Sync app. Unfortunately, https://lemmyapps.com/ lists Sync as abandoned as it hasn't had an update in over a year.
Another mentions noticing occasions when image alt text is missing. If this is user content, the user needs to add this themselves. When posting, there is a field for it. If you're commenting and adding an image, you can put your alt text between the [] in the image, like . The fediverse is known for being really diligent at adding alt text, but not everyone knows how so you can spread the word!
What is your current favourite genre of music?
Last year we asked for favourite desert/dessert (I messed up the spelling). This time we have gone with favourite genre of music. This includes responses from all respondents, regardless of whether they indicated participation on Lemmy.nz. I have gone for a word cloud for the provided responses, then some attempt at grouping for charts. "Metal" was provided three times, and there were no other answers the same.
Here I have the groupings. "mixed" is when someone indicated they listen to a wide variety.
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Final comments
Thanks to everyone for filling in the survey, and bearing with me as I wrote up the results. It turns out significantly increasing the number of questions from last year led to significantly more work in pulling the results together, who could have predicted that!
The analysis I've done is pretty surface-level. If anyone has ideas for further analysis, leave a comment!
Final thanks
Thanks to @absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz whose colour scheme I used again this year, scripts as well but they are now quite heavily modified.
Also thanks to @otter@lemmy.ca and the other lemmy.ca crew who provided a lot of feedback on the survey prior to it going live, and who also serve as the source of inspiration.
And thanks to everyone who filled in the survey!
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Photos from Chistchurch Illuminate Show
(lemmy.nz)
Yesterday I was at the Christchurch illuminate show. Here are some photos from that event:
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"We can do a whole lot more": New Zealand, Australia signal new trade announcement with Canada
(www.canzukinternational.com)
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Revealed: Six months of roadside drug testing in New Zealand, by the numbers
(thespinoff.co.nz)
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BitCam image of Lake Pearson, Canterbury
(lemmy.nz)
Had fun with retro BitCam camera on phone, note the dithering.
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Stoney Bay Peak, Akaroa
(lemmy.nz)
Glorious day in Akaroa, decided to walk up to Stony bay peak on a whim. Glad i did, day was beautiful.
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Aotearoa / New Zealand
2240 readers
2 users here now
Kia ora and welcome to !newzealand, a place to share and discuss anything about Aotearoa in general
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