this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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So since the mass-exodus from Reddit we can see that the total amount of active users has gone down rather heavily: https://i.imgur.com/MeQok2F.png

This can seem a bit sad at a first glance. Where are we heading? But one has to remember that back during the summer many of us created several accounts to settle at an instance, there were also problems with spam-bots of various kinds.

So active users in itself is actually not that interesting. At least not the comparison with the peak. Instead we can watch the total amount of posts, how is that looking?

Well it's steadily going up actually: https://i.imgur.com/i3Vse7Y.png

Though the increase has gone down slightly. This number however is influenced by other parameters as well. There are several reposts bots and such that mass-post to different instances. But it's definitley a good tell it's not going down.

Another interesting factor is comments: https://imgur.com/hWT8xvF

The amount of comments per month has gone down, but not by all that much. A 10% decrease from the top or so. What's interesting here is that the decline has plateaued, which could indicate that the userbase has settled and become somewhat consistent. This is great news.

All in all, it seems like Lemmy has settled into a rather comfortable spot, with a decent amount of users, posts and comments. That is very slightly decreasing. Ideally we'd like to see this trend reverse, and perhaps that might happen naturally with due time when things have settled even more. For Lemmy I'd reckon the growth will look a bit like this. Whenever Reddit does something horrific (and it will happen more), we'll see a mass-exodus with more users over here. Then it'll decrease for a bit, settle and hopefully we can rinse and repeat. Anyway - that's some irrelevant thoughts from me on the subject.

Just wanted to post these rather good statistics!

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[–] Caminsky@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Because the site goes down too often. I get it, not the developers fault. But it will take off only if there is more reliable.

[–] kariunai@feddit.nl 7 points 1 year ago

Which site? Choose another instance if yours is unreliable. That's the advantage of a federated system. Or just have a second account at another instance.

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[–] Papanca@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I noticed that many people commented that there should be more engagement, 'just like reddit'. So, i'm wondering if some of these people left and will return later to see if it's more 'reddit like'. So, those might be people who don't necessarily want to post and comment themselves, but are waiting until they can get served with an endless stream of posts to scroll through.

Just thinking out loud here.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Plus registered users don't count as active users unless they post or comment.

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[–] danielton@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I had three accounts at one point, but lately I've only been using this one. The first instance I tried could never see any content because it was small. I then joined lemmy.world, and I could see plenty of content... when it wasn't down. But this instance seems to be working well for me.

I wouldn't be surprised if the active user count could have been explained by people trying different instances.

[–] Spzi@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That, and people trying out Lemmy, but not continuing to use it at some point for some reason.

Like I peeked into two or three other platforms before sticking with Lemmy. I don't even know their names anymore.

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[–] SchizoDenji@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Or a more logical inference is that bots are posting reddit posts here, leading to higher posts. While users are leaving, leading to fewer comments and active users.

[–] figaro@lemdro.id 6 points 1 year ago

Total number of posts isn't really a helpful data point I think. Like yeah of course it will go up, but is the rate increasing or decreasing? That's the more interesting number.

[–] SARGEx117@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Woot! I'm more of a lurker but I comment occasionally (not necessarily smart or informed as they should be ones) and I would love to post in recreations of some of my favorite niche places, but running them is quite an investment...

I'm pumped I can still see star trek memes though.

[–] Sphmen@lemmynsfw.com 6 points 1 year ago

I registered here for the first time about a year ago, when the exodus from Twitter to Mastodon and tried some fedivers apps. At that time this was empty, there were almost no instances, no communities, much less posts or comments. Today it is a live and active network, I think it is only a matter of time before with the current levels of activity and quality this grows, however , if someone believed that replacing Reddit with Lemmi would be quick, it is clear that he was delusional, it will take years.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's been a while since I've taken calculus, but if those charts are for total posts/comments, then I'd say that the derivative is more important and it sure looks like the rate of posts have gone down.

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd like some clarity too but I'm fairly certain it's posts per day. The comments certainly aren't cumulative since they go down.

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[–] Banana_Piranha@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Do posts include bot posts? If so it'd be really interesting to see what that number looks like if you stripped out bots.

[–] Throwaway4669332255@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Is there a way to stay logged in? I have to log in like every time I use it.

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[–] will_a113@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

I wonder if anyone has ever attempted to model the min/max/ideal number of users (and ...ugh... "engagement") for a healthy online community? It'd be especially tricky for a federated service, but I'd bet there's some overall population size that puts the average user in contact with the right number of other people (lower than the Dunbar limit, I'd expect) to make it seem worthwhile to keep interacting.

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