Yeah because first of all, content had to be spread out across 562826 different communities for no reason other than that reddit had lots of communities, after growing for many many years. It started with just a few.
Then 99% of those were created on Lemmy.world, and every new user was directed to sign up at Lemmy.world.
I guess a lot of people here are younger than me and didn’t experience forums, but we had like 30 forum channels. That was enough to talk about anything at all. And I believe it’s the same here, it would have been enough. And then all channels would have easy to find content.
Over the past few days, I’ve witnessed a remarkable surge in the number of communities on browse.feddit.de. What started with 2k communities quickly grew to 4k, and now it has reached an astonishing 8k. While this exponential growth signifies a thriving platform, it also brings forth challenges such as increased fragmentation and the emergence of echo chambers. To tackle these issues, I propose the implementation of a Cross-Instance Automatic Multireddit feature within Lemmy. This feature aims to consolidate posts from communities with similar topics across all federated instances into a centralized location. By doing so, we can mitigate community fragmentation, counter the formation of echo chambers, and ultimately foster stronger community engagement. I welcome any insights or recommendations regarding the optimal implementation of this feature to ensure its effectiveness and success.
Allowing a user-configurable option to sort posts based solely on the current instance would address this by making the content feed more localized and personalized, helping each instance maintain its unique character and fostering community discovery without being overshadowed by larger instances.
The issue with Lemmy's "all feed" is that the largest or most popular instances tend to dominate what appears there, which undercuts the ability of users on niche or smaller instances to discover content truly relevant to their specific interests. This make different instances feel less distinct and reduces the value of joining a niche instance. This lack of meaningful, diverse niche content makes federation a moot point—if every instance is just a clone of the same meme and political noise, users gain nothing distinct from joining a smaller or niche instance, turning Lemmy into a less convenient, more fractured Reddit without the depth or polish users expect.
The decentralized nature of Lemmy, while appealing in theory, creates significant frustration in practice due to widespread instance blocking. Finding an ideal instance becomes a daunting task, as users must navigate a complex web of inter-instance politics and restrictions. The only reliable solutions seem to be either hosting a personal instance—a technical hurdle for many—or simply hoping that your chosen instance’s admins align with your preferences and don’t block communities you enjoy. This politicking ultimately undermines the platform’s potential.
There were several issues on GitHub regarding proposals on how to solve the low visibility of small communities. However, after the Scaled Sort was implemented, all those issues were closed, yet the problem persists. I continue to use Reddit the same as before because I primarily used it for niche communities, which are lacking here. The few times I’ve posted to a niche community here, I’ve either received no answers or been subject to drive-by downvotes, likely from users not even subscribed to the community. As a result, I now only post on Lemmy when the post is directed to a large community, and I use Reddit for the rest.
I'm not referring to the amount of content but how it is curated. If it showed the content sorted by votes from the local instance instead of an aggregate of all instances the content would differ form instance to instance.
As long as I'm not looking at it I'd feel more comfortable with it that being surrounded by mosquitoes. Would you rather be surrounded by mosquitoes than be in the same room as that thing?
You are overcomplicating the issue by suggesting a "favorite" option when there is already a "subscribe" option. At the very least, consider proposing something distinct that helps users discover more of the small communities they are subscribed to, rather than suggesting something that has already been implemented.
Although there were some proposed solutions for this issue, when scaled sort was implemented, @nutomic@lemmy.ml closed all related issues, even when they weren't being solved by scaled sort. So, it's clear that since there are no longer any open issues about this, no one is going to care about solving it. Therefore, it seems like the only option is to accept this fact and learn to cope with it. At this point, I've come to terms with the fact that Lemmy is mainly a platform for shitposts, while Reddit is for everything else. When I look at the feed, I mostly see memes, US politics, and some tech.
Custom feeds may not be the most efficient solution due to scalability concerns. However, an alternative approach could be to make the metadata about the posts (votes, comments, etc) available through an API call. This would enable users to develop their own algorithms for content discovery and potentially create a more personalized experience. Users could then implement, share and install these algorithms using tools like Tampermonkey or other userscript managers.
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Lemmy’s approach to privacy is fundamentally flawed compared to other social media platforms. All your posts are permanently public under your profile, with no option to restrict visibility. This means anyone can see your outdated and potentially cringe-worthy posts at any time, and tech companies could likely de-anonymize your profile by analyzing the topics you post about. The open profile design only serves to enable stalking and doesn't contribute anything practical to the site.