I think it’s a boon that we’re a tiny fraction of Reddit’s size. Reddit is something like 30+ million MAUs and Lemmy dropped recently from 62k to ~50k. We’re a grain of sand compared to Reddit, and I think the community is better for it.
Lemmy isn’t really a Reddit alternative. We’re too small to have niche thriving communities, and depend 100% on sorting your feed by “all” or “local” to get new content. What’s nice is it feels like one close knit community vs closed off micro communities inside of subreddits.
I get exposed to more things this way oddly enough- viewing content I normally wouldn’t in favor of my smaller selection of subreddits. People are more polite, more informative, and far more original with their comments.
Keep on doing your thing, everyone! We’re building something different here.
I feel this but from the other side. A lot of the niche communities here are almost too niche if that makes sense. I have a broad variety of interests and a decent amount of knowledge on some of them. When I come across something that I want to engage I’ll think about what to comment and realize that I dont have anything of substance to contribute.
It’s like the bystander effect in a way. I think “that’s pretty neat, I’d love to read/learn more about this” but the comments are empty. I don’t want my half informed comment to begin the dialogue and potentially set the time for the thread, but I also want to engage in conversation about it. I’m kinda losing where I was going with this now but yeah. I feel like some of these posts deserve more than I’m able to contribute basically lol
Most don’t want to be the first or only one to get the spotlight on them. I’m very shy and reserved in person until I feel I know someone well, so I’ve enjoyed the smaller audience here. Heck, on this instance there isn’t even a down vote. So i try to take advantage of it to work on myself.
Sometimes I’ll start to post, and change my mind, but at least it has me trying more. It’s a process, and like anything else, they’ll be things that fall flat. But most groups seem to be positive, especially here. I try to upvote just about everyone that interacts with me to encourage them back too.