Lemmy.world grew from about 51k users when third-party reddit apps started to shut down to about 84.8k users at the time of this post.

Definitely felt some growing pains in the past few days, but it’s great to see the platform more active now that things have become more stable.

So, welcome reddit expats!

  • @smoll_pp_operator@vlemmy.net
    4•1 year ago

    Digg.com was a link aggregate site that predated Reddit, and was more attractive to users based solely upon its relatively sleek UI.

    After some years of success, Digg made several changes: obfuscation up votes and removing down votes, and a new UI to match the reduced features. As a result the majority of the Digg user base and content creator sphere migrated to Reddit.

    This resultant swell in Reddits userbase led to app creators brisging the gaps between reddits relatively brutalistic UI and the experience sought by laymen (i.e. non programmers crowd). As you have seen the decision to alienate third party applications has led to a new backlash against Reddit.

    • Dr. Santa
      4•1 year ago

      A lot of this sounds familiar.

      I just wonder of this is actually going to have a similar effect. Controversial decision but I’m pretty used to seeing companies get away with shitty choices.

      • vortic
        1•1 year ago

        IMO, what reddit has done is much worse than what digg did but their user base is also significantly larger than digg’s was. I hope that reddit will see a hit but I expect they will survive this.

        I do wonder how many content creators and moderators they are losing though. It she’s likely that content creators and moderators were probably more reliant on third party apps than general users.

        • Dr. Santa
          2•1 year ago

          Potentially. Though Reddit claims that the vast majority (like 90+%) used the official app. Of course, if such was true then you’d expect they wouldn’t pull the rug out from under everyone.

          I can believe a majority used the official up. Maybe even a supermajority. 80% maybe.

          But throwing a fit over 1-10% of your user base and doubling down when that low percentage doesn’t agree? I dunno.

          It’s a big enough number that made them want to kill the third-party apps but it’s small enough that they felt they could survive the backlash.

          • vortic
            2•1 year ago

            I guess time will tell. Personally, I wouldn’t continue moderating without third party apps given the lack of tools. I hadn’t moderated anything in a while but the third party tools were always so much better when I did moderate things.

            • Dr. Santa
              1•1 year ago

              I can’t speak much on modding. I was a mod of a sub that only lasted a day or two and was shutdown. So my experience was very limited