I think Lemmy desperately needs to integrate two things:

• The ability to search for communities across instances inside of Lemmy (I’m aware of the search option outside of Lemmy, but that’s less than ideal)
• The ability to easily search within posts A) in all local communities, B) in all subscribed communities, and C) across all communities in the whole Fediverse. Yes, I’m aware that C) is a huge ask. But I think it’s vital to the success of Lemmy.

There’s a learning curve with “how do I know which instance to join?” and then “how do I find communities from other instances?” But I’m getting the hang of it.

What it needs most is a UI overhaul. If Apollo came to the fediverse it would be a game changer.

Echoing many things that other users are saying already:

Signing up/choosing a home instance is confusing. I don’t think it’s very confusing conceptually, but it is confusing from a UX/UI perspective. Subscribing to outside communities was the toughest part, I had to find them through a different instance using a search engine, then manually paste the community-specific URL into my home instance search, wait several seconds, then click into the community home page and finally click “subscribe.”

Not something a casual user is going to want or even figure out to do. I trust that many of these growing pains will be fixed in the coming weeks/months. I just hope that it’s not all a flash in the pan and then fizzles out totally.

Once using it though, I like the general feel of it. Better themes and some cleaner UI choices and it will be really nice imo. People are friendly so far and that’s worth a ton right there.

People are much friendlier here, so far.

I like the concept
But it feels very much like its been designed by nerdy developers and has had little to no-input on user friendly design.

The federated idea can work but it needs to be more seemless than this.

1. Communities with the same name should be merged when viewing it from any instance, so you can see all the posts from these communities, they can be moderated seperatley and for advanced users you should be able to select which communities make up the merged community.
2. By default you should see all of the merged communities in a central place and be able to subscribe to them easily, at the moment its handled different per instance but you have to seek out these communities to subscribe or follow them.
3. I strongly believe there should be a centralised log-in system, so you can log into any instance with an account from another instance, this means if your instance goes down your account is centralised and is safe.

Feels like this might be the fediverse flavor that sticks with me. I tried mastodon and diaspora, but they didn’t stick. Didn’t help that I hated Twitter and Facebook.

This feels chill so far. I like it

The app I’m using (Jerboa) is a bit lacking, but I’m sure it’ll improve. I’m unsure about how accounts work with the servers, can I migrate my account if the server I am using shuts down? Communities are tiny and a lot are missing, but I’m sure those will grow and fill in as more people join.

Not a fan of Jerboa, but I realize that it’s early days. Hopefully we can get some of the UI people from the 3rd party reddit apps on here to develop a better client.

Confusing. There are communities I can’t subscribe to because I can’t access them from my instance, and I have no idea why that is. The experience has been interesting so far, and growing the network is going to be something I’ll be keeping an eye on. For now, though, I’ll have to wait until someone creates the communities I was a part of on Reddit.

Edit: It seems a community won’t show up on your instance’s community list unless someone in that instance is subscribed to it.

I will make this my first ever Lemmy post:

Overall, this definitely feels like a promising alternative with some growing pains. The bigger communities are decently active but the decentralized nature of Lemmy carries the risk of some communities becoming too fragmented where communities are duplicated in different instances. As some other users have suggested, This could be remedied by creating “Super communities” spanning the Fediverse which could help with growing to a scale large enough to rival Reddit and incentivise even more Redditors to make the switch.

Been here 6 days and here are some of my thoughts:

Pros:

• the community is great. I’ve been more active here than on reddit and I noticed people answer your posts/comments more to discuss than criticize your POV.
• it’s nice to have a lot of options in terms of instances
• the app is surprisingly good. It’s no Apollo/Joey, but for something that’s in its initial stages is surprisingly useable
• on browser, kbin.social is nice (I don’t use lemmy on pc)
• many of the subs I follow on reddit have their own communities here

Cons:

• it can still be confusing, specially for new members or people who aren’t used to how the Fediverse is set up
• I still miss the niche subs I follow on reddit. i know I can start my own but I don’t have time nor the experience to effectively moderate communities
• there is, of course, a big difference in terms of activity (again compared to reddit) due to the massive difference in the number of users

Is it a reddit replacement? No. Reddit is too big and established (and mainstream) to be replaced in such a short period. But imho lemmy is a great alternative. Like I’ve mentioned before, just participating here has drastically lessened my reddit usage. It can get better. I’m excited to see there it goes.

Edit: sorry for all the typos. I’m new at using flosiboard and it doesntl’t have spell check yet lol.

I’m enjoying the concept behind the fediverse, and while communities are small right now, they’re eventually gonna get bigger and be more centralized.

I think the UI/UX does need a little more work, but that’ll come with time.

I’m still a little confused but it’s sinking in. The difference between an instance and a “sub”, as well as how to join or interact with other “subs” without having to join each individual instance, was the part that was toughest to adapt to. I love it, though. Lemmy is giving me the feeling Reddit did when I first joined it a long, long time ago on my first ever account. It feels organic.

I must have taken the wrong turn somewhere, I came here because I’m a Motörhead fan.

Interface is better than “new” Reddit, not as good as old Reddit + RES.

Also: if I click on a link on another instance (for example https://lemmy.ml/c/asklemmy when I’m signed in on lemmy.world), I’m not signed in to lemmy.ml so I have to manually search for it in lemmy.world to post there - is there a common solution to that?