How many millions of users does it have? How many posts? How active are they?

  • Sunshine (she/her)@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    10 hours ago

    The active user base is trending slightly downward as a few instances have shut down recently but the amount of registered users is steadily increasing so those trends will reverse as the largest barrier to entry is just knowing about Lemmy and creating an account.

    Users: 467k

    MAU: 42k

    Posts: 10.8m

  • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialEnglish
    22·
    21 hours ago

    All I know is that i can mindlessly scroll for about 2 hours before I start hitting the NSFW content, at which point refreshing the feed sifts the new stuff to the top and is still good for another hour or so

    I run into a lot of the same names, but I think that’s fine (if not preferable)

  • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
    1422·
    2 days ago

    Remember when forums would be super active with, like, 500 users?

    “Millions of users” is a vanity stat. The critical mass needed to keep a discussion group alive is actually quite small – assuming you’re interested in, you know, discussing things. So, how active “Lemmy” is is entirely dependent on which topics you’re interested in.

    • bluGill@fedia.io
      38·
      2 days ago

      There is a point where a forum is too active and you need to either split it or implement weird and complex rules so things don’t get too large.

        • bluGill@fedia.io
          2·
          1 day ago

          No. Federation means I’m on a mbin serner and still interacting with lemmy. If a community goes big there is no way to enforce who goes to which split.

      • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
        61·
        1 day ago

        Well actually we use Arch btw…

        Also, technically...

        I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

        Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

        There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

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        • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          1·
          9 hours ago

          No, Richard, it’s ‘Linux’, not ‘GNU/Linux’. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation.

          Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ.

          One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS – more on this later). He named it ‘Linux’ with a little help from his friends. Why doesn’t he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff – including the software I wrote using GCC – and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don’t want to be known as a nag, do you?

          (An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title ‘GNU/Linux’ (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example.

          Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn’t the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you’ve heard this one before. Get used to it. You’ll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it.

          You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn’t more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn’t perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument.

          Last, I’d like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves over naming other people’s software. But what the heck, I’m in a bad mood now. I think I’m feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn’t you and everyone refer to GCC as ‘the Linux compiler’? Or at least, ‘Linux GCC’? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD?

          If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this:

          Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux’ huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don’t be a nag.

          Thanks for listening.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
    20·
    2 days ago

    I’m practically a fixture on Lemmy, and I view everything sorted by newest comments so I see only new posts and posts actively being participated in through replies and I’d say it’s only slightly less active than Reddit appearance wise. Surely there is less things being posted over all, but I can just refresh the page every few seconds and get entirely new posts almost every single time, barring a few hours in the middle of the week.

    I know that someone has a statistic site for Lemmy that could actually show you exactly what you wanna know, but I haven’t saved the URL and don’t know it off the top of my head.

    • BaroqueInMind@lemmy.oneEnglish
      157·
      2 days ago

      Just say 40,000. Which is a pathetic number, but perfectly fine for the type of niche communities budding up here and there across all the domains connected together here.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        444·
        2 days ago

        40k users is huge. Remember, lemmy is not profit driven. We don’t need to grow at all costs, we can grow naturally and sustainably.

        • DeeDan06@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          6·
          1 day ago

          40000 is enough to be a functioning social media. most fediverse softwares don’t have that much. Sure, it is not enough to have discussions over non mainstream stuff, but there are still enough people for a variety of topics.

        • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
          251·
          2 days ago

          …I kinda like it right now. Some communities of less than a 1000 have much more human responses. It nice. And not just from one server.

          • sith@lemmy.zipEnglish
            12·
            2 days ago

            There are huge subreddits that are basically dead or just filled with spam. The ratio of active/passive users on Lemmy must be much much larger. A Lemmy community with 100 active members almost feels like a subreddit with 10 000 members.

            • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.businessEnglish
              91·
              2 days ago

              A Lemmy community with 100 active members is more likely to be 100 active humans than a subreddit with 10,000 members is, based on the last time I went to Reddit: it was so, so clear that everything was either ChatGPT, or a repost of shit even I had already seen, or was just otherwise obviously not an authentic human sharing something interesting.

              So yeah, not entirely surprising.

              • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
                4·
                2 days ago

                It might also be that we were some of the prolific posters on reddit. I heard somewhere that the top couple percent of posters on reddit used to make a majority of the new posts. And the rest lurk

                • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.businessEnglish
                  4·
                  2 days ago

                  That’s probably true, though I’m not sure who has ever actually made a legitimate determination since you’d have to remove the non-humans from the numbers first and, well, Reddit isn’t going to tank their MAU numbers by ever releasing that kind of stat.

                  It’s also not helped once you hit a certain size and the nature of scale takes over and the level of toxicity goes up: even in small groups, when a new person shows up and asks the same question for the 20th time, they start taking shit for it. If you’re in a BIG group, it turns into a giant dogpile, and people stop asking questions because who the hell likes that kind of response, so you end up with a lot of people who are subscribed to something, but none of whom actually contribute at all.

      • can@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        16·
        2 days ago

        I would have, but they asked in millions and I was being cheeky.

        I don’t find it pathetic, I’m quite happy with it. Sure, I’d be happy to get more but in no rush.

  • sith@lemmy.zipEnglish
    20·
    2 days ago

    I’m an active user who post and comment regularly, and I would say that the experience is very similar to Reddit. Except for less adds and smaller numbers on the main/all page. The experience is probably very different if you’re mainly a passive consumer of content.

    Though I’ve never been active in “large” subreddits and I tend to block them from my feed. So guess I don’t know what I’m missing.

      • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
        5·
        2 days ago

        This is about right. Its a great general interest thing and you have some really great folks but you don’t have a ton of pathfinder people talking about pathfinder or sto people talking about sto on an sto sub, etc. so we have a general gaming community that is pretty active but if you want to know day to day whats happening with a particular game. not so much.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      You have ads? Where do you see them? Not sure if I’m being ignorant and not recognizing them or did something right that made me not see them

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    221·
    2 days ago

    The stats are irrelevant, imo. What matters is how useful lemmy is both to average users and specialty users.

    Right now, the more niche the hobby/interest is, the less useful lemmy is unless it fits into the handful of subjects that lemmites grok.

    That being said, for general use, lemmy is great. Plenty of memes, plenty discussion about subjects of general interest, and plenty of posts for casual scrolling on the john. In that regard, it’s better than bigger forums because you don’t have to scroll through a dozen fake posts to find things that interested a fellow human.

    I can usually, on bad days when I’m not very mobile, spend an hour or so on lemmy before I get back to where I had previously left off. That’s about the sweet spot, imo.