In recent days I have seen these two arguments repeated quite commonly. From reddits side it was all about how “noones using Lemmy anyway”
While from Lemmy it was “how numbers have been exploding”
My question is, why do numbers of users matter so much to anyone really? Isnt activity what matters more?
On two questions here I gotten just as much engagement if not more than anything I did on reddit combined
I look at it from the standpoint of federated social media dethroning the reigning social media “monopolies”. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, and now Reddit have shown that they want engagement at all costs and will prioritize profit over people. The faster they die, the better.
From this perspective, numbers and growth are important (although of course they’re not everything): People won’t jump ship to a new platform unless there is a critical mass of users, because a platform needs a sufficient number of users to provide the same variety of user generated content and communities that people have come to expect.
More people using federated social media also means more developers, better apps, and a better user experience for everyone using it.
There’s a snowball effect, and maybe one day we’ll get out from under our rich social media overlords.