this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2023
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Technology
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It definitely doesn’t need huge numbers. It was ticking along very happily for a good few years before Twitter had a seizure and set fire to itself. It’s fantastic that the fediverse has grown, but unlike purely commercial platforms it can exist at a rate to serve the community on it and need be nothing more. No chasing the spectre of infinite growth, no appeasing shareholders, just community-good for community-good’s sake. Which is rather lovely.
I keep seeing people wang on about how Mastodon / the Fediverse will never be big enough, but, well, my experience of Mastodon is great. I follow nice people, have nice chats, and generally enjoy the vibe far more than I have done on Twitter for a number of years.
So why exactly does Mastodon need to be any bigger? Or by that, do people mean “I need X celebrity to be on there”?
Having been on Reddit for about 10 years now, I would say the need/want for Mastodon/Lemmy/etc to be bigger is to have more variety and more volume in content.
That being said, I also remember my early days on the internet participating on small forums. There was a sense of familiarity and community that I simply haven’t felt on big social media sites.
I don't know that Mastadon needs to be bigger, but lemmy really needs to grow to compare with reddit. I mean there barely is a photography sub for instance. No travel one I could find, or anything like bifl... And then getting the niche community together. I guess there may still be web forums out there. Personally I liked those, but they are actually more isolated because they don't federate at all. So lemmy is potentially a feature improvement over phpbbs etc. But you still have to build the communities and get people who are into X but aren't tech people to those communities.