As a strong supporter of open-source and community-funded projects like Lemmy, which prioritize serving users over investors, I believe Lemmy has significant potential, and that’s why I am here. However, it is clear that its growth is nearing a plateau in its current form. Despite the surge in users following Reddit’s API changes, Lemmy continues to primarily attract tech-savvy individuals, politically left-aligned users, and those accustomed to old Reddit. For Lemmy to reach the broader average general audience, meaningful changes are necessary.
The rise of Bluesky demonstrates the importance of ease of use and a user-friendly design. Its polished and familiar interface is a key reason for its growth and appeal as an alternative to platforms like X/Twitter. This same ease of use is what Mastodon lacked, leading to its initial hype fading quickly. The average user is unlikely to adapt to something that feels complicated or unfamiliar, and this challenge also applies to Lemmy.
As someone who started as an average Reddit user and became more tech-savvy over time, I can confidently say that first impressions matter. When users first visit lemmy.world, the default UI is often enough to discourage them from staying. Most will not explore the homepage sidebar to explore, figure out and switch to one of the alternative UIs available, which is unfortunate because a better UI could make a huge difference.
This is why I propose that large servers like lemmy.world adopt Photon UI as the default web interface. Photon is currently the best and most mature alternative UI, offering a visually appealing, modular design that feels familiar to users of new Reddit. It makes excellent use of screen space and provides customization options like compact and cozy views. Unlike some other alternative UIs, Photon is actively maintained and ready for widespread use, although in no way is it perfect, this can also help bring in more contributors to the project development.
While it is important to continue offering other UIs as options, I believe adopting Photon as the default UI could make Lemmy far more appealing to the average Reddit user. First impressions are crucial, and the current default UI has turned off many potential users. If we want Lemmy to succeed as a true Reddit alternative, we need to prioritize user experience and accessibility. Thankfully today, Lemmy still continues to be THE biggest Reddit alternative, while our userbase is still considerably smaller than Reddit, it’s the biggest of any alternatives, and Lemmy continues to somewhat be in the spotlight for those seeking alternatives, we can’t let growth stagnate, it’s high time we make the platform more welcoming and appealing for the average joe.
I agree on the UI front, making things more like reddits awful new ui is just a bad idea. Just that your premise for justifying that is wrong.
Weber’s Iron Cage and the history of enshitification of technology beg to differ.
“A philosopher said it” is not an argument for something being guarunteed to happen, especially when said philosopher said it 120 years ago and we are talking about the evolution of the internet and doublly especially as I have already given you a counterexample.
If you need help applying the core concepts governing our paradigm then perhaps you should ask questions
Feel free to enlighten me how a 19th century philosopher who likely hadnt used a telephone dictates how a federated social network is vulnerable to capture by capital and squeezing first a captive userbase for the benifit of advertisers, then captive advertisers for platform profit.
Take your time.
That’s not a question.
You’re the one name dropping a philosopher saying that his work proves that growth of lemmy will result in its inevitable enshittification, give your reasoning connecting the two ideas.
If you don’t know what Weber’s Iron Cage is or don’t know how it applies, then perhaps you should ask a question.
I won’t see it though. Maybe you’ll get lucky.