There are various reasons Lemmy succeeded as a Reddit alternative where others failed. One of the underappreciated ones is probably that the devs were communists. I know that sounds a little strange
This is also more or less the case across the fediverse.
In the case of lemmy though, I think there are also other more subtle value at play, like for instance the devs disinterest in running a flag ship instance and motivation in creating a platform to ensure communities not welcome elsewhere can make their own home (which arguably balanced well with the disinterest in fascy free speech rubbish).
A major difference is how they interact with feedback - the main reason I never did my own mastodon instance is the developers attitude. “We’re not interested in helping you because you didn’t set it up exactly as in the guide” was (and maybe still is) all over the mastodon bug tracker.
That was the first thing I looked for when lemmy became popular - and found they were taking deployment issues to even the most absurd system seriously.
Additionally they treat suggestions seriously - even if they personally think it is stupid - and even implement some of that. Pretty much no chance of anything of that happening with mastodon.
Yea nice. Not to take away from the lemmy devs and your praise … but mastodon certainly seems problematic in this regard. While gargron has done a lot in building that platform, and kinda deserves, I suppose, to “own” the platform, it certainly seems (from what I’ve gathered) a lot of people’s work in building up the software and its userbase has been easily ignored or dismissed by gargron, and of course, as you say, he’s really not that interested in what others want or need from the platform.
This is also more or less the case across the fediverse.
In the case of lemmy though, I think there are also other more subtle value at play, like for instance the devs disinterest in running a flag ship instance and motivation in creating a platform to ensure communities not welcome elsewhere can make their own home (which arguably balanced well with the disinterest in fascy free speech rubbish).
A major difference is how they interact with feedback - the main reason I never did my own mastodon instance is the developers attitude. “We’re not interested in helping you because you didn’t set it up exactly as in the guide” was (and maybe still is) all over the mastodon bug tracker.
That was the first thing I looked for when lemmy became popular - and found they were taking deployment issues to even the most absurd system seriously.
Additionally they treat suggestions seriously - even if they personally think it is stupid - and even implement some of that. Pretty much no chance of anything of that happening with mastodon.
Yea nice. Not to take away from the lemmy devs and your praise … but mastodon certainly seems problematic in this regard. While gargron has done a lot in building that platform, and kinda deserves, I suppose, to “own” the platform, it certainly seems (from what I’ve gathered) a lot of people’s work in building up the software and its userbase has been easily ignored or dismissed by gargron, and of course, as you say, he’s really not that interested in what others want or need from the platform.