In other places on around the web, (chiefly /r/RedditAlternatives) whenever Lemmy is brought up, invariably I see the exact same complaints from brand new accounts.

Lemmy is too complicated, it wont gain traction, can’t figure out how to use it, can’t log in, etc.

Now, I’m definitely more tech savvy than the average redditor, but I just don’t see the complaints. You can go to any Lemmy site, instantly start doomscrolling with a familiar UI, and sign up on all the instances I’ve tried has been frankly more simple than making a new reddit account. The only real complaint I have is the generally smaller volume of users and posts.

My only thought here is the words like federation and instances getting people hung up. Maybe join-lemmy.org being a highly ranked site is doing more harm than good by creating an additional barrier to the instances and content.

Ideally, the first link someone sees when googling Lemmy would be a global feed on a fairly generic instance, with a basic tagline akin to ‘front page of the internet.’ End users don’t need to care about the technical details, at least not until they’re interested in the platform.

So is this “Lemmy is too confusing” sentiment even real? And if not, what motive would there be to astroturf this?

If it is a real issue affecting would-be users, how can we address it?

  • Zenith@lemm.ee
    6·
    10 hours ago

    I have no idea what the instances even are, I didn’t realize it mattered, I just picked one at random. I still have no idea what they are or why it matters

    • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
      5·
      7 hours ago

      If you’re interested, the short version is that instances (A.K.A servers) are run by different people in different places. A reason to move instances might be:

      1. My admin, the owner of the instance, has been doing things I heavily disagree with (bans, blocks, etc)

      2. I don’t agree with the rules on my instance.

      3. The instance is run in a country which criminalizes something that I care about, and so has to ban discussion of that thing (piracy, porn, etc).

      4. I want to run a community on a specific instance for whatever reason, and so need an account there