Should Lemmy buy ads on Reddit? ( fedidb.org )

User count has plateaued at about 420K

Active user count rose significantly between 2/24 37K to 3/24 51K

Hopefully users who signed up last year are coming back to use their accounts.

Maybe because they're tired of ads on reddit?

Should we put together a collection and and buy an ad campaign on Reddit?

I can see it now:

"Ads suck. We're ad-free forever. Join Lemmy."

and

"He'll never get us. Join Lemmy." or "Don't let him get you. Join Lemmy"

darkkite ,

ads cost money to increase users to eventually profit from them later.

how would a decentralized lemmy profit from the increased users.

Any money spent on ads would be better off hiring more engineering resources and improving lemmy for the next time Reddit does something dumb prompting an exodus.

cmgvd3lw ,

June is incoming. Some shit is bound to happen.

Dicska ,

I'm probably ootl: why June specifically?

Blaze ,
@Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

First quarter since IPO?

jeena ,
@jeena@jemmy.jeena.net avatar

No. We should not give them our money.

If anything then we should post more links to relevant original Lemmy content on other platforms.

Omgarm ,

OC is needed and should then shared on Reddit. But Reddit has changed to incentivize content posted on Reddit, so any OC will probably be stolen.

missingno ,
@missingno@kbin.social avatar

Do not give Reddit money.

otter ,
@otter@lemmy.ca avatar

My reasons against that

  • we'd be directly giving money to Reddit
  • users dislike the places they see ads about, and it would appear extra desperate because of the point above
  • money is better spent supporting developers and content creators on here

Not to mention that Reddit will probably shut that down

That doesn't mean we don't do anything though. A number of subreddits continue to have automod messages and pinned posts directing people elsewhere. There are a lot of people on Reddit who WANT things to succeed here.

So some other ways to help.

On Reddit:

  • work with subreddits to set up parallel communities here, and ease the transition of people moving

  • find subreddits that benefit from backups / fediverse communities, and work with them to improve things

On the fediverse:

  • write up guides and update existing resources to help newcomers

  • Post interesting content on the fediverse. People use things they get value out of, and new people won't stay if things are quiet here. Set up an RSS feed, share the cool videos you see, write about your thoughts on casual communities.

Specifically financial:

  • Donate to the development of a project you like. If you can, reoccurring donations provide stability for the developers to work on things.

  • Donate to the instances that are running the services and platforms

TLDR:

  • Money can help, but paying for ads isn't the way to go (at least not yet)
otter ,
@otter@lemmy.ca avatar

I do like your ad ideas nonetheless @zabadoh. If we were swimming in money, it could be more of a discussion

A near black screen with small text at the bottom would be fun. "Ads suck, so we removed one for you. Come to the Fediverse for ad-free social media"

Maeve ,

I'm probably the weird one, but I specifically make it a point not to buy anything I've seen in any ad.

NaibofTabr ,

What would be the point of trying to increase the user count, beyond "line goes up"?

not_woody_shaw ,

Niche communities

NaibofTabr ,

Niche communities really only have value when they grow organically. Trying to artificially inflate them won't make them better.

cestvrai ,

I find Lemmy is better with fewer users just like Reddit used to be.

I kinda miss a few subs but they’ve been replaced by new things I discovered here.

The websites can coexist and users can do as we please.

Diplomjodler3 ,

Fight enshittification through enshittification? Not really a good idea, if you ask me.

fishos ,
@fishos@lemmy.world avatar

"are you sick of ads? Heres an ad!" Doesn't have the same impact you think it does.

Also, food for thought: you really want to invite the kind of people who can't use adblockers here? Barriers to entry aren't necessarily a bad thing. You want quality, not quantity. More people isn't necessarily better. And the people who stuck by reddit and spez through all of that?

lil ,
@lil@lemy.lol avatar

Have you used Lemmy before June 2023? I've been using it since late 2022 and it wasn't fun

fishos ,
@fishos@lemmy.world avatar

And you think that the people who already saw entire subreddits shutdown in protest, with Lemmy plastered all over the place as an alternative, who decided to stay after all the content creators left, THOSE PEOPLE, are the ones you want to now court over?

Again, quality vs quantity.

We already gained the quality contributors from reddit. Advertising now is just drawing from the bottom of the barrel.

Alsephina ,

Most people on reddit don't even know about Lemmy lol. I'm sure a large chunk of users, particularly on lefty subs and programming ones, would love to check it out.

Ads definitely aren't the way to go though since you'd be giving reddit money. Perhaps setting something up with mods of said subreddits?

fishos ,
@fishos@lemmy.world avatar

Lmfao. Lemmy was PLASTERED on the front page. It was on r/place along with "FUCK SPEZ". If you missed it, you're just not even looking. And if you're not even looking and don't care and think reddit is just wonderful, again, do we really want you?

And seriously, with Lemmy being FILLED with "dae Linux?" and "communism good" posts and programming humor hitting my front page HOURLY, you're honestly trying to tell me "the programmers and lefties don't know about this place"? Seriously?!?!

Alsephina ,

Lemmy was PLASTERED on the front page. It was on r/place along with “FUCK SPEZ”.

Most reddit users aren't on there everyday to see those. If you were talking about Lemmy on reddit for a month or two after things calmed down you'd see barely anyone there still know about this place.

Jaytreeman ,

Most reddit users are bots.
Most human reddit users are lurkers.

What's the ratio of active to lurker user on fediverse users?

HubertManne ,
@HubertManne@kbin.social avatar

testify!

pruwybn ,
@pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

"Ads suck, and Reddit sucks. So we paid Reddit to show you an ad."

MrFunnyMoustache ,

Personally, I would never give Reddit a single penny. Their garbage CEO does plenty to get people to leave and I am sure it will keep like that.

doublejay1999 ,
@doublejay1999@lemmy.world avatar

Why the growth fetish ?

jmcs ,

One of the effects of capitalism is that people are conditioned to think as growth in quantity is the end goal of all human activity.

This makes it harder to realize that, as far as the Fediverse is concerned, at very least, Lemmy and Mastodon have achieved viable self-sustaining networks and that driving inorganic growth by targeting users in other platforms would reduce the viability of the network because it makes onboarding new users harder. An example of this even inside reddit was when a subreddit got a sudden large influx of new subscribers they invariably lost what made them stand out in the first place.

Serinus ,

!leagueoflegends I want more then two others to discuss my hobby.

Omega_Haxors ,

The kind of people who would join this place are also the kind that would block ads.

NuraShiny ,

No. You don't want people's first exposure to the fediverse to be something annoying.

Also, anyone with a modicum of understanding is already blocking ads. Do we really want the dregs of the internet that don't do so?

420stalin69 ,

A study just came out that was posted in Hexbear showing at least 15% of Reddit content is corporate botting so we should just have some fun with LLMs and AstroTurf it instead like everyone else is doing

ladfrombrad , (edited )
@ladfrombrad@lemdro.id avatar

I'd posit those numbers are much, much higher, and some guys who used to do our Megathreads over in r/Android now keep getting random bots commenting against months, even years old posts - https://archive.is/OmW0f

I spotted em years ago over in their many test subreddits and reddit actually outsourced them as a QA testing.

HubertManne ,
@HubertManne@kbin.social avatar

I don't want users who come over due to ads.

secret300 ,

I get the idea. I'd like to see more users on Lemmy too but I don't think ads are the way to go. The best bet is probably more OC content and questions being answered as I've started seeing Lemmy post appear in Google searches.

I would love to see a collection of donations for Lemmy to get more developed which I think would be a much better use than ads.

I think currently the best way to get more users is word of mouth. For now...

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