In their defense, for someone who has never heard of Lemmy/the fediverse, it's reasonable for them to be cautious. So many other platforms are VC funded, do guerilla marketing, have hidden agendas, etc. It's especially bad on Reddit with all the AI astroturfing now.

I've seen a bit of that in the Canadian reddit comms, where new users are initially concerned that they're joining another american tech startup's platform. Once they learn how the network works, how the software is open source, and (specific to lemmy.ca) that the site is managed by a non-profit and the servers are in Vancouver, they're more excited about it :)

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fair point. Good to see Canadian people being excited about Lemmy.ca!

[–] DannyBoy@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Don't forget about sh.itjust.works! But yeah it's nice to see some strong Canadian representation. And it's nice to see that Lemmy is slightly less US-centric than reddit.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I would even go beyond that, there's only one top 20 server hosted in the US, and it's not obviously US-centric (programming.dev)

[–] DonAntonioMagino@feddit.nl 7 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

The general atmosphere here is, though. There’s still lots of US defaultism over here.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 6 points 3 weeks ago

It would be interesting to see a geographic breakdown of the Lemmy population.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I'll never understand why !politics@lemmy.world and !news@lemmy.world are US-specific when LW is a European instance

[–] canihasaccount@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Maybe, but at least some folks have less of it. Me, for example. On Reddit, I generally assumed most folks were from the US, or bots. On here, I generally assume folks are equally--if not more--likely to be from a country in Europe, or Canada. I also see way more German representation here than I did on Reddit.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

(I think Canadian representation really expanded a lot, and European too, after Trump got elected and Reddit started sucking elon’s dick)

[–] DannyBoy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago

Now that you mention it, it has been a lot better lately. That seems likely given the explosion of Boycott US and Buy European communities lately. It has definitely improved since six months ago when US election discussion was shoehorned into every comment section.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Less than Reddit, but still a fuckload.

I mean I guess the people who spend their times on english speaking internet forums has a large chunk americans, you know, given the US population is 300+ million, while Canada, Australia, New Zeland, Ireland and Britain don’t even make half the US population when added together.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago

Most of Europeans speak English even if they're not from the UK, Ireland or Malta

[–] AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space 23 points 3 weeks ago

That looks like a healthier discussion than I would have feared below the post.

Like it or not, Lemmy/Piefed/MBin are the best replacement for a reddit-like experience, the other alternatives I have seen suggested have even more problems with active user count, or are much more specific and not aiming to be like reddit at all (e.g. Hackernews)

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Where's the love for piefed bots? I'm ~~god's~~ rimu's strongest soldier

[–] AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I am still sad, that, in another universe, past me probably said "Who cares that Piefed has worse documentation at the moment, just go with anyway", when setting up my server. But without prior hosting experience, I went with the more established Lemmy, even though PieFed is literally just better concerning its features.

[–] rosahaj@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It's an amazing feat, hosting a service like this, so I like to think this 'other' self would deserve to feel proud of themselves irregardless of the compromises they've had to make. Although I would love to hear how you managed to bridge that trouble yourself.

I for one, certainly haven't been brave enough to host anything like this ;p.

[–] rooster_butt@lemm.ee 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Does piefed have any apps yet?

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago

There's https://codeberg.org/freamon/pferd, https://github.com/jwr1/interstellar for now

Soon, there [might] be voyager and tesseract support.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Piefed is awesome 😎

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago

fedipiebros rise up :muscle: (i dont have an emoji picker installed yet :^c)

[–] RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 15 points 3 weeks ago

Not a huge surprise that one of the largest reddit replacements gets suggested frequently is it?

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 13 points 3 weeks ago

We out here shilling for Big Lemmy

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 weeks ago

It couldn’t possibly be that the platform is good!

[–] coldsideofyourpillow@lemmy.cafe 10 points 3 weeks ago

We're enthusiastic. Very enthusiastic.

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 weeks ago

I think either these people just aren't aware or don't understand that the biggest alternative will be suggested more, or they're arguing in bad faith because they want to prevent people from leaving Reddit, something that is not at all uncommon on that sub, unfortunately.

[–] LemUrun@pawb.social 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Right? What about kbin? Are there any other Reddit-like sites?

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 weeks ago

Mbin and Piefed

[–] Fingolfinz@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

They should probably just stay on Reddit then