I am seeing a worrying fediverse trend recently, the growth is nowhere as large as it should be. Fedidb is showing slow growth but in reality, well the truth is far different. I am noticing less engagement, less posts and a whole lot of people who have just left. 2024 saw threads MAU jump to over 300 million, Bluesky was a winner to the tune of over 30 million and the fediverse… well it stalled at a smidge of 1 million. Yes just 1 million. Now 1 million is not a small number…. but in the grand scheme it is pitiful. It doesn’t matter which way you slice it, having only 1 million users after the time the fediverse has been operating is not a win, not even a draw, it is a big fat loss! On a personal note I have noticed that what is simply happening is that people try it, like it, but the numbers are so small it just isn’t worth their precious time when other platforms offer way better gains. I mean just post on threads and a small percentage of the fediverse will see your post too – far easier and less time consuming. Doesn’t hurt that the threads app is better as well. 1 nice app rather than 10 say that overlap and offer roughly the same. The very same features that appeal to some (like choice of servers) is a big turn off for way more people who are not interested in choosing, they just want to download and go! I am also finding that because a large amount of people are American on the fediverse, this is also a big turn off. Seeing this on other platforms but it matters less because the numbers offset that a fair bit. When Bluesky seems to be less opinionated and abusive – Mastodon simply struggles! As Bluesky gets some photo apps – Pixelfed gets marginalised. I’m sure you can get the idea….
As a bit of context – not much though, fedidb was showing these figures a short while ago. I’m sure that they really show that this is a long standing issue….
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