There is a huge emphasis I see on just growing community size and creating an alternative to reddit.
Back in the day we used to hang out in irc chats with 5-10 active users or forums with few thousand users max. I made friends there I visted across countries. Years after Id log in and people would ask how you’ve been.
I had a reddit account for over 10 years and I dont think a single person would recognize my username. Its always felt like people aren’t talking to you but trying to appeal to the whole audience for points. Reddit exploits our psychology for attention but nothing humane is gained there. The super massive “community” ends up as a void where 99% of posts go completely unseen and any discussions suffer heavily from mod mentalities.
If this a place where even just ten people call home but feel good doing so, that is more good than a million being miserable. Maybe the best alternative is not to be reddit altogether.
Besides, good things have a natural tendency to spread, we don’t need to focus on it.
In general, I prefer quality over quantity. I never joined Reddit, and only visited under duress (i.e. troubleshooting Linux install & Reddit was the only place w/the info I needed).
For some reason, using Lemmy feels like I’m using old-school forums like EZBoard (I know…dating myself). I don’t think that it needs to “become the next Reddit” to be an effective community platform.
Kind of a weird analogy, but it’s like Mallrats…practically NOBODY saw it in theaters, but over time, it found its audience.
Just focus on quality community interactions, and the user base numbers will find the right level.