The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers

Surprisingly, the weakest number may be logged-in users. Growth held at just 1% for the second straight quarter, down from 12% one year ago.

I haven't used reddit for many years, but this is probably not a good development for the internet (or humanity), if it means people use AI instead of reddit.

Ha ha!

The power users found other outlets, it's not bad for the internet or humanity. When I came over here years ago, it was already better than reddit.

But they're still up some 280% since IPO :/

Humanity will be fine. This is just another cold war. AI is like the Berlin wall: it will crumble and DDR5 will be free once more.

Oh no. :D
How truly terrible. :D
My heart is practically breaking. :D

Confident bullshitting that looked like human communication has been reddit's entire wheelhouse, since before LLMs were an itch in anyone's pants.

there was user growth ? (?!!??)

wtf

Losing reddit is fun killed off lot of the reason to use reddit logged in, which led to less reasons to actually comment on things.

I never made an account on quora but it would sometimes show up in search results and try to not show everything to get people to sign up but I never felt compelled to. Wonder if that is what is happening with reddit now.

I don't find the default reddit interface pleasant to scroll or read through, so wonder if people are just getting their info from search results and leaving.

Reddit kept banning people for the most hilarious reasons. I stopped logging in once i was banned from my countries "official" sub. Why log in when i cant participate? Used to lurk with browser which blocked ads then but they disabled using reddit that way by forcing a login pop up. This drove me to lemmy.

I hate that reddit is still shown in top rankings of google because following their links ask/force you to log in after 10 seconds..

These are not the kind of users you're looking for.

bot growth

I can only agree that reddit became crap, I quit it after having used it for many years.

I never used anything but old reddit, their new interface was crap from day one.
I quit using reddit about 5 years ago because of enshittification.

Reddit began to suck years ago, I stopped using it because the quality of the content declined as they began to become more and more like the old Digg.

I don't think this AI shit is like when Christians destroyed Rock and Roll records in the 50's.
I think AI is a real problem. And I'm not so sure we will be fine anymore.

I agree, when I came over here 3 years ago, I had already stopped using reddit for a couple of years.
Lemmy is more like reddit was originally.

When the only accounts that are allowed to exist on your platform are bots and Russian trolls, and you just ban actual long time users en masse for completely asinine and/or made up reasons, this is the fucking end result. Reddit is literally eating itself, but no! It's AI that's to blame. This fucking dogshit company literally just made me defend AI.

I don't know if these numbers can be verified, or if it's a "trust me bro" situation, but in case Reddit's numbers are legitimate, its userbase to be still growing but only 1% could be inertia even as acceleration becomes negative. In an analogy, putting a car in reverse while it's still moving forward can only keep taking it forward so much.

It's strange.... They let actual extremists and extremely narrow minded people stay. And if you reach a point of matching their extremism you get banned.

It honestly seems to be like American politics. You can see it happening everywhere in society. Everywhere... Like people are just giving away their human essence.

It feels like a psyop. It feels like a cia operation... Gaslight and bait people to weed out the people that actually stand for humanity instead of loyalty regardless of left or right beliefs. It feels like a purge is coming for those that aren't considered loyal... Maybe that's why ice is getting such a big budget.

It's like they are TRYING to make people react and be bad specifically to purge them from society because their loyalty doesn't match some made up ideologies.

...I'm waiting for the official roll out of hell against authentic humanity.

It's like they do this because it's easier to control "bad" than control "freedom" and freewill.

Happy over here in the fediverse.

They didn't have to ban me, they just had to make their site unusable and then block API to make any worthwhile app no longer usable too.

It still blows my mind how late they were to their own party when it came to releasing an app, and even with all the in-house knowledge they had, they delivered by far the worst app we'd ever seen lmao. I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise considering how shit their redesigns were too.

They actually started off on a 3rd party app they bought. Which was quite decent until their acquisition. Not only did they not manage to create a good app on their own, they destroyed a perfectly good one.

I think that was just on the iOS side. Android had a lot of really good apps.

Prob couldn't figure out how to read the code or do anything with it, so they shut it down lmao. Can't have nice things on Reddit.

We'll get there

I just want to know how they were getting "new" users?!

Well, I was on Boost on reddit and now am on Boost on lemmy.

Hell yeah, me too! For both 😂

Maybe if they just use more AI bots, numbers go up.

They are getting info from the Google AI so they have no reason to visit reddit. The article explains this. It has nothing to do with reddit's terrible ux decisions, which we all know most consumers roll over for anyway.

Better then reddit in what way? UX? Sure. Lemmy is better than reddit. The memes are better and fewer bots are better. But unless you're into tech and politics, lemmy doesn't have content for you.

The LLMs aren't going anywhere. They have legitimate uses. But you will see the bubble deflate if not pop over the next few years. OpenAI in particular is done for.

Yeah it'll find its place like all new tech

Imagine if most of the “new users” are actually old users whose first accounts were banned. We get a lot of traffic from Redfugees, but surely there must be loads more who just find a way to sign up on Reddit again. Til their new account gets banned, at least.

Rinse, repeat, and pretend the new accounts are “growth” when the shareholders come around.

🍿 That's a shame.

Preach. I just migrated here and found a disturbing lack of casual communities with any real activity. A real bummer because I miss the old internet and figured this could replicate it. Still, if you build it, they will come. Maybe it's a user count issue.

thanks - this makes the most reddit sense.

Here is an article exposing how the government is trying to find AI to filter "existing enterprise datasets" to look for "terrorists". This means they're going through forum and chat logs of the last ten years, just like you said. They are also redefining "terrorism" to mean essentially anything a person who is not a hateful magat drone might talk about.

https://reason.com/2026/07/28/minority-report-fbi-seeks-ai-for-political-watch-list/

This is specifically for executing NSPM-7, which defines terrorism as:

"domestic terrorism priorities include politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized doxing campaigns... trespass... and civil disorder."

Have you downloaded a picture of an ice agent's face or upvoted a website that that has them? Are you talking about maybe going to a protest or participating in a strike? This is you.

"Investigations should prioritize crimes such as the following: conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. 241"

That law criminalizes an agreement (conspiracy) between two or more people, to interfere with constitutionally or statutorily secured rights. The reason this law was chosen is that the commission of an overt act is not an element of the offense. The conspiracy itself is the crime.

The offense is also a felony punishable by any means up to and explicitly including, life imprisonment and the death penalty.

Then the national security directive goes on to state that it is now "a violation of someone's rights" to express displeasure or discomfort at their anti-trans views, their racist views, their religious views, or to say anything anti-american.

Have you expressed any of these views? That's you. And it doesn't matter how well you hide, this system states it will specifically be using biometric data, like the cadence of your messages and your word choice, to unmask you. This is something AI can do very well.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/

The concentration camps are for us. Ice almost, almost has as large a budget as the entire Chinese military. Ice is the third best funded military on the planet, and it is already executing Americans in the street, and they haven't even gotten started yet.

It's not just AI and bots. Their mods love to ban real people for petty stupid shit.

Some people make new accounts. Others don't.

After I got my 11 year old account banned for saying some stupid thing about Musk (I think, I'm still not sure), I decided it's better to just leach their service, ad block on, and not contribute. That said, I only look at Reddit maybe once a week these days.

75% or more of the reddit posts my friends link in discord are removed by the time I click on them, typically in less than 24 hours.

I didn't join Lemmy because of being banned on Reddit or other drama.

I joined because I wanted to contribute to something that is going to stand the test of time better.

i.e. Although there are serious threats to its usability, the Fediverse is hopefully never going to be enshittified, commercially milquetoasted, or eventually sold to corporate fascists.

Still, if you build it, they will come. Maybe it’s a user count issue.

Yep, be the change you want to see.

Your first 3 are what I'm talking about and I'm into politics. You're on an instance that has probably been algorithmed out of getting things to the front page too. lemmy-world has a lot of control over what users see because they're so big.

You have to go looking for places to subscribe. Once you do that, you'll start seeing more, not reddit amounts, but some of more of what you like. I still don't know how to link across instances, but these have places.

• https://sh.itjust.works/c/trendingcommunities@lemmy.cafe
• https://sh.itjust.works/c/lemmydirectory@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Every now and then there are big posts of best communities to recommend. We're probably due for one because I'm noticing a small migration.

Also, you might not have gone through your reddit withdrawal yet. It takes a couple of weeks, but this place isn't as addicting.

Spez has decided that banning the user base is a good idea, let's see how that plays out for him

Karma will be coming. Cuz reddit will fall.

Yeah I still mod a couple subs over there. One large, 2 smaller. I've seen SO FREAKING MANY users banned by Reddit before I can even see what comment got reported. I've been modding for like 7 years. I'd see that maybe twice a year before. I'm seeing it 5+ times a day now. It's crazy.

They're using ai and ai is doing what it does best

Yeah it's infuriating watching good users disappear. It would be fine if they came here but, they don't. I have a duplicate of all my subs on Lemmy for when the time comes.

I found this place and others will too, especially now.