Having tried all three, its a stark difference in how much more social Lemmy is comparatively. Its not even close. Almost all posts I've encountered on lemmy have interaction; whereas, more often than not, posts on the other two platforms have no interaction. Wonder what the driving factor is behind this difference?
I've never heard of Nostr but Mastodon is a twitter clone and I don't find that style of website suits discussion well since you subscribe to accounts rather than communities.
I assume because people follow topics on lemmy, unlike microblogging where people have to follow each other to interact (one-to-many vs one-to-one). So it’s easier to interact with many people that you don’t necessarily had to be following prior, which increases the chances of interacting with more people.
Well Mastadon is good for screaming into the void and hope someone shouts back. Lemmy is kind of like a forum type community where you already know someone is going to like your topic if it's in the right sub.
Honestly, I think is the whole ”First Post” mindset.
When you post a reply on Mastodon, it is more intimate, the only people who see it are the original tooter and anyone who actively seeks more commentary. It is a dialogue between two people, or multiple dialogues between one person and many others.
Lemmy is more like a forum, where everyone can see all comments, right underneath the original post. It is more like an open-table discussion.
It is not that Lemmy is more social, it is just less personal.
Lemmy is discussion focused, the bulk of content is the comments guided by posts. Mastadon/nostr are about microblogging, the posts are the focus of content, not the comments.
I find microblogging format isn't really great for having any sort of meaningful discussion. Mastodon is good for posting news or memes, but that's about it. Lemmy format allows having an actual dialogue, and that makes it a lot more engaging.
Lemmy is a reddit clone, where you create communities.
Mastodon is a Twitter clone, where you share what you ate last night or what political meme you like today while sharing photos of moss and/or windows.
Nostr is its own thing.
Mastodon right now is essentially macroblog and/or microblog.
Entirely designer for different purpose than Lemmy.
Any group-based social media will have higher possibility of interaction due to easier way to find similar interest, whether Lemmy, Reddit, Facebook Group, Misskey Group, even traditional self-host forum.
Mastodon & others are microblogging (aka shitposting) platforms, while lemmy lets you ask questions in posts that will persist (not get flooded under a megaton of shitpost, hentai) and get answers.
On mastodon what's important is who you are (who you know, who you can interact with), on lemmy your post's content is more important.
The problem with mastodon might turn out to be having a heart lacking in empathy. Need to be able to care enough to want to be associated with someone you admire.
We live amongst rock stars. How can anyone completely miss that?! The problem is neither the platform nor the rock stars.
Don't need a sea of people. Need 10 or 5 or 3. As long as they are rock stars. I count my blessings daily.
It's clearly how approach to using mastodon. Small tweak to your mindset and you can get alot out of the platform.
Dial up a super hero and tell them they are awesome.
Go to pypi
Find packages you like and their maintainers.
Hook up with them and tell them they are awesome, but found a few things that doesn't make sense in the docs. Whatever the approach. You are in!
The blog style format (post + threaded comments) is a lot more inviting to a conversational style than microblogging. Some Masto instances have very open post character counts but some are much more limiting - as are Bluesky and Xitter. If you're not able to explain your point clearly it hampers the ability to have a decent conversation about it.
Hey, I don't come into your house and insult you by calling you social media! /s
I think, much like HN or early web forums, we're below the population level where personal attacks get unmanageable. On Reddit voicing a dissenting opinion would always get you dog piled and that makes people defensive and boring as shit.
People here are generally (some exceptions being pro life/choice which is a deeply toxic topic at this point and Gaza which has emotions extremely high) arguing in good faith and even if they're rough initially a lot of times I've appreciated back and forth threads since, even if there's still a disagreement, most people will genuinely work to remove stupid misunderstandings and try and understand who they're talking to.
Additionally, the mods on most communities are awesome and focus specifically on removing things like personal attacks without getting heavy handed in interventions.
I still use Mastodon — as a place to dump intrusive thoughts more than anything — but there is this huge tension between people who want to chat with randoms, people who only want to chat with friends, and people who want to use it purely as a broadcast medium. The protocol/convention doesn't really allow for managing this issue, which is a shame, but I have come to the conclusion that microblogging is just kind of cursed as a medium. It's fundamentally all about building a personal brand, and if you have no social capital you are shit out of luck. And if you have too much, well, enter the reply guys.
Lemmy/the Reddit model on the other hand strikes a good balance between anonymity and being able to vet odd characters. Different people want different things ofc, and that's fine, but I find I have more fruitful conversations here than on Mastodon.
The format is certainly more conducive to discussion. On the flip side though since communities reside in spaces and are moderated by individuals here, compared to the more 'broadcast' nature of using tags on Mastodon, you end up with some really bad echo chambers on Lemmy. Just a quick look at a basic news community between instances will show a massive slant depending who runs it. With Mastodon people talk more globally and the obnoxious ones just get blocked en-masse rather than so much being at a mod's whim.