this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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I like Lemmy. I really do.

In order to support the website, I have posted a shit-ton of original content.

Is what I'm doing actually useful? Or am I just wasting my time?

top 43 comments
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[–] besmtt@lemmy.world 3 points 56 minutes ago

Absolutely. Thank you for all of your posts and this one.

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 4 points 2 hours ago

It looks like you've made 61 posts in the last 24 hours. That's a lot of content to provide!

If you're enjoying it, then there's no harm in carrying on. Well done, thank you!

But if you're not enjoying it, then slow down. Stop posting or just post less frequently, whatever it takes to feel like you're doing something you find worth doing. Otherwise, what's the point?

But to your original questions, I don't think you're wasting your time and posting is definitely useful for the Fediverse ecosystem.

[–] secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 hours ago

I think it is

[–] Jhex@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago

I'd like to think that if anything I do makes someone's day a bit better, it was not a waste of time

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 8 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

If you're having fun, yes. If not, no. Do it for you. :)

[–] TinyLittlePuni@lemmy.world 12 points 7 hours ago

If you and others are enjoying themselves because of the content, why not?

[–] forrgott@lemm.ee 42 points 9 hours ago

Yes.

Without posts, what's the point of a forum?

[–] ckmnstr@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Yes keep at it, reddit wasn't built in a day!

[–] Zenith@lemm.ee 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

I was a really early Reddit user and Reddit was very much how Lemmy is now

Yeah, I’ve been here a while now, and Lemmy absolutely feels like old Reddit, before the bots and corporations took over.

[–] cobysev@lemmy.world 15 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Reddit wasn't immediately known as the "front page of the Internet." It took time to build up a reputation and tons of content before it started to get noticed and promoted by search engines.

Lemmy is the same. It's small now, but with enough content, it will eventually become a reference point like Reddit. Every little bit counts.

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

It took time to build up a reputation

It also took Digg ruining itself.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

The irony is that Digg has supposedly been working to absorb a lot of the Reddit refugees. Apparently if they’re not landing on Lemmy, they’re landing on Digg. It makes me wonder how many of the users have been around long enough to actually remember the Digg mass exodus to Reddit. I’m sure a lot of them are the newer users, who weren’t around for the Digg purge.

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 1 points 44 minutes ago

Digg is in the middle of some big "reboot" of the site, with Alex Onhanian on board. They're in some invite-only preview for the last few months.

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 62 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, people come to Lemmy to look at content and then discuss it, if we don't have content then there's no discussion.

If people don't like what you're posting, they'll let you know through votes on the posts

[–] Typewar@infosec.pub 4 points 5 hours ago

I think the main thing here is original content.

It's easy to just go to Reddit, find an equivalent community, then copy paste some tending posts.. Although I guess it's nice for people here if they never knew what's on the other side anyways, creating original content is inherently much more powerful

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 9 points 8 hours ago

I do think of it as better to put my stuff here, on a non-corporate forum, than somewhere else. Not sure it rises to the level of doing good or being useful, exactly. Maybe, as I personally find enjoyment on Lemmy, so perhaps I am providing the same to someone else.

No I don't think you are wasting your time.

[–] LadyButterfly@lazysoci.al 21 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

I do this a lot but in different communities to you. In the bigger communities your post can get lost in the feed, smaller ones they may just not be seen by many. You could try more mid range communities. You like politics and news, so you could try !politicalmemes@lemmy.world where you'll get more interaction. You could also mix it up with !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social where people just upvote and posts don't require interaction.

I've found if you post in the right places people start chatting and it's really fun!

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

That linked "good news" page has a header saying "Only mods can create threads in this magazine". Or at least that's what it says on the instance I'm on

[–] LadyButterfly@lazysoci.al 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks mate edited it to the right one

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] LadyButterfly@lazysoci.al 4 points 8 hours ago

Haha I see what you did there

[–] Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 hours ago

If you’re creating content, that is definitely useful.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago

I like some of your posts, no need to feel discouraged.

Usefulness is probably not the right word, though-- haha.

[–] emb@lemmy.world 9 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I think so. If you're a human and you're not a jerk, then interacting on a platform you want to see flourish is a good idea.

It might fail. Any given platform may fail despite many people's efforts to make it work. But that's not a good reason not to try.

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 12 points 10 hours ago

Yes, absolutely it's useful. Good quality posts that people see is always a useful thing

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

pick a niche and post all about that.

personally I've been looking at the open slot for memes that secretly have penises hidden in them.

[–] Blaze@piefed.social 6 points 9 hours ago

!fedigrow@lemmy.zip

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 7 hours ago

If you think something has worth (to you), everything is worthy.
Is it useful? Maybe for someone.
Assuming it got upvoted, I'd say yes :)

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

https://youtu.be/VNEZ2Z9Cero

I think David Mitchell puts it succinctly 👌

[–] Acamon@lemmy.world 10 points 11 hours ago

Really depends on what you mean by useful. Looking briefly through your post history, it seems like a lot of your posts are news / politics. Are you hoping to use lemmy to educate and change people's perspectives? Because that's quite a different purpose than entertain and distract, or express an inner artistic vision, or grow the fediverse, and so on.

If you can explain what you seek from posting, we can get a better idea of whether it's working or not!

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 3 points 8 hours ago

Every little part counts. We all form a community. Imagine if you're in a room and nobody says anything. Now imagine if it's a forum where a few people are chatting on something, that's what makes it engaging.

[–] Fletcher@lemmy.today 8 points 11 hours ago

Well, what are you expecting, in return? Are people not replying/reacting to your posts? Maybe you're posting in the wrong community. Really, what are you wanting to see that you're not seeing?

[–] random_signal@leminal.space -1 points 5 hours ago

I mean, everything holds on human (in a perfect world) interaction, so your contribution is not for nothing. However I can't shake of the feeling that trying to be "useful" online is not a good idea.

In general, whatever you posted will most likely be noticed by at least one other person, whose thoughts will be influenced by whatever you posted. So I guess this is already useful in a way? We should continue thinking, otherwise we are just some kind of a biorobot.

[–] iii@mander.xyz 6 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Depends on what the meaning of life is

Usually, you need to know where you're going to know whether your motion is taking you there or not.

[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 3 points 10 hours ago

I also see you posting a lot of gibberish links.

[–] Lembot_0003@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Useful for what? To lure here more users? Mostly useless then because Lemmy almost isn't indexed by web-crawlers. So all your "content" is visible only to those who already are here.

[–] MicrowavedTea@infosec.pub 7 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

But it does keep people from leaving due to lack of content. And these people may bring more at some point. It depends on the actual content of course.

[–] LadyButterfly@lazysoci.al 6 points 11 hours ago

Yep and if they stay they might tell others that join and so on

[–] Lembot_0003@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 hours ago

We have nowhere to leave, anyway. It is a dead end. We will die here.