https://pixelfed.fediverse.observer/dailystats
Looks like Pixelfed’s growth spurt is slowing down. Absent any new external stimuli I’m guessing it’ll stabilize around 200K to 300K monthly active users – over a hundredfold order of magnitude from what it was just a month ago.
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(This is a serious question)
Are Pixelfed communities generally accepting of cannabis related content, or is that seen as a no go on most servers/connections made with an account?
I recently started using Instagram again here and there because of cannabis related communities and such, which they seem rather relaxed with at the moment (just to connect with folks), and a transition could start for me granted there is an opportunity for sensible cannabis communities to exist - I’m a medical user and it has to be a part of my life due to the required usage for my conditions, I hope this is understandable.Regardless of if the answer to my query isn’t favourable to me, I hope this platform expands and continues to gather a larger userbase.
The app is still doo doo. I end up just going on Firefox on my phone
Like a lot of fediverse experiences - the initial need to pick a server is deeply problematic for new users.
Why pick one server over the other? How do get I, (pretending) as someone with no idea about the fediverse, get informed about this choice.
If I take a gamble, then I can’t log in using my mastodon account. Then the login fails with others.
I was happy to persevere, my partner not so much.
The thing is that picking a sever is kind of neat but it’s so tech-centric at the moment when it should be community-centric. A quick blurb about the community and their vibe/ideology would go a long way. Maybe a quick preview of some random content? Instead we’re playing a guessing game with a url.
But hey, it’s early days and these things will improve because we can all pitch in to help be the change.
<Tantacrul>
Okay, are you ready for the pain?
First, we go to pixelfed.org, and click on “Servers.” We are treated to a page that says “Find the perfect community server. Signing up on an existing server is the easiest way to get started, let us help you find the ideal server to join!” This alludes to creating your own pixelfed server, which the vast majority of users are not going to want to do. We’re talking about a public who has been accustomed to downloading an app, opening an account on the app, and having access to all the content in that app. The idea of hosting their own server at this point shouldn’t really be an idea we’re bringing up here.
We tehn get filters for “sign-up process”, because you have to apply for and be approved to some servers, filter by country, and filter by language. I mean, okay. Then we get Server Catagories: All (87) Art (1) General (8) Regional (13) Adult (4) and Uncategorized, (61). I suppose this is more honest than defaulting everyone to “General” but it’s also lazier than a dead house cat. When the vast majority of them are categorized as “Uncategorized” it gives me the feeling that the people running this shitmound don’t care about it, so I absolutely shouldn’t.
Then we get a section called Network Health, which has data that is not pertinent to choosing a server, including total photos shared, total users, active servers, and average users per server. Neat stats I guess, not relevant to choosing a server to sign up on.
The choices of server are a grid of choices that look like this:
The name/URL of the instance is at the top, with an $8 checkmark next to it which is a different glyph from the check marks in the left column talking about all the evil stuff they don’t do, so I think we’re just used to seeing check marks after names on social media, so we put them there. I can’t find one that doesn’t have that check mark so it’s completely meaningless.
Then we get a cover photo, which 9 times out of 10 is a variant on the Pixelfed logo so here’s yet another opportunity to distinguish severs squandered.
Just below that is the name/URL of the server again in a different color, just in case you didn’t read it the first time. This is just 100% wasted space.
Below this is the first 80 characters of a description that was almost certainly written to go somewhere else and has been echoed here. Several of them read “Pixelfed is an image sharing platform, an ethical alternative to centr…” Which must be some kind of default text. Many also use an identical cover image to Pixelfed.social, the instance run by the creators, so I’m assuming this is also a placeholder default. The dead cat is at it again. Those that don’t use the default boilerplate often have a description that starts with their instance name, for example “Pixelfed.art is a community driven platfrorm designed to showcase and c…” So including the cover image, pixelfed.art’s entry contains the string “pixelfed.art” a total of four times, and nearly no other information is conveyed.
Below this is a button that either says “Create Account” in white on bright lilac, or “Apply to Join” in subdued purple on dark purple, which makes the option look greyed out. People will already be unlikely to click there, and the change in shade further discourages people from trying to sign up. I suppose telling you this here in the main directory will prevent “Oh dammit you have to apply to join” but there’s just something wrong with making it look greyed out or unselectable.
There’s another button that says “More Details,” which leads to another very sparse page which shows a large version of the useless and uninformative cover image, information you probably don’t care about like the server location and establishment date, and a link that frustratingly says “More Details.” We just clicked on that, why do you want me to click it again? When you click it, you don’t get more details about the server, it scrolls down to a list of general features of the Pixelfed platform. Marketing cockshit that people’s eyes just glance off of because this is where marketing departments put all the lies.
Oh, did I mention when you click on the uppermost of the many copies of the server name, the top one in white, it takes you to the same place that the More Details button does?
This page promises to help you find the perfect server, and then offers virtually no information that would help a newcomer choose gram.social over pixey.org.
</Tantacrul>
I would suggest removing a lot of the redundant details such as the More Details button and the second copy of the instance’s name below the cover image. That would free up room for a couple more lines of description for each here on the index page.
Eliminate the Uncategorized category, maybe add a few more like “Arts, Crafts and Photography” “Lifestyles and Activities” “Fashion and beauty” “Casual, Food and Pets”. “I want to upload pictures of my cat, which category do I choose?” “I want to promote my paintings. Which category?” “I want to show off my travel pictures.”
Add a text search bar so that people could search by keyword.
As this is a list that instance admins have to apply to be on, I would suggest some requirements and/or heavy suggestions for that process:
-
Do not allow default boilerplate cover images or descriptions. Make them post something. You’re an image hosting platform, you should be able to find an image the defines your community. !woodworking@lemmy.ca runs contests with their members to pick theirs, I won it once. Do that.
-
Strongly suggest against using a variant of the Pixelfed logo unless that variant describes what your instance is about. Like if you have a sports-oriented instance, the Pixelfed speech bubble P logo appearing inside a sports ball is more acceptable than a P with “pixelfed.sports” next to it. Better yet, an action shot of a sportsball player making an exciting sportsball play with maybe a logo in the corner.
-
Require admins to choose a category, to eliminate “Uncategorized.”
-
For descriptions, provide a style guide that warns against things like mentioning the name of the instance again in the description, and steer away from all the bleeding heart hyphenated marketing wank.
BAD: Example.lol is a community-driven, open-source, cage-free, low-gluten, carbon-offset, high-estrogen, no-pressure, fuel-injected, tax-free, non-mandatory place to share photos.
GOOD: Share photos of your arts and crafts projects with our avid community of painters, woodworkers, blacksmiths, seamstresses and more!
The aim here is to present INFORMATION that can help someone new understand why they should - or should not - sign up for your instance. We’re almost perfectly failing to achieve that.
-
Honestly just pick one and use it for a bit. Pick the most popular and learn more about the platform from there. That’s exactly what I did with Lemmy.
I joined lemmy.world first then I liked sh.itjust.works and now I’m on SDF. It took a little bit longer to find the instance I really liked but never stopped me from using Lemmy. Just pick one and use it
I think my point was missed. I was using “I” but my writing was a user story.
I’m talking about why adoption for fediverse platforms falters - especially for those coming from very slick, big money, apps with a whole team or teams focused on on-boarding.
IE. It’s not a user-centric experience (yet) - but we also don’t need teams focused on onboarding. Just small tweaks.
The defense of “it’s so easy just pick a server” is getting exhausting.
The average person wants something that works.
It does… Just work… Just pick one… And it works…
PixelNest is millions better than the Pixelfed app.
Pixelix is great too
I’ll have to check it out. When I made a post from the pixelfed app it cropped some of it for some reason
IT’s still rough for being production. Getting to my mentions in Pixelfed is a real PITA
I haven’t been posting as much as I was initially. That might be it.
Well then stop notting. Don’t not. Do.
Oh its your fault then
Support JPEG XL or HEIC/HEIF and I will join ;)
https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/issues/3102
https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/issues/749
here’s your issue trackers.
I must say though, this seems like a strange feature to draw the line on, is it really that important to you what image format is used?
Yes. JPEG is limited to 8-bit (which works well with rec.709/sRGB) and modern displays and cameras capture much more than that (typically 14).
sRGB has a very limited color gamut, and using a wider/HDR color profile (eg rec.2020) with only 8-bit per subpixel would result in colour banding.
I don’t want to limit my photo development with poor color definition.
Thanks for the links (I’m already subscribed).
Not for me but I can see how it would be for some people joining a platform focusing on image content.
I was under the impression that Jpeg XL was written out of modern browsers due to Google pushing their image format instead or are you talking specific support with in Pixelfed app?
Sadly yes. It’s included by default in Apple devices and there are talks to bring it back with a Rust implementations. I think Google walked back a bit from their standard setting bullying practice with the antitrust lawsuits / threats of getting broken up. No idea if that will continue with the Musk administration.
Frankly, whatever secret sauce it is that makes social media popular is also what drives them to be such shit and be so shit for society. I like Lemmy way more than I like Reddit, and even though I have to go back to Reddit from time to time to fill the needs of my niche interests (which can get no traction where there are not mobs of participants in the greater whole) I never ever look at my interactions there and go “I wish Lemmy was more like this.”
It’s a conundrum.
Lemmy reminds me of why I liked reddit in the first place. Back in 2010
Yeah, all apps advertise “no algorithms” - well those algorithms are what is pulling users back and back again and the more you get people to open your app - the more likely it is that they’ll contribute something.
I have to remind myself to open Pixelfed. Which is how I want it to be and how it should be. But I also understand that none of my friends will go there and look at nothing and then check in again a day later.
As per my other comment - the algorithm is only part of it.
A big aspect however is the slickness and ease-of-onboarding for mega-Corp apps. It’s a thing that would relatively easy to begin work on.
I’ve seen first hand the amount of time and money even growth-stage startups spend on onboarding and have lots of first-hand reports from peers at the big girls - it’s a critical part of success. Make it easy to get started and easy to stay using.
It’s missing from most fediverse experiences. Pixelfed being a serious contender for an on-boarding rethink.
“time-to-value” - we want that as low as possible.
I’ve been spending more time on reddit recently, and it’s not because I like it better. Somehow that algorithmic infinite scroll just makes time disappear despite being largely ungratifying. It’s the same with Youtube. Whereas with Lemmy I check the first, and maybe second page, and then I feel like that’s all I need for a while and go do something else.
Preach brother. The reason I love this space is because it is so small. So much better visibility, so much less one-liners and rwddit garbage to sift through to find a real person. (fe I also choose this guys dead wife! Cue laugh track)
I’ve seen people in multiple conversations under the same post. It feels more alive and personal than seeing Click to show 3456 more comments
Plus all the newer redditors repeat the jokes not just at the optimal times, but just constantly, forever
And my axe!
I dunno… it’s like the difference between a chain restaurant and your favorite local cafe/pub/diner. The chain restaurant has its benefits, but you have the best interactions with your buddies at your local cafe/pub/diner.
Other events will cause additional spikes for Pixelfed, Mastodon and others. Unless the US Oligarchs are going to stop supporting Trump’s bat shit crazy policies they will keep pushing group after group off of their platforms.
It will be easier for the next wave to join as their is already content and already people they know and many issues addressed.
Their platform is Mastodon tho
noice
You are very optimistic about the user retention 😅
People might stay there more than on Lemmy. Pixelfed seems in a better shape than how Lemmy was during summer 2023, with the constant DDoS on Lemmy.world and the language bugs preventing comments…
I think you’re on to something.
I also think there’s a difference in where the network effect kicks in for different types of social media. IMHO, Lemmy has just enough activity to not feel empty, and even then I wish there was more comments to interact with and more niche communities. With Pixelfed, I feel like as long as there’s enough interesting posts it makes sense for people to visit regularly.
You’re 100% right about that. I’ve never ran out of nice posts to look at on Pixelfed. I think the medium & format is a lot less addictive and a lot more relaxing/positive, which might help to explain it.
It depends. I don’t feel forced to go on there because it has none of my friends. Obviously I’ll go once every few weeks to check out cool photography but I’m really not an active user there.
The Pixelfed app isn’t very good right now compared to instagram was when it wasn’t terrible. Hope that Dan hires an actual UX designer to update the app with his kickstarter money. And that he can integrate loops with it as well.
I’ve been trying to set it up for 2 weeks now, the docker containers. There are so many backwards decisions, it’s pretty clear he doesn’t understand docker unfortunately. The entire app could be a snap to set up, but it’s such a convoluted setup that it scares a lot of people away. (It pretty much is scripted assuming you will run it on a VM, and a high cost one at that).
The fact that it’s built on PHP and Laravel in 2025 says a lot, and the fact that he started Loops this year on the same architecture also says a lot. It just doesn’t scale, it’s locked to a single host, and he’s finding that as the servers are tipping over.
I’m not a PHP fan but it scales better than Python or Ruby (Mastodon) does. I think Dan is a cowboy of an engineer, but blaming performance on his stack choice is a bad take.
Not php but Laravel. Like I said it forces workers to be on the same host with the same storage as the API, it doesn’t allow scaling of multiple API nodes or worker nodes, and his docker containers require me running special commands left and right. No other docker containers of mine do that
Check out YUNOhost. I had a Pixelfed server up and running in 20 mins.
Haven’t tried self hosting Pixelfed. Just mostly been trying it out on the main instance. I’m really shocked that it’s a mess to deploy with docker if it’s on PHP/Laravel.
I hate PHP these days for dev purposes but I think laravel ought to be able to scale enough to run most Pixelfed instances. Facebook ran PHP when it was much larger than Pixelfed.
Facebook had to basically rewrite php so it would scale though, it’s called Hack now
The entire app could be a snap to set up
I refuse to use snaps
Heh
Yeah not having stories is a huge shortcoming.
I don’t even know the point is stories. Why not post… A picture or video directly?
Looking at my friends who use Instagram, it’s basically for stuff that’s either too many photos for a single post, so it’s made into a themed story, or for stuff you wanna show off, even though it isn’t quite good enough for it’s own post, so it’s on your profile for a bit, but not permanently.
user retention
yeah, hard to tell… Lemmy peaked a little under 70k MAUs and is around 45k now… if pixelfed peaks at 300k it’s reasonable to think it levels at 200k (i.e. a hundredfold increase from a month ago).
ofc every situation is different… e.g. pixelfed has tighter Mastodon integration (pro) but may depend more on a network effect (con). also iirc the lemmy MAU count methodology shifted at some point, from post/comment to post/comment/upvote/downvote which is a confound for the lemmy dropoff count…
Dans actions will decide user retention, I think.
What goes up must come down
That’s hardly a plateau. It’s not flat. LOL
The curve is leveling off in the typical manner of a plateau starting. It’s “plateauing”.
I feel insane that no one has commented this yet??? The data clearly only starts in November. At minimum this is our second plateau and I seem to recall more that have happened lmao.
Excellent point, do you happen to know where I can find longer-term usage data?
I couldn’t find anything :( oddly, fediverse.observer actually was logging data before that time but it’s only accessible to me via wayback: https://web.archive.org/web/20241010192709/https://pixelfed.fediverse.observer/dailystats
@diasporg@mas.to any reason fediverse.observer is limited to only a few months? (no clue if this cross-platform ping will work but giving it a shot)
Is it like an alt to instagram?
Yes a fediverse version of Instagram. It relies on the activity pub protocol under the hood. Which makes it possible for example to follow like and comment to a pixelfed account from a mastodon account if you have one.
I’ve only used insta for it’s reels so idk how it’s really an alternative for me
There is loops but its very very new so not as polished as other apps.
Good we need to be sustainable not be like other social media.
I’m out of the loop, what happened in January to cause that sudden growth?
I have an account but I’m not active. Just not much of a social media guy in general.
Meta ended their fact checking program and decided that hate speech against queer folks is “freedom of speech”
Then people left in droves
Do you think saying women can’t think for themselves is “hate speech”?
Long and short… Pretty much all the big tech heads sat in the front at trumps innaugeration, including Zuck. Shortly afterwards there were a bunch of coincidental “bugs” of things like, all results being hidden when searching for democrats and LGBT, and people being set to follow trump.
I’ve installed it and looked around, I don’t get it. It’s random people’s pictures.
Well, it is a photo sharing platform.
Pixelfed is definitely a good example of “its what you make it”.
Try searching for and following some hashtags that you’re interested in. I have an awesome home feed made up of art, design and photography hashtags and artists.
This is usually where these apps stop for me.
I genuinely don’t care about what other people have to share.
It has gotten really, really good for photography. There’s a bunch of incredible photographers posting their stuff on the Fediverse these days, and they enjoy the appeal of it that it’s closer to what Instagram was before it became an influencer hub.
As for random cats and dogs, I guess some people enjoy that as well.
Sounds like instagram or imgur?
The old Instagram before they added the video stuff. Pretty much a 1:1 clone of that I was told (I was never on Instagram so 🤷).
Insta
Seems pretty close to Instagram
I love art so it’s very much for me. I can see how it wouldn’t seem attractive to people that aren’t into that type of stuff though.
That’s exactly me as well. Tried it, looked at random people’s cats and dogs. Not for me.
That’s exactly me as well. Tried it, looked at random people’s cats and dogs. Not for me.
I think that’s kind of the challange we’ve got with regards to making social media from a nerds perspective. We’re a bunch of nerds that don’t understand the appeal of the things we want to make alternatives to, and wouldn’t be interested in using them even if they weren’t run by horrible evil tech corporations.
that’s because you’re supposed to follow people you want to see. you know, social media.
Yeah I try my best but have yet to convert anyone. Was already weird as a redditor previously.
Was already weird as a redditor previously.
lmao, so true lol. It especially didn’t help when I used to show my friends the most traumatizing posts of /r/shitposting. Now they don’t trust Lemmy.
That’s how Reddit was in the beginning.
Back then, you used to show someone “the front page of the internet” and it would literally be jailbait and tech news.
