Forget growth, lets enjoy what we have
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.
A concern that I haven't seen mentioned is Eternal September. Right now, Redditors are the school kids who are barging into someone else's space and trying to make it their own, without first knowing what the community is like.
The same thing happened on Reddit. I've always seen the Obama AMA as triggering Reddit's Eternal September, though it can be argued that it was happening before that. The influx of users killed the Alot Monster, and forget about anyone helping with grammar; they'd be ridiculed and downvoted into the negative. Then, Reddit got rid of the up/down counter altogether, so nobody coming from Facebook would end up with hurt feelings.
Anyhow, there's a risk that Redditors are going to ruin the fediverse. I'm new here and can already see it happening. Fingers crossed though, I'm staying optimistic!
Thank you for bringing up Eternal September. I feel like it's one particularly relevant to the situation right now. I'm new here and I'm just jumping in and seeing what happens, but I'm aware that I should probably read more than I write.
maybe, this is definitely a respectful way to enter a community. but i think no matter what, people are going to feel like any community was at its peak right when they joined and they'll impose the eternal september flag upon whatever next the influx after they joined happens to be.