You can see it if you check https://fedidb.org/. Monthly active users have gone from just a hair under one million to somewhere around 1.4 million and still growing. How do we think this will go? How do we feel about this influx of new users? Has PixelFed done something different that Mastodon hasn’t?
I feel like I didn’t really recognize having different “platforms” like Mastodon, PixelFed, etc would give multiple opportunities for the fediverse to make a “first” impression with people.
I suspect image browsing is less reliant on specific content creators, so Pixelfed probably has an advantage there compared to something like Mastodon. You’re only going to move to Mastodon if the people you wanna follow are there too, while if you’re for example just looking to browse pictures of food and cats you don’t really care who is posting so you’re not as reluctant to try Pixelfed.
I don’t use either Instagram or Pixelfed though so might be totally off base here.
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I never vibed with Twitter or Instagram, so I struggled with both Mastodon and Pixelfed. It wasn’t until I started looking for content based around my hobbies that Pixelfed really started becoming interesting to me. That, and having the ability to be absolutely deluged in pictures of cats if I need a morale boost. Mastodon is still something that I’m having trouble getting value out of. I may just end up being a Lemmy and Pixelfed user.