To be honest you are better off using 3rd party apps on mobile, web is mostly for desktop use and it’s best on desktop. That being said hopefully photon improves in coming updates on mobile as well.

While it would be best if lemmy devs can be more involved with photon, photon is still completely open source and the project is open to contributors, worst case hypothetical scenario of if the project ever gets abandoned it can always be forked, continued, or even better it can be handed by the current dev to someone who can continue to keep it alive.

If photon is widely used I see no reason the dev would just abandon it as it is rather than handing over the project to someone else who has already been contributing.

It seems you’re uncomfortable with the term “default,” and I can understand why. However, when I use “default UI,” I’m referring to what users see when they access a server through its primary link (rather than alternate UI links like those offered by lemmy.world, for example). My proposal to replace the current base UI with Photon doesn’t take away the option for users to continue using alternative UIs if they prefer. That flexibility remains intact. However, the average user, especially those new to Lemmy, is likely to access and evaluate the platform through the default link.

Unless every single server admin changes to alternative UIs manually on their own, “default UI” will exist because a lot of servers, atleast to begin with, settle on whatever Lemmy comes with.

This proposal is aimed at both server admins, particularly those managing “general-purpose” servers where average users are most likely to join, and Lemmy devs themselves. A modern, intuitive default UI could significantly improve first impressions and help attract a broader audience.

In my experience, Photon has been responsive and largely glitch-free in terms of performance, especially compared to Reddit’s new UI, which I personally find horrible. That said, hearing that Photon is being rewritten for further performance improvements is encouraging and only adds to its potential as a suitable base UI.

BTW I actually used an outdated version of Photon on the screenshot, looks like lemmy.world haven’t updated their photon version, I have updated the post with the updated current Photon UI, I think more people will like it. It’s an improvement from the older version.

I mistakenly used the old photon version, I have updated the post with the image of the new current updated version of Photon.

You can customize photon’s post layout to make it more info dense, even more than the newer image I have attached on the post.

I should mention this is mainly for desktop users :), but even for mobile users, people usually check the website first before downloading apps.

People who prefer old Reddit often say the same thing about new Reddit. While old Reddit, or in this case a barebones, simpler UI, is lightweight and “slick,” the reality is that if we want Lemmy to grow beyond its current base of tech-savvy users, we need to consider a different perspective, one that focuses on the needs and expectations of the average user.

For example, despite old Reddit being lighter and having its loyal supporters, 80 to 90 percent of users still prefer new Reddit. As someone who used to moderate on Reddit, I can confirm that the majority of traffic came from new Reddit, even though old Reddit was still available. This highlights how a more modern and user-friendly interface is often what appeals to the majority.

From my personal experience as someone who primarily used new Reddit, Photon feels far more intuitive and familiar compared to the default Lemmy UI. That said, I am not claiming Photon is perfect. However, considering that most alternative UIs are currently niche and their development relies heavily on a small group of contributors, Photon stands out as a mature and robust option.

While it is encouraging to see Lemmy’s developers working on improving the default UI, the project is still in its early stages and may or may not succeed. Why start from scratch or bet on something that is just beginning development when we already have a well-developed alternative like Photon? By adopting Photon as the default, we can take advantage of an existing solution that is in good shape, has significant potential, and can continue to improve with more widespread adoption and contributions.

This approach would ensure that Lemmy becomes more accessible and appealing to the average user, while still leaving room for users to choose other UIs if they prefer. First impressions matter, and adopting a polished and familiar UI could make all the difference in attracting and retaining new users.

BTW those who want to can still change to alternative UIs, nothing will stop them from doing so.

I already created the discord server a long while back when I was at r/RedditAlternatives, people knew what it was and many average users were already on the platform hence accessible, matrix is great but still not at a stage where the average person uses/knows it compared to tech nerds or enthusiasts, besides we already have around 100 people if not more on the discord server, reusing it made more sense for now although I wouldn’t mind creating a matrix in the future once the community grows to offer another way of keeping in touch with our community for those who have or are ready to go to Matrix :)

https://github.com/jwr1/interstellar

YOU FORGOT ROBO TAXIS MAN! THEY ARE COMING NEXT YEAR

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Check out !cars@lemmy.world

The mod their is dead inactive and the community is stagnant. I am although in the process of taking it over, hopefully everything works out.

EDIT: Was able to takeover it!

🤝 🫡

Hey, r/fuckcars is a thing on Reddit too, what we should focus on is bringing all kinds of people, lemmy can have both who love and hate cars just like Reddit, that’s the aim haha.

This shows how important choices are, one of the big reasons BYD was successful is because of the variety of body styles they offer and not just SUVs like almost every automaker likes to these days.

Absolutely right, engagement is key!

Thanks to federation and open source software, this shouldn’t be an issue.

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I think comparing that era and this era is a mistake, besides if Lemmy lets say goes closed source which is EXTREMELY unlikely to happen, someone will not make the mistake again to not fork it to keep an open source version going.

besides it’s not just open source, it is also the FEDIVERSE, this is the most important, this platform is federated and decentralized unlike Reddit ever was as it has always been centralized by design. Both Lemmy and Reddit are very different from design here.

Hello I was the one who wrote this write up on r/RedditAlternatives, just to clarify regarding my Kbin remarks, yesterday on January 3rd, kbin was indeed not working properly for the whole day yesterday with errors almost everywhere, even Ernest, the developer behind Kbin acknowledged this and put an announcement even on Mastodon.

But a one day error is not the only reason, in-fact I’ve made several huge and massive contributions to the Kbin community with the creations of m/AskKbin, m/RedditMigration and so on activaly moderating and contributing when it comes to engagement and so on (I even created multiple guides that had huge reach such as “The Redditor’s guide to Kbin” and even published the guide to a website), I spent tons of months solely as a Kbin user - but I was reaching a point where the unstability and immaturity of Kbin was really pushing me to put it down and come to lemmy, especially considering how mature lemmy has become and is surely much more stable than kbin at the moment and has been so in the forseeable past. So maybe it came of as bashing, but to me as someone who actually gave Kbin a chance, it was the hard reality and I had to say it.

Regarding the open source part, I would like to agree to disagree with you there, sure you are still using Lemmy regardless of the instance and the development is still done by the same devs that led to such concerns, this was exactly my reason to stay away from lemmy and go to Kbin, but now I’ve realized that open source actually helps keep the developers in check as in that they will obviously know that if they do something against the users here and let’s say, push some of their idealogoies in some way hypothetically, there will be a huge chance someone will fork Lemmy and use that as an opportunity to take away the users, this is the advantage of open source, the possibility of forking a project helps keep the original project in check and when it comes to moderation or censorship, this instance is not moderated by the same people behind lemmy.ml or lemmygrad either.