Great post. Lemmy right now reminds me of Reddit 15-16 years ago. Mostly tech workers or tech hobbyists who know far more than an average person and thus aren't put off by something new and different. I don't think Lemmy is very complicated as a concept and it boggles my mind that people are saying "making a new account on Lemmy.world or Kbin.social is too complicated for normal people." Yet I see it written all the time, sometimes here but mostly on reddit. And who knows; maybe the latter is a disinformation campaign since we know reddit pulls sneaky shit like that all the time (and targeting Lemmy, like with the warnings they placed on links at one point).

Lemmy's barriers to entry also somewhat remind me of early Facebook after they expanded to several universities. You needed to have an email address from one of those univerisities in order to create an account. So, not so much self selection in that scenario but another gate to keep people out.

I can respect Tildes' decision to become invite-only (with a very limited number of invites) for that reason. Lemmy, I think, is prioritizing growth at the potential cost of future community. Tildes is doing the opposite. I don't think one is necessarily more correct. And, with Lemmy, there are tons of alternatives waiting in the wings. Hopefully a balance can be struck.

I think the real test comes when the first wave of good third party apps are released. Sync, in particular, seems very promising given the developer's reddit app. Anything that can make it easier for people.