So since the mass-exodus from Reddit we can see that the total amount of active users has gone down rather heavily: https://i.imgur.com/MeQok2F.png
This can seem a bit sad at a first glance. Where are we heading? But one has to remember that back during the summer many of us created several accounts to settle at an instance, there were also problems with spam-bots of various kinds.
So active users in itself is actually not that interesting. At least not the comparison with the peak. Instead we can watch the total amount of posts, how is that looking?
Well it's steadily going up actually: https://i.imgur.com/i3Vse7Y.png
Though the increase has gone down slightly. This number however is influenced by other parameters as well. There are several reposts bots and such that mass-post to different instances. But it's definitley a good tell it's not going down.
Another interesting factor is comments: https://imgur.com/hWT8xvF
The amount of comments per month has gone down, but not by all that much. A 10% decrease from the top or so. What's interesting here is that the decline has plateaued, which could indicate that the userbase has settled and become somewhat consistent. This is great news.
All in all, it seems like Lemmy has settled into a rather comfortable spot, with a decent amount of users, posts and comments. That is very slightly decreasing. Ideally we'd like to see this trend reverse, and perhaps that might happen naturally with due time when things have settled even more. For Lemmy I'd reckon the growth will look a bit like this. Whenever Reddit does something horrific (and it will happen more), we'll see a mass-exodus with more users over here. Then it'll decrease for a bit, settle and hopefully we can rinse and repeat. Anyway - that's some irrelevant thoughts from me on the subject.
Just wanted to post these rather good statistics!
If you believe data entry is 80% of the work here, you do not in the slightest understand the other ”20%”. I can assure you that data entry is the least of your problem. If you have the data, a script to enter it into a DB will be the least of the worries here.
That’s also why you likely can pick someone up on Fiverr to do it for you for a couple of hundred bucks. Or do it yourself. Want someone to build your app, even without the data entry? You’re looking at thousands.
And that’s basically what you will need to do. Pay someone to do the work you can’t. Look at upwork or similar sites.
I get paid $150/h to write code at work (horrible pay compared to many parts of the world). Why would I spend months on your project for less?
What do you think the response would be if you asked on a remodelling forum, how you were to complete your new kitchen? You’ve bought the tools needed, the material. Drawings are made. It’s just the last ”20%” left. Where can I find someone to do it? Well, it’s not the last 20%. The job hasn’t even started yet. And you pay someone, or learn to do it yourself.