As a strong supporter of open-source and community-funded projects like Lemmy, which prioritize serving users over investors, I believe Lemmy has significant potential, and that's why I am here. However, it is clear that its growth is nearing a plateau in its current form. Despite the surge in users following Reddit's API changes, Lemmy continues to primarily attract tech-savvy individuals, politically left-aligned users, and those accustomed to old Reddit. For Lemmy to reach the broader average general audience, meaningful changes are necessary.
The rise of Bluesky demonstrates the importance of ease of use and a user-friendly design. Its polished and familiar interface is a key reason for its growth and appeal as an alternative to platforms like X/Twitter. This same ease of use is what Mastodon lacked, leading to its initial hype fading quickly. The average user is unlikely to adapt to something that feels complicated or unfamiliar, and this challenge also applies to Lemmy.
As someone who started as an average Reddit user and became more tech-savvy over time, I can confidently say that first impressions matter. When users first visit lemmy.world, the default UI is often enough to discourage them from staying. Most will not explore the homepage sidebar to explore, figure out and switch to one of the alternative UIs available, which is unfortunate because a better UI could make a huge difference.
This is why I propose that large servers like lemmy.world adopt Photon UI as the default web interface. Photon is currently the best and most mature alternative UI, offering a visually appealing, modular design that feels familiar to users of new Reddit. It makes excellent use of screen space and provides customization options like compact and cozy views. Unlike some other alternative UIs, Photon is actively maintained and ready for widespread use, although in no way is it perfect, this can also help bring in more contributors to the project development.
While it is important to continue offering other UIs as options, I believe adopting Photon as the default UI could make Lemmy far more appealing to the average Reddit user. First impressions are crucial, and the current default UI has turned off many potential users. If we want Lemmy to succeed as a true Reddit alternative, we need to prioritize user experience and accessibility. Thankfully today, Lemmy still continues to be THE biggest Reddit alternative, while our userbase is still considerably smaller than Reddit, it's the biggest of any alternatives, and Lemmy continues to somewhat be in the spotlight for those seeking alternatives, we can't let growth stagnate, it's high time we make the platform more welcoming and appealing for the average joe.
EDIT: The image I attached is from photon.lemmy.world, which I just realized is using the outdated version of Photon, I have updated the image to the updated current photon version from phtn.app. There are a lot of improvements made.
My other comment was blunt so here's my attempt to be more constructive, this is all my personal opinion and my reaction was in response to making it the default I don't think that you should stop working on it or even that I am objectively correct.
There is way too much empty space. I don't use it but from OPs screenshot it appears this is to allow for larger thumbnails. It would be better to have them smaller and expandable if someone finds one interesting. Moving the thumbnails to the left of the text would eliminate all the blank space your eyes have to travel across to view them as well.
Shitty microsoft paint edits to demonstrate what I'm trying to say:
Freed up space in green:
That's an option. You can change the thumbnail alignment to the left, then use compact instead of list mode. OP is using bad settings.
Just played around with it a little and it is much more tolerable than OP makes it look like. I wasn't able to get it as compact as the default view but I don't hate it.
That's very important