I remember posting here a lot about a year ago, mainly before I discovered other fedi sites, but looking at here, was it always a news community? Most of the posts here are articles
I think its because small communities have a hard time getting natural conversation. I am surprised that there aren't more people asking questions or talking.
A year ago was a weird time, given we were dealing with the Reddit fallout that wildly inflated engagement, with people trying to get a feel for the platform (both Lemmy in general and Beehaw).
I tend to use !chat for things that aren't articles. Not that that has to happen, it's just how the communities I'm active in have evolved.
I am also still here from then, though I don't often comment in some spaces - like this one. Sometimes I feel that I don't have much to offer, comment-wise, due to being a member of several of the most privileged groups of people and (possibly unnecessarily) being acutely aware that some spaces don't really need more opinions from the intersection I inhabit.
I also started using Lemmy during the Reddit fallout, and stayed for a few weeks. After that I started seeing less posts that interested me, and I took a break from Lemmy for a while. And finally returned a week ago.
Even on Reddit I see less interesting posts now. Especially the amount of discussion posts also seems to be lower there now. The official Reddit app is also a lot better for reading than for writing.
came from reddit here, too. I often am too anxious to comment for a variety of reasons, so I mostly read. I try to post things when I get the courage to.
There is indeed quite a shift towards just posting articles. A lot of people don’t regularly post (at least it was like that on Reddit), and for those people, the articles are great.
It is hard to keep conversations active in smaller communities. As people will quickly stop posting new chats and questions if there are no replies.