I think we all can agree that the main thing holding back the growth of kbin and lemmy throughout all of the reddit drama is a lack of accessibility. Kbin and lemmy both capture the spirit of reddit in their style and userbase, but really lack the ease of use that led to millions of people adopting reddit. Looking at the trends, it is pretty clear that the growth of Kbin and lemmy (in terms of active users) has slowed considerably since the start of the reddit blackouts.

I think this particular wave of hype might be over. But, I am still extremely optimistic that the threadiverse will have more moments in the spotlight going forward.

The sad thing is a disconnect between people’s desire to leave Reddit and the accessibility of the threadiverse. I think that, since most of Reddit is mobile nowadays, that this was the major missing ingredient of the last wave of adoption, and might have prevented most users from coming over. The great thing is that it appears that mobile apps will be public in time to ride the next wave!

So what upcoming events will give redditors another push in our direction?

• The official end of 3rd party apps on 6/30. Not only does this disrupt the user experience for many people, but it’ll really make the magnitude of the change tangible for people, especially those who only use reddit for porn, who might be using 3rd party apps but know nothing about the API issue.

• Reigning in of explicit content. As Reddit moves towards it’s IPO, admin moderation on the site is bound to step up in a big way. I can’t imagine that the subs featuring extreme and graphic content will be allowed to exist by the end of the year (r/medizzy is an example, but I think that kink-specific subs will be a bigger driver). This is, importantly, going to significantly impact the user experience regardless of the actual platform you use, and may result in another round of protests.

• Out of touch shareholders and execs. It’s safe to say that the average person investing large sums into reddit’s IPO won’t be internet-dwelling redditors themselves. It’s difficult to predict what they might fight for, but it’s safe to bet that investors will want to increase the extent to which Reddit is an advertiser friendly, “clean” site. It’s hard to say whether or not this will happen, but it is completely possible that investors will push to ban porn site-wide. I can’t even imagine how that exodus would compare to the recent one. Reigning in piracy subs is another such possibility.

The point is that the threadiverse’s growth is going to look a lot like a set of stairs. Big events on Reddit and twitter will push people towards us in big waves of mass adoption that eventually fizzle out. The most important thing we can do as early-adopters is to spread the word, especially when users are discontent. The other important thing (already happening), is that people use innovative app design to ensure that people have a “soft landing” coming here from Reddit.