One day, I was about to install RedReader through F-droid. For some reason I searched for “Reddit” in the search bar instead of “RedReader” and saw Voyager, Jerboa and some other Lemmy clients there.

I got curious and installed “Eternity for Lemmy”. I browsed around, then decided to created my first account on lemmy.ml. Instantly fell in love with how nice most people were, how quickly I got answers and replies and the closely-knit feeling of a small community where it’s not surprising to see the same user in many different places.

I found Lemmy and decentralized social media by sheer luck.

I know most of you came here after the reddit API changes to spite the corporate site, but I wonder if there are other stories.

P.S. I find it sort of weird how lemmy.ml censors the word for “female dog”. Cmon, that’s such a tame and common insult! Can’t even quote Jesse Pinkman properly.

  • I started using Lemmy because, after a previous Reddit blackout a few years, the CEO of Reddit (Steve Huffman, AKA Spez) released a statement that (while I’ve long sense forgotten exactly what he said) made it seem like he was disappointed in the Reddit community for not supporting pedophilia. I used alternativeto.net to find Reddit alternatives and, because Lemmy wasn’t at the top of the list at the time, I used a few other websites before using Lemmy. At first I used both simultaneously but I deleted my Reddit account after the API changes.

  •  ctkatz   ( @ctkatz@lemmy.ml ) 
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    9 hours ago

    i used the android app “reddit is fun”. i had stopped using reddit well before the api and public offering drama so i had absolutely no idea it was going on. i needed to get an answer to a question and the google search led to a reddit link. typically i normally chose web links, but this time i said, what the hell, and opened the link with rif. then i read the changelog of the app. that pointed to a lemmy instance for rif (which does not have a lemmy version btw) and that’s where i caught up on all the bullshit i missed during the intervening 3 years.

    ps i also have a .ml account. it was the easiest one to create an account with at the time. if i could transfer all the stats and comments i made with this account and transfer it to one that allowed swearing (for instance you can’t use the word that describes selling one’s self for money or other favors that sounds similar to a garden tool called a hoe) i’d do it.

  • +1 for Reddit API exodus.

    Lemmy was sold to me as a Reddit replacement. And it is, superficially. I knew it wasn’t going to be drop-in going in. But the longer I use it the more I think it’s not really quite like Reddit, and never will be. And that’s fine. Lemmy is its own character and I like it for what it is.

    I still use Reddit. Lemmy doesn’t scratch all the itches for me. But only old.reddit on the desktop and on mobile with a UI de-shittifying extension. I’m amazed they still offer it at all. Once that’s cut off, something I’ve been bracing myself for for years, I’ll consider the UX enshittification to have fully completed and I’ll truly bail. I simply refuse to use their gentrified UI. And I’m tired as it is having to slap on compatibility layers just to keep their less terrible alternative on life support; I’m not going to do the same thing to make their mainstream UI somewhat more palatable.

  • In the wake of the Reddit API changes, I decided to jump off that ship. Saw Lemmy mentioned but a lot of posts were painting it negatively, due to federation things and tankies. I was on Squabbles (lol) as my Reddit replacement platform for a few months before that disintegrated and then finally arrived at Lemmy.

    •  Achyu   ( @Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
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      18 hours ago

      I moved to Lemmy during the Reddit API stuff

      Saw Lemmy mentioned but a lot of posts were painting it negatively, due to federation things and tankies.

      The tankie stuff was what made me try lemmy out and stay.
      Thought that it’d be an actually leftist community, if it was facing such terms.
      And it was indeed one. And is quite good.

      I got know about the Dessalines audiobook channel too and that’s nice too.

    • I was weening myself off the reddit news cycle and then Baconit got killed by the API and that had been my only venue for using reddit soooooo I started looking for alternatives and already had Fdroid installed…one thing led to another

  • When the Reddit API thing was going down I was looking for a place to jump ship before Apollo went down and Lemmy was one of the options. I found Voyager and later I joined other parts of the Fediverse

  •  Ludrol   ( @Ludrol@szmer.info ) 
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    517 hours ago

    I discovered it years before the great reddit exodus of 2023 but then it didn’t have any discussions worth participating in so I didn’t even make an account.

  •  illi   ( @illi@lemm.ee ) 
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    3 hours ago

    It was indeed during the API exodus. I used the official app so I didn’t have strong feelings about it, but I really hated how they handled it all. Of course it was discussed everywhere and I was like “I hate it like everybody else, but there isn’t really an alternative” and someone was like “uhm, how about Lemmy or kbin [or other stuff I don’t remember I think]?”.

    I looked into it, got confused, asked the guy some questions and they were kind enough to explain. Looked into it more and made a slow transition. Really helped this was at the peak of the exodus so everything was firing up here.

  • Earlier this year, I decided to engage with social media, so I searched for lists of social media websites and signed up on the ones I could find. Lemmy was on one of the lists and also happens to be one of the websites I enjoy the most! 😃

  • I tried it near to when it first launched, I had been hoping for a Fediverse replacement for Reddit ever since Mastodon (I liked the idea of Mastodon but I wasn’t a big Twitter user). It was pretty inactive back then and didn’t cover enough subjects I was interested in to hold me initially. Then I came over fully with the Reddit exodus.

  • They took away apps that worked and apps that had accessibility features built in in favour of monetizing everything which sits very badly with me as a concept so I stopped being a part of how that company makes money and I joined here.

    Now my stupid comments make nobody money. Win win.

  • Initially made an account on lemmy.ml in 2022. I was eyeing the fediverse, and when I found that there is a “reddit alternative”, I wanted to check it out, but there wasn’t much activity so I didn’t use it much other than checking on it occasionally.
    Then in 2023 I made an account on tchncs…when majority of users also hopped on lemmy.