I’m just another reddit refugee to be honest

  • The outlook of having to use the official Reddit mobile app. No thanks. Even if the Fediverse only has a tiny fraction of the user base of Reddit, I’ll still encounter more original content in an hour on here than I’d come across during a whole day on the ad-infested active battery-drainage that is Reddit’s sorry excuse for a mobile app.

  • I made my account about two years ago, same with mastodon etc., because I switched to Linux back then and was looking for more Open Source and Privacy Friendly projects. But back then Lemmy had pretty much no users, so it was so boring that I quickly was on Reddit again. Now I saw how many people started to switch to Lemmy, and I remembered that I already have an account here, sooooo yea I try to be more active here than on Reddit now again.

  • As many have said and will say, the recent Reddit changes (at least to an extent). In my case, the announcement really just accelerated my plans. I’ve been interested in the “Fediverse” for a while now, and I’ve been largely convinced it may be one solution to what I see as the malfunction of our modern internet. When I was younger, I was convinced the access to information and the ability to connect with others from across the globe would reap great rewards for all involved. In more recent years, I’ve come to wonder if social media was a mistake and whether the internet as it is will do more harm than good. But the “Fediverse” - decentralization - gives me some hope.

    So, I’ve been keeping an eye on ActivityPub projects. I’ve been messing with PeerTube for a while, but not much else. I could never really get into Twitter, so I couldn’t really get into Mastodon (I tried a few times). “Reddit alternatives” were on my to-do list. I kept putting it off, but like I said, the recent announcements finally inspired me to start looking more closely. I was actually surprised to find an alternative as good as Lemmy, even if it isn’t perfect. Kind of kicking myself for failing to find the motivation sooner.

  • Commenting from kbin. I actually feel kbin is a more reddit-like site and beginner friendly. and I love that we can interact from different sites.

    I am more of a forum-type user and not a microblogger, so I liked that aspect of it all. I dislike Mastodon because of the “shout to the void” style that people post on there. I like a site that has sub-communities that all aggregate into a front-page, but this is a little different as I subscribe to individual sites rather than a moderated community within a monopolated site like Reddit.

    So rather than a Reddit alternative, I actually like it as a re-thought forum. I’ve also enjoyed the culture of the fediverse of “we’re not here to attack everything you say” so I’ve felt more open to comment rather than lurk.

    • I had been on Mastodon since November last year and never felt that “shouting to the void” feeling. But I understand that is not for everybody.

      Microblogging sites with no algorithm like Mastodon or Calckey, require you to invest time to follow, comment and care for other people’s content to make friends and followers.

      But as you said, some people don’t like or have time for that, and forum like site like this are better. I actually giving this a try, because or Reddit I wasn’t the most engaged user either.

      • I’ve been active on Mastodon/Calckey about the same amount of time. I never cared for microblogging sites before, but taking the time to find, follow, comment and make internet “friends” has really made it a pleasant experience.

        Reddit I’ve been on since before the Digg migration, but was never super active there, more of a lurker. So I’m hoping to do better here as well.

  • I’ve been posting on message boards forever (Game FAQ, IGN, RealGM to name a few), and reddit was my next foray. I was pretty sad to hear about the API news and I saw Lemmy mentioned in one of the threads, so I decided to join.

  • Reddit was my primary content aggregator. I’m from the old days, though, and they almost lost me with the redesign. With old.reddit.com though I could keep the experience I preferred, so I stuck around.

    Now that they’re pricing out third party mobile clients, though, I’m done with it. I do like that experience, though. I’ve use Diaspora for years now (after similarly jumping off the FB ship) so I when I found out there was a fediverse alternative with a similar feel I jumped at it. Doubly so when I saw that it was mostly associated with those of the leftist thought. I’m not that active on Diaspora because of all the alt- and far-right shitheels that migrated there when fucking FB got too “woke” for them. I’ve blocked more people there than I’ve followed. Lemmy’s socialist bent is refreshing, though I’d like to see more libertarian socialist (e.g. anarchist, bookchin communalist/Rojava’s democratic confederalist) discussions happening. I’m new though so maybe I just haven’t found them.

  • I jumped on the Mastodon train last April when the population started to grow more quickly. I’ve always been more of a forum/message board user than a microblogger, though, and was hoping this space would take off in a similar way (if not for similar reasons, or for them, as the case may be).

    I’m very bullish on decentralization for the forum/aggregator space, since that’s fundamentally where these types of communities have their roots anyway, so I’m excited to see people showing up.

    Hopefully we’re nearing a population size where significant quirks can get ironed out, but with an audience that is technical or avant-garde enough to put up with them for a bit.

  •  Ada   ( @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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    1 year ago

    I joined lemmy.ml maybe 6 months ago as I was exploring the fediverse. Fell in love with it, and spun up an instance with my partner. It’s been sitting here quietly most of that time, but has exploded recently!

  • I came here 3 years ago when I started looking for reddit alternatives, for a while i lurked here then i eventually visisted it less and less until now

    Tbh i feel a few weeks ago the site was basically dead with most posts on front page having less than 10 upvotes and low engagement on all the posts so the new people joining gave the site a revival in a way or something

    • Pretty much this. The Reddit exodus is looking similar to the Digg exodus did, but it hasn’t fully happened yet. If Reddit’s bullshit API changes actually go through, and especially if they kill off old.reddit, I suspect we’ll see a real site-killing exodus. Reddit is incoherently stupid for doing this. They literally have a well documented example of exactly what happens when you do this hyper-capitalist shit on a userbase that doesn’t want it. That’s why Reddit exists today without much competition. Too blind to see so they’ll gladly let history repeat itself.