Been thinking of making a post like this for some time, apologies if some of this is not completely relevant: this community seems more like it’s about Reddit the platform/product than Reddit the social “thing”, but I’m sure a lot of people have similar experiences to mine. Maybe on some instances more than others.
Here’s the one of the last comments I wrote as a regular Reddit user, on the eve of the blackout (almost a year ago to the day), under a post titled “Will your participation in Reddit change”:
My comment
I will keep searching Google for Reddit help threads, but as a cultural and news aggregator I think this is the end for me. Maybe I will check it every so often. On desktop. On the old site. Until they sunset that too.
I wouldn’t be against using the first party app if it wasn’t so awful to use.
It’s a massive shame that we’ve all collectively agreed that Reddit is the de facto way to create open communities online. There were so many forums that could fill the void left by Reddit for things like tech and art and they’ve all shut down in the past decade.
I try not to be too negative about the evolution and constant growth of the userbase of the site and of the internet as a whole, but I’ve really felt like things are moving in a direction I can’t even be cautiously optimistic about lately.
I think of all the mod tools that will be defunct. The commonly cited example is that people who comment excessively on adult subs are automatically barred from commenting on the teenagers subreddit. Sure the admins can whip up functionality to do this, but this site was built on custom tools and custom CSS and all that. I think the API was one among the many secret sauces that give Reddit this staying power. These sites and forums I talked about - I used to hop from one to the next year after year. Until I found Reddit a decade ago.
I like that I choose my subs and that I don’t get algorithmically ordered sludge designed to game the algorithm on my homepage. Yes the sensibilities of the lowest common denominator redditors are gamed by people posting, but that’s (in my opinion) acceptable.
Frankly if they kept the old Reddit Gold pricing (4 bucks per month/30 annual) and gated unrestricted API access behind it I would have been inclined to finally give Reddit money. I use it a lot, I don’t mind paying now that I can afford it. But something about how it’s all going down really doesn’t fill me with confidence.
I’ve been trying to write a post about this for a while now, but I haven’t felt like it was relevant. Thanks for asking here
Reading through this is a bit funny, in retrospect, seeing how Reddit-centric my understanding of the internet had become at the time. I am happy to report that I have checked the home page maybe a half dozen times since the blackout, instead of once or twice a week like I expected. I suppose the disgusting state of the heavily astroturfed worldnews sub was a big part of it as well: for me Reddit was the one big online platform where the average visible user didn’t seem to be very misinformed about Palestine (at least not by default), and it was frankly very sad to see where it got in the past few months.
I do miss Reddit, I haven’t been able to replace it outright. I’m from Lebanon, and Lebanese Twitter is (if you can imagine it) even more of a toxic cesspool than regular Twitter. I’m not on Facebook (also cesspool here), I’m not on Instagram - my point is I don’t get anything about my country on ostensibly user-curated social media. /r/Lebanon was very far from perfect, but it was nice to get a trickle of local news with users who were more in line with my own politics. The local news outlets focus on a lot of irrelevant crap, the sub’s news feed was a bit more interesting.
One thing I loved about that subreddit was that users with more mainstream views in my country (eg. transphobia-as-default) were allowed to spout their bullshit in the subreddit with little mod pushback (if it’s just JAQing off etc, not harrassing people obviously). Then the regulars would dogpile on that user’s post - very refreshing! And very validating I would imagine for anyone who is used to hearing this shit everyday.
I was applying to be a mod to help keep the sub moving, at one point, but hey. Maybe that headache was never worth it. Still, I felt like I lost one of my online homes.
More generally, I have enjoyed my first year on Lemmy, although the experience has been lacking in many ways. For one, while Reddit has a reputation as a meme cemetery, the memes here are generally a bit moldier. But that’s okay. The fact that there’s fewer posts I think isn’t necessarily a bad thing either, I think we all preferred Reddit’s slightly slower homepage in 2013 than the one we left in 2023, that would regurgitate more and more from the bottom of the barrel if you were willing to keep scrolling.
I’ve toyed with opening a Lebanon community here on dbzer0, having opened one on FMHY that nobody used. But it wouldn’t be the same, and I wouldn’t know how to populate it. I posted maybe 2 non-question posts on Reddit in my decade+ of being a regular user, but I wrote tons of comments. It also helped keep my English sharper, I think.
I’ve reactivated my old Instagram account and it’s pretty ass out there. The ad/post ratio is just egregious, and they’ll just serve you random posts from random pages. I want to see my friends goddamn it, isn’t this what your platform is supposed to be for? For those of you who don’t know, the app will also send you a notification once or twice a day suggesting you look at “today’s top reels”. I have never watched a reel of my own will, fuck off.
Point being, the main platforms people use online haven’t been up my alley. I can only hope the zoomer dumbphone pushback keeps expanding, and that social media starts being seen as something for older generations. Wishful thinking?
This is just a post about enshittification, everyone’s favorite word, but every time I think about it for more than 2 minutes I can’t help but miss a simpler internet. Some part of me was hoping it would kickstart me “growing out” of spending this much time online per day (not everyone spends a ton of time online), but it hasn’t.
Also every time I ask something longer than 20 words on Discord some middle schooler will reply “yap”, even in the channels designated for questions. Discord has had its uses (yes I know there’s privacy concerns), but it’s hardly a replacement for Reddit, or forums. Both of which are/were searchable. But enough yapping from me.
Thoughts? How has the exodus been for you? Is this how Digg users felt?
Werid, I brought up the notion that I don’t agree with transgenderism and was permabanned from Reddit admins. I didn’t said hate or kill or die or insult them, just don’t agree with it.
Honestly I spend less time on it and that’s a good thing. I read more news, blogs, use other sites etc
If I want to see stuff from my own country I’ll read the local news
I don’t treat Lemmy like some Omni platform like reddit was, but more of a niche platform like all the others. I don’t use Twitter, Instagram kr anything either.
Reddit is dead and buried, what’s left are bots and teenagers. Those yappy discordians now run the show, most of us 10+ reddit veterans either came to lemmy, or gave up on “the internet”. I’m pretty sure you’re not the only one who considered reddit to be the internet at that point.
Most power users, myself included, spent 5+ hours per day there, at times more so than at their paid careers. Especially the mods (I’ve been moderating 6 subs, two of which had over 1M and 5M users).
I do miss some of those communities. I don’t miss modding. Leaving reddit showed me what ungodly amounts of time I sunk into that platform, now that I had to fill other means to close the gap. With Lemmy it’s 20-30 min a day, often spread out over 5+ sessions since there’s not much to say or see that takes me more than 5 min at a time.
I’ve stayed on some of the moderator discord channels since those are fine folks, and chat with them in the off-topic rooms. Which shows me that reddit has gone off the deep end once and for all. With many decent folks leaving, ads and bots exploding all over the place, only the die hard shitposters and radical opinion leaders stuck around. They might not have had a digg moment, but are going the way of tumblr, which is arguably worse.
What I’m trying to say is that while Lemmy isn’t the arch we wanted it to be, going back isn’t possible either since the harbor burned down.
Personally, I’ve started a PhD just about a year ago at the time I left, and it does plenty of filling the gap in my daily calendar…
on which topic you are doing PhD. just curious cuz I want to do it too.
I wish I could be like some of the other commenters here and say that leaving Reddit has been good because of the time suck that it was, or that I’m self-hosting xyz, but I can’t. And I am truly jealous.
I’m still looking to scratch that itch and there’s…nothing. I’m just very bored now but I haven’t gone back because I’m so angry at the way it ended. I do like Lemmy a lot, and Mastodon since I also gave up Twitter, but for better or worse they were a big part of my life and I’m not doing amazing things and coming to wonderful realizations now that they’re gone. It’s just depressing all around.
I volunteer in disaster response, and hurricane season started today and Reddit and Twitter were huge resources for us. Do you know how much of a loss that is? That can’t be replaced…entire communities, regions, parishes, counties, cities, states…they aren’t going to magically swap from one service to another because spez and Space Karen are assholes.
I’m sorry for the rant but enshittification sucks and I am sad.
TLDR I agree with you, OP.
In terms of boredom, it’s a healthy thing! Boredom is what pushes people to learn new skills, find new hobbies, and just generally do things. I think the demonization of boredom is very bad for society.
In terms of disaster relief, that sucks. If you have to use Reddit for that, then so be it. People getting the help they need in an emergency is more important than sticking it to spez.
It was the one thing that consistently relieved some of my ADHD boredom though, which is priceless lol
Haha ya, I totally get that. For me: I’ve been doing more little projects on my phone (designing games on my off time, researching work problems, etc), started carrying around a journal to write in on my bag, I downloaded the Shonen Jump app and started reading manga for anime I’ve wanted to watch but haven’t gotten around to, and I listen to podcasts not just when I’m driving. Hope some of those suggestions help or kickstart your own idea.
I also want to start carrying a book around with me like I did when I was a kid, because I have such a big list to get through and I have lots of pdfs for rpg books I’ve downloaded but haven’t read. I’ve tried to read them on my phone, and I succeeded with one book but the screen is so small lol. Maybe I need to look for a good e-reader that reads pdfs without straining my eyes, like I heard e-ink readers or something like that do, but apparently not with pdfs, I guess?
Thanks for the suggestions, I appreciate it! I can only listen to podcasts when I drive really, it’s the only time I’m able to focus on them. I can’t turn one on at home and just…listen. Maybe if I’m cleaning or something but I prefer music to do that for motivation.
I have a Kindle Oasis and I LOVE it! It’s the perfect size to slip in my purse, it’s thin, and I have multiple books with me at all times. I highly recommend it!
Thanks! I’ll look for that one! And you can tell, I really want to avoid returning to my reddit level of online addiction I was at previously. I’m close with Lemmy, but there’s not enough content for me to get there yet lol.
Makes perfect sense…good luck in your journey :)
Since the whole API fiasco and losing reddit is fun, I wiped my reddit account, downloaded my comment history and then used a bot to wipe all my comments and posts, doing so got me banned from commenting on a lot of subs, something to do with the speed that the comments were edited at or something. Either way, I don’t really care.
I still use my reddit account for lurking, there are some niche active subs that still have good information/discussion that unfortunately haven’t been picked up elsewhere, but I have those subs opened in old reddit on Firefox and I don’t venture outside of that, and I’ll never contribute or comment again.
I get that I’m contributing to their traffic still, but I was an active member for 12+ years, and I’m still pissed they fucked the entire community to profit from our fucking content. Definitely won’t be contributing to their content again.
“downloaded my comment history”
But… Why?
Cause it’s fun to sometimes go back and see what you were like at that point in time, just like photos
I lucked out in this regard.
I was able to join up on sopuli, a local Finnish instance with a small but active number of users, who post about and occasionally comment on local things in [email protected]. It’s still quieter that reddit in that regard, but I do at least get some local news.
I’ve also made a huge effort to bootstrap an active anime community here on lemmy, and luckily I’ve not been alone in that. [email protected] has been growing steadily. Instead of getting my anime fanart on reddit like I used to, I upped my usage of pixiv significantly, and then translated that into several communities and activity on lemmy.
If you can, try and get your news from local outlets, and if you actually get into that habit, set up a community for your local area, and start curating articles worth sharing, and posting them there.
My problem with ani.social is that it’s full of moe, and I HATE moeshit with a passion.
That’s too bad, because I’m almost solely responsible for that particular genre of post on the threadiverse, and I don’t plan on stopping.
A “passionate loathing” of a concept sounds like a 100% “you” problem.
Also, I list literally every moe community I run in each of the sidebars of every community. It’d take you less than a minute to find and block them all.
And if you’re using “moe” to refer to anime in general, you know v19 introduced instance blocking, right?
I too miss reddit sometimes. Mostly because it had such a large userbase that there was always something interesting to find/read. If you had the right subreddits it was a very nice and friendly place. I like the fediverse (I’m on mbin) but there are still some hurdles to take. Such as finding nice magazines not on your home server. There are some lists and stuff, but I just want to search in the search bar of the site and find them. Also, there is still a 20 year gap of information. If you have a question it is most likely already asked at reddit. So searching on DuckDuckGo or Reddit will almost certainly give you an answer. Searching on the fediverse won’t give you the same hitrate. Especially for more non-mainstream subjects. For instance: I have a specific kind of motorcycle, the magazine on the fediverse is dead. Not one post, no activity (so that’s my fault as well). On reddit, there a couple of thousand threads. I just recently decided I wanted to interact more on the fediverse (hence this reply) to put in my effort to keep the fediverse alive, active and growing. I just need to find some subjects to start a relevant and interesting new thread.
I don’t think lemmy/mbin/etc. will be as popular since it’s too much trouble for the non-techies. I do think mastodon/misskey/etc. is quite active and interesting. It’s better then twitter. And since I follow the right people I really like pixelfed instead of instagram. I think those are better, but it is an adjustment. Since you have to put in the work to find the right people to follow. And while I dislike the instagram algorithm, it did offer some very good, high quality photography. But I think it’s going the facebook way. Facebook in it’s early days was a great way to see what your friends and family where up to. Now it’s just old memes, stupid jokes, fake news and advertisements. Instagram is becoming that as well.
I miss some Reddit communities, to be honest. There are no communities here for most of my hobbies and that brings down my enjoyment of the platform. Most things that spark joy in my life are not here.
Another thing that has been bumming me out is that people are way more aggressive now. Lemmy was a very friendly and welcoming environment, even in the most toxic topics you could think of. Lately I find a lot of elitist comments where anyone that doesn’t have the same opinion or needs is objectively an idiot.
On the positive side, I switched to Linux because of Lemmy! And I’m (still) learning Rust!
Make sure you dye your hair a fun color when you get to a comfy point with Rust, that way people know you’re a serious Rust dev (/s).
There are no communities here for most of my hobbies and that brings down my enjoyment of the platform. Most things that spark joy in my life are not here.
Which kind of hobbies do you have? There might be other people interested in them too
I divested myself of Twitter a couple of years ago (which is how I ended up on the fediverse in the first place) and then in the last 18 months or so, Reddit, Facebook and Discord have all been given the boot too (and for a bonus, Windows as well)
I’ve found replacements for all of them in self hosted and/or community ran alternatives. It’s quieter, and missing content, yet at the same time, it’s far more personal than the sites I left behind. In many ways, it feels like the old IRC days, with smaller communities, but where people knew each other somewhat.
I wish they were a bit more active, and that some of the niche stuff existed, but at the same time, I feel quite at home with my alternatives, rather than lost.
My experience on lemmy has been very similar to my experience working in a startup. I’m constantly concerned that I’ve picked a sinking ship, and concerned that the people I’m on it with are not the people I’d want to sink with. But there’s excitement around being a part of something that’s still playing out, and being able to influence the long term trajectory.
I don’t think the small community is a detractor, though. I’ve felt for a long time that large social media circles quickly fill with the worst kind of content, and normalizes the worst kind of behavior.
Anyway, I think the thing that makes this worthwhile is the decentralization and the knowledge that it’s (for now) safe from corporate capture. I’m happy to be contributing to an alternative to for-profit social media, and that makes all the worst parts of it worth enduring
I still use old because the technical scene here in Lemmy is not as good as Reddit. I unsubscribed from all /r/ in my account except for technical ones. I haven’t used /r/all since RIF broke.
reddit it still useful for small-medium sized communities but large subs are slowly becoming botfests and not worth using at all
Same. I still have RIF on my phone hijacking Reddit links. It’s a nice little interruption as if to say “can you really be arsed with Reddit?” and unless it’s a discussion about an obscure technical problem or something my wife sent me, I always click the back button.
For the first half of my transition over to Lemmy, I found myself talking and commenting more, even if I got into fights with Tankies a decent bit. I thought that once I blocked enough tankies and their instances my experience would get a bit better, and for a while it did, but then as time has gone on, I have begun to see that federation kind of makes good moderation extremely hard and rare, and if I try to use general feeds instead of curated ones, the amount of rage bait articles making it to the top has steadily started to increase, and this is finally pushing me away from Lemmy, and unfortunately back to Reddit since someone suggested Dig at one point, and good god its UI looks like I am constantly being fed ad after ad. I may eventually transition back to Gaia Online since I’m not super happy about going back to Reddit after all the shit Reddit has pulled, but I’m missing having a source of random information gain, that isnt hardcore tailored to rage bait.
lemmy still is full of weirdos who get pissed off on one comment you made on one instance and community… and will follow you around to others to harass you until you block them. it’s miserable and weird.
at least they can’t get you banned site-wide like they can with reddit.
That’s crazy, sad to hear
Reddit has been a huge part of me growing up.
Watching the site self-destruct has been… painful.
I didn’t voluntarily leave reddit I got banned for some random comment (I honestly don’t know what it was) and the appeals process was bullshit. So I found Lemmy. Haven’t been back to reddit since don’t miss it.
I’m off Twitter and on Mastodon since November 2022. Mastodon is such a chill place once you’ve found people to follow and made sure the trolls are blocked. Staying off Reddit has been harder, but it’s also a shadow of its former self. Lemmy isn’t quite what Reddit used to be, but neither is Reddit these days. Too much noise, not enough signal
