I've returned to reddit a few times, mostly to just get an answer to a question I was trying to look up. But a few days ago I did make a new account, because I was feeling lonely and wanted to try and make new internet friends, and as far as I know, lemmy doesn't yet have those penpal/chat/make friend communities. I had forgotten how ass the new account experience on reddit is, and how ass reddit itself is. I couldn't get the verification email (tho that could have been due to trying to use a temporary email), posts got auto deleted due to account age and low karma, and random email and cookie popups that kept coming back. When one post miraculously did get posted (despite automod telling me it was deleted lol) and I got chat requests, I couldn't even reply to people! I tried accepting the request, but kept getting an error. At this point I'm not sure if it is an actual error, or just reddit restricting new accounts from chatting, even if they are the ones the chat is sent to...

I get that these are used to combat bots, but is it actually working? Mostly it's just hurting people who legitimately want to join and enjoy the site. The karma requirements also bring in their own problems, like subreddits just focused on farming karma so that users can finally take part in the conversations they came for in the first place.

I think people will get tired of the horrible new account creation and experience on reddit and look for alternatives. Lemmy seems to be more privacy orientated and without silly internet points anybody with a new account can immediately jump in on the action without restrictions, for better or worse.