Asklemmy

Yeah, it’s a really weird feeling. I discovered Reddit in 2011 and it’s been a not-insignificant part of my life ever since.

Now I’m here, on this new thing that feels really small and inactive in comparison. All the subs I’m used to reading just aren’t here. Many of them will probably stay on Reddit. I really hope Lemmy takes off, and I don’t end up caving in and downloading the official app a week later.

No. I first joined Digg and Reddit around the same time, but I rapidly came to the conclusion that Reddit was the right choice for me. I just loved Reddit's simpler and less cluttered interfaced, and the smaller (at the time) communities. Then, one day, proper Reddit became 'old' reddit, and it became clear that the end was coming. I started my search for an alternative almost immediately and now, finally, I found one. So, no, I am not heartbroken. To me, Reddit has been dying for years. And honestly, even if reddit survives, I do not want to go back. The feddiverse is a much better proposition, it is the way forward.

It reminds me of when I tried switching to Linux (from Windows). Functional but lacking a lot of mainstream software, especially games. Lemmy feels way easier to use like a normal website, but there is a feeling almost akin to homesickness.

From /. to Digg then Reddit. my journey continues....

No it's long since passed it's prime when it stood for something nows its just a cash grab.

As Ivan Drago says if he dies , he dies

I feel like it's a break up with an abusive partner. I'm relieved but also sad.

Honestly? Not really, actually I am glad things are getting mixed up again.

While twitter is slowly burning out, and with reddit just deciding to randomly self-destruct, this leaves a lot of space for this project which I find absolutely amazing.

This thing has potential to become so much more than reddit could ever become, and it feels so... Wild-west? Not 4chan style bs but like small communities can persist in a dark corner for a long time, and have less problems of exploding out of control with bots and frequent reposts...

Of course the 'main' instance is seeing some problems atm, but that'll push people away from it and toward smaller instances.

This is going to be great, I want to be a part pf this journey

What's happening to reddit right now actually opened me to a lot of possibilities. I started learning about the fediverse, what FOSS apps are, etc. I'm actually grateful.

No. Full stop. Fuck spez. I miss Apollo though.

Just deleted the Apollo app. Sad times. Hope this turns out to be a viable replacement

I've been meaning to get off Reddit and social media for a while, just not happy with the posts on there and the way things are handled. I have a stuffed animal manatee named Manny and I love him dearly, and all other manatees to keep me happy and hopefully everyone here. Love to all !

Not really. Fuck em. Been on Reddit for 8 years and I've been disillusioned for a while. I just hope this place grows and I figure out how it works well enough to not feel the need to go back.

I'll miss the r/place

Joining discords and forming alliances with complete strangers over a few pixels was quite a good time

I closed my Facebook account in 2016 and haven't looked back. Hoping I feel the same about Reddit

Absolutely. Most of my 20s and 30s I've been on reddit. It was game changing for the early web. I decided today that I'm going to delete all my previous comments, posts, and accounts. It's time to move on.

I wouldn't really consider myself a "refugee".

I've been feeling like the internet has been become a more isolating and nonconstructive place for a long time, and I have been following the fedverise & other projects for a while, hoping that we might be able to build something better.

I am interested to see where things go.

Yes but also no. I missed Digg when I left it for Reddit and I loved the earlier days of Reddit. Reddit was a lot of my college years from 2010-2012. Reddit felt like a very nice community back then, but it's been going steadily downhill for years and I'm not surprised it's come to this at all. Lemmy feels like a breath of fresh air, especially given that we're migrating off of corporate controlled media this time rather than just jumping ship to another proprietary platform with a limited lifespan. It hits different this time, in a good way. I'll miss the good times on Reddit and the communities there, but to be honest those communities were best in Reddit's heyday. I'll probably miss the vast amount of information that Reddit built up over the years most, that's over a decade of Internet history killed off by greed. I'm hoping moving to decentralized platforms will stop the cycle of corporate greed putting an expiration date on our Internet homes.

Totally agree. My reddit account is 12 years old, and I was only just now starting to gain confidence that there would already be a sprawling community for a new topic I found. I know it will take a long time to get that feeling again, but it's also refreshing to see the fantastic discussions on this platform.

I remember the "narwhal bacons at midnight" phase of reddit when the great digg migration took place. It took years for the geocities from the 90s vibe of reddit to turn into the community it became. Content posts were so few and far between, at first, that I wasn't sure the site would last. Over time the 3rd party apps and general openness of the original dev team made it worth using but slowly, the bigger the site became, the bots and meta comments (and truly awful mods) kind of took over the main subs. The niche subs weren't valuable enough for it to be worth that kind of manipulation, so they were great (at many still are to a large extent).

It's a sad reality that I've watched evolve having been online for the rise of the web. the enshittification of commons seems to be the trend in every network as far as I can tell. That's the problem with network effects i guess.. You need people to have a network, but people are greedy. The more people in the network, the more tempting it is to try and exploit, which makes it lousy for the network. Too far, and the value of he network sinks and the people leave (digg, tumblr, slashdot, etc.). I wonder though, if Aaron Swartz had been around, if he would have been able to keep reddit more aligned with the original vision? Tragic we'll never know.

*edit: an even better deep dive, I hadn't read until lately, the takes the history of enshittification back to the roots - https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

Not at all, I wanted to leave reddit since Tencent bought their shares. Lemmy seems almost ready now. Good enough not to look back.

In a way I'm a little sad but I'm also hopeful. I started on Reddit 13 years ago and it was a very different place than it is now. I liked it better then, and I think I'm sad and will miss it for what it was, not what it is. I'm hopeful for a fresh start here on Lemmy where it feels like I'm getting back to the actual conversation with other users, which is what I miss about the current Reddit. There's very little conversation there anymore, so much of it is just pictures and jokes and bots.

Nah, they were just a company after all. The strongest feeling I get is that it's just a bummer because I've grown to depend on the platform so much and now I've got to try and adapt.

At the same time, as this thing that was previously an interesting little curiosity on a corner of the web grew to be a big time suck and addiction, the dopamine hit returns and actually helpful interactions I was getting from Reddit were diminishing anyway so when there was finally a convenient push to make me try harder to either find an alternative or just ditch it, I was strangely grateful.

I do feel like I'm losing something that was very useful resource and which also filled a need, albeit one that it created in the first place, but at the end of the day, it's just a forum. I can't really feel betrayed or heartbroken by an entity that was only ever intended to make money and had no obligation to my approval.

Reddit has gone downhill for a couple of years. I am glad it will die.

I had been getting sick of the direction reddit has headed for the past couple years and have been looking for alternatives. I discovered lemmy at basically the perfect time. So I guess I'm not too heartbroken mostly because I've been frustrated with the platform for quite a while.

Nah, I'm mad as hell, they had years to sort this crap out. They can burn.

I've been on giant, corporate owned services for so long, I kinda forgot what it's like to be out in the cottage industry of small websites.

Of course I feel heartbroken. Nich communities that I am slowly leaving behind. Many many saved posts that I always intended on going back to but never did. I'm still on Reddit and the reality of the situation hasn't sunk in yet. But I'm starting over here fresh and I'm even ready to actually participate more over here than on Reddit. I'm just ready to start something new

I was always aware this could happen, but never expected it would happen. Reddit has been a part of my life for years. I never felt good about the company, but thanks to the communities on there, I found so many amazing things and learned so much. As absurd as it sounds, I had completely life changing moments begin on Reddit. So yeah, I'm sad about what happened, but I'm optimistic that we can build something better.

Fuck technofascists

@Acetamide Reddit has been pretty terrible for years, I'm excited rather than sad to see their demise.

I'm really hoping some of my smaller communities focused on specific novels or games make the leap over.

Kind of cautiously optimistic at this stage, Reddit has been going steeply downhill for the last few years - if the "blackout" does nothing for Reddit then maybe it could succeed in drawing attention to alternatives.

Yes Reddit was great before it betrayed its users with a level of discourse and creativity not seen anywhere on the internet

Nah. I never liked using centralized monoliths like Reddit and other social media sites but stayed there due to lack of alternatives. I'm glad to see a federated network like Lemmy getting enough activity that I can ditch Reddit.

I am not sad. It started to feel a bit like a bad addiction. The huge increase in casual users also brought a whole bunch of corporate accounts running heavy PR activity on reddit, and quality of discussion has tanked, probably from a lot of bots commenting.

I stayed on Reddit a lot for support forums that were prone to brigading attacks. I know how hard the mods were working to keep the spaces constructive. Reddit is not only trying to sell my attention as a commodity they own, but also under appreciating the mods volunteer hours for why the site was worth it.