OK, let's try this again. My post got auto-filtered. Maybe the image triggered something? Anyways, apologies if this isn't the right sub for this. I wanted to get an outsider's perspective on my experience on Lemmy.
Every. Single. Thread. has the word “capitalism” or “Trump” in it somewhere. I’m sick to death of it. Even though I agree with a lot of the sentiment, the erosion of the middle class, the concentration of wealth, the consolidation of media, the “you will own nothing and be happy” mentality permeating the consumer space. In many ways that’s why I joined Lemmy, but dang it that doesn’t mean I want to talk about absolutely nothing else. Someone once defined a fanatic as "Someone who won't change their mind and won't change the subject" and that fits the average Lemming to a T.
And the only communities devoid of politics are also devoid of content. I do a lot of worldbuilding stuff, and I’ve tried to make the worldbuilding community there more active, but sometimes I feel like I’m the only poster. Then I look at r/worldbuilding, and there’s a glut of really interesting posts showcasing people’s imagination and creativity, and nary a mention of Musk or Epstein in sight.
I understand that people's political opinions are bound to show up obliquely in even unrelated communities, but I can't overstate how monomaniacal Lemmings are about it. The pic I originally tried to post was a screenshot of a completely non sequitur post in an unrelated community (sorry for the vagueness I think the specifics may have also tripped the auto filter). And Lemmings are always "on". If you go to mildlyinteresting on lemmy.world right now, you'll see maybe one or two posts about things like yellow stop signs or three-chambered peanuts, you know, stuff that's actually mildly interesting, and every other post is stuff like "French president explains the political consequences of AI". Is that important and worth discussing? Absolutely. What it isn't is mildly interesting.
When I bring this up on Lemmy, the response is always "Politics is everything and we should never shut up ever!" But even Anne Frank wrote about other stuff in her diary sometimes.
And then there’s the tech side of things. Hope you like Linux, cuz that’s all you’re going to see. And if you dare suggest that Linux may not be the right choice for your blind grandmother, you get eviscerated in the comments.
Granted, Reddit itself used to have a similar problem. It attracted a very specific type of user (neckbeards) and the experience wasn’t great if you weren’t one, but ironically the same popularization of Reddit that lead to its platform decay also solved this homogeneity problem. Similarly, Tankies and their ilk seem to flock to Lemmy, explaining the tone of the discourse.
Others have pointed out that Reddit alternatives tend to attract people who were banned from Reddit (remember Voat?) and I think that explains a lot.
In summary, Lemmy seems great if you're a Marxist who uses Linux, but pretty much nobody else. Am I crazy? Should I try to stick with it in the hope it gets better?
so how do we get this guy on Linux? lol
It didn't, it just sounds like astroturfing and/or being lazy.
If a completely new person went to reddit for the first time (before all the corporate sanitization that has happened in the last couple of years) they were going to see shit they didn't want to see. They were going to have to put in some effort telling "the system" what they like and what they don't. After you've done that, it was an interesting way to spend your downtime. Without it, it was just the void yelling back. Same is pretty true for Lemmy. If you don't put in any effort to block the stuff you don't like and/or subscribe to the stuff you do, you aren't going to see any value. Yes, it is smaller than reddit - that's how social media starts. There isn't going to be 21 years of content chilling out on a platform that is 6 years old.
Also, bitching about hearing about Linux is just lazy. You're on FOSS social media and get surprised when people there mostly don't use corporate slop closed source OS's on their personal machines? Okie Dokie.
I want you to do me a favor. Any other Linux user reading this, I want you to try this, too. Turn on Orca and unplug your monitor. No, don't just close your eyes, don't just turn your monitor off, actually unplug it. Remove your monitor from your desk if applicable. Now, try to do the following:
Once you've done all that, and before plugging your monitor back in, send me a PM detailing your experience. How many of the tasks did you successfully complete? Were you able to complete them in a timely manner and with a comparable amount of cognitive burden compared to doing it sighted? Were you able to perform your job duties? If so, would you be able to continue doing them this way for the remainder of your career? If you were in charge of hiring someone for your position, would you accept the level of work you did? For the more leisurely tasks like watching YT or using Lemmy, did you enjoy your experience? Was it relaxing? Would you willingly consume content this way.
Alas, you're responding to something they didn't say. You quoted something they said, then switched the topic to why you can't use Linux instead of what was quoted.
Your complaint is totally valid, but the quote you uses add the springboard for it was not a good choice.
Yes, I realize it was a non sequitur, and I'm sorry. But it was kinda the straw that broke the camel's back. Quoting from a comment I left on the original reddit post:
My dude, I couldn't do any of those things on Windows or MacOS either. It is not a skill I have any faith I could even remotely pull off, even if the software was perfect and fantastic.
Feels like part of the problem is exemplified here though, someone mentions Linux and you replied with a novella about why you can't use it. Yes, there are going to be people recommending Linux here, but it is a generalization to the masses. Not every comment about Linux is an attack against you personally.