this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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While I think there's some merit to the idea of talking about the fediverse on corporate legacy social media platforms, I think the best and most effective thing we can do is put in extra effort to engage with the fediverse itself, making posts and comments, building up new communities, and so on.
Reddit is no doubt getting worse and more closed off all the time. They treat their users like shit, or at least, like a resource to be harvested for profit.
But at the same time, Reddit users will sit around complaining about the platform until the cows come up, but when it comes time to do anything about it (like, for example, go check out the fediverse...) they don't ever take any action. And this problem isn't unique to Reddit either, people just love to complain about X on X, complain about Facebook on Facebook, complain about Tiktok on Tiktok, etc. It's hard to tell how much of that is just performative internet shit vs genuine addiction to their particular algorithm of choice, but in my view it's a real problem...
In other words, the question is "where we should be spending our energy?"
Should we be spending it on Reddit, trying to convince a bunch of people (who frankly range from ambivalent to straight-up addicted) that Reddit sucks? Or should we spend it here on the fediverse building the communities from the ground up?
Yeah, came to say more or less the same thing. I genuinely believe we're big enough where we don't need to tell people we exist. We can spend our time making the fediverse a better place so that anyone coming to look for an alternative to Reddit can look at the fediverse and think "that looks like a cool place".
I mostly agree, but I don't think it should be 100%. How did any of us get here? Almost certainly it was someone talking on the legacy platforms. We shouldn't spend time trying to convince people to join, but some people should spend some time spreading the word that the alternatives exist, and why they're better. Honestly, I don't think we want the users that need convincing. We do want the users who see the advantage and leave on their own, but they need to know about it first.
spreading the word is good, but those platforms censor us explicitly so it's of limited value. we need alternative ways
Most frictionless places to push for I think would be in sites like linktr.ee and in the bio of services that aren't direct competitors. Though also of minimal benefit if you're not a public figure (journalist, artist, developer, someone actively posting whatever, etc.)
lemmy world is the top result when searching reddit alternatives. I agree the best thing you can do is to make this a good active community, anyone who is done with reddit will have no trouble finding their way here.
I got banned from reddit, and it took me 2 weeks to think to search up "reddit like alternatives." This is not a problem with disenchantment with Reddit, this a problem with Fediverse visibility.
Would you search up "reddit like alternatives" if you hadn't been banned? And if someone came on Reddit a few days before you got banned and said to you "hey, this is the Fediverse, come join us", would you join, or would you say "I have no reason to leave Reddit or to use any other Reddit-like platform"?
I also don't it's a "disenchantment" problem. I believe it's more of a "refusing to change because it takes effort" problem
honestly, in the months leading up to it I may just have. The AI posting ragebait problem was/is getting very untenable over there and it would have been a nice safety valve to come here and gripe about the world without having to dance around corporate boilerplate ass covering "rules" governing what you can and and can't say. I suppose you're not without a point though. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.
EDIT: Oops! I accidentally wrote a wall of text!
I knew about AI models generating posts, but I never really thought about how problematic it could get. I don't know much about Reddit's rules, mostly because I left the platform before people started complaining of getting banned left and center, but I did hear a lots of people complaining about it here on Lemmy.
I'm sorry if I jumped the gun and started making assumptions about you right away. I have friends that still use X, despite knowing how bad that platform is, and how unhealthy scrolling through a feed on that platform can get, and even despite knowing there are alternatives (one of them tried Bluesky once, but quit it because "it just wasn't the same thing"). I just assumed you were in a not-so-different situation before getting banned, even though I don't know anything about you.
It also doesn't help that I just assumed that everyone had heard about the existence of Reddit alternatives when the Reddit API protests happened. I completely forgot that lots of people came to Reddit after that, or weren't even using the platform during the protest despite having an account. I forgot that there are probably some people that didn't notice the protests because of their favourite subreddits being unaffected by it, and that it's also very likely that there were a ton of people that were affected by it, but knew nothing about why it was happening. And there could be even others that knew about why it was happening, but didn't know that people were starting to look for alternatives. I just assumed that people who stayed behind on Reddit after the protests chose to stay behind after hearing about platforms like Lemmy because changing platforms was too much work.
Thanks for opening my eyes :)
Despite it all, I don't see Lemmy as being a platform with a community that is super accessible for every single human in the planet, so I don't think it's exclusively an advertisement issue. Not that that's a problem that needs to be fixed, I just think that you'd have to partly remove the platform's "soul" if you wanted to make it more accessible for it to grow. As far as I know, Lemmy wasn't made to "kill" Reddit. It was made to be a place where people can hang out with other people who care about the same topics :)
i only went to lemmy because i remember it was mentioned during the API crisis, when i got banned from reddit when they used AI to massively target everyone. i do have a few forums as a backup i go sometimes.
I'd guess there is a balance to be struck.
The only thing that's confusing to me, is like there is not a pottery group on here but I have no idea how to make one. I tried to figure it out I have no idea how to make an instance or anything.
You don't need to create an instance (requires server administration skills), just a community (requires a few clicks). On the top right menu, there should be a create community entry.
Thanks I'll try it
when you search for a community, make sure you're searching "All" communities instead of just "Local" communities
this one already exists !pottery@lemmy.world
THANK YOU! I did look but I don't understand the fediverse at all. The instances are confusing. Like I joined discuss.online but is that the same as lemmy? Idk I think Reddit has so many users because it's easy and clear to use
yes that's a part of Lemmy, that's all you need
It's kinda like email. Think of it like you're on Gmail, I'm on Yahoo Mail, and the pottery community is on MSN. We can all talk to each other because we do like
@mangobanana@gmail.com(in reality you're atdiscuss.online) and@die4ever@yahoo.com(I'm atretrolemmy.com). Usernames start with an@like Twitter, community names start with an!So when you do a "Local" search you only see stuff from "Gmail" like yourself, but usually you want to search "All" not "Local".
For viewing posts on my feed I prefer "Subscribed", this can be set as your default in your settings page.
have you tried an app on your phone? they can be a bit simpler to use than the website https://join-lemmy.org/apps
here's another community that might help !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca
I'm using the brave app, and thank you so much! So far I've been able to create a question on one of the groups! Yay!
I don't see your post. I think in Brave you would have to click to expand the Sidebar in order to make a post
for a phone I would better suggest Boost, Connect, or Summit
https://join-lemmy.org/apps
Yes I'm also using the boost app. I go back and forth depending what device I'm on
If Reddit account is still available and you've got the time & energy to convince some people to switch - go for it. Make sure to not enrich Reddit with anything else. I've decided against this way, because I wasn't sure if I'm still talking to real people and the possibilities of spreading the word are very limited (posts often get deleted by mods).
Feels much better to feed the fediverse with content in my opinion.
reddit is becoming like fb, bots and more bots.