Asklemmy

16-year user here. Its been a long time coming, I've watched my friend spiral into a bad place and call me an idiot for being concerned. There is no saving these old networks. They will be around as bullhorns of whoever pays for them but even with the different usability I think its only a matter of time before people start to see "True Reddit" style material coming out of the fediverse and things start to grow less due to thee circumstancesbut more for the same reasons reddit and slashdot before them grew to begin with.

Even IF these networks never fall, no original social network was predicated on the idea that it MUST be for everyone. Thinking it needs to be is just monopoly enabler talk IMO.

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

No I don't. I've been in denial for too long that Reddit was great. But it has devolved alot. The formative moments of Lemmy feel like old reddit and I'm enjoying it so much more. Will that change? Probably, but I'm savouring the wholesome and fun community that is Lemmy right now.

No, it was going to happen, reddit has been becoming horrible since 2015. It could not die fast enough, except now the problem is lemmy is not ready. There will not be another exodus, the center of mass shifts to lemmy, or it goes back to reddit.

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

I've been a heavy forum user for well beyond half my life, and the social media boom ruined that whole world such that all I really have now is reddit, so I'm pretty upset about it honestly. I'm sure it'll eventually be fine, but the uncertainty sucks right now.

I'm used to the shit I do online eventually being replaced by something else that's better, as I eventually forget the old thing exists for a while. This is a much more harsh ending to Reddit, so I'm really hoping Lemmy becomes all it can be with a healthy community.

Sure, but here's the thing. If we all just moved to another centralized system, we'd just be setting the timer for the next heartbreak. It's a matter of when, not if.

Lemmy's growth will be slow. It may even stagnate. But, unlike Orkut, Friendster, Google+, etc. it can't be taken away from us. lemmy.ml might even shut down, but the Fediverse will always be here in one form or another.

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

I'm not breaking up yet but I'm definitely gonna cheat a little while Reddit goes through their drama!

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 !

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I think a lot of us are going to be going through reddit-withdrawal/detox over the next month. It's going to be tough.

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.

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.

It's like the Ikea lamp commercial. A person has a well-used lamp they have had for a long time. They go to Ikea and find a new lamp that is better and nicer. In the next scene, the old lamp is left on the curb. In the rain. alone. abandoned. The Ikea person comes on and asks "Do you feel bad for the old lamp?"

I only hope we eventually have some of the local communities that were subreddits of yore - like SacramentoBuyNothing - a place to share your old lam so it does not have to sit out in the rain at the curb.

I think because I have left reddit and returned to it so many times over the past 15 years I was looking for a reason to make it permanent. I'm more relieved than anything else. My religion also teaches me that who you are is a result of all of the actions you have taken in your life, and that we should not associate with those whose actions inflict harm on their own community (meaning spez)

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

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.

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

The thing that's missing here most is the niche communities (I'm talking about like the ended 10 years ago tv shows and people are still posting about them). On the other hand, I noticed while most countries have 1 or 2 communities, my country already has at least 7 for specific locations and people still want to make more so it feels very much like home already

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

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.

Yes and no. Reddit had become toxic and a shadow of it's former self. It was a good run for 11 years. Hopefull Lemmy can be an alternative. :)

Reddit kinda stopped being fun at some point, and I didn’t even realize it until I came here. The lack of doomscrolling potential here is an added bonus.

A bit, yes. I'd been on Reddit for over a decade, and grew attached to the site and the many different communities that were there. I could find a subreddit for nearly anything.

But over time, one could see it begin to change. It started with "new" reddit, then NFTs, and it all felt like it started to move away from what it began as. It also became more toxic (though this may be more due to users than the site itself).

But now, we can plainly see that Reddit/Spez is all about profit and greed, nothing else. Gotta get that IPO for shareholders, right?

Though Lemmy is still small, I'm excited to see what it can become.

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

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.