Drew DeVault wrote a blog post back in 2014 that kind of covers it. Imgur seems to have broke the cycle but that doesn't mean they haven't gone to shit. They've just somehow avoided collapsing underneath themselves as they continue the enshittification of Imgur.

I am fundamentally opposed to nearly all forms of advertising at an ideological level and go to great lengths to avoid it in as many of its insidious forms as possible. So that is where Drew and I differ. The only form of advertising I appreciate are extremely dry infomercials (no not the for-TV kind) and authentic word of mouth (not to be confused with "native" advertising or sponsors). Ads are a net negative on humanity and in too many ways to list but because the effects go through a layer of indirection - similar to how secondhand smoke is harmful for non-smokers. People are more OK with ads. It took making the public aware of secondhand smoke and the harm that smoking causes - even for non-smokers - before people took a privileged stance against smoking. That same level of awareness and condemnation will never happen with ads because people are OK with getting things "for free" that they otherwise would have to pay for. So they'll willingly turn a blind eye to the harmful effects of advertisements and "put up with them".

Fuck ads.

I dislike genocide apologists about as much as I dislike liars and people who spread misinformation. It's trivially easy to confirm who /u/parentis_shotgun is - so calling it misinformation is blatantly lying especially when their first point is blatantly wrong.

People can be OK with the dev being a Tankie ("separate the art from the artist" which is a terrible philosophy in its own right but people are welcome to believe in it this more of a philosophical difference) but denying that the dev is a Tankie is where I cross the line. The dev is a Tankie. Do with that information what you will but there is no denying it.

I mean if you want to get academic about it - I suggest you talk to some people in academia. Nearly all of those who say "Fascism is different." self-describe themselves as Marxists or are Stalinist apologists - such as Michael Parenti or Sheila Fitzpatrick. Gee, I wonder why Marxists would want to distance Communism (and more specifically - Stalinism) from being compared with other fascists regimes like the Nazis. Maybe they don't like how it makes them look bad?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nazism_and_Stalinism

No really - read the above link and anyone who is cited as saying Stalinism isn't fascism check their wiki profile. Without a doubt they're a self-described Marxist. They're quite literally the only people who deny that Stalinism was a form of fascism and play apologists for all the atrocities that took place.

A disturbing amount of Communists see attacks on Stalinism as an attack on Communism and so make all sorts of mental gymnastics to defend Stalinism.

Edit:

I much prefer the "That wasn't real Communism!" brand of Communists over the "That was real Communism and here's why the mass murder they did was justified or never happened (despite being well-documented by the Stalinists/Maoists themselves)!" brand of Communists.

Tankies isn't a cute catch-all term for Communists who do have various goals, beliefs, and methodologies of how to transition to, create, and maintain a Communist state. They're Stalinists and/or Maoists who deny well-documented genocides and claim that everything against their ideology is a Western conspiracy theory and the only correct sources of information come from Russia and/or China. In a similar way that Neo-Nazi's claim everything is a Jewish conspiracy theory and the only correct sources of information come from their biased as all hell Alt-Right/Neo-Nazi sources like Stormfront.

This is the exact type of ignorance that I'm talking about when I say people defend Tankies because they were taught the Holocaust in school but never taught about the Holodomor.

E: "The US government is evil so the people the US says are the bad guys must actually be the good guys and are undoubtedly correct about everything. There is no such thing as CCP or Soviet propaganda - that's propaganda from the CIA. Read this article from the CCP explaining it all."

That does seem to have changed since I last cared to look. As dannoffs pointed out - it seems lemmy.ml was unlisted from the join-lemmy.org instances page where previously it was listed as #1 for the Popular section. They also removed the ## users / month metric so the list is no longer guaranteed to be sorted by popularity.

Just last week - lemmy.world was reporting as 87 users/month and lemmy.ml as 1.6k users/month:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230608170721/https://join-lemmy.org/instances

This has of course changed - and unlisting the instance so that it isn't the most popular instance likely has a lot to do with that. That seemed to happen sometime in the last week - I cbf checking every wayback timestamp to see exactly when.

I've been using Kbin myself so haven't been following Lemmy very closely. Only whatever happens to reach my page over on kbin.

This completely ignores the influence that flagship instances have.

People don't become Neo-Nazis without spending time among other Neo-Nazis listening to Neo-Nazi talking points. People don't become Tankies without spending time among other Tankies listening to Tankie talking points.

People are more likely than not to join the flagship instance than any of the smaller instances and significantly more likely than starting their own instance. Some of them will realize the kind of people they have found themselves surrounded by and leave. Many more won't - especially due to general ignorance about Tankies (see this entire thread and the absolutely bizarre common defense of Tankies not being equatable to Nazis when they absolutely are and have resulted in more deaths and suffering than the Nazis ever have or will.) The people who stick around might start thinking the Tankies make some good points. This is how you end up with more Tankies. More Tankies is always a bad thing just like having more Neo-Nazis is always a bad thing.

Most people have a good sense to not surround themselves with Neo-Nazis. That good sense appears to be missing when dealing with Tankies.

Oh it certainly can rub both ways. I've been publicly out as trans since 2015 and am quite outspoken against the modern LGBT community (and banned from half the spaces at this point anyway). That certain grifters and power hungry individuals have figured out how to game the modern moral system doesn't mean that there is never any legitimate harassment towards LGBT individuals.

"Listen and believe" is quite possibly the dumbest thing to become a mainstream argument. As if nobody would ever figure out they can abuse this policy to lie or have ulterior motives or want to air petty drama or want to paint a target on someone for their followers to harass. Minorities are to be treated as God reincarnate and can do and say no wrong. Want to be the shittiest, most toxic person on Earth? Go ahead! Just be sure to say you're trans so anyone who calls you an asshole is being transphobic. It's OK to do vile things like spam child porn on a forum you don't like in an attempt to get it shut down or seized by authorities. The ends justify the means after all!

I'm well aware of AHS's bullshit over the years and the many, many, many times they've tried to shut down subs I browse.

Lemmy also has an issue of being developed and flagship instances ran by unironic Tankies. People are a lot slower to clue in on Tankies than Neo-Nazis because for some reason denying genocides as a hoax and Western propaganda works for Tankies in a way that denial of the Holocaust as a hoax and Jewish propaganda doesn't work for Nazis. It's funny because if the devs were Nazis nobody would touch Lemmy with a 20 foot pole. People are a lot more ignorant of Tankies and there is a big excuse of "So what? Just make your own Lemmy instance if it bothers you isn't that the point of Federation?" that wouldn't exist if the devs were Neo-Nazis rather than Tankies.

As long as they can closely control the narrative and keep the .ml (Marxist-Leninist) instances as the larger/flagship communities they'll hold sway over their part of their part of the Fediverse and can surround themselves with people who are as radical as they are or open to being radicalized. Those who control the trunk control the branches.

I don't know anything about ernest and I consider that a good thing because that means they don't already have a bad reputation as a political extremist. Which made Kbin the easy choice to make between the two federation alternatives to Reddit.