Warning: This is a rant.
I don’t really know how to describe it but the content isn’t quite where reddit had been for me. Also the comments are kind of weird at times, like they type of person here doesn’t quite seem as ‘normal’ as what I’m used to from reddit.
There’s a lot more open source and privacy focused people and conversations. A lot of people seem to hate on big tech and big companies in a sort of toxic-ish feeling way to me (not to say the other relationship isn’t toxic… just saying). Random conversations go into: “omg your privacy is lost cause you used a Google service.” Then we have the ‘if we don’t defederate with Meta the world ends’ conversations. I personally would like to see what Meta does in the fediverse… maybe it will make it more normalized…idk. Then the: “if your app isn’t open source its awful and terrible for the world” people.
Like that stuff is all fine, but it just isn’t quite my cup of tea.
These things remind me of that one person in my comp sci classes in college who I just couldn’t stand talking to. He would try to make you feel like an idiot by trying to sound all self righteous and smart. (Honestly he would fail and would generally look like a dingus).
The bulk of the content that gets comments seem to be mostly meme atm. At least on all (7/10 of the current top for me are memes). I like my memes, but would like some more breadth/depth.
Like I hope Lemmy continues to grow and hope it gets better, but it leaves me missing reddit at the moment.
In a perfect world I wish reddit corp wasn’t such assholes and this whole thing didn’t happen the way it did.
I’m completely skipping the UI and stuff not being as familiar and the various outages/bugs/etc since that’s to be expected with something at this stage.
Please don’t hate me :) Just sharing my unpopular opinion. Though I genuinely wonder if others feel the same way.
/Rant
It’s mostly the technically adept people here, we’re naturally more aware of security/privacy issues present in tech spaces and are angry that the masses are so oblivious or uncaring of the problem. Especially when that problem keeps ruining our online spaces or putting us at real world risk by letting apps use their cameras/mics/locations all the god damn time
Not everyone that is technically adept agree with your statements.
Not everyone but probably most people that are technically adept, and even more so those that have switched from reddit to lemmy
True. Not everyone agrees. Since I’m just me, I can only speak for myself.
With this in mind, I would like to hear reasons why you or others don’t agree. I ask in good faith.
Having an opinion is as natural as being human. I see the world through my eyes, think about in my brain, color it by my life experiences. So there’s always the possibility that I might be missing something important. Perhaps you were persuaded by some strong and much valid point or points.
If that’s the case, and if you’re willing, can you please share why you disagree?
To start with, I don’t think privacy is that important. I think that most open source end-products aren’t good and they are only made better when money gets involved.
To start with, I don’t think privacy is that important.
It makes more sense when we start talking about privacy in concrete forms. It’s about not giving any entity more information than it really needs in order to perform the service they claim to provide. For example, imagine how much better credit cards would be if the number was randomly generated, only valid for a single purchase and only the credit card company knew your name and address. Credit card scams would mostly be dead in the water and card readers would be rendered useless.
It’s not like it doesn’t make sense though. It makes sense that a credit card works the way it does because real-time authorization isn’t always available, and because there is a lot of legacy/backwards compatibility going on. If you wanted to “fix” credit cards you would get rid of them completely and switch to an identity service that allowed you to “federate” your identity with a lender’s service.
It sounds great, but in practice getting all of the ancillary parts working with each other is tough. Look how long Apple Pay (one of the better implementations of a better credit card) has been around and there are still a lot of places that don’t accept it.
Thinking about privacy as a 1:1 exchange with a service is already thinking two steps behind. Services have been using your info to create targeted ads since the beginning of capitalism. It really stepped up their game when computers and databases got involved, and as the internet became more prolific it got even more precise.
We’re at a point where your info isn’t even being used to target you. It’s valuable on its own.
And that’s the trade. You trade something of value to a service so that you can use their service.
Privacy is not important because we lost control of it a long time ago. It will take an act of Congress (in the US) to make it better, and there’s so much money involved that no one wants to tackle it head on.
It makes more sense when we start talking about privacy in concrete forms. It’s about not giving any entity more information than it really needs in order to perform the service they claim to provide. For example, imagine how much better credit cards would be if the number was randomly generated, only valid for a single purchase and only the credit card company knew your name and address. Credit card scams would mostly be dead in the water and card readers would be rendered useless.
Privacy is always a trade off. You have to find a sweet spot that fits your convenience and willingness to share.
A good example is home automation. I can get a camera from someone like Nest and it’s cheap, feature packed and simple to use. But it’s going to harvest all your data and videos.
Instead I could go with Logitech and Apple. Now the price is 4x higher but the videos only exist on my Apple cloud. This is more secure but still could have security concerns, and increased costs and effort.
Lastly I could go with something like ubiquity. Another drastic increase in cost, with less features for remote access. But you host your videos locally and are in complete control. This option is by far the most complex to set up as well.
None of these are inherently bad if you understand the trade off. I am accomplished in tech and I choose the middle option because it best fit my lifestyle even though I could have went with the last option.
Yup, the privacy-convenience trade off is the best explanation, and not everyone goes the extreme route. I too went the middle route with Apple.
I agree with this
Asshole about open source anti big tech here. Point taken. You can choose your communities you see on your home feed. Seriously, use the block user feature too. Block me if you want. It is not personal. I have a half dozen people blocked just because they have been negative and I don’t want to see it any more. With around 150k people here rn the total communities are still developing. There are several I miss but don’t want to mod or churn content by myself to get started. This is still mostly unsettled early adopters. Everyone here is going through the same series of breakup withdraw emotions, and everyone is a weird asshole user to someone. Most of us mean well. You are able to steer the conversation too. Post, and help making the conversation you want to participate in.
Very sound advice. It’s nice to know that you’re not the only one going through reddit withdrawals. But despite that, I’m determined to never come back.
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I won’t miss the Redditisms, award speeches and lame unoriginal jokes (variations of “how can he walk with such huge balls hyuck hyuck”).
trailblazers are always ‘weird’. Open source and privacy people BUILD all this software for everyone. As soon as millions of people rush in, you won’t even notice the weirdos anymore
The weirdos… being us?
Excuse me I go by freak
call me a deviant
You’re a deviant!
that sounded weird.
The whole purpose of Lemmy and the feddiverse is to be anticorpate.
I have been a foss fanboy most of my life so it’s a welcoming community and concept. But I get how weird it would be to suddenly join a community that basically says the mainstream way of thinking is wrong when it comes to the Internet.
That said I think Twitter Reddit and Facebook have all proven that it is. Centralized homogeneous platforms are just bad. Once you’re passed the fomo effect it becomes clear that they are not necessary. They are just tools and should be thrown away when they are no longer useful. Reddit could of maintained its status quo and we would all be there. Instead they felt they were “essential” to our lives so they could do what they wanted. It’s just not and this instance of Lemmy is just as disposable.
Lemmy will become more mainstream and more like old reddit with the addition of ppl like you. Variety is the spice of life so I think that’s a good thing. As someone who has lurked on Lemmy for years I can tell you it’s changed dramatically in just a couple weeks. Mostly for the better.
I love that your response is informative to a degree relating to your experience, and you kept a leveled positive response and even tried to understand where the OP. Is coming from. As someone who used Reddit for 7 years going on 8 I saw a lot of changes on that platform and I can say I love the idea of the Fediverse and I wish I would have spent more time on Lemmy.
However, I saw a post where someone described Lemmy users as anarchist and it made me cringe and laugh a little. Since I have been on here I have seen a lot of, “the mainstream world and mainstream supporters of platforms are lost and the world is lost and we must put an end to it.”
Coming from a digital forensics/security/IT background. My way of thinking has changed some over the years about my data and privacy. However, what I have found is that every platform has its issues like normal. For me it isn’t so much an issue but people using the Fediverse have some form of mentality that they have a portion of the internet figured out and the anarchy and push against the mainstream is some bigger plan. The truth is, at least to me, the Fediverse actually seems like a security nightmare. Being a part of a community that understands other aspects of the internet doesn’t make you invincible to the problems exemplified by other portions of the internet. The Fediverse is popular in its own way because it is small.
As you said it is disposable. You aren’t an anarchist because you can put down mainstream ideas. You are also in another world of hurt if you think anarchy works at all. History it doesn’t. Neither does libertarianism and libertarians are just anarchists that don’t want to admit they are anarchist.
I am fairly new to the Fediverse but based on what little I have seen and know I do also understand where OP is coming from. The users of some of these. Platforms are very strong and forward thinking and in people’s defense they aren’t entirely wrong. But some of the people on the platforms seem to think they have a portion of the internet truly figured out and that kind of thinking makes you vulnerable.
Alot of the greater FOSS community as a whole is a little defensive.
There was a time when Microsoft tried to kill linux and the open source movement when it was in its infancy. Back then it was literally MS saw a competition and wanted to crush it. While times have certainly change for example Facebook basically made BtrFS good. People still haven’t forgotten that a corporate giant once tried to destroy a passion project out of pure spite. So any move in that direction is considered an affront to the core ideals that make up FOSS. The way telemetry is looked at in the linux community is a good example. Even though there are valid uses of telemetry most linux users hate it and would rather a project die than include it. Its a bit of slippery slope fallacy mixed with tribalism.
I dont run across anarchist sentiment that often I would say its more communal. The endless dream of the ‘year of the linux desktop’ is a good example of this. I have been using linux as my desktop operating system for 18 to 20 years now. In that time it went for installing linux was tech wizardry and right of passage to a child can do it. What made it change is that the community desperately wanted to have that ‘year of the linux desktop’ when your average jo could take part in what we were passionate about. So devs removed as many barriers to entry as possible to make it so anyone could join in. While we still haven’t had that year yet my quality of life as a linux user has improved dramatically. Installing, maintaining, fixing and updating a linux environment has gotten so good that I find that Windows seems cumbersome. But those improvements where not done for me they were meant to bring new members to the community because the community desperately wanted to grow. It took a long time for the community to come around to the idea that linux isnt just for the nerds. I think the fediverse is in a similar boat now where the users want this cool thing to grow. But with growth comes change and people are almost always afraid of change. So there are a vocal few trying to convert others to there way of thinking so things dont change. Which is a pipe dream.
Also people really do confuse privacy and security. I use linux because I like my privacy and don’t feel like I get enough benefits when I give it up with Windows or MacOS. That said I also use gmail because I need the buisness I handle on a daily secure not private. I dont care if google knows what I shop for as long as they dont let anyone get access to my bank login.
I agree with all your points. In an ideal world, FOSS and megacorp projects can coexist without stepping on each other’s toes. The constant growth doctrine of capitalism causes the competition of FOSS products to appear as a threat to the large companies, thus we have seen that through legal action, buyouts, takeovers or other unscrupulous methods companies like Microsoft, Sony, Google, Nintendo have tried to extinguish FOSS before they catch on.
That’s why many FOSS users (like me) growl and bear their teeth at big corporations (and to an extent their sympathizers) trying to make sweeping moves into the FOSS space, as we aware the motives are likely less friendly than they appear on the surface.
Your point on distinguishing Privacy and Security is an important one, though they both rely on trust/confidence. I’m not the biggest security advocate. I believe that companies should only collect and transmit a reasonable amount of information necessary to perform their service. Technologies that rely on hoovering up massive amounts of data regardless of context, secondary uses for personal data outside of the reason it was collected, hiding behind generic “helping improve the service” clauses make me very suspicious and I try to discourage those practices.
Lastly, with Proton and the Steamdeck we may be in the year of the Linux gaming console if anything!
The steamdeck has really ushered in the year of the indies. So many games are getting attention because they run well on the deck. Battlebit is a great example.
It really is amazing how well proton works.
I think your security point came up yesterday lol
You are also in another world of hurt if you think anarchy works at all. History it doesn’t. Neither does libertarianism and libertarians are just anarchists that don’t want to admit they are anarchist.
I’m suddenly really interested in what warped view of history you’ve developed. What social institutions and broad philosophical norms would you say have worked historically?
im not coming from the exact perspective of who you replied to, but unironically i would say none have “worked”. and most likely none ever will, at least for a very long time. no system can ever work perfectly as intended, there will always be problems an ways to improve it. there may be some that are significantly better than others (personally, i like some form of democratic socialism) but it will always be a game of tradeoffs and slowly improving
This is a worthwhile rant. I believe as the masses divest themselves of centralized services the types of dialogue that take place on the fediverse will even out. Currently how the federated world stands is similar to the early days of reddit, which was a home for the tech crowd.
not to be a dick, but good riddance to anyone implying meta isn’t an unethical, monster of a corporation that is defined by it’s opportunism, serves only it’s own interests, and has forfeited any and all good faith it may once have had. trust them at your own peril, and go back to reddit.
csm10495: Hey, guys. Can we not be assholes about why we are here?
becool: Not to say “fuck you and get out” but fuck you and get out.
Personally, I see both sides of this matter. As a long time redditor, I am seething at the thought spez is effectively claiming "We are entitled to all the free data users gave us over the years and to jack up our API prices which will make for a worse user experience. I also think there is a right way and a wrong way to discuss the overreach of some people, like spez, who have a pathological lack of awareness in a way which makes constructive resolution easier and more imminent.
For example, instead of what you wrote, I might have said something like “Fortunately, reddit is still a thing and we can work on showing the people over there just how shitty spez’s actions have been and how they will lead to a worsening experience for them while simultaneously encouraging them to join kbin”.
I’m not saying your position and its premises are necessarily wrong; I am saying time, place, and manner of communication often – if not always – matter.
See… this is the type of comment that cements my opinion. I don’t really care about the ‘meta’ of the platform at the moment. Most businesses tend to be this way in this world. There can be a separate conversation on that pitfalls of today’s capitalism. I just want a link aggregator with friendly people that is usable for all.
If those friendly people wind up coming from Threads or whatever, that’s ok with me. It doesn’t have to be ok with others though, I won’t push my opinion on others at least in this context.
I gave my opinion and you gave good riddance. That isn’t exactly welcoming.
I mean, there are dozens of rational and polite comments in this thread, and you’re choosing this one comment to ‘cement your opinion’. I’m a techie, but I don’t know if I’m one of those weird people you talk about, or just a normal person you want. I have noticed less hostility in the comments, and the hostile ones like this one stand out because the friendly ones are most prevalent. I also have been seeing more and more of the text based communities gain traction over the past week with more normal people stories, and hope they gain even more traction in the coming days.
As for Reddit, I have been occasionally visiting some of my niche communities that haven’t migrated over, but have decided not to participate in anything there. I have also noticed that the Reddit front page is now a lot similar to Lemmy, that I often can’t tell if I’m on Reddit or Lemmy. I saw a post there today about some guy playing a song on piano for 3 girls, and the top 10 comments with thousands of upvotes were all the same old Reddit tropes of panties down, floor wet, leave some pussy for us, and so on. I’m noticing them more and more because of how different the comment section on Lemmy is.
You don’t have to feel bad about staying here or visiting Reddit or doing them both at the same time. You have no obligation for either site.
That’s fair. I’m working through comments. Kind of got derailed by a trip to Grocery Outlet. Lots of positive comments in here as well.
Lots of nice response and good people. I guess I sort of made an example out of this one. Not everyone is like this. The idea of using possibly both this and Reddit isn’t really something I had considered since I wanted to protest them being dicks… but maybe that’s a good compromise till things get further along. 🤷
It’s really up to you. But I decided to cut off reddit completely because I personally feel like, if you don’t quit cold turkey, you’re never gonna leave (not you in particular). Mind you, reddit has been a huge means of support since the fullscale invasion if Ukraine started, so quitting reddit of especially divestment. But you know what, being without reddit has been easier than I imagined. I feel like, to truly help Lemmy pick up, we have to believe that it will and invest energy only here. But that’s just me. You’re not obligated to either community.
Reddit is somewhat known for being unwelcoming as well though?
For myself, honestly no I don’t miss it at all. But mostly b/c I’ll stay with Reddit, after a month’s hiatus for protest, and probably only check it once a week for an hour rather than multiple times a day as before. There’s a particular gaming community over there that doesn’t post much content here yet, and even while I’m trying to help do my part there, I still want to be informed… which means at least reading Reddit (probably via Teddit to deprive them of traffic). I’m also on Squabbles too. Some people also are saying that kbin.social is more welcoming than most Lemmy servers, especially sh.itjust.works - I don’t know about that b/c wouldn’t you see mostly the same content b/c of federation? - but in any case it could be a thought to try different instances, maybe especially smaller ones.
It depends on what you wanted it for tbh. If you can stand to be on Reddit, then go for it? Maybe also stay here too, if you like certain parts of it, and get the best of both worlds. You can’t force people to be welcoming, you can only find places where they hang out and then you hang out there too. Squabbles is fairly welcoming - it’s being described right now as something like toxically non-toxic, as in activist-level hunting down of toxic personality traits, I can’t really explain it but check it out if you are interested:-).
Good luck, and I hope that you find what you need. Also, please remember to use social media responsibly rather than let it use you: it is addictive regardless of what platform you find yourself on, and maybe you are awakening to that possibility b/c of the switch, i.e. if you moved back you would find that it was no longer “the same” as it was before, b/c of your new understanding of that fact? If so, hopefully these growing pains lead to something better:-).
Reddit wasn’t welcoming to opinions outside the hivemind either, you just didn’t notice because you were inside it.
You’re basically telling everyone to be nice and pretend these same kinds of people who killed reddit for us won’t kill the fediverse when we have every reason to believe they will, and you don’t want us to talk about it or do anything about it?
I don’t really get why you’re here in the first place. If you liked reddit and don’t hate modern social media why not just stay there? People came here to avoid what meta could do to the fediverse and avoid what reddit became. Why are you acting surprised that people are acting that way?
You’re basically telling everyone to be nice and pretend these same kinds of people who killed reddit for us won’t kill the fediverse when we have every reason to believe they will, and you don’t want us to talk about it or do anything about it?
Up to now, I’ve asked probably like 6 times in various different threads on kbin / lemmy / mastadon
Nobody has given a concrete mechanism by which federating with Meta will kill the Fediverse. At most people just parrot out the acronym “EEE” and link the singular article by Ploum and pretend like they’ve said something meaningful
Federation is like email. I’m not going to block Gmail off from my email server because there are millions of people who use Gmail. It would be a disservice to my open standard to be blocking off millions of people from communicating with me. Instance owners are not going to give them their admin passwords. The Lemmy devs aren’t going to close source Lemmy and license it to Meta.
It’s not even like federation is a permanent thing. Instance owners can federate and as soon as Meta brings negative consequences they can defederate. The main risk I see is a large influx of people… which is not a bad thing, especially once it stabilizes. It would mean more people make more subs and all sorts of niche things will start to pop up - the only really nice thing about reddit.
So tell me, what is the urgent crisis attitude for? How is this the end of the world? Why do we see post after post of people freaking out about this? Instance owners can’t even sign an NDA without getting death threats.
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I don’t think the point is to be welcoming to big tech messing up another platform. Seriously, which big tech platform hasn’t had a scandal around fucking over its users?
I understand the feeling of not having the kind of content you vibe with yet. There’s a lot of stuff on Reddit that I miss too. This is still primarily a Western audience, while Reddit was just starting to get popular in my country.
The insufferable people going on about open source and privacy is the reason we have Lemmy in the first place. If you don’t have strong opinions and a desire to get away from big corporations, why would you make Lemmy in the first place?
The algorithms big tech uses to boost engagement on their platforms is the reason things don’t stay friendly on their platforms. So, it’s fine if they come over but helping extend the reach of big tech over Lemmy is a serious no no.
Think of a union striking. Yes, it could impact your daily life and inconvenience you by making you late to your appointment. But, at the end of the day, they’re fighting for your right to reasonable working conditions just as much they are fighting for theirs. You don’t have to actively support them, just not oppose them for the slight benefit of your present convenience!
For example, the “normal” people are the ones who will complain about jobs going overseas but then not buy American because of minimal price differences! Here’s a link that talks about the case of American Apparel.
I guess for me its to protest reddit’s treatment of their community… not really to decentralize elsewhere. It can kind of be both though.
Reddit is part of the symptom. We need to treat the disease at its roots. And yes, that is going to take at least some amount of sacrifice/inconvenience on our part.
I think it makes more sense if you think of it like a system.
You gave your opinion and he did as well. I agree with becool, Meta has proven themselves to be an extremely unethical and untrustworthy company throughout the years. I believe it’s in the best interest of the fediverse for instances to distance themselves from Meta. That said, there’s nothing stopping you from using multiple platforms, or working to foster the type of community and culture you want here.
This is still the very early days of the fediverse and it will no doubt change a lot in the coming months and years. If there were things you liked about reddit then try to bring that culture here and you might attract more like minded people.
The content you’re replying to reminds me of the earlier years of reddit where they think they are superior of mind and basically look down on you.
not to be a dick
go back to reddit
“Not to be a dick, but…”
Proceeds to be a dick to OP
I will reply as someone who in 2015 had 340,000 followers overall in the big social media of the time (tumblr, insta, fb, flickr etc). I was the world’s most popular collage artist at the time (not an exaggeration). I even got selected by NYTimes for having among the “best book covers of the year” in 2016, among other works for many magazines etc.
Long story short, for an artist to make it without a gallery (I despise the whole idea of galleries because they force you to make the same kind of art all the time), they must base their business via social media. There’s no other way. And so I did, and did well. Well, come 2017, the enshitification of these platforms started happening. Nothing was chronological anymore. And since I’m not a person who shows what they ate today, or making it all about myself (I was only posting art, not personal stuff), their new recommendation algorithms destroyed my business. I used to make thousands per year to sustain my life, because each time I’d have a sale, people would SEE my post about it and if they liked my art, they’d buy. Now, my posts are served to about 1/10th of my followers, and no new users find me, because hashtags aren’t embraced for finding new users anymore, everything’s just recommendations. Within 5 short years since the big algorithmic, I was now making only about $100/month via my art. And that was not just for me, but 95% of other artists and photographers out there too. The recommendation system of all social media (including youtube now) only promotes a few superstars in any given field, not everyone is getting their share fair of exposure based on chronology. Many online small businesses don’t work anymore because everything is not a fair field anymore. Even buying ads doesn’t make a difference.
So, I have no interest in using things like Threads, where you are literally bombarded with celebrity and brands content, but almost none of the people you follow.
Reddit has followed the same line, it’s just that we see it less, because it’s more discussion-driven. But similar changes have happened to it – in spirit. I still use reddit only for 3 sub-reddits that are too specific and don’t have enough people for here yet. I don’t use the rest of reddit.
On top of that, I’m not interested in trackers, ads, and everything that eventually lead to enshitification of these platforms. So now, I only use federated services. I have accounts with lemmy, mastodon, pixelfed, peertube, nostr, matrix, etc.
No, none of my friends are there (my husband has a mastodon account, and that’s it). And I don’t care if they aren’t. When I’m with my mom next time I’ll install a matrix client for her too, so she can call me for free (so we don’t have to use fb messenger, the only big app I still use, so I can talk to her in Greece for free). Then, I won’t need of these big social media apps.
As for my business, it will never come back (especially now with AI art). But at least, I have MORE eyes here on the fediverse than I have on the big social media. I posted a new painting on my pixelfed yesterday, and it got 17 likes, out of just 27 followers. On instagram I usually get 70 likes out of 3600 followers (that’s on my illustration account, my other, collage account, had nearly 170,000 followers in its hey day). And consider that Pixelfed only has 160,000 users (plus federated via mastodon by some instances). Given that amount of likes on the fediverse, if Instagram was still chronological and hashtags were still bearing importance as they did in the past, my posts there could have about 5,000 likes – given their 2+ bn users. Instead, with their recommendation engine, I get only 70 likes, and no new followers. So proportionally, I get more eyes on the fediverse, than I do on the big social media. So why would I want to go back to big social media? Just to be served Kim Kardashian content that I never asked for it? I won’t.
I do miss sequential feeds. … do also agree with the general shitification stuff.
Sorry about the loss in livelihood. That sucks.
This is a fair take.
Due the circumstances right now, we’ve got more tech and privacy minded people, as well as more “principaled” folk, so we definitely skew a certain way.
I’d say give it time. Imo, things will sort of water down if more people keep joining. (For lack of a better term)
But I will respectfully disagree, I’m kinda enjoying it, and I’m not half as smart as some of the people on here, but I do totally understand your perspective.
This is basically my take as well. I do understand OP’s sadness or frustration, but I do think it will pass.
That said, the world may never again have a home for so many full and rich niche communities. What u/Spez has done is a kind of cultural terrorism.
I’m sorry, but to me, it’s not normal to be transparent to the bones for big tech. It’s not normal to be pushed around by big tech just like Spez, Elon and Zuck do it with their userbase. It’s not normal to be the product and to be followed around, often even without consent.
It’s the opposite of normal to think that this is normal. To me, people who think this is normal nave been successfully brainwashed by big tech. Think I’m wearing a tinfoil hat? Okay, go ahead.
But if we don’t finally step up against shit like that, it’ll only get worse.
Lemmy right now feels like reddit from the early 2010s. The community is still quite small, it’s mostly still early adopters and folks looking for an alternative to big social medias, which attracts a different crowd than the mainstream.
It’s actually a hit of nostalgia for me, I’m kind of into the weirdness and intimacy of a smaller community, but I certainly understand where you’re coming from.
One of my favorite niche subreddits has over 600k members, the biggest equivalent community has about 350ish users here, there’s a certain quality that comes with that quantity of users.
But if we stick with it more folks will join and we can make this place into what we want it to be, and that’s pretty cool imo. Lemmy is still in it’s infancy compared to reddit, and it’s not perfect, but I think we can build it into something even better, and missing the good parts of reddit can inspire us to make sure that we incorporate them into lemmy in the future.
I’ve been embracing the weirdness of multiple platforms with distinct cultures and equally enjoying going to different parts of the internet again after quite some time! I do miss the sense that in browsing Reddit you could sample the cultural pulse of a particular demographic cluster.
In a perfect world wish reddit corp wasn’t such assholes and this whole thing didn’t happen the way it did.
A lot of us here, are here and have the opinions you don’t like (FOSS, privacy is important, big tech is bad) because we too wish Reddit wasn’t such assholes.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. Lemmy users are jaded. We have come to accept that big tech companies will continue to act the way they do because it is in their nature.
The free ride is over bub. The walls are closing in as venture capitalists squeeze users for profits (especially in this economy). With big tech, you are the product. You don’t get a say in how you use the product. Instead you are cattle, to be hearded. If you want to be a sheep and mingle along with all the other sheep and just keep your head down and accept whatever the big tech companies tell you to do (and that’s fine if it’s what you want), then maybe Lemmy ain’t for you. But one thing is clear Lemmy must shed the ills of big tech and investor interests and privacy harvesting business models if we are to not return exactly where we ended up using Reddit.
Sorry, I don’t have better news for you.
Also a lot of us users are older and this isn’t our first social media company failing us.
Raise your hand if you came from digg, myspace or somethingaweful
And Fark and Slashdot. Hell, I used to run a BBS with a dial-in line. At most I had five or six users and only one wasn’t a direct friend. I’ll go be old over here.
Obviously also new here. What you are seeing, honestly, is that the communities that have the most activity. This is what the majority of the users here want. Can you really blame them? You came to a preexisting community that had one thing in common. The federated social networks are explicitly anti-faang, that’s their reason for being. We’re just here because Reddit took away our stuff. It’s on us to make the content and the community we want. They welcomed us.
Yep. The reason the fediverse exists is to solve the ownership problem of big social network companies (ranging from privacy issues, to greed, to political influence), so naturally the group that uses the fediverse first are the ones that feel most strongly about that issue.
It really isn’t hostile here 95% of the time, but on the topic of Meta it’s like poking a hornets nest.
I know my family and most people don’t really care about the privacy settings of Meta and I don’t bother trying to convince them to change, but I will always enjoy shit talking them to like minded folk online.
only thing i really miss from reddit is how large it was, it was way easier to find a decent sized community for more niche interests, it feels like here there is only equivalents to the popular subreddits, which is fine, but those were the last places i ever used or visited on reddit.
Absolutely the biggest issue for Lemmy (and any other federated threadlike site). This whole reddit “implosion” business (though it really is doing just fine still) has done wonders for user growth, but it’s gonna take at least another few hundred thousand+ people on here before there’s enough random distribution to make smaller niche hobby communities viable.
I miss how big reddit was. There were so many niche subreddits that were active. A lot of them are still active now, but I also don’t want to support spez.
Lemmy will get there one day.
