I have been on reddit for just about 12 years now. Something I’ve noticed over time is just how hateful the place has become. A complete outrage machine. Every single sub became filled with it. I’ve filtered so many subreddits over the last few years, it’s insane. I don’t know enough about this place to be sure, but I do hope it doesn’t become the same type of echo chamber of anger.
It varied for me. For example I lurked on /r/watches and would watch as the group mind ripped to shreds anyone who dared showing a digital that wasn’t Casio or a fashion watch. /R/PLC stayed good the whole time. I guess because we had a common enemy, everyone else in the universe.
I always felt the karma system fed the toxicity. People became more defensive and passive aggressive if someone had downvoted them, and there was a tendency for people to just mass downvote unpopular opinions instead of engage with the user in question. Personally I don’t like that Lemmy has an upvote/downvote system on comments either. Any time you give people a lazy way to say “I don’t like this comment” instead of actually explaining why they don’t like it, the quality of the conversation begins to deteriorate.