I know there are a lot of us who came here from Reddit, so I kinda want to know why and how you fellas got here, and from where.
Bonus points if you explain why you’re excited about Lemmy and the Fediverse, or, alternatively, share why your worried or annoyed at Lemmy and the Fediverse.
I’ll go first: I was really tired of putting Reddit at the end of every Google search, and so I decided that I’d probably get better results from the same crowd of people (techie, open-source privacy geeks like myself lol) from the Fediverse. I originally wanted to join /kbin (not sure if that’s how it’s formatted) but I noticed that they didn’t have an Android app, so I went with Lemmy for now until kbin has an app I can use. I struggled to decide what instance I wanted to use, but eventually decided to join Lemdro.id because, well, I enjoy android I guess. (And it doesn’t really matter) I’m excited to see what happens with the whole Threads thing, as well as the Fediverse at large, considering the massive growth most platforms are experiencing at the moment. It sounds corny, but I feel like I’m a part of a new chapter in the Internet and the world’s history, you know? I mean I’m not exactly an early adopter, but I’m earlier than everyone after me, you know? I am worried about the same social issues that plagued reddit appearing here, which would make me sad. I just don’t want to see the same political discourse on the Fediverse, because otherwise, what actually sets us apart from regular vanilla reddit, then?
(Edit) Sorry for the confusion, I didn’t mean for reddit-migration stories specifically, I just wanted to talk about how we all got here!
Nothing to write home about.
When slashdot was becoming too toxic, I went reddit. When reddit took away my Baconreader Premium, I went lemmy.
If I stop liking lemmy, I’ll go somewhere else.
Well, my story isn’t particularly interesting, but I imagine it’s similar to many others’.
I used RIF. Reddit killed RIF. I wasn’t a fan of how they handled that at all, and it instantly soured me against the company. Also, their own app is terrible.
I browsed /r/RedditAlternatives for answers, and tried a few. Lemmy felt most like what I enjoyed about Reddit, and it wasn’t totally devoid of content. I figured out how instances worked, picked a random one, thinking I’d choose my favorite later, and started posting a comment here and there. I tried a bunch of apps, moved from Beehaw to lemmy.world, found communities that I liked, and… well here we are.
I’ll admit, I’ve visited Reddit a few times when Lemmy has felt stale, but mostly I’ve completely moved over without missing it. The vibe is much better, like early Reddit, despite having less content. I’ve felt compelled to contribute more often myself, which makes it more fun.
I agree. One thing I like about reddit (and why I keep it around in my Google searches) is the older content, questions people have asked a long time ago and stuff like that. Kind of like stack overflow, but some of the stuff is on reddit, you know?
I also love the vibe. I really hope that all the angry argument redditors just stay there and argue while we can enjoy each others’ company and discuss things civilly!
So I was using reddit and I heard about those API changes. Then about Lemmy. I generally like open source and that’s why I abandoned reddit and went full Lemmy :) And now here I am, also working on my lemmy app.
Lemmy also inspired me to another switch: from Windows to Fedora Linux. Installed it yesterday and I don’t regret.
Right after spez’s petulant AMA, I thought I should take a look around at alternative forums, since that AMA wasn’t a good sign of things to come. I didn’t have an explicit goal of moving - I just wanted to see what options were out there.
I fairly quickly ran across mentions of and links to kbin and lemmy. I was already familiar with Mastodon, but it hadn’t much impressed me (though Twitter never much impressed me either, so that was no surprise). Kbin and lemmy sounded more up my alley though - more traditional forum structure rather than the sort of microblogging thing of Mastodon/Twitter.
So I checked it out
Then I just… never left.
The API changes were coming, and the increasingly deranged decisions and actions of the CEO and administration just made me switch over in mid June. Just stopped using it. Haven’t looked back since.
Did also delete as many comments as possible via API before they shut it down.
Not doing anything drastic like blocking Reddit via extension or DNS. Just not using it and trying not to give more traffic to the site.
Be the change you want to see, so I left Reddit and created my own Lemmy instance for everyone to use.
Mine is singularly uninspiring. I learned that there were federated options for a reddit-like experience, stood up an instance, and thought this is good enough. Then I whacked out my account on reddit.
I deleted reddit years ago and now joined lemmy
