Ask Lemmy

Reddit API thing. After they announced the changes I was gone. I still use reddit for ~~porn~~ certain enriching activities but other than that - not really.

I tried Lemmy during the API BS and found it was a lot like the internet chat rooms of old, with way less manufactured rage.

The day the API key for my 3rd party app expired. I still append most searches with Reddit though.

Reddit likes to create some big periodical drama with its changes. Some of them already had me uneasy, and the way they gave their back to users with the API changes made end up doing what I had pending.

Closing of r/ProgrammerHumour

When the API changes happened, I hadn't discovered third-party clients yet, but I knew what an API was, and the consequences of the pricing change.

Corporate douchebaggery

They permanently banned my original account. Lol

Definitely the API debacle.

Sync stopping development and switching to Lemmy brought me with it.

Content here is robust enough for me to mostly keep me off the other guy. Just been waiting for a few more niche communities to make their way over here to be perfect.

Funny I used their app but still left due to the API changes, that and there was talk then about them going public. I just assumed it'll probably get worse from there so I jumped ship. I just need to start posting more.

I still use Reddit, but less after the API changes. I was already using Mastodon and aware of Lemmy when that happened, but the biggest server previously was lemmy.ml, and even that wasn't very active. I put it in the back of my mind to check on again in hopes it would gain relevance. Reddit pissed off a bunch of its users, so it did.

Lemmy.world launched around then, and I'd heard of its admins by way of their well-known Mastodon server so I signed up.

The overwhelming oppression of free speech and expression of ideas through power hungry and immature moderators and anti-human rules made me leave. I have had several 10+ year accounts banned due to "breaking rules" of a Sub... BANNED, with zero explanation that made any sense if you can understand the English language.

The mods use any excuse to tie your comment to some "breakage of rule" and instead of warnings, post removal, or ya know, something CIVIL that would RETAIN USERS. They just outright ban people for anything and the appeal process is a fucking joke.

Once I heard that the people who made mastodon had also made a federated version of reddit, I started hanging out here. I lurked for months, then posted a few times through, i think, 5 accounts. Now I am only really on Lemmy.

Is it great? no, a lot of the problem with social media is the people. Is it a better design than places like reddit and twitter? Definitely. So I am here.

Group effect. I have heard of the Fediverse before. It seemed to be an interesting concept but I did not see how it could fit into my life. Also were to find a website to registered, communities I'm interested in.
It wasn't so long after I join Reddit that the API protest happened. Community I have already join started to discuss moving to Lemmy, instance name were mentioned, guides were written. I found no reason not to finally join a social media that was much closer to my free-culture value.
Now, I feel more in my place here than on Reddit. I'm much more active. I haven't found everything there was on Reddit but I find plenty I could not find there that I like much more: Group culture to build from scratch, interoperability both btw instances and software, less corporate and marketing interference, human scale places of interaction.

I can't be left. I can't be right. Mods power tripping and I don't like walking on egg shells when I'm talking.

Reddit is Fun stopped working.

That greedy little pigboy Spez's API shenanigans.

Not completely stopped using Reddit, but making the switch to the Fediverse + forums with a new name. I’ll still be checking in daily incase anyone i talk to wants to message me, tho.

For me, the biggest issue is that Reddit just feels dead. If you look at pretty much any sub, there is a huge discrepancy between the member count, and the activity (posts + comments and upvotes on posts) of said sub. You can have a sub with like 2-3 million members, but the top posts get like 20k upvotes and less than 1000 comments. 5 years ago it could easy be close to 100k upvotes and 30k-40k comments. That to me is an extremely strong sign that the site is dying. Another piece of evidence is looking at old subs (will use r/futurology as an example, since that’s the kinda space i’m most familiar with) such as r/futurology , and seeing how drastically the activity has dropped. That sub is a classic reddit forum and has over 20 Million members, and yet the top posts get like 6k-7k upvotes and 200-300 comments. Other subs have suffered similar drops in activity. Compare it to Lemmy, which has 50k active users as of me writing this, but gets a similar level of engagements in the top communities as reddit does in smallish to medium sized subs.

Another big issue is the API changes. Reddit got way too greedy and ruined a lot of what made the site fun. All they had to do was just not be extremely greedy, and none of this would’ve happened.

EDIT: forgot to add that another issue is the power hungry mods. Reddit is notorious for having power tripping mods that will ban you for literally the slightest reasons, or no reason at all.

too many ads

Years and years of reddit getting more and more problematic and lower quality:

Reddit is dangerous. The admins are out of control. Humanity needs a viable alternative.

API changes and spez being a cunt

They ban you for bs reasons. That's it, even if you don't go against their rules, apparently saying the truth is enough to get banned.

Ultimately, the deciding factor was the API locking out 3rd party apps. I found the Reddit App to be unusable and poorly designed, but the final straw was the unblockable ads. By this I mean, unlike other social media, there is no way to opt out of a particular ad and be served another in its place. For some users this was not a big deal because all ads are equally annoying, but for other users it was actively harmful. Recovering alcoholics were served unskippable beer ads. Gambling addicts were served ads for sports betting websites and casinos. Being a religious minority, I was frequently in groups targeted with aggressive proselytizing. It's dehumanizing.

Without the ability to use the apps that were better designed more efficient and didn't serve offensive ads, the site was useless to me. I ended up deleting all of my posts and comments as a security measure. Years of posts made it likely that my account could make me personally identifiable. Initially I planned to keep some of my posts intact that were offering troubleshooting or expert content but without the use of api tools, the task of doing so was impossible.

The general toxicity of the site, indifference to bigotry, and the CEO/Corporate behavior were all contributions. It made it exhausting and unpleasant. so I was not too sad to leave.

Blatant nazi stuff, mod infiltration, creepy mod rules for NSFW subs

The death of the ".compact" version of the site was the final nail in the coffin for me. I don't want to install an app, especially not the official reddit app to have a usable mobile experience. Once ".compact" was gone the only option was "old.reddit" which is a horrible mobile experience even though it is a fine desktop experience.

Lemmy mobile web user experience is VERY close to the ".compact" reddit user experience.

There were 2 things:

1. Over time it became obvious the site was promoting mass market fluff over the unique content that made reddit what it used to be. In particular having r/all as a default sub and no option to remove it seemed particularly egregious. Seemed like an attempt to impose a monoculture on the user base, and I didn't like that culture which was mostly images of tweets which is a trend I especially hate.
2. The API pricing and going public was the last straw. I looked at reddit as a wikipedia-like place where information was shared freely, for whomever and even whatever wanted to see it. I even bought gold in my younger and more naive years. But if the officers were so keen on making profits for themselves on my shitposting, why am I not getting paid? Injecting greed ruined the whole thing.

It took years for me to really disconnect.

• They introduced, with much fanfare, a mysterious new way of counting votes, and back-propagated it. Suddenly, all upvotes of past and present posts and comments got boosted by a factor of 8-9 or so. Felt hollow, manufactured, disingenuous.
• The founders admitted that in the early days, they made up lots of sock puppet accounts which talked to each other. That eerie, self-congratulatory sentiment never really left the site.
• Proven to tamper with comments.
• That derailed AMA with Julian Assange. It felt 99.9% inorganic.

And so much more.

My Discord registration was denied several times without explanation, so as soon as I discovered Lemmy, I came over and never looked back.

When israel started their Genocide the entire frontpage was filled with Zionist bots and any criticism of israel would lead to a ban.

All while IDF propaganda of beheadedbabies was spammed all over the place.

I used the API to see what mods were censoring. The lack of mod transparency is gross.

Losing Apollo and what reddit did to the dev Also when Spez publicly said he admired Elon Musk