Is Lemmy a replacement for Reddit or just something different?

Before Reddit was Digg. Before Facebook was MySpace. Before Mastodon there was Twitter. Before Lemmy there was Reddit. It's fair to say that each of these sites was or is going to be replaced. The time it takes for the migration is typically slow as the new system gains traction and features. I don't believe they are direct replacements. If there was a copy of the existing site there would be no need to leave. Lemmy is different. Lemmy replaces a need not a site.

When I was growing up the internet was created by the people. Corporate sites were rare and far between. They didn't dominate. People would visit Geocities, Newgrounds, IRC, etc. The biggest players were AOL for chat and Yahoo for sports, news, & search. No site was perfect and beautiful and people didn't care. It was wonderful. This all changed.

It feels almost instant; however, I believe it was slow. Sites like Facebook promised to be the people's network. Youtube took over as this amazing video hosting service. No more Flash! People thought the rough edges of the internet were over. They traded their personal information for free sites. They didn't know what they were giving up.

Over time these "small" sites became the Internet. 5 sites now are the internet to some people. It's time for the internet to return to the people like it was before. Rough & personal.

Lemmy replaces that need people have to connect on common topics and to gather news. It's the newspaper of the people.

Lemmy isn't a Reddit replacement... it is filling a need that Reddit has failed to fill. Reddit became like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Youtube. It wanted to be more than what people wanted it to be. It changed, so people are leaving. The fediverse is the future. It's time to take the internet back!