The biggest thing I'll miss isn't actually being on reddit but the fact that basically any time you needed to look up somthing you could just google it and add site:reddit.com and find some good threads about it.. it's been a valuable knowledge base.
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I also do this, but even before the recent turmoil I started losing confidence and trust. Brands know about this trick and they know how much consumers trust honest reviews by real people.
Generative AI like ChatGPT makes it easier than ever to flood subs with search-engine friendly posts and comments how awesome product X is...
True.. look at reviews too for instance. Feels like more and more of them are generated by their owners in different ways to trick people. Same with tracks on spoitfy and so on as well, companies script playing their tracks all the time so they'll end up higher in rankins.
It's really starting to be hard to find anything that's honest these days.
But you can check peopleβs comment history, at least for the time being itβs easy enough to notice if an account isnβt organic.
Agreed, although I do love that their own search engine was complete dogshit. That said, many of the posts I found really useful were at least five years old, sometimes as old as 12. In some ways it may be good for the knowledge base to update a bit. Actually, are Lemmy posts searchable the same way as Reddit?
They should be when the search engines have had time to index them. You can access them without loggin in so it should be fine?
Agreed, I feel like the social part of reddit is pretty easily replaceable but the amount of niche and specialised information was incredible
Iβm sad too. I grew up in the early 1970s loving newspapers and oddly loving the classified ad sections (that sounds strange, but reading scattered somewhat classified content still is pleasing to me. That is how my carefully curated Reddit home feed felt.) As newspapers died, I realized that my small metro area had no good written way to interact or hear about local issues. Our local subreddit became my best source.
And I loved reading subs such as /nursing and /medicine and /talesfromyourserver not because I work in those areas, but because they are IRL communities that I count on for my quality of life and hearing their stories helped me empathize with them and (I think) made me a better human.
If I woke up in the middle of the night, I could read something to get my mind off of whatever was running through my head.
Other than paying for my Apollo subscription, making about 25 comments a year, and using the upvote function liberally, I didnβt interact much. My almost 10 year old account is very shy. I was always wary of being attacked or ignored. Oddly, IRL, Iβm very apt to dive into any conversation.
Iβm tentatively trying to be more interactive here. Smaller groups feel safer.
As someone who worked at a major U.S. newspaper in the late 90s, I think the world needs more people who think the way you have just expressed... valuing local information, empathizing with people outside your circle, and considering how your words will be received. I hope you find Lemmy to be a place where you feel comfortable contributing.
For now itβs great! I loved newspapers and was a co-editor on my high school paper. Reading and writing have always been favorite things for me to do. Thanks for your time in the newspaper business. Wonder how many here still seek the goodness of that medium that was also largely lost?
I prefer non-corporate alternatives, like lemmy or mastodon. However, if it's going to last, users are going to have to contribute what they can to keeping the lights on, otherwise, if lemmy grows, they'll have to resort to things like ads to cover their costs and it will become reddit all over again.
Well, we are on the ground floor here. Let's find something that keeps the lights on and gives everyone the incentives they need to make a great community!
Perhaps a good start would be a page that gives statistics about the time and money required to run an instance. I really appreciate those who have dedicated their time money and reputation to start things up. Lets find a way to build a better social media experience together.
I think many of us would be OK with a number of different models, donations, non-intrusive ads, reasonable subscription fees, etc. Perhaps there could even be incentives for people who put time into building communities by moderating or other tasks. The important thing in my opinion is that everyone feels they contributed to the structure in a way that they want to keep participating.
Edit: I found a budget page from the donation link on the side bar of the main page of lemmy.world.
Perhaps a good start would be a page that gives statistics about the time and money required to run an instance.
Yeah, that's not not a bad idea.
I'm ok with some non-intrusive ads, also. I'd also be ok with chipping in $5 a month, or so, if it's something I end up using a lot.
From a personal perspective, I would like to see a model where basic access is free. A 5$ a month fee is fine for you and me, but I think there are a lot of people who may not have that in their budget or who don't want the paper trail of payments (e.g. if they live in a country that is restrictive of free speech). I am really hoping that voluntary donations are sufficient, but I guess we will see.
Honestly Iβm fine with some amount of ads as long as they are unobtrusive and inoffensive. Either that or thereβs a free tier with some minimal ads and a paid tier with no ads. Nothing outlandish though.
No instance admin should have to bear the cost.
Unfortunately with the current structure of things, that's probably what will have to happen for a bit.
Lemmy is decentralized and federated and there are pros and cons to that system. One of those is that users expect a completely free experience. However, I have a server at home, but I have no way of scaling it. So despite there being a community I'd love to spin up, I can't because I have no way of scaling it.
Most people are going to have to go through Cloud providers for that, which can get pricey.
At least with Lemmy there's lots of different servers, each with their own running costs.
Each could try a different way of keeping the lights on. Some could run on donations only, some could use small unobtrusive ads on the side, some could do lots of ads. If any server does too little they'll go down due to lack of funding, if any server does too much the users will migrate elsewhere, as it's quite easy to make a new account on another instance and keep following the same communities.
Even if we end up with some large-scale instances with big servers, millions of users and serious money involved, they won't have a monopoly on all the content like with reddit, so the competition should keep them from doing anything stupid.
That's true. That's definitely why I prefer open source and federated models. No one can have a monopoly.
I'm actually kinda glad reddit is dying, this seems like a much better place. Short term it's a pain but long term I have a good feeling about this platform
Personally I'm eagerly awaiting Reddit's demise.
Reddit has always had a massive problem with misogynists, racists, pedophiles, etc. and the staff never does anything about it until there's media attention. They monopolized the web forum medium which basically forced communities to have to exist on that extremely toxic, hate-filled website.
I'd say I'm elated to see it go, but to be honest I don't think it is going anywhere. With any luck, Lemmy will become a vibrant community while all the assholes stay on the site they deserve.
Edit: Also, Reddit is designed to be addictive and has a reputation for it's negative, doomscroll-inducing atmosphere. Then there's the whole race-to-the-top karma system that ensures that Reddit has a monoculture where all the replies are predictable and similar.
Fediverse platforms aren't built around being addictive and in general tend to be more positive and diverse, making them feel large in spite of actually being significantly smaller than mainstream platforms.
I love the thrill of discovering something new on the internet, and then sharing the content with my friends.
Reddit substituted that thrill by localizing it through all the niche subreddits, but as time went on it was obvious how dangerous that can be.
I'm personally excited to get back to exploring.
The downside is that the internet of 2023 is not the internet of 2013, and definitely not the internet of 2003 - but that doesn't have to be encumbering.
But I understand that most people don't want to work for that shit. Hopefully the added competition spurs innovation from all over.
Be the change you want to see. Start a community, advertise it, start bring the reddit folks over here.
I also feel sad about leaving Reddit. It's been a constant in my routine for almost a decade. If I needed anything - opinions, suggestions, advice - about literally anything I'd immediately head to Reddit. It's bittersweet having to leave, but I know deep in my heart there was no other way especially with how it was going and how it was treating its users. But honestly seeing a new, fresh feed actually felt... nice. I don't see much negativity. I actually see people replying to each other mostly decently. There's not a lot of trolling or passive aggressiveness. I feel hopeful that this will be the start of seeing healthier communities and more positive interactions. In any case, if you're here anyway, you're a part of the group of people who don't think what's happening on the other side is acceptable, so it's already a pretty great filter if you think about it.
I've been on Reddit for almost 15 years and it's just gotten too big and too moderated for me.
You know it's funny, I thought I would be sad to see Reddit go but I've been lurking here on Lemmy for a day or two and I've realised that Reddit actually was a pretty toxic environment a lot of the time.
I will miss some of the long running in-jokes (broken arms, coconuts etc.) but overall maybe moving on from Reddit is a good thing.
I hope Reddit doesn't die entirely though. It does have some uses, particularly if you need help on a. particular topic. The specialist subreddits have a large amount of knowledge available through their subscribers and I've often turned to them for help on a tech issue when I have something I can't answer with a quick Google search (for example, a weird issue with Sonarr which wasn't covered by the *arr wiki) and it would be great if this doesn't go away.
What I am sad about is seeing the demise of some great 3PA (I was an Apollo user). The amount of work put in by the devs is huge, and this is their livelihood being destroyed. So for folks like Christian I do feel bad.
I'm interested to see how Reddit comes out of the other side of the blackout. Wait and see I guess.
I'm sad too. What's with these tech companies making the shittiest changes lately? I thought I'd be fine deactivating my Discord after their horrendous username change since I'd still have Reddit but now Reddit is going to become lower quality. I'll be active on here and Twitter since its fandoms are similarly, like Reddit, seperated by subtwitters (communities)
Well, what else to expect from these companies? Pretty sure the big companies that listen to their users can be counted on the fingers of your hand
I just renamed myself as same as i was before: [mynickname][myoldnumber] (i wanted to add # too but damned thing didnt let me)
It was their crappy mobile UI and app that drove me to Relay for Reddit. Now that they're getting pushed out I'm done, it's going to hurt a bit but it's the right thing to do.
I joined in 2013, left in 2019. I remember watching what was foreign and corporate manipulation of threads via sockpuppet accounts increase over time. After that, every thread posted by an admin whose name was popping up as admin for several subreddits started eating at my impression that this was an "organic" community.
Signed off after killing my account in 2019. I lurked on and off without an account via 3rd party apps and the desire to rejoin the fray never returned.
I've happily been a part of the fediverse since on Mastodon and Pixelfed.
Glad to see it go. It was not as useful as it once was and the community had grown very angry and bitter.
Yeah, to be honest, I used the reddit mobile app and I loved reddit and I'm also sad to see it go. However, nothing lasts forever.
i miss the memes, the rest of it is toxic
I'm feeling pretty good about Lemmy, honestly. I wasn't sure how I was going to fill my downtime, but this and mastodon may just pan out for me
I just logged out of my account and uninstalled the app (Sync) for the protest, only to realize that I needed an ELI5 30 minutes later... Hopefully my favorite/most useful subreddits manage to join Lemmy as well!
ChatGPT has replaced most eli5
Tried asking chatgpt some r/eli5 and the answers are often comparable to the top comments
Fuck u/spez
I'm glad to be a part of something new. Still confused a little bit that's part of the excitement lol
For sure, but what makes Reddit special are the users, the content, and the discussions. The admins add no value.
We can recreate the communities in a distributed and federated way so that we never find ourselves in the same situation again.