Hi, Sorry if this has been asked before! But I really wanna know why and what people here use instead! Do you use matrix instead? Why/why not?
Reddit ended support for their API which killed off 3rd party apps and the official one sucked. Moved here after Boost released a Lemmy.World version.
Reddit ended support for their API which killed off 3rd party apps and the official one sucked.
Same, though with the modification that I wasn’t going to run the official app regardless of whether it sucked or not.
There were also some longer-run issues that weren’t enough to make me leave the site, but made it less-preferable than it had been at one point. They just hadn’t broken the camel’s back. I didn’t like the shift to the new Web UI, and there were some minor compatibility breakages between the new and old Web UI. I wasn’t enthusiastic about some of the policy changes that had happened over the years. I thought that the change to how blocking worked was a really bad idea, caused people to severely abuse the thing in conversation threads to prevent people from responding to their points. I was more-interested in the stuff that the earlier userbase had been interested in, though I’ll concede that one could mitigate that by limiting what subreddits one subscribed to.
I’d also always preferred the federated structure of Usenet to Reddit — but Usenet had crashed into crippling spam problems and hadn’t resolved them. I also think that some decisions that Reddit made were the right ones, like permitting editing of comments. There are some problems with editable comments, and someone could always have grabbed an earlier copy — but people correcting errors and cooling down flamewars where they fired off a kneejerk insult or something and then went back and toned it down wound up being a net positive of Reddit relative to Usenet, Slashdot, and so forth. On the Threadiverse, I could enjoy Usenet-like federation and still have Reddit-like editable comments.
So when Reddit killed the third-party API stuff off, it was really a “straw that breaks the camel’s back” moment. It wasn’t that my sole concern was killing the third-party API stuff, though I certainly was unhappy about that. I’d expected some eventual changes for monetization, but hadn’t expected it to include trying to mass-shovel users onto the official app. But it was that the sum total of changes combined with the Threadiverse becoming available meant that I’d rather be on the Threadiverse.
I’d also add that the Threadverse brought some really new and interesting things to the table.
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By default with all current Threadiverse software packages, instances are public, and there are many public instances. This means that while an instance might have downtime, it is very, very likely that I can continue to browse content, and if I’m willing to set up an account on a second home instance, even post. Early Reddit had a lot of downtime issues, and when it went down, it was down.
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There’s a lot more technical advancement on the Threadiverse than was happening on late Reddit.
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The third-party software ecosystem is very strong. It’s not just the PieFed, Lemmy, and Mbin guys writing all the software. There are a ton of clients, monitoring systems, status dashboards, you name it. Reddit had third party software too, but I feel like people are a lot more willing to commit effort to an open system.
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I think that having competing instance policy is important. I don’t know yet whether, in the long run, this is going to wind up with largely- or entirely-decoupled Threadiverse “networks” of federated hosts split along defederation fissures, kind of like happened with IRC. I hope that it can remain mostly-connected. But I don’t want to have some party somewhere deciding content policy for all of the Threadiverse. With Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, whatever, there’s some single central controlling authority with monopoly access over the entire system. That doesn’t exist on the Threadiverse, and I am a lot happier for that. There will probably be people out there saying things that I don’t agree with or like, but that’s okay; I don’t have to look at it. The same is true of the Web. I really take issue with someone whose positions I don’t agree with acting as a systemwide censor (I’d also add that while I’m not really enthusiastic about the Lemmy devs admin decisions on lemmy.ml, I have not seen them attempt to do this even Lemmy-wide, much less Threadiverse-wide). That’s a real difference from Reddit. If your instance admin says that tomorrow, all content needs to be posted in all caps, you can migrate your community or home instance or community usage to another instance, and other users who feel the same way can do the same. With any disagreement with Reddit site-wide policy, your option is only to leave Reddit entirely. It’s Spez’s way or the highway. I don’t think that that’s reasonable for a system that aspires to be a system for the whole world.
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Exactly my reason. After the Reddit API fiasco, I tried the Lemmy web interfaces at first and was a bit frustrated because it just didn’t work well. Then I saw Boost had a Lemmy version, and switched over, easy-peasy.
Same, after the API fiasco (and me using Sync for like 10+ years and bought it) I moved to lemmy in June 2023.
Exactly my story.
I was on reddit over 10 years and both the actions of the ownership (enshittification, silencing of dissent) and the crossover into more mainstream usage (it became too popular for its own good) had soured it. The final straw was when myself and other moderators who protested the API changes with subreddit blackouts were forcefully removed and replaced with stooges who would do the bidding of the masters. Reddit is just a platform and all of it’s value came from us the users and our generated content, which they now own and sell to enrich themselves and feed evil corporate AIs.
Lemmy is freedom from that. Its smaller and less active, but the atmosphere and community is much stronger IMO, despite some other commenters who feel its just as toxic. And most importantly the federated model means no one can take ownership of the whole thing and ignore its users concerns.
In conclusion, fuck Spez.
Well put.
I’d been on reddit since the Digg migration and deleted my account after the blackout, but I had been enjoying the place less and less (and was interacting less and less) for years before.
Yep it was a slow descent to shitsville and then it went REALLY shit
They took away my BaconReader and I refuse to use their horrible ad-laden web interface. So I switched during the Apicalype and never looked back
Similar to me. I used 3rd party app which was great. The app developer even went to the effort for keep it going with a subscription to keep the app alive. But I refuse to pay an API fee. I left and months later I discovered Lemmy.
I’m nowhere near as active on Lemmy as I was on Reddit but I’m happy with that. I feel I’ve met a healthy middle ground.
I jumped ship at the API debacle.
I wonder if ever Lemmy will “take off” a little though, it has rolled backwards IMO and is mostly anger inducing posts (“news”, trump, “AI!!1!”, gEnOcIdE, shoehorning the USA into every discussion, …) now, it’s way less fresh than two years ago. Way less crazy tankies though so that’s good at least.
Well, for Lemmy, I jumped because of the r•dd•t 3rd party API fiasco. Haven’t looked back since.
As for the Fediverse in general, I never really used mainstream social media ( yt not included that list in my opinion) besides r•dd•t. So, I figured I’d try Mastodon and it’s pretty alright.
Also, don’t really know much about Matrix, so I don’t use it.
reddit killing API’s for mobile because their app couldn’t compete.
Protested, got banned, haven’t been back.
Lemmy is, in my belief, the next incarnation of the slowly moving train of society that at one point began on UBB boards.
Basically, community-built communiy.
I believe in that front and cause. Social media should be entirely owned by the users participating with it.
I never really liked Reddit much, and avoided it for a long time. It was just too big and too shallow.
I finally had to give in in about 2015, because there just weren’t any other good threaded message boards left. But I was always on the lookout for somewhere new.
Over the years, I followed links to every new board I happened on but they never panned out. Then, in the wake of Spez’s pretentious AMA, I happened on a link to lemmy. I expected it to just be another failure, but I found I liked, and more broadly, liked the fediverse. And the more I looked around, the more I liked it. And I just never left.
Ooooh I didn’t know he did an AMA! That sounds good for lols
It was wonderfully awful.
Faced with a whole bunch of users and mods angry because Reddit had just announced that they were going to price third party apps out of existence, Spez apparently decided to do some damage control, and then couldn’t manage to be anything other than alternately petulant and sanctimonious.
I’m gonna have to Google it sounds glorious
What did you do? Critise Musk? Upvote something saying naziism is wrong? Type too loudly?
No I honestly had it coming
I absolutely loved Reddit. Deleted my posts & left after the Spez api farce (Joey on Android you were a good soldier). I occasionally go back there anonymously to check niche subs (using Redlib).
Reddit is essentially shite now:
- Endless bots
- Same crap re-posted repeatedly (describe your cat I’ll draw it, 12 shitty manga characters - pick one to fight on your team, this is my cat the last thing you ate is its name etc etc etc
- The exact same jokes repeated endlessly
- Reply after reply quoting the next few words of a song lyric
- Topic replies tend to go way off the rails within 2 posts
Fediverse seems to be a more knowledgeable/mature crowd. Some great information disseminated. Ive seen some wonderful actual discussions between people with differing points of view asking for further clarification then discussing further. You never see that on Reddit.
Sure, we could do with a ton more posts & the niche communities continue to struggle but I’d much rather visit Lemmy 2 or 3 times a week than Reddit every day.
Oh geez I hate those posts so bad, you’re not alone. And oh my fucking god…powerscaling…like I could browse a subreddit of an animanga series I like…bam powerscaling posts and comments so frustrating! Just stop!!! Like…please! Reddit users are often rude too…like I cannot explain why, just makes me go “uh did you even look up what that is?” “Why are you so angry for no reason?!” “Um, what is wrong with you?!/ erm are you okay?” Same with discord too but that’s gonna go off-topic a bit- oh wait nvm it wouldn’t kind of. If you wanna hear about my rant about discord, feel free to ask!
Also damn I remember the death of boost (when it was for reddit) bacon reader and more! Spez the ceo who made that api change?! Oh, fuck him. Fuck him 1000% hate spez. Instead of improving the shitty android app, you kill off the good ones?! New reddit ui now for me is just why?! I’d get it if it’s for mobile but for pc old reddit is better imo, young me used to feel weirded out by old reddit ui! Why? Never used it before and it felt weird because I was used to new reddit ui! Good times man…I loved baconreader…(;O;)
The Reddit algorithm kept pushing me propaganda with messages of “be angry” and “be scared.” I could feel my mental health deteriorating in real time whenever I had the app open.
And, well, the world we live in is just angering and frightening enough without some corporation making it worse for me so they can make a buck off the clicks.
Reddit banned me for advocating for punching Nazis.
There’s a saying that if a Nazi walks into a bar and nobody kicks them out, you’re in a Nazi bar.
Well, I discovered Lemmy through one of Mental Outlaw’s videos. I really liked that it was mostly open source platforms in the Fediverse and the concept of federation so I decided to stay. I’ve been here since 2023.
Matrix instead of what? Discord? Sure. For the same reason as above: Federation and it being open source technology.
Judging by the question and the relatively young account, I assume you’re new here? If so, I welcome you.
Got banned from reddit by AI for inciting violence (discussing bjj technicals) then my other account got nuked for ban avoidance. No appeals. No 2nd chances.
I picked Mbin, not Lemmy, because I was sick of reddit’s bullshit and felt Mbin had the best interface. I like the mobile client too.
