The 4 best Reddit alternatives: Top picks to replace your subreddits - Lemmy is listed first!
The 4 best Reddit alternatives: Top picks to replace your subreddits - Lemmy is listed first!
159 comments
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As for funding, the servers are supported on a donation basis, with no big corporations behind them. This leads to a problem concerning user data and privacy, as there isn't a single accountable entity behind the network.
Bit of a weird take now, isn't it?
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I think both things are valid points, but it's worded in a weird way
A more explicit pro/con would have been better
No big corporation that controls everything
- Pro:
- Con:
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This is a good point. Had it been presented like this, it would have hit different.
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It's actually not wrong if you look at it in another way.
- Big tech will abuse your data, but it will do within legal constraints, and there is actuall (though weak) accountability of these companies due to the legal system.
- On federated services like Lemmy, instances are hosted by anonymous individuals. Most social media laws don't apply to them, and their legal accountability is basically zero.
- Lemmy, for example, does not comply with GDPR. There is no legal notice, no privacy contact person, no banner asking whether you are ok with the fact that your data is sent to unknown servers in random nations, no nothing. Private messages aren't even encrypted, so any admin can read them without issues.
- There is no way to actually delete your data, as the GDPR requires. Deleted posts are only marked as deleted and you can see their plain text content by just pressing the "reply" button in any of the apps. There isn't any kind of guarantee, that your post will be deleted on other instances. If federation has problems, the post will remain on other instances and is now permanently undeletable by the user.
- There are no moderation standards. Some instances will delete nazi content, some basically require nazi content. And some instance admin might even edit your posts to say something completely different. It's all possible and in the hands of random people on the internet.
- Hobbyist-run services are much worse when it comes to availability and reliability. If something happens while the admin is on holiday, nothing will get fixed. If the admin runs out of money, doesn't care anymore or even dies, the instance with all it's content and users is just gone.
So there are very real risks attached to a hobbyist-run service with no legal accountability and no transparency at all.
We all know the downsides of Big Tech though, so it's everyone's personal choice to figure out which disadvantages hurt them personally more.
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That's a bit misleading to say like that. Go to the website, scroll to the footer and click on "Legal". Your instance, feddit.de, has a legal notice, with a privacy contact person, mentioning you can request data erasure, and detailing where your data goes. Mine, lemmy.world, has a number of in depth legal documents attached there.
However, yes, other instances they are federated with might not take it as seriously though, and if all your data is going there too, then that's a hole in your data privacy.
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Very much this. Plus, how easy will instance admin Joe Schmoe fold under external pressure to give access to certain groups, government bodies etc? And how well have Joe Schmoe implemented good security practices on the server and related things? Etc.
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@squaresinger @LinkOpensChestwav yes and don't let people fall for quasi legal privacy policies that lemmy.world & ilk provide #Lemmyworld #accountability #fediverserated
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It's kind of fair, to be honest, and the "no big corporation" seems more like a pro than a con
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Eh, it is a con when there are problems, service problems, bugs, etc...
My instance have had a few of them and for a while our 1 admin was unavailable.
It is difficult or impossible to get it resolve because there is no contact point, nobody hired to fix issues that need immediate triage, etc... which can result in longer outages or bugs on specific instances.
I'm not complaining. This is a fantastic service that is being offered completely free from actual altruistic incentives, unlike corporations. There are a few downsides though.
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Re "It could even a boat", that's Family Guy https://youtu.be/GKZJdaiJF84
But your point still stands.
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I think it is a valid point, though. How do GDPRs even work on Lemmy? Do you need to submit one to every instance that your instance is federated with? What about transitively federated instances? Sometimes when you delete something, the delete action doesn't get federated. That's kind of terrifying. If you post something personally identifying without realizing it, then try to delete it, you might not be able to.
Imo, it's something to keep on mind when posting on Lemmy, but not a reason to not use it.
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Someone recently reminded me of the privacy issues here on Lemmy. Not so much concerned about my admin, but the inability to delete content was a big concern for me when I was first deciding on a new platform after leaving reddit at the end of June 2023. Sometimes I forget.
It is a good point, and I somewhat regret making that comment. It just was worded oddly in the article.
I used to spend a lot more time on raddle, but my addiction to fresh content is real, and there's just a lot more here than there. Perhaps I should "be the change" and all that noise.
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Discord for large communities is dumb as shit. There's literally too many people that real communication becomes impossible unless you move to DMs or an empty room.
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so. much. this.
Discord is just an AOL chat room. Great for short-term conversations among 20 or fewer people. It's not a good place to store your FAQ. It's not a good place for large teams. It's not a good place for anything searchable. It's transactional. And I don't know why people treat it otherwise.
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I love discord for small communities, not that I have that many I'm in though. But friend groups, and niche topics. Places where the chat generally is a single discussion or two at a single point in time. And the voice chat is superb. Just drop in and out is convenient.
But it sure as fuck doesn't compete with what reddit and Lemmy is doing.
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I'm so glad I finally got into Lemmy. Reddit was destroyed on July 1st but I couldn't get into Lemmy until November because the instances were so fickle.
In the meantime I tried saidit but quickly discerned that most of the users there were just really bad Reddit rejects. like the worst of the worst Reddit rejects.
Glad Lemmy finally let me in.
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This place seemed to attract the older tech crowd instead of the Nazis like Voat did.
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I am old'ish so this checks out.
Lemmy has its quirks and it has its own distinct cliques, for sure. Posting specific viewpoints on some specific instances can be a bit awkward, especially for new users. Let's just say that if you haven't been called a capitalist pig baby killer at least once on Lemmy, you haven't had the full, well rounded experience.
All in all, Lemmy is fairly nice but people can still play follow the leader with comments. That is a curse with all social media, I'm afraid.
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I think that was just a matter of fortunate timing. The other Reddit migrations were due to toxic subs being banned, so the worst parts of Reddit migrated to whatever platforms were being discussed at the time, which happened to be mainly Voat.
The July 1st exodus was due to the Reddit API being paywalled at extortionate rates to crush third-party apps, which affected normal users - particularly long-time contributors and the tech-savvy. Lemmy discussion was picking up steam at the time, so that's where a lot of these users went.
If the timings were reversed and Lemmy got the worst users Reddit had to offer Lemmy probably would have handled it much better than Voat did (especially since the devs would loathe the new users), but I'd imagine a split forming between instances, with right-wing instances being defederated and creating their own bubbles of toxicity.
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Yeah the thing I got from here was an understanding that focusing on free speech just means you have the worst users. If you want a free speech instance you’re free to be on one that others are defederated from
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Probably because we get excited for new tech my shit and AP/Fediverse/Lemmy is so hot right now.
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Reddit was going down hill long before the API paywall. That was certainly the final nail.
I'd say the first nail in the coffin was when they fired Victoria.
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The final nail will be when they eventually kill old.reddit.
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i built mine because i left reddit after a very long time. i agree with @TheVillageGuy, the mbin interface is more .. reddit-y, i didnt like the sparse nature of lemmy.
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those capthas really are annoying but thanks to them im at lemmy.blahaj.zone
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I don't recall being tripped up by the captcha's, all I remember is that I would go through the whole process of establishing an account in an instance, and their response was infinite buffering and/or never sending me a confirmation email.
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In that list, only Lemmy has voting or comments in a tree, both key features that make reddit into reddit. If I was going to put together a list of reddit alternatives, those last 3 wouldn't be on it.
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Oh, except hacker news. But it's just one topic, people can't make their own communities/groups/subreddits another key reddit feature.
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Fuck Reddit, but shouldn't be so excited for external validation. We're doing a good thing building this community, we know that without them signing off.
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Good publicity means more traffic, which means more people for community, which means more content, which means the network is more entertaining as a whole (hopefully)
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I don't understand this sentiment. We know that, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't get excited over it.
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I really like Lemmy's UI and general nicer community. I hope we see more people joining.
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How did Discord make the list but not Imgur? At least Imgur is somewhat like reddit.
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People will turn everything into a Discord server nowadays, no matter how bad of a match it is. I've even seen a Github project disabling their Issue tracker in favor of Discord, which is completely insane to me.
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I think repos that do that just don't know how to link discord to GitHub. They want the notifications/engagement but can't get the two to talk.
Either that or they just don't want people to report issues on a public board.
Either way, I feel like it's bad all around.
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Can someone please explain to me why discord is being used for everything? Isn't it basically IRC?
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It's a great tool to set up with a small group of friends to stay in contact. It's being pigeonholed for everything else
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Ease of use.
With your one Discord account you join all the servers you care about and interact with online/IRL friends.
There are downsides that people at Lemmy will find dealbreaking and I absolutely agree with them, but the convenience of it being a chat, forum (almost), voice/video calling and gaming platform for free with (currently) no ads triumphs all of that for the majority of people, and that's what makes it popular. It's also cross-platform so no one's left out.
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I don't have proof of why discord is getting shoved down our throats everywhere but I think it is probably in large part because there is a fuckton of investor money behind trying to make discord swallow up every online community it can and they have kept costs to customers/shitty behavior dialed back until they establish an unassailable dominance over the market. Everyone just thinks it is great and it doesn't cost much money so what could possibly go wrong??
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Discord has a really low barrier to entry for conversation, it's low friction. If someone playing a game gets a sorta funny screenshot they can share it in Discord and have a decent chance to get some responses or reactions.
But they won't post it on Reddit or anything because there's more friction there, it feels like more work to create a post and then you're unlikely to get any responses anyways, and even if you get upvotes you can't see who upvoted like if it's someone you know, and there's no easy emoji reactions. And users making comments to respond also feels higher friction than a message, people are just less likely to do it for whatever reason.
It just feels like small scale conversations are more likely to happen in Discord than anywhere else. If you have a small group of people then something like Reddit/Lemmy probably won't be sustainable, it'll never take off, but get them in Discord and you're more likely to keep the group active.
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Imgur was originally designed as an image server for Reddit. They actually share front pages (or used to, I haven’t been in a while)
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I remember that post from MrGrimm. It went something like "there are no good image hosts for reddit, so I made one".
When they added user accounts a few years later to spin it off into its own thing, I was among the first to create one. Managed to snag the username "anonymous" before anyone else could. Never actually used the account until last June, when all the 3rd party app drama started on reddit. Now I equally split my time between here and Imgur to replace reddit: I go to imgur for the memes, and Lemmy for the news. Don't even miss reddit.
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There are dozens of us, dozens!
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Lemmy is great if you love Linux and Star Trek. If you're really into cybersecurity and privacy Lemmy has it all.
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I'm into Linux, but also into Factorio and motorcycles.
Lemmy genuinely is a replacement for r/Linux because the activity here is just as high as there.
But there is very few content about Factorio and motorcycles here. They are communities, but they don't really replace the reddit ones, especially r/factorio.
Edit: Almost forgot about incremental games. Basically no content exists on those here.
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Hopefully they will one day!
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As a not really techy person but one who has been cruising online for a long long time I feel Lemmy is a lot like old old Reddit. Reddit was full of techies when I joined. It grew over the years into a bigger thing but it started with a bunch of nerds talking about shit I didn't understand.
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Yes, I feel the same way. Reminds my of reddit circa '07 back when r/Conservative was an anti-Bush subreddit.
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Key strengths of Lemmy
- Federation
- Tankies
- Star Trek memes
- Star Trek memes community civil war
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Wait the trekies are fighting? i'll light a candle
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Risa had some mod issues, Tenforward was created. The people who actually post have basically all moved to Tenforward, it's not really a war.
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Tankies are a strength?
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Tankies?
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Lemmy has a large World of Tanks game community
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Don't ask. 🤦
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Why are tankies a key strength? Or do you mean purely for entertainment value?
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Computer, can you expand on the last point please
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A prominent /c/Risa shitposter accused the mods of transphobia, loudly quit Risa and started their own meme community (and later deleted the comments after any evidence of transphobia failed to materialize).
Around the same time, a Risa mod removed some particularly low-effort posts despite Risa having "no rules", which upset some users and so they fled to the other guys' meme community.
Now there are two Star Trek themed meme communities.
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- Linux tech support
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if it's not to make fun of tankied you are required to get blocked
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I had been on reddit since 2008, I was looking for an alternative to the message boards I belonged to after the popularity of Facebook killed them off. I really enjoyed it, not the same level of community that you find in a message board but still good for conversation.
Then trump happened and it turned to shit. It's so fucking toxic and I ended up getting banned for defending myself. Apparently fascism is good and standing up for yourself goes against community standards.
I'm a disabled 49 year old just looking for conversation. Facebook is also a toxic wasteland now. To say I miss myspace is an understatement but there's hardly anyone there anymore.
I'm happy whenever I find a place that's put the social back into social media because antisocial media is just trash.
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Welcome! Feel free to join !casualconversation@lemmy.world, usually it's quite laid back
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What about kbin (well it is connected with Lemmy, but technically it's not Lemmy) and tildes.net?
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Tildes is the only other reddit alternative I've been using. It has really high quality content, but posting there can be intimidating if you don't have 20 minutes to write something insanely detailed.
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kbin.social is only PWA right now. There is Interstellar app for Android being developed right now, but it is available only via Github releases (no Google Play nor F-Droid). And it works only on https://kbin.earth (or instances of /kbin fork called /mbin) right now.
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Hmm... the app is indeed a great sounding proposition.
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Mentioned the Apollo / Reddit saga but did not list Voyager as a client for Lemmy which at least for me has been the closest client in terms of Apollo experience. I know this is Android Police but it did talk about Android and IOS clients in the article.
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Currently on voyager. It’s not perfect yet, but as a 7+ year Apollo user I honestly forget I’m not using Apollo/Reddit sometimes. I’d be interested to see if Christian gets involved in a Lemmy client. Apollo was the only app I’ve ever seen that never got worse and just worked in its entire life
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Avelon was also showing some promise, at least visually, but I keep coming back to Voyager. I found Avelon had a few annoying little bugs like default theme settings not being remembered etc and Voyager whilst not perfect does the job reliably. It would be great to see Christian involved again especially with all the experience he would bring in like working around YouTube video playback etc.
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I’m an Apollo refugee and have tried a number of apps but I keep coming back to voyager (the web app, not the app app). It’s far from perfect but it’s the closest to Apollo imo too.
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We did it Lemmies!
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Mbin https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin
Pro for me: the ui is a bit more intuitive
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I guess I missed it. Why there was a need to fork kbin? Are there issues with it?
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A big advantage of more community involvement; more will get done in a shorter time
In the end it won't matter for the end user, as both projects can choose to incorporate features from the other due to the open-source nature
So the question is, do you want it working now (Mbin) or do you want it working somewhere in the future (Kbin)
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Mbin is very promising!
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Squabblr seems like a nest of 13 year-olds trolling each other for fake internet points. Pass.
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Oh boy you should see all the drama on r/RedditAlternatives when this shit blew up
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No wonder why I'm called "Resol van Lemmy" now.
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Isn't mastadon closer to a twitter replacement than a reddit replacement?
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i actually prefer to browse lemmy from a mastodon account but it probably isn't for everyone: iget every comment on a subscribed community in reverse chronological order in one feed.
159 comments