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59 comments

  • No intrusive ads or trackers. Less AI slop and more genuine human interaction. The ability to easily block communities, users, and instances is nice too.

    And it's safe to say Luigi here

    • All this plus no profile karma. Meaning instead of chasing numbers to inflate our accounts and increase our perceived worth (whether consciously or subconsciously), people just are.

      Or as you put it: more genuine human interaction.

      • To me it's more like the numbers mean something different. While they still mean mostly nothing, the numbers that display on your profile tell what kind of user you are and how much seniority you have here. Been here close to two years? Maybe you came from the API fiasco. Got 1000+ comments and 50+ post? Somewhat active user you probably seen once or twice before. 0 post and below 50 comments but seemingly active? Potential lurker. Still mostly meaningless because it could be alt and who really cares but NGL when I look at the stats of the really active users I'm like damn they really contributed to the Lemmy content mill.

    • Self hosting
    • Can't get banned
    • Feeling of being a part of something larger but not overwhelming large yet still having some control
    • Good range of mobile and web frontends
    • No adverts
    • No tracking
    • Memes, sometimes older memes and not getting ridiculed for them
    • Seeing other users from my instance on my travels

    Some things I tolerate

    • American politics
    • Random porn
    • Bot spam

  • You are free to pick an instance that aligns with your values and preferences for moderation. Its a double edged sword because it enables echo chambers which I think isnt great but it seems many people like those actually.

    The sub's, filters, and block list serves as a manual replacement for the algorithm. Its hard building it up but once you do Lemmy becomes mostly enjoyable as long as you keep to what you like.

  • It's open source, would be hard for an entity to take over, and permits for third party clients.

  • There are some things I've grown to like. I feel better represented by my choice of instance. I could self host my own, but don't really want to incur that maintenance. I do like that if my instance were to do something I disagree with, I don't have to leave the community as a whole like I did with Reddit, and should instead find a new home.

    I also kind that it's easier to filter out the personalities that bother me, since they tend to flock to specific instances. I still have to contend with them occasionally, but that's no different than Reddit, but less often.

    Most of my interactions here have been with reasonable people, even when we disagreed. It does feel a little quiet at times, but that's ok.

  • I like the tone and feel here as of yet. People are more friendly, interactions are more pleasant and it feels easier to participate. A higher proportion of comments are worthwhile to read and/or engage with. It's still small enough that you'll have your post or comment seen by people instead of being immediately drowned out by one liners and karma farming injokes.

    It's also still got that homely feeling where it's small enough that you start recognising usernames, which makes the community feel a bit more closely knit. Sometimes even perhaps being recognised yourself, which makes you feel more like part of a community rather than a faceless Redditor screaming into the void.

    • Totally agree I love the sense of community. It reminds me of message boards back in the day where you'd feel really close to people

  • Honestly, I like that it's Reddit-like. Minus admins slapping [removed by Reddit] onto things and minus the kinds of moderators that make your comments disappear without notice.

    Personally, I wish there were more people here though. Maybe it's great if your jam is memes and politics and nothing else but I miss the discussions everywhere from Reddit. The not dead communities. Being able to visit the Harley Quinn subreddit in between seasons to still get your fix of silly memes and discussions and newcomers giving their reviews, just as a wild example. Having alternative style communities that are for more than just posting Spotify links to songs. Having more options in general so that if the one community around dealing with a thing that you're actually interested in turns out to be not on the level, there's another 5 at least to choose from.

    Also, I liked being able to disappear into the crowd on Reddit. Here, I often feel more like deleting something I've posted a couple of days later because I feel like I stick out more here

    Personally I'm not that interested in the technical aspects. I just want a Reddit-like platform to interact with my interests, learn from people, mingle with people from different walks of life to me and expand my mind. The federation thing is a bonus but not what I'm actually here for.

    • Yep I love my serials so I'd love specific comms about them. People would always pick up on things I hadn't... it's missing here

      • And it wasn't just ongoing stuff but pretty much anything you could think of, including some obscure '90s series that you never even see anyone mention, there'll be an active subreddit for that. Same goes for individual bands or artists as well.

        Like, I totally get what people are saying when they say they like it smaller than Reddit here. I actually agree to an extent because even Reddit was better in a lot of ways 10 years ago when Spez wasn't trying to be the next Zuck.

        But I do still think it could do with more users than it has now for a lot of reasons. Enough users for there to be a little more variety and choice than there is right now.

    • Personally, I wish there were more people here though.

      Most of us do. The people who always complain about growth when we're barely at 50k monthly active users are a vocal minority

      • I can understand where they're coming from though. It's nostalgia for the days when forums and MySpace were 'social media' and things were simpler and we actually built camaraderie in online spaces, instead of everyone just trying to be heard in the noise.

        But I mean, you can still get that in individual communities, actually. Even on Reddit, you could expect to be lost in the crowd in places like AskReddit but there's definitely niche spaces with few enough people for it to feel like the old days and actually make friends if that's what you're after.

  • I like that it's smaller. I usually sort top of 6 or 12 hours (also something you can't do on reddit) and eventually I start scrolling so far that I've basically run out of posts to see, which helps stop me from doomscrolling

    Also the people here are way cooler

  • The idea that you can make it your own, the feeling of starting from the scratch to see the potential it has (both good and bad) is refreshing.

  • It’s decentralised. Decentralisation just makes sense for something that requires hosting a lot of data and using a lot of bandwidth, less load on the servers and such. Insane how YouTube was able to survive so long before Google bought them.

59 comments