Unpopular Opinion

I like it here how it is. I’m one of the people who didn’t like being on Reddit. It was just a hard habbit to break.

Less Reddit for me now. I’m reading books and news again. A little discord. I spend a good amount more time on lemmy than Reddit.

Upvoted for unpopularity.

May I suggest you try other instances?

Beehaw.org has a totally different vibe (and de-federated with lemmy.world atm). Go check them out. There's no prominent shitposting community there. The number of communities are limited and the opinions toward Meta may be similar but it's specifically geared toward relaxed conversation.

Mander.xyz for scientific communities, lemmy.ca for Canadian, aussie.zone for 'strayan, find a local or purpose built instance that will have a crowd more suitable for yourself. Even if it means giving up some of the Redditness of Lemmy.world (which seems to me the currently closest in vibe with Reddit, both positively and negatively).

Especially on smaller instances, help build that community you want to see.

I miss the really niche content from Reddit because the community was so large. I've adapted to the UI here on Lemmy/Kbin but I'm hoping the niche subs I enjoy start to pick up activitywise. I do try to contribute content but even on Reddit I was mostly a commenter. There aren't typically too many comments for me to reply to on Lemmy yet.

I miss Reddit as seen through Apollo, and that Reddit is dead.

It's kinda tricky because a lot of people who just left reddit, left for the reasons you're ranting about. I think that's why there's such a prevalence in posts that are anti-Meta/anti-Threads/anti-corpo. It's so fresh in everyone's mind how greediness has ruined a lot of communities they've built.

I will say, there's a learning curve to using the fediverse (I'm still getting the hang of it). But there's a way to get more "normal" content, you just have to deal with the reality that a lot of those communities are starting out and need your contribution to become a real community.

Besides, you don't have to completely give up reddit. I still use mine and I don't have any intention of deleting it any time soon.

My hope is eventually the smaller communities grow and can be just as if not more reliable, but a lot right now is a replacement scroller

I don't feel the same as you feel, for two reasons:

1. I feel myself at home with all those discussions about open source, privacy, and "shit corporations do". I enjoy those things.
2. I got so many bones to pick against Reddit, for years, that even without lemmy I wouldn't miss that shithole.

However I can understand your feel. Those discussions are nice if you like them (like I do), but if you don't, they feel like unprompted preaching about things that are contextually irrelevant. And since Reddit is bigger, for now it's easier to find "your turf" there.

I think that it'll get better over time; if you stick around, you'll miss Reddit less and less. New comms will pop up, old comms about other topics will grow, and people will eventually distribute themselves better across instances, based on their likes/dislikes. It'll become easier to avoid this talk about open source and privacy, or to embrace it if someone else so desires. And as the platform aggregates more content, other people will come in due to network effect, and those new people will probably talk more about other stuff than "we" older users do. Including the depth that you (and I) want for discussions.

I'm fine with lemmy, but I'm really noticing the lack of videos now. I didn't think I'd miss it so much but the porn is just pics, the dog content is just pics, no TikTok videos.

It's a big hole I hope gets filled.

I deleted my Account as soon as I learnt that Apollo would no longer work. I did continue to lurk on some subs until they wall went NSFW and I couldn't access them in a browser any more, but I was getting more into Lemmy and Mastodon, so I didn't really mind.

There is still one subreddit that I do miss; I had noticed some Astroturfing from commercial interests in the months leading upto the API price change, but I had just blocked those users and moved onto real user content.

I try to access it every few days to lurk, but it is always inaccessible without logging in.

I did manage to get into it this morning for a few minutes (Mods must have been doing some spring cleaning) and noticed that the content that I previously enjoyed was no longer being published. It was full of Astroturf, Ads and an occasional uninteresting post.

Hopefully Lemmy will get better along with the mobile apps, making it more accessible to more people.

Agree 1000%

Reddit turned into a cesspool in the last 5 years or so. The admins reinterpretation their own TOS multiple times to appease popular audiences. The site got too big for itself, just like most social media, and the quality of its users and content went way down. But hey, if you want to continue to use a site that makes you prove your skin color to join subs then thats on you. Its still there, but personally Im done with reddit. It had its time and the company showed it true colors when the 3rd party app debacle happened. For years theyve been cutting services and censoring more content in hopes they can sell reddit for mucho dinero when they go public.

I think your assessment is spot on. I find a lot of such individuals, if not worse, in various posts. While I encourage redditors to migrate here, when they get here and see shit like what you describe, it's no surprise if they go back.

Lemmy/KBin are in early adopter territory right now, but with some of the iOS and Android apps maturing and hitting the app stores (scarily fast!) there’s a pathway for less tech-centric people to find their way over.

For now I try to focus on the pro of the “small user base” con, which is that engagement is way higher and there isn’t a metric shit-ton of karma-whoring comments and posts.

I’m using Memmy (iOS) and am subscribed on communities via a couple instances. It’s a Sunday arvo and I’m enjoying a drink and scrolling away, and for a minute I forgot I wasn’t scrolling Reddit on Apollo. That’s pretty amazing considering that a few weeks ago I couldn't conceive of an alternative platform - and there functionally wasn’t, at least to the extent it is now. I reckon in another few months things will have really progressed again. So hang in there 🐱

I'm missing some of the subreddits I used to frequent.

Im thinking there will be another wave of users when the major 3rd party apps are ready. In the meantime, I am frustrated in the fact like my 4 favorite niche apps have like ghost towns for communities. That includes one that has like 2.4 million followers on Reddit.

I mean if there are so many tech people here why isn't there more discussion for instance in an Android Apps community on Lemmy?

Completely agree. I really don't care about defederation stuff. If there was a big alternative to reddit with more content and users than here but was federated I would go there.

I’m actually surprised to see an actual unpopular opinion, this was super uncommon on Reddit. I actually disagree with you on most things being someone who hates big tech and loves open source. But yeah you do have a point that a lot of people take things too far when it comes to that. But to be fair people have been burned and seriously hurt because of big tech and privacy issues so it’s a sensitive topic. A lot of these companies and especially Meta have some very serious issues that honestly should probably be treated as international crimes.

In a perfect world wish reddit corp wasn't such assholes and this whole thing didn't happen the way it did.

A lot of us here, are here and have the opinions you don't like (FOSS, privacy is important, big tech is bad) because we too wish Reddit wasn't such assholes.

Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. Lemmy users are jaded. We have come to accept that big tech companies will continue to act the way they do because it is in their nature.

The free ride is over bub. The walls are closing in as venture capitalists squeeze users for profits (especially in this economy). With big tech, you are the product. You don't get a say in how you use the product. Instead you are cattle, to be hearded. If you want to be a sheep and mingle along with all the other sheep and just keep your head down and accept whatever the big tech companies tell you to do (and that's fine if it's what you want), then maybe Lemmy ain't for you. But one thing is clear Lemmy must shed the ills of big tech and investor interests and privacy harvesting business models if we are to not return exactly where we ended up using Reddit.

Sorry, I don't have better news for you.