Reddit is still a lot more crowded, but I prefer Lemmy simply because of no ads and the actual conversations that you can have with people.
This is exactly how I feel. Reddit is so full of bots, spam, and ads that it's really only good for checking a few niche subreddits. I can browse Lemmy at random and be pretty entertained.
Reddit comment is just bot paradise, once i realise bot just do repost and copy/paste comment, the value and urge of adding my own comment just immensely decrease.
Holy shit I completely forgot about those shitty comment metas. Lemmy comment sections are so much nicer
There a ways to remove ads from Reddit and it's much nicer to use, your can still use 3rd party apps like Boost, bots are still a problem.
Honestly, I root for lemmy and use it daily. However, Reddit still wins on pure content and niche communities.
Imgur was bought out and they nuked all the top all time photos and gifs, I call that the start of the downfall.
I generally prefer Lemmy to Reddit, although I do miss being able to find niche communities that are both populated and active. Smaller communities tend to become ghost towns around here, unfortunately.
There are actually some interesting niche communities here you just have to look for them or at least you could just start them.
Lemmy absolutely.
Lemmy 100% has an algorithm. It's not a complicated one but any method for determining what content shows up is an algorithm.
No the commenter but I think it’s one of those language things where algorithm (at least in the context of social media) has come to mean a personalized feed, like two people have different all feeds versus an algorithm like sorting by hot or active posts that every has the same posts. To your point both are algorithms but it’s one of those thing where the word has taken on its own meaning
Precisely. The colloquial use of algorithm indicates a form of targeted content delivery where your personal preferences are weaponized against you (aka TikTok)
Yeah pretty much exactly what I was thinking about. I like being able to curate and have some legitimate control over what I'm seeing
An open source algorithm that the user base can see and understand how it works is different than a closed source algorithm that serves to benefit advertisers more than users
That always comes with a double edged sword. An open source algorithm can be gamed more easily. IIRC, that's why Reddit moved to closed source for theirs originally, spammers were specifically targeting it. I don't think Lemmy's big enough yet to attract that sort of detailed inspection, but it happened in the past. I'm not saying Lemmy should close source its algorithm, of course. Though maybe a pluggable algorithm would be a good idea, to make it so that people could use a diverse set of algorithms that would be more difficult to target as a whole?
Yep, Trump’s campaign figured out how to game Reddit’s algorithm. Sticky a post and essentially tell anyone in the subreddit to upvote any stickied post on any visit which would quickly drive the stickied post to the top of all quickly.
I prefer lemmy but miss the niche communities. The Swedish national community for instance, roleplaying communities, niche game communities etc.
Same. The thing lacking is user base and content. Also a backlog of older content as knowledge source, but that would come overtime with through the former.
As far as usability goes Iemmy is just as good as reddit was for me. My instance (lemme.ee) is stable and the app experience (currently "connect") is just as smooth as it was for reddit (where I used "relay").
I sadly have to admit that I don't contribute enough in terms of creating and posting threads.
Lemmy. Federation and the lack of a profit motive makes it much better.
I would also rather be surrounded by leftist vs liberal drama, rather than liberal vs fascist drama.
The latter is actually a good point. I had almost forgotten how constant and combative reddit was at times with the far-right peeps and incels and whatnot. At the time it had become so normal, one didn’t even think about it. Maybe offer alternative ideas (= argue) a while or just ignore, but now that you mention it, I don’t think there has been many situations like that here, for me at least. Not to say that the enlightened centrists aren’t very much the same in practice, and those I face here every now and then. They just aren’t nearly as bad in substance.
Lemmy seems a lot less toxic than Reddit. Every now and then I see comments here of people that are assholes, but its not the norm. Whenever I would check the comment feeds in Reddit, so many of them devolve into petty bickering. It seemed like a quarter of the user base set out that day to either be pissed off, or to piss someone else off.
Honestly that seems like most of social media at the moment and I know I've mentioned the algorithm in every comment I made in this thread, but it really makes it suck.
Because that particular algorithm and its use is very capitalist, its purpose is to drive engagement for money with morality not even being considered, and the best way to do that is to make everyone angry. CGP Grey on YouTube has a good video on it I can link in an edit in a bit, but the gyst of it is that the algorithm shows us what makes us angry, we make other people angry, thus, a neverending cycle of people being addicted to getting pissed off.
Edit: link
Lemmy seems a lot less toxic than Reddit.
Not sure I am seeing the same. I posted a message about a bash command yesterday and it was almost immediately downvoted. And I have no idea why since it should work for what the person asking wanted/needed. That was one of my big issues with reddit was the sheer negativity that came out of that site and I know I am talking about a single downvote here, but it makes me pause. It has happened more than this one time which is why I get that feeling. I think some people really need to revisit the use of the downvote.
Agree, it feels like everyone wants it to be less toxic than Reddit but I’m not sure it actually is. There are just as many mods out of control, wild politics, trolls etc. here than there, and just because it’s a smaller community and easier to stick to your instance/ block others doesn’t mean it’s better. I certainly have more communities, servers, and individuals blocked on lemmy than I ever did on Reddit
that is part of using the internet. you see it less because less people use it. reddit has become a circle jerk just never become a community or group of people that likes to sniff there own farts. and this problem will solve itself.
It depends where you go - e.g. the entire purpose of chapotraphouse is to dunk on people, and the users on that instance constantly crawl out from under their bridge and harass innocent passer-bys in other communities. But if you block a few notable places, which sometimes your instance does for you (I note that yours in particular does not though), then overall the Fediverse can be quite a pleasant place!:-)
Size really does matter for sites like this. Reddit still hosts many smaller subs for niche topics that often have limited toxicity. Lemmy can't match it yet unfortunately.
Scrolled through a ton of comments but honestly this sums it all up for me. Lemmy isn't large enough to support niche memes and content.
I went back to reddit after finding a working patch that allows me to continue using 3rd party reddit app; reddit is Fun. I visit this site once a month just to check it out.
Reddit by far was a better experience; more content, better moderation, less negativity.
I’m still here on Lemmy, though, in hope of it getting better (and it definitely scratches the same itch as Reddit without the corporate arrogance).
That said, even though it annoys me, I do find myself getting exposed to a wider array of opinions on Lemmy that I just never saw on Reddit. And while I disagree with a lot of it it’s probably healthier for things to be that way. The tankies, though … so many tankies.
I haven’t posted on Reddit since they treated third party app devs like shit. I’m done with that site.
Most of the time, lemmy.
Obviously, the difficulty with very niche communities not being useful here can be annoying.
And, being real, the lack of robust moderation tools makes moderating a pain in the ass.
But, overall, I find the people on lemmy less prone to bad behavior, and the discussions more rewarding. That makes up for the underlying missing functional things worth it.
Reddit, even before they went full asshole as a company, had the major problem of being big. Humans are assholes for the most part. The more people you have, and the lower the bar for entry, the more of those assholes are going to be a problem.
Lemmy has assholes too. The usual knee jerk reactionaries, trolls, and that sort of thing. But the very minor extra effort of having to pick an instance reduces how many of the brain dead assholes will put in the effort. The assholes are a better quality of asshole lol.
But damn, there were some long established communities on reddit that simply can't be reproduced here because you can't make old communities. There are a ton of subs that had been around since subs came around. You can't duplicate that kind of organic growth. There's very few C/s on lemmy that have a real sense of community yet. I think it'll happen, but it hasn't had time for a lot of real cultures to spring up the way reddit had.
I miss the hell out of those long established neighborhoods.
We cannot make old communities, but the second best time to plant a tree is today. That’s why I’m here, commenting and posting.
I love your comment: "The second best time to plant a tree is today". Not sure if it's a quote you've reused but, from here on in, I'm using it.
I believe it’s an ancient proverb. Nothing is truly original, but it applies to many areas such as self improvement.
Reminds me of another: societies grow great when old men plant seeds for trees whose shade they know they'll never enjoy.
After almost a year of being Reddit free, I have been peeking back in there lately. It just doesn’t hit the same but I do lurk in some subs just because of the volume of content.
I do enjoy Lemmy though. I don’t feel as intimidated to make comments and like to feel we’re building something from the grass roots here.
Same for me. There are some interests I have (mostly niche games) that just don't have the population to have any sort of traction here. I don't comment or vote there anymore, and I'm only still logged in on my main PCs because I didn't bother logging out. Deleted all my old comments and posts.
Honestly also some very non niche things that are big on reddit aren't much of a thing here. Like the Netherlands subreddit is the second largest non English speaking sub. It's barely a thing on Lemmy.
Prefer Reddit’s volume of posts. Prefer lemmy in general. Disappointed that lemmy resembles reddit way too much.
Expand on this if you don’t mind. In what way does Lemmy disappoint you in how it resembles Reddit?
Just off the top of my head.
Because it’s unnecessary and ruins sarcasm. If people are offended because they mistake a comment’s intent, that’s not my concern. I cannot relate to those who need intent spoon-fed to them. It invites lazy, light thinking.
It's really a nice feeling when strangers on the internet can read your comment and get what you'd written in the right context - even if that context is an obscure in-joke. But there are a lot of people on the internet and a lot of real assholes that might non-sarcastically say whatever crazy thing you're joking at...
Especially when it comes to neuro-divergent folks, I think the /s is quite helpful. People want to be in on your joke. It's fun to connect with humor on the internet... and omitting a /s makes it extremely unlikely that some folks, especially those on the autism spectrum, will be able to share that moment with you... instead, it's more likely to be read as an attack or at least yet another disappointing failure of humanity and compassion playing out over the web.
So if people don't seem to get your joke when you omit the /s, please do realize that you've made your speech less accessible and some people are getting offended by your speech and it isn't their fault - it's yours. That said, if you enjoy having more arcane jokes and occasionally being downvoted into oblivion, then nobody is going to force you to /s.
If you're explaining every single joke in the same sentence as the joke (which is what /s is), it's not funny. Humour is not, nor has it ever been, about inclusion. It is about being funny. Not universally funny; just funny to people who understand and appreciate the joke.
Fair enough. I’m not into most of that behavior either except for maybe the occasional low-effort shit post.
Focusing on the people and communities, since takes like "Lemmy has no ads" or "reddit has more content" are so obvious that there is zero point in sharing them, I would say Lemmy is better. I think the quality of discourse is a lot higher and people are more likely to type longer, thought out and educated (or well intentioned) comments. If I were to put it really simply, I'd say Lemmy's community is more centred around discussion, whereas reddit is centred around reaction.
However, one issue with Lemmy is that fringe groups and views are overrepresented (particularly left-leaning ones), which can result in an echo-chamber effect in many discussions. I find pile-on attempts, or accusations of fascism, Nazism and right-wing trolling, are a lot more common here towards users who don't immediately join in with a far left circlejerk or attempt to bring a little more nuance or critical thinking to a discussion. Dylan Marron, host of the podcast 'Conversations With People Who Hate Me', once said in an interview that social media pile-ons from people who are actually on your own side hurt a lot more than pile-ons from people who fundamentally disagree with you and I think there's a lot of truth to that. It frustrates me that some Lemmy users shutdown and try to "other" people the moment they have a minor or semantic disagreement with them, instead of taking the time to hash it out or just politely agreeing to disagree. It's kind of ironic that federation allows communities to isolate themselves, yet instead these people remain federated with everyone and then get really offended and outraged when they're confronted with world views that even slightly differ from their own.
But anyway, that type of person is still a minority and Lemmy is, for the most part, a significantly better environment than reddit for polite and intelligent discussion.
I avoid reddit out of principle even though I would prefer it. It's only going down hill from here on out and they've neglected their app so much it's too painful to attempt to use it.
My main reasoning is content and sometimes the comments. Content here is a bit slow but a lot commenters are kind of a-holes and painfully obnoxious. Especially from lemmy.ml, always a little anxious when I comment.
Lemmy.
I do prefer the size of Reddit, but I am continuing the API changes protest. Sup, that's it. If they reverse it, I might return, although the UI has changed again. Wouldn't mean I'd leave Lemmy, just use both.
I haven't actually used it with 3rd party apps, I used to do the same as I am doing right now, desktop website on my phone, but I do support the protests and I am not giving up after 2 days.