I can speak for nobody but myself. I love it here. I'm an amateur developer, I'm a lover of old computers, and I've experienced a couple different flavors of internet interaction over the years. This has been a cool experience, and even if most of the major content went back to Reddit, I won't return with them.
I feel like kbin and others are here to stay. Will Redditors come here? Maybe, maybe not. If so, it's just a new community. Once federation kicks in, it'll be an even bigger community. It'll smooth out ^^
I was on Reddit more than a decade, since before the Digg migration and used it probably daily. I won't be going back save to delete my accounts.
Is kbin and the fediverse perfect? No. Will be a Reddit killer? I actually don't care. A lot of people seem to have this idea that Mastodon failed after Twitter started imploding because [insert reason]. I argue it was a resounding success, and kbin/Lemmy very might well be too. The fediverse isn't backed by VCs and has no need to scale immeasurably in order to corner the market or whatever capitalist speak they use. It's its own thing, and as long as it's being used and growing, it's a success.
The fediverse is a lot like how the web used to be in the days before we handed control of it over to like five companies. What we're building here is amazing and wresting control away from corporate interests. So whether or not it is the link aggregation site or just something a percentage of people use, is really irrelevant as long as it's being used.
So for that reason, I'm sticking it out with the fediverse.
That's an attitude I'm starting to adopt. Very well said.
The internet was very spread out, and unique. I was on one forum for Doom, and there were like 3 more out there. Each had its own feel and experience. After awhile, that experience got homogenized, sanitized... I don't mind a little rough around the edges.
This + Mastodon will be my home on the internet for now. I'm excited.
Honestly, I like it being smaller and more fragmented. I hardly comment on Reddit because any thoughts I have are usually already there by the time it comes through my feed. Lurking felt more natural to me there. Here, I have an actual reason to engage.
I'm here to stay. Even if Reddit reverse their API decision, they've made it abundantly clear their first priority is pleasing their shareholders. I don't want to use a platform that so blatantly ignores the wills of the community that caused it's popularity in the first place. It's a shame they've decided to die on the hill of temporarily pumping their potential IPO value via the API at the cost of what made Reddit special in the first place. They've already disintegrated the trust of a lot of hardcore Reddit users like myself overnight. It'll never be the same now they've shown how they really value their users.
At the same time, I'm really excited to see how the various alternative platforms develop. Spending time away from Reddit has made me realise its sheer size can be quite overwhelming and there were a lot of subreddits I followed that were more doom scrolling wastes of time. Going to these other, smaller platforms is taking me back to earlier Internet days in a good way where it feels like you're part of an engaged community rather than a nameless voice among hundreds of thousands. I've been finding the quality of discussion here refreshingly high and respectful so far.
It's honestly exciting being at the start of what feels like a new social media wave. I can't remember the last time a major social media platform went the way of the dodo and people had to start migrating to replacements. I'm finding it really enjoyable being on ground zero. Whatever platform ends up being the most popular, it's a pleasure to be talking with you all whilst we figure it out. :)
I too am here to stay and agree about the feeling that I've gone back in time to a happier era on the internet.
I hadn't realized how creepy and icky the EXTREME commercialization of the internet has made me feel. The engagement is so poor quality. The people are so jaded and nasty. The content is so simplistic and superficial. It's just an endless circle-jerk of "me too-ism."
I'm a big believer that if you want change you have to be willing to make sacrifices. Until people start leaving the big commercial sites in protest, no alternatives can arise. And if that's what I expect others to do then I have to start by doing it myself.
I agree. Even if Reddit booted out spez tomorrow and canceled the whole API plan I wouldn't believe their sincerity. The problem is no longer just that the API price is insulting and that they want to hamstring 3rd party apps, it's that Reddit as a company believes it doesn't have to respect the users that are solely responsible for generating the value of their website. Its why the Apollo dev has stated that even a complete course reversal on Reddit's part wouldn't bring Apollo back at this point; Reddit has proven that they are not a reliable business partner.
It's honestly exciting being at the start of what feels like a new social media wave.
It really is. Giving up Twitter for Mastodon was easy for me because I never used Twitter, but Reddit has been a staple of my life for over ten years now. It feels a lot more real this time around. Thankfully a federated link aggregator like /kbin suits my preferences much more than a microblog like Mastodon does, and I'm excited that this will still let me peruse that microblog content when it suits me.
I've been enjoying kbin for the past couple of days, and once we get through the lag issues I think it will be great!
I only accessed Reddit through sync on mobile and there's no way I'm going back to using the mobile browser. Not much point returning for a week or two before leaving again.
I have to go back tomorrow, because I need to see the state of the subreddit I moderate, and see if they want to continue the blackout indefinitely. But I've pretty much made peace with the fact that I'll be deleting my Reddit account at the end of the month.
Yes it'll be interesting to see which subreddits continue the blackout or not. But like you I'll be deleting my account at the end of the month as well.
I don't plan on going back. Between not having a mobile client (i used Apollo) and the writing on the wall showing that old.reddit is going away eventually too.. i've got no reason to go back.
I'd be curious to see if we can setup some Reddit->Fedi content syncs too, similar to the HackerNews bot on Mastodon, just to help avoid the feeling that you might be missing news in niche communities.
Regardless, Fedi is where it's at. Mastodon proved this to me, and while Kbin and Lemmy need some work, overall we're moving in the right direction.
I was ready to jump ship already, but spez's comments in that internal letter really sealed the deal. Honestly Christian said it best, even Twitch, which has been making some pretty crazy decisions lately, has listened to the loudest of the complaints against them and made minor adjustments to their strategy. spez, and by extension reddit, clearly feels their position is too strong to bother caring about the concerns of their community.
i made the decision 10+ years ago to never use amazon again. it's been tough finding alternatives in some cases, but i'll live without reddit just like i've lived without amazon.
I deleted my account, I won't return to Reddit. They showed their true colors, even if they postpone the API changes they will continue to try and monetize every thing that made Reddit a good platform.
I like the fediverse, if one admin goes crazy you can just move to another instance and still access the same communities as before.
I kind of like kbin because of the familiar layout, but I just don't really understand how to use lemmy, even with reading the instructions. I expect to probably stay here more and more once the cloudflare debacle gets situated and phase out my reddit usage over time.
I mod on an smaller medium subreddit (100k+) that didn't go private, so I will probably open a magazine here for it, although I am getting tired of modding...it's been almost 4 years modding, 8 years on reddit.
Over ten years on Reddit and I never was tempted to be a moderator, always seemed a thankless job.
I'm in the same boat as you, still figuring this whole thing out. But it's starting to feel like this Lemmy thing could be the future for Reddit-type websites.
If Lemmy and Kbin could get together and have some kind of combined offspring, that would be good I think. I know they are both a part of the fediverse, but interacting between the two is problematic at best.
Lemmy is still using websocket vs REST API, and is pretty buggy, even on the less populated instances. It has potential and they are making progress though.
We're kind of "here at the beginning" right now, I think it's exciting :) I've been looking into the kbin code for a bit now, may look at Lemmy as well then, as I code websockets professionally. I'm liking this whole fediverse idea.
Agreeing with a lot of others on here - I won't be going back unless they make significant changes. Plus I don't really see a point of going back just till the end of the month and then RIF is kill. :(
This, for sure. I found the official app just unworkable - videos would fail to load with no option to retry, you had to hard reset the app to get it to try again. RIF made reddit actually fun.
But apparently reddit doesn't want that.
Ah, another RiF user. I have the same sentiment. I honestly had minimal problems with the official Reddit app, but RiF is mobile Reddit for me. I won't want to use the main app or site now, anyway.
I've left Reddit with the intent to not return as I've deleted all my accounts. And I'm trying to support this community, I spent a grand total of $0.00 in 7 years at Reddit and I've donated $25.00 to kbin so far. My only contribution to Reddit was by being the product by providing data and being advertised to.
After something like 13 years of using reddit, it surprises me to admit I am probably not going back. This latest incident isn’t the first and it won’t be the last. They seem to be going full-on, profit-driven investor bootlicking.
I’ve only been exploring the Fediverse for a couple days but I’m excited by why I see. It gives me old Internet vibes: optimism and a hacker spirit.
Where’s the best place to donate funds for server costs?
It's been great seeing so many people have similar experiences, and it does feel very special here. The fediverse devs are very much like the volunteer moderators of reddit, working out of love for the platform and building a better experience. There's hardly any profit motive aside from donations, and every admin is usually happy to just break even on server costs. It's all very collaborative with the shared goal of building more ethical platforms that don't monetize users, to respect the users and their privacy, and to never hold communities or data hostage.
I'll try to stay here unless reddit does a hard pivot. I'm just super disappointed to not have a place to share the first elaborate cake I'm doing this weekend. r/cake and r/cakedecorating haven't started up here yet.
I agree with Wasney. I know next to nothing about baking, but I would like to see your cake, please.
You start that up, and I might give more credence to starting up an ilikthebred mag, even though the reddit version had so little human activity it'll literally just be me spouting deliberately bad limericks to myself for nobody's amusement.
Edit: For anyone interested in fun little intentionally terrible quatrains, I went ahead and did it anyway. m/ilikthebred is now live, submissions are welcome, and I will try to update myself it regularly!
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