OC Any other former redditors feeling grief?

I have been joking to a couple of friends today who were also redditors that I've been feeling withdrawals from reddit throughout the day. Like I knew I was addicted, I just never thought I was going to have to face the consequences of withdrawals!

But there's also a major part of me that's feeling a sense of loss. I had two reddit accounts that were 11+ years old. I used an app called Redact last night to totally expunge my comment and submission history, and I just was hit by so many emotions watching my old content turn to ashes.

Reddit is where I always spent my depression spirals, but it was also where I found hobbyist communities and group help support. I found sexual partners through reddit, and used to even moderate in my early days. It's where I used to keep up with a TON of current events but also read from so many diverse perspectives with expertise on topics.

As much as I am tentatively excited for the culture and community we can build on kbin, I truly am feeling the inconsequential reality of all that karma and browsing. Reddit felt like it was going to be immortal, but even the mighty fall.

Anyone else bummed??

_galactose,
_galactose avatar

I feel sort of lost, because one of my sources of information is cut off. Besides being able to be a part of that highly-specific community you were looking for, reddit also was very good for finding answers to any random question and avoiding bad google-search articles that are quite often unhelpful.

daredevil,
daredevil avatar

I'm wondering how kbin will play with search engines down the line. I often used ddg to search through Reddit, but trying it with kbin didn't seem as helpful. I wouldn't know how long it would take for posts to show up in Google's searches, but I'll be patient until I learn more. If anyone has any advice for searches, that would be really helpful. Doing so was a large part of my time when I really wanted to browse past discussions regarding key topics and keywords.

Ashyr,

I'm curious about this as well. I basically never Google anything anymore without appending Reddit to it.

mookman288,
mookman288 avatar

Instead of using the keyword "reddit" consider using the keyword "forum" or "discussion." Make use of double-quotation marks, plus sign, and minus sign in your search queries to be more granular with your searches.

It may take a considerably long time for kbin posts to start showing up in Google. Part of the reason is that kbin is new to being popular, so the backlinking and general popularity traffic isn't there yet (but it will be, I'm sure.) It also takes more time for Google to crawl and index the content of sites which have lower priority.

I have various personal hobby sites on Neocities, and even some WordPress sites, and it's rare for them to appear in Google searches even after many years. They just aren't popular enough and do not have the right backlinks for Google to organically find them and prioritize them in results.

Timwi,
Timwi avatar

Do your sites have XML sitemaps? I run this niche community website that was not easy to find on search engines and its content was slow to update, but then I learned about XML sitemaps and it changed everything. Check out the robots.txt file where I added a line for the sitemap. Follow the link to see what the file looks like. As soon as I added that, suddenly my site is top result if you search for ktane + the name of a module (e.g. “switches ktane”), and it gets crawled and indexed a lot more often. This applies to both Google and DuckDuckGo.

ninjakitty7,

The thing that saddens me the most deeply is that Reddit was the last place on the internet that was a source of real, human-generated information. The drive for profit has destroyed every single search engine through SEO, meaning that you can't get answers to questions anymore. Reddit was where I went when I wanted to find passionate people and niche topics and answers to obscure problems that Google would tell me nobody has ever had before.

Jyrdano,
Jyrdano avatar

I second the google searching. Reddit was great to finding answers to really specific questions, and there isnt really a replacement for that AFAIK

WeaponizedPoultry,
WeaponizedPoultry avatar

This is part of what's been troubling me with the whole situation. With so many long-time users nuking their entire post histories there's a lot of link rot happening. How much good info is just gone already? I understand not wanting to contribute to reddit's bottom line any more, but the loss of public information is concerning.

HandsHurtLoL,

I am not an archivist, but I have know people in information sciences who have experience with archival work, and I am also struck by how many times we would joke on reddit about how sociologists hundreds of years in the future would absolutely misinterpret some of the jokes in our threads for being so out of context.

I hadn't thought about how much the world today stood to lose by reddit going dark, not being indexed on Google searches. I don't think Spez thought of that, or if that's even a prevailing concern at this point compared to profit and going public.

Not sure I have any solutions, but just acknowledging this adds another bittersweet note to my sense of loss. It wasn't that just I lost my place in that highly constructed world, but also the world lost its greatest crowdsource.

CynAq,
CynAq avatar

I agree with the loss of information point. It's getting much harder every day to find quality information on the web.

Hopefully most users who had good content and information in their history archived their content before nuking it on reddit with the plan to post it on wherever they end up next.

It will take time for that information to spread out and be discoverable again, but I can't blame people for taking it away, especially with the very open demand for AI training data, as a lot of people agree that it's unethical to use people's content for machine learning without explicit consent.

Col3814444,

Reddit absolutely changed my life for the better in the past 15 years or so I have been using it. People love to complain about how awful it apparently is, but I didn’t find that - for every awful thing there are a thousand great things.

I’m going to miss it for a bit, but this site seems to have promise, it reminds me greatly of Reddit when we all moved over from Digg. Will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

20k,

Reddit got me into a C++ committee meeting and allowed me to present a paper which was super cool, and let me meet my first and second girlfriend. Its wild that its just kind of gone

teacosts,

It's sad that they got greedy. I do realize how addicted I was to the site and realized that's what I mostly did on my phone. Trying to train myself to use kbin.

isdfoa,

same, reddit also basically became my search engine for anything that isn't just straight up facts i can get from google (ex: recommendations, opinions, advice, troubleshooting, etc). it feels like the rest of the internet's content is just regurgitated buzzwords aimed at getting clicks for ads rather than anything actually useful.

scabrous-leper,
scabrous-leper avatar

Yes, this! I used it like people do youtube, for repair/fix it questions, as well as niche communities for interests, news, entertainment.

WeaponizedPoultry,
WeaponizedPoultry avatar

Content from niche communities seems to be most in danger. Just yesterday I found myself with questions regarding some Star Wars miniatures games and what would have been the best results on google were stuck behind the reddit blackout.

I'm not sure how well the fediverse can replace a small subreddit yet. The fractured nature of the platform seems like it could mean communities that were <50k users just never become as active as they were on a more centralized platform. And how long will it take for content here to have similar reach on search engines?

HandsHurtLoL,

Yes! For me, it was extremely effective at its primary goal of being a content aggregator. I kept up with sooooo much news that was thematicly linked (national news, world news, politics, specific country's news/politics) that I could be the smartest person in most rooms I occupied in irl.

I think though that the corresponding magazines will be the first massly populated here on kbin.

Haus,
Haus avatar

This is the thing for me. I think I'm experiencing a bit of news FOMO. Reddit has been reliable for years at supplying news, cat antics, and pretty girls. I also agree that google+reddit has been really useful in solving very specific problems.

Flabbergash,
Flabbergash avatar

Put it this way, the first I heard of Berlusconi's death was on the radio. The radio!!

TimberHearth,

I think people are jumping the gun a bit on what Kbin is and are expecting it to be as huge as Reddit which it might never be. Most of my news I’m getting via the free version of Feedly which is an RSS reader and I’m only really using Kbin to scratch that itch for a bit of commenting.

I hope people are exploring their options with being able to interact with Lemmy and Beehaw boards via Federation too. If this setup ever gets as big as Reddit it’ll be through the federated whole not one individual site. Considering how much data costs to host I think pushing one site towards a monopoly will always force increased advertIsing and with popularity comes financial predators. This is of course what Reddit is going through now.

gluuhm,
gluuhm avatar

Thanks, I'll check out Feedly! I don't know why I stopped using RSS feeds, but the idea of using one again sounds really appealing. I'm not sure why.

eatmoregreenfood,
eatmoregreenfood avatar

Meh. I used reddit since about a year after its launch. I noticed the last two days my thumb reaching for the reddit app on my home screen. But then I pause, remember I deleted rif, and just log into kbin and try to be active. Right now sorting by new has been amazing. Lots of new magazines (shout out to the one I made tvsuggestions).

I think you can get the reddit dopamine hit by being active on kbin. Investigate! Explore the site! Make a zine!

The plus side is I'm using it way less than reddit while simultaneously being way more active on the medium. Win win

HandsHurtLoL,

I'm certainly already venturing out into more engagement here, but I am using it less than reddit only because there isn't a convenient 3rd party app for kbin Q_Q

eatmoregreenfood,
eatmoregreenfood avatar

There will be. For now the mobile version is usable. I just threw a link to it where RiF used to be. But yeah stay at it. The more engaged we are the more need for a polished mobile app there will be. Donate, use the medium, etc. Mobile app can't possibly be too far out.

HandsHurtLoL,

For anyone who wants the donate link, it's here!

RedditExodus,
RedditExodus avatar

Thanks for sharing the link, I just donated. It seems like this Ernest guy is working his ass off!

exohuman,
exohuman avatar

You can use the web app feature. In safari, hit the share button then scroll down and hit “Add to Home Screen”. It will now appear as a standalone app separate from your browser.

discodoubloon,
discodoubloon avatar

I’ve been doing this. The password thing won’t set so just have to commit it to memory for now.

experbia,
experbia avatar

I removed Relay from my home screen when I realized at some point while just zoning out I had just unlocked my phone and tapped it open without really thinking about it consciously. It was that much of an idle habit. I looked down and saw the pics pinned message about going dark and was like, uhh??

rastla,

Huh, Hadn't actually thought about sorting theads by new.
Since this community is somewhat small for now, that's actually a great idea.

BeatNik,

I've found myself doing the same. I've instinctively opened Apollo about 6 times yesterday and each time I've force quit the app immediately.

I can't bring myself to delete it just yet. @christianselig made one of the best R*ddit apps and in a way this whole protest has been a great way to break away from my addiction.

scabrous-leper,
scabrous-leper avatar

@BeatNik
I wound up deleting Apollo, just because I was too dumb to see where one logs out! But, having it be gone, completely, makes it easy to not go back.

@HandsHurtLoL @christianselig @eatmoregreenfood

!deleted121404,

deleted_by_author

    •
    HandsHurtLoL,

    There's a part of me that I think would have continued to still use reddit if like, Spez had pulled out of the nose dive by the 10th or whatever. But now I feel like he and reddit have crossed the Rubicon, and it's just the principle of the matter and solidarity at this point.

    Also, is annoyance a stage of grief? haha

    vaiium,

    Not grief specifically, the annoyance is probably more related to withdrawal symptoms.

    letsroll,
    letsroll avatar

    You nailed it. If it was just about "the IPO" or "profits", well, that's part of life sometimes. But to do what he did to Christian, who made the Appollo app, well that was just nasty and unnecessary. And it feels like the community is responding by saying "fine. you did this." and burning the whole thing to the ground. Reddit will keep going but I bet enough CORE people will leave that it will be a shell of its former self, and it's not like public markets will miss that.

    parrot-party,
    parrot-party avatar

    I don't view social media as inherently bad. I actually think it's on average good. But it's easily taken over by corporate greed and propaganda. There's no incentive for that on smaller communities though, so it's probably good to reset the community back to a more manageable size.

    Highfall,

    It's tough, I've used it for 12 years and i'm devastated because atm there's no site that can replace the community and the amount of centralized content available.

    However, I went through the same journey 12 years ago because of Digg and I hope /u/spez continues to fasttrack reddits death. Making a community of addicts give up something they are addicted to requires a special sort of talent, and the faster spez can apply his abilites, the faster the community can move on to the next platform and build something better.

    Right now we are in limbo where the replacements aren't nearly as good, and reddit isn't quite dead yet. This is the worst stage.

    HandsHurtLoL,

    I have to laugh at your comment that Spez has a special talent if he can make millions of addicts suddenly give something up!! If being a social media mogul doesn't work out for him, he should consider a new career in addiction management 😂😂

    You make a good point about centralized content though, too. Like, I appreciate that other users who seem to be a bit more knowledgeable about the Fediverse are name dropping a lot of platforms, but I don't want my new online home to be scattered. I guess I'm spoiled but like, I do want my stuff centralized. Is there no middle ground where the back end is federated but the UX is one location?? I'm not a computer scientist or programmer so I'm not sure if I just asked for an oxymoron.

    Infraspace,
    Infraspace avatar

    I've been on Reddit 17 years, ever since the great Digg migration. I still hold out hope that this situation will be resolved somehow, but I'm not optimistic. If they follow through and force moobile users onto their shitty app, I plan to back up my saved links andd comments locally, then nuke my account using PowerDeleteSuite.

    HeartyBeast,
    HeartyBeast avatar

    Yes. I’m not only sad for the communities I’ve lost. I’m also mourning the loss of my idea of what Reddit was. Naively, I always thought that Reddit management - though imperfect- had its heart in the right place. I liked Reddit as an organisation. So now I’m feeling a bit bereft.

    acupofcoffee,

    This is pretty much how I feel. Reddit was a huge part of my life since I was 18 and now I'm in my 30s. There's so many niche communities that basically are either dying or being abandoned (by others, and also me) because of this.

    All of it just has me saddened. Saddened for the past, but also for the lost future of what could have been.

    I guess it shouldn't surprise me too much... They changed the UI and I hated it. Then RES went maintenance mode and I was concerned but it kept working. I guess, slowly, Reddit or just the universe has been pushing me towards the moment where I leave for good.

    End of an era, I suppose.

    HiddenRetro,
    HiddenRetro avatar

    This sums it up for me as well.

    HandsHurtLoL,

    This really puts into words something I hadn't fully realized. It was imperfect, but it felt like we were at least all nerds together. Then I realized a while ago that the nerds had been outnumbered by the profiteers.

    I think since having made the OP, I also am feeling a moment of reckoning for the (surely) thousands of hours of my life I've wasted on reddit that I can't take with me and will never get back...

    iNeedScissors67,
    iNeedScissors67 avatar

    I just miss my city's subreddit (r/stlouis). It was by far where I was most active, and there's basically no fediverse activity for it

    HandsHurtLoL,

    I feel this way about the knitting community. Post I submitted on reddit on Saturday got like 1500 karma. Posted the same thing here last night, it got 6 upvotes.

    Not quite as validating! P_P

    im_ace,

    I guess that’s how Reddit must have been when it was new. It will just take time. Some good decisions from the dev team and a little bit of luck and kbin will also be able to have posts reaching thousands of upvotes very soon.

    BabySteps,

    Another STL resident here! I hung out in a lot of smaller subreddits, and got a huge amount of news from lurking the big popular subs. I burned my account down, total scorched earth. We'll see how this goes.

    Haunting_Tale_5150,
    Haunting_Tale_5150 avatar

    I'm no longer in the sadness stage of grief, now I am angry. I have thought of all the stupid things they've done since I joined in 2018

    First they made the awful new layout

    Then they promised to implement css in new reddit, only to never do so

    Then they introduced too many award variations, and made it so people could get them for free, removing what value the awards had.

    Then they made customizable snoos, which while cute were uneccesary.

    Then they introduced, barely advertised, then killed reddit cspan. Never heard of it? Can't blame you!

    Then the introduced NFT avatars.

    Then they did that awful april fools arg that was so hidden only a few did it and those who found the answer found it on discord. Also the answer was reddit was run on a literal potato which seems to be truer by the day.

    Then they did this API shit.

    During all that time where they could have introduced features that were useful to their app and fixing up the cruft with new reddit, they slaked off in order to increase profits. Only two features that were useful were ever introduced during 2018 - 2023: polls and gallery uploads. That's it.

    So I am sad for the communities, but reddit itself? Nah.

    Ronno,
    Ronno avatar

    I don't mind switching it up and going new places. The only thing that I find sad is that I created a Reddit account linked to all my preferences, it took years to craft that account in a way that it gives me value and join, while at the same time filtering out the BS that I didn't want to see. Now I have to go through that process again.

    However, this can also be an opportunity to get more focused and qualitative content again, and steer away from becoming a TikTok publisher. Because let's be honest, the homepage of Reddit was simply becoming a repost of TikTok.

    HandsHurtLoL,

    Once you start subscribing to magazines that are relevant to you here, you can customize your account settings to open up only your subscription list instead of the inchoate home page. 🙃

    eatmoregreenfood,
    eatmoregreenfood avatar

    Yeah hopefully the content here is better. I imagine it will be

    vektor,
    vektor avatar

    The only thing that I find sad is that I created a Reddit account linked to all my preferences, it took years to craft that account in a way that it gives me value and join, while at the same time filtering out the BS that I didn't want to see. Now I have to go through that process again.

    That's exactly what I'm going to miss as well. I built up multiple multireddits for my interests (cars, audio, biking, tools, etc) and I'm kinda sad I have to start over again. But I can't get behind what reddit is doing right now so I'm learning all I can about this fediverse stuff and forging ahead!

    cowvin,

    I gotta be honest: I accidentally logged into Reddit today. But the content there is pretty limited since so many subs went private. So I started looking around at the alternatives.

    Alter_Id,
    Alter_Id avatar

    Nuked and deleted my 10 year old account last night, and glad to be rid of it tbh. I'd been wanting a paradigm shift for a while already under whatever circumstance. Quite happy to see the momentum growing for an exodus really.

    There are things that I'll remember positively about reddit for sure, but I still look back most fondly to the MySpace days for it's sense of tighter community which is something I never felt through the sea of randoms that flooded reddit. I don't participate on any other major social media sites, though I do have accounts on some individual forums for stuff I'm into. I definitely still have to learn my way around this place a bit. I can't pretend to know how this federated concept will flesh itself out and evolve, but I really think I see some promise for more familiar communities with the way it's structured. We'll see; I'm optimistic.

    At any rate, something about how every end is a new beginning or something. If I'm allowed to welcome you though I'm a newborn myself, welcome. Glad we're here.

    HandsHurtLoL,

    I used to have some success in a couple of hookup subreddits back in 2019 for a specific city, then after I moved away and then back to the city, it just felt like that hookup community just got so overrun with pushy people. Nothing but aggressive men (which didn't fit the niche of that particular kink community) and women pushing OnlyFans accounts.

    It really felt so disappointing how many nom-starters I had to wade through just to meet one person in 2022 to the point I just gave up in 2023.

    So this major reboot ultimately does feel like it was necessary. Reddit was a critical mass assholes and influencers, even for SFW subs.

    S_204,

    @Alter_Id The part that's making me feel some feelings isnt that deleting my account will impact me, but over the decade I used the site, I grew to learn how to find answers that I might otherwise not be able to track down online and deleting everything will cause that to be lost. I've got a handful of threads that still get thank yous and comments 4-6 years after they were posted because of the troubleshooting that happened in them. When we all turn to r/dust I genuinely think we'll be taking a step back collectively. Fuck Spez and Conde Nast for putting us in this position but it's something i've been considering.

    @HandsHurtLoL

    Alter_Id,
    Alter_Id avatar

    I hear you on that. If we're taking a step back so as to not continue walking in the wrong direction though it's better in the long run.

    Important to note that the benevolence of those working within an otherwise uncaring system isn't lost through abandoning that system. Reddit only helped to facilitate the support that people within your community were willing to give. It wasn't responsible for generating that support itself. There will be plenty of people looking to fill the gap. It probably won't look the same, but hopefully the structure undergirding that support can be more robust and less subject to exploitation for the temporary disruption that's happening now. If this idea of federated social networks takes hold I think that's one thing it's offering.

    @S_204

    Col3814444,

    I’m feeling kinda comfy here. More than happy to spend a few days at the very least, or even much more if Reddit doesn’t sort it’s shit out.

    This place has potential I feel, much better than a lot of the other alternatives people were mentioning, half of them were alt-right crazytowns.

    niktemadur,
    niktemadur avatar

    The whole kinda-Wild West feel is exciting, isn't it? Somewhat like the internet felt around the mid-00s, still under construction, the plumbing and electrical not fully installed, let alone operational, and mind your step, but not that primitive either.
    Plus it's decentralized! That right there is a very important point that we didn't all think about too intently back in those naive days, along with other nebulous concepts like scalability and privacy.

    sgtlighttree,

    The fact that is decentralized makes me sort of reassured that if Instance A decides that advertising would be a thing to "cover operational costs", a lot of people would just jump ship to another one, which can actually drive costs down for Instance A. It's a win-win! Ideally I want to be able to migrate and copy my content from instance to instance, or even between different services like lemmy and kbin.

    Either way, ads would be kinda inevitable for bigger instances if donations can't quite cut the costs of operating an instance.

    sgtlighttree,

    half of them were alt-right crazytowns.

    Which makes their inclusion on "Reddit alternative" lists quite baffling IMO. Maybe the authors were trying to be "unbiased" or "balanced" but there's a reason why those crazytowns don't seem to have took off the way lemmy and kbin is doing right now.

    HandsHurtLoL,

    I found a short video on the Fediverse describing the organization style and what is meant by a federated universe. The concept floated was that if you don't like your little planet, you could create your own.

    That sounds kind of lovely but I don't think it takes into consideration the role moderation plays for online communities. Right now, moderation seems non-existent on kbin and it's because until the reddit influx, most people here I guess have been self-policing. But what happens when the bad faith actors start brigading here? It's nice that we can tell them to go make their own little planet, but they never wanted just their own echo chambers alone. They want echo chambers and conquest of every other online space. Moderation is key to preventing hostile takeovers.

    PepsiMax,

    Nuked my 7yo old account and I hope reddit is fucked for life and we get something new from this.

    HandsHurtLoL,

    Welp, @pepsimax has hit full-on acceptance 😂😂

    AlteredStateBlob,
    AlteredStateBlob avatar

    As others have said, my main issue is losing easily maintained sources of information on certian topics I am interested in and especially some niché communities.

    I had a fairly high Karma account and had found a few groups of people over time that I felt home with, understanding the inside humor, the ideas and ideals. Did feel sort of bad, but I killed all my accounts by now. Change is inevitable and it'll be alright eventually. Just hope I can find another group of people again, where I feel included even if it's mainly as a lurker.

    exohuman,
    exohuman avatar

    Yeah, my account was about 11 years old and I had very high karma. I am finding kbin great right now though, as more people come in I see more communities appearing and I even started one (something I didn’t do on Reddit).

    sgtlighttree,

    Thankfully for my use case, the Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Davinci Resolve subreddits don't seem to be going away soon, but users deleting their content will hurt data preservation efforts no matter what.

    redsky,
    redsky avatar

    Yes, it's crazy that leadership violated user's wishes. old.reddit and Apollo were amazing. It was straight-up a feed of my interests. LaTeX, unixporn, neovim, sportsball, NotKenM... dozens of interests in one place.

    But, they did it. They spezzed out. So off we went. I'll miss it. It was the best central location for news... my news. Sucks.

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