Asking third-party reddit app devs to consider Lemmy after recent Reddit API changes.

I've also cross-posted this post on other third-party apps' subs:

EDIT: Forgot to write a bit of an introduction of myself, hello to everyone here, long time redditor and someone who also happens to mod a lot of subs on reddit such as r/electricvehicles, r/trulyunpopularopinion and etc!

Though I love to moderate and contribute to this communities meaningfully, I never liked reddit, as a huge FOSS fan, and these recent API changes are freaking stupid as well, there wasn't a better reason for me to not consider moving to Lemmy. I will be speaking with a lot of other reddit mods in my own mod teams and some other friends, hopefully I can bring some subs/people here.

Speaking of bringing people, please do consider checking out these posts I've linked above, and consider upvoting them if you agree, this situation with third-party apps are a great opportunity for Lemmy, hopefully it reaches to the devs, and even if not all apps make a move, even one would be a win.

Thank you!

EDIT 2: Hey guys! I missed some third party apps on the list above, just updated them, and the new added ones are RIF, Joey, Get Narwhal and RedReader. UPDATE: Added ReddPlanet.

Please do consider visiting those that I just added and upvote them, so hopefully they can reach to respective developers!

dogmuffins,

The reluctance of redditors to move to lemmy always amazes me.

Not surprisingly, there's a lot of posts in a lot of subs about the recently announced changes. In every post the same pattern is repeated ad-nauseum:

  • "i hate reddit, it sucks here, I've always wanted to leave, I'm never coming back once this happens"
  • "maybe we should move the sub to lemmy so we won't have this problem in future?"
  • "but what about all our data, the wiki & post history and such"
  • "but there's no users on lemmy"
  • "but that would split the community!"

This is the case even in the subs I would have thought would be really keen to jump ship, like /r/selfhosted

I think this type of approach is the right idea though, a better ecosystem can only be good.

Neuromancer, (edited )

Lemmy is just the latest in a very long line of potential reddit successors. Historically, you can't move a subreddit to a different platform because redditors are users of reddit, not users of your particular subreddit.

dogmuffins,

This is true, but of course individuals can choose to move.

This may not be a warm fuzzy thing to say, but I don't feel much of a "community" in reddit subs.

What I mean is that to me, 100 people reading a sub on lemmy once a week is just as useful as 1000 people reading a sub on reddit once a month. As in, I don't really care if the specific users from a reddit sub are here, just that there are some engaged users here.

Rhabuko,

undefined> “but there’s no users on lemmy”

I mean that's a reasonable point. The amount of users is always important for a platform adaptation. But I see a good chance for Lemmy if/when Reddit removes/restricts all porn subs.. IF there's a place for it in Lemmy.

Zagaroth,

I suspect there will be specific servers/communities that support that content.

orclev, (edited )

I've yet to see one. It's one of the handful of things that don't exist yet on Lemmy that I'd actually miss from reddit. There's a few speciality subs that don't have any parallels on here but there's nothing stopping that content though. Porn on the other hand seems to be universally banned on every Lemmy instance I've ever seen. I guess moderating that content is just too much of a headache for most people.

RoaringSilence,

Maby the change to come regarding NSFW or 18+ content is the trigger a lot of people need.

If the cards are played well it could aggregate a lot of people. In regards to mature content in general not only "porn" orientated.

russjr08,

I guess moderating that content is just too much of a headache for most people.

Yep, plus I can only imagine just how worse that headache would be for whomever is probably the first to offer it.

themadcodger,
themadcodger avatar

I think it's exactly that no one wants the headache of moderating that. But I'm certain someone will spin up an instance that allows it as soon as Reddit bans it.

BlinkerFluid,

There's no users on Lemmy?

Then who are you people!?

asexualchangeling,

We are you and you are us

krolden,
@krolden@lemmy.ml avatar

Maybe you're just developing schizophrenia

artic,

The voices of the abyss join us

Haunting_Tale_5150,

It just makes me roll my eyes, they act like it's all so hard to join or leave, when really it isn't. When tumblr had it's nsfw ban, I joined reddit. Now that Tumblr is recovering, I rejoin with a new account. When reddit is having it's api exodus, I join lemmy. All you need is an email and a username, the rest is up to you.

The only real concerns that are in the list are:

  • The wiki (which could just be a simple copy-paste), though I wouldn't like Lemmy communities to be exact copies of the subreddits. There's many gripes I have with certain subs that should be avoided with Lemmy. As for data, if there's information you think is important to keep, share it. Find communities to share that info with, create ones if there isn't one for the certain thing you want to share. Don't just keep it hanging on reddit. As tvtropes says, keep circulating the tapes.
  • Splitting the community could be an issue, but a lot of subreddits simply AREN'T community based anymore. I can honestly only think of maybe three off hand that still feel like a community. One of which is only so due to it's somewhat more active discord server.
dessalines,

Its funny to me that those of us posting viable alternatives in those threads get drowned out by doomerism (there's nothing we can do!!!). There are alternatives out there to reddit, and they're already better experiences.

Magusbear,

It's really baffling. Especially because there are some solid but really small communities that would have a fairly easy time migrating but are still not even considering doing so because of the small userbase over here. These communities don't even benefit from the bigger userbase on reddit because the discussions are solely between the users that are subbed to the subreddits.

sexy_peach,

Hmm I think that normally it is legit hard to move a community to a new server/system. Even a small one. It was tried with a german subreddit to feddit.de and it failed.

Right now there's a lot of momentum, probably because reddit fucked up.

AnotherOverHeaven,

I don't expect the average person to move to Lemmy but I do think they're silly for criticizing it for it's low userbase when they themselves could be the users that populate it, currently this place has 2k (if I'm in the right space) people who've at least checked the site out.

If anything it should be easier considering there's a boost like reddit client for Android on the app store currently.

Magusbear,

Yea, a real mass exodus will probably not happen, but I would love it if at least a sizable community can grow out of it. There are a couple of smaller subreddits I would rather not abandon if they don't jump ship but if I can get the rest of my "content needs" from Lemmy I'd gladly take away from my reddit browsing time to come here instead.

Wiredfire,

If Mastodon teaches us anything it’s not about the size of the community but the engagement. If we end up with smaller, but more engaged, groups here and elsewhere in the fediverse then we’re in for a good time!

Magusbear,

Which German subreddit was tried to move?

sexy_peach,

reddit.com/r/dachschaden. But I think the move wasn't to feddit.de, sorry. It was to a server that doesn't exist anymore, 161.social. It never caught on I think.

Magusbear,

Too bad...seems like the kind of community that would rather not be on reddit after the IPO. Ideology wise I mean. But seeing that 161.social is dead now it definitely raises the question if staying was the better move. But I guess that's the point. If you don't get everyone to move then the alternative will likely die sooner or later.

sexy_peach,

161.social never had any active users, that was the problem I think. They tried mirroring some posts form the dachschaden sub, but that didn't attract anyone.

Magusbear,

I see. I'm looking forward to how Lemmy does in the future. Even with the disruptive changes to reddit it's hard to imagine a real mass exodus happening. But a semi sizable community might be enough to at least split my browsing habits between Lemmy and reddit.

sexy_peach,

I split my browsing habits between Lemmy and Reddit like a year or two ago. Mostly I browse reddit and when I see funny or interesting content I post it here.

Magusbear,

Seems like a good way to go about. I'll probably follow suit. I'm not sure if it will be possible to establish some of my favorite subreddits here but we'll see how it goes.

SineNomineAnonymous,

deleted_by_author

    •
    penguintech1,

    @SineNomineAnonymous @dogmuffins EXACTLY, I was on Reddit saying the exact same thing yesterday, why don't people just start using that better alternative ( that doesn't target them with intrusive ads ) but when FB first started out, I remember everyone was asking how to sign up, ( they didn't think no one is using it ), I think "follow the crowd" mentality is the problem when it comes to mass adoption :rickdrink:

    aksdb,

    I think they just don't want to change what they got used to. Having an excuse then makes it easier to stay where you are, hoping that circumstances get better. Basically typical conservative behavior that lives in most of us.

    Zach777,
    @Zach777@fosstodon.org avatar

    @penguintech1 @SineNomineAnonymous @dogmuffins Yall just have to start posting replies to everyone Lemmy's comments to make it seem like everyone is moving over lol.

    penguintech1,

    @Zach777 @SineNomineAnonymous @dogmuffins 😭

    Yoreo,

    "but there's no users on lemmy"

    It's definitely a chicken and the egg situation.

    I've been lurking here the past few days when I saw lemmy as a reddit alternative. I decided to sign up today as lurking isn't doing this place any favors. Hopefully more people will sign up, and the momentum will build and continue.

    russjr08,

    It's a chicken and egg problem for sure, but what I find a bit funny in every case like this (Reddit -> Lemmy, Twitter -> Mastodon, etc) is when someone says "X doesn't have any users!" it makes me want to reply with something like:

    Well of course, if X had anywhere near the population amount of [Reddit, Twitter, Etc] then its likely that these changes wouldn't be happening in the first place, to avoid a migration...

    These companies think they (and unfortunately in a lot of cases, are) too big to fail, if there was a competitor out there that had another sizable slice of the pie, then I doubt they'd be making idiotic changes like this nonsense over the API.

    I know that this is just how the network effect works, but it does make me laugh for a moment every once in a while.

    Yoreo,

    It's obvious that reddit had someone run the stats on what percentage of users would abandon the site completely and who would bite the bullet and eventually migrate over to their app. Obviously there must be more potential earnings with whatever projected percentage of users actually swallow their pride and use their app. All that Metadata must be worth a fortune to them.

    mFcGlNBcfr,

    I've been on lemmy for about a year, and this is the first time I've seen lemmy this consistently active.

    It actually reminds me of reddit in the earlier years :')

    Cougar,

    This is a genius idea. Imagine all app developers get together and once reddit stops working they ALL from their app's interfaces recommend switching to a lemmy instance, and mention that lemmy will be supported on their app in near future.

    This could be a massive blow to reddit since the traffic these apps contribute to is huge.

    MDKAOD,

    Message received. Hello from reddit!

    semperverus,

    I know it's unmaintained, but I really love the UI for "Slide for Reddit" and hope the dev for that picks it back up and maps the data inputs to Lemmy. Keep the UI exactly the same (maybe add tiny icons to the left of sublemmy names but that's it).

    SubArcticTundra,
    @SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

    Agreed. I liked it so much i bought the pro version, shame I could only use it for a few months

    Illithium,

    Oh man, Slide is my go to for years! Such a clean no nonsense experience. Would love to see similar UI.

    saba,

    would be nice to see an app for linux mobile. I run postmarketOS on pinephone and pinetab, currently using gnome shell mobile. Of course, the lemmy website works great on all of my devices, but an app might be nice if I use this more to get notifications.

    I use Tuba for Mastodon and thought I might be able to login to lemmy with it, but I guess not. I can see lemmy posts from there though.

    saba,

    @saba @Archit speaking of seeing the posts from mastodon... Hello me, it's me again!

    Archit,

    Hello man!

    dessalines,

    Hey that's great, thank you for doing this!

    I also hope those app devs, who are much more skilled programmers than I am, would be willing to contribute to the two existing open-source apps: Jerboa for android, and Mlem for iOS. We could definitely use the help.

    nullthegrey,

    I would love an app just like Sync that would work for Lemmy. Jerboa looks fairly close and quite similar just based on my very limited usage.

    edit: clarification

    Lobstronomosity,

    I really hope ljdawson takes a look at this platform. However, in the last few years they have not been posting as many updates and I would not blame them for not starting a new project.

    Verpenndroid, (edited )

    Thank you for starting the discussion. I was previously using Boost and now checked out Jerboa. Since Jerboa was inspired by Boost the transition was actually quite easy. Although some functions I really liked, e.g. jumping/navigating through the main comments or adjusting the font size of comments (they appear a tad too big in this app) are still missing. I would really appreciate if this community grows and the 3rd-Party devs could improve the experience further. I also was getting a bit bored by reddit as there was a lot of repetition and decreasing quality in content (while the popularity was increasing). But browsing through Lemmy and watching the enthusiastic mood of the growing community feels exciting again!

    Archit,

    Big agree man, I use apollo on iOS but before that used to use RIF, I certainly don't want to see the incredible third-party ecosystem die with reddit.

    veroxii,

    Let's get a hackathon going. Maybe it's possible to have a project which allows these apps to work with lemmy. I created a sub on reddit for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/apihackathon/

    But maybe that's not the right spot - happy for someone to create a similar community here too.

    BlinkerFluid,

    I could see infinity doing it the second they get the idea. Foss apps be like that.

    DrQuint,

    You missed a spot: RIF.

    Archit,

    Oops, I actually did post there, just missed to mention RIF on the list here. I've updated it now, thanks!

    dessalines,

    I will be speaking with a lot of other reddit mods in my own mod teams and some other friends, hopefully I can bring some subs/people here.

    Also thank you for doing this. @nutomic and I would rather be spending our time coding, and less time telling people about Lemmy. Its something I'm not very good at, and don't like to do too often, and greatly appreciate it when others are willing to help us out there.

    Archit,

    No problem man! Glad to be helping, huge fan of what you've been doing here, I see this third-party API changes on reddit as a huge opportunity for Lemmy, even if not Apollo, even if any ONE developer of third party app makes the jump here, then others are more likely to consider. I certainly don't want to see the fantastic third-party ecosystem die with reddit, instead move here where it's open source and API would probably never go behind paywall as per my understanding.

    And totally get you, especially at this stage I get that devs would want to focus on the development side, doing my best to get the word out! Love ya for your efforts!

    krolden,
    @krolden@lemmy.ml avatar

    The thing about most of these apps is that they are actually proprietary closed source and have advertisements to fund development/make money. I dont quite know how they could be convinced to develop an app for a platform that (I think) explicitly does not allow ads. I haven't really used any of these except baconreader years ago so I'm really not sure how these apps are licensed.

    However I hope some of them see the light of FOSS even on mobile platforms and decide to contribute to jerboa or even start a new Lemmy app.

    saba,

    and as a user, I can't see paying for an app/subscription or using an app with ads when the website works well on mobile. Good luck to those devs though, I hope the ones that get most of their income from it can find new projects.

    the_protagonist,

    Which website are you referring to? I tried old.reddit on my mobile and fonts are so small (apparently it's the desktop website) that posts were barely readable. And if you use the new reddit website (which pretty much sucks IMHO), you could as well use their app, because it's literally the same (app might be a bit better in terms of usability). But the UI and the ads are pretty much the same.

    saba,

    The commenter above me is talking about trying to get some of the reddit 3rd-party app devs to come to lemmy and I was talking about the lemmy website on mobile, definitely not reddit. My experience was the same as yours in that regard.

    While there are valid reasons to prefer a dedicated mobile app for lemmy, I think that the reason there were so many for reddit was that reddit's mobile site was so terrible and so is their app.

    That said, I'd still love to see some of these reddit app devs switch to making apps for lemmy(or kbin or other federated sites, possibly one app could do more than one type of server) because I think it would bring more attention and users here.

    baronvonj,
    @baronvonj@lemmy.ml avatar

    I paid for Relay Pro after trying a bunch of other apps. Mobile web sites can generally work well enough but I almost always prefer an app, because they can better incorporate mobile UX patterns/elements to make better use of the small screen. For example each post is wrapped in a tile with the headline and thumbnail displayed and I can swipe an individual post to see the controls (up/down vote, open link in browser, go right to comments, etc). Even on the mobile site theres too much clutter.

    saba,

    I definitely don't like clutter! and that was the one of the biggest issues with reddit's mobile site. I am trying out jerboa for lemmy on my android, just to compare. And I do hope more devs will work on lemmy clients. But for now, the web interface is a very usable fallback when compared to other mobile websites.

    dessalines,

    Its not our preference of course, but they could make closed source apps for lemmy. I'd rather they build them out in the open, and they could still charge for them or accept donations if they like. Open source devs need to get paid too.

    falconfetus8,

    Is that really forbidden, though? Lemmy itself is open source, but that doesn't mean clients are forced to be as well(there are plenty of closed source email clients, after all, even though the protocol is open).

    YetAnotherYeti,
    @YetAnotherYeti@lemmy.ml avatar

    RedReader is FOSS and has been my favorite Reddit app experience for several years.

    The dev has already expressed an interest in possibly refocusing on Lemmy, too.

    lvxferre,
    @lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

    It's a bit of an off-topic given the reason why you've linked that Reddit post, but I'm analysing a few things that the RR dev said and I've noticed something:

    The decision is controversial even within Reddit Inc., and whoever is taking the shots is not explaining it fully even to the people interacting with the third party devs.

    This hints that there's something really shady going on, like external intervention - but from whom?

    EnglishMobster,
    @EnglishMobster@lemmy.ml avatar

    Likely Project Managers, who are above the day-to-day developers. PMs take any product and squeeze the life out of it.

    lvxferre,
    @lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

    Ah, that explains it. A "middle caste" wouldn't bother explaining its decisions to the "grunts", even if the "grunts" would be better informed on the consequences of the decisions being taken.

    This will backfire badly for Reddit - I predict that content creators and moderators will be specially affected by killing the third party apps. The platform will see a short-term increase of revenue, followed by a crash, as if they were killing and butchering a milk cow.

    cavemeat,

    Great job dude, hopefully it inspires more migration.

    readbeanicecream,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    christian,
    @christian@lemmy.ml avatar

    I use redreader too, I was happy to see the developer post that they were considering reworking it for Lemmy. Hopefully they decide it's worth their effort.

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