this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Simple question: Will you go back to Reddit and other centralized social media platforms, if Reddit step back from the API changes? The benefits of Reddit are obvisiouly, it has million of users and even small communitys have thousands of users.

For me it's pretty clear, after deleting my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Discord accounts, the decentraliced Fediverse is my future in social media. Even with an very much smaller community, i'm not willing to be treated as ad-cow for the big corps.

But what do you think about your future in social media? Fediverse or Reddit, Meta, Google and all the others? Or will you go safe and use both, to have an backup option?

(Image by Alan Frijns from Pixabay)

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[–] CoachDom@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think I'll stay here. I like the prospect of building this ting together and shaping it the way we want it. Just that they caved in this one time doesn't mean it won't happen in the future. I would rather invest my time and effort into something I can stand behind and agrees with my believes. I like that it's open source and decentralised.

Main thing that needs to be addressed with Lemmy/kbin is the mobile app situation which is well...not great at the moment

[–] OttersUp@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

Same. The API changes are a symptom of a larger change in direction, and even if Reddit backs down from this now, it’s not going to change the fact that decisions about the platform rooted in how to maximize profits are never going to be good for users. I’d rather contribute to a place where the goal is to build something worthwhile, not just something that’s going to line investors’ pockets.

[–] XLRV@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah, Reddit cannot be trusted anymore, even if they revert the API thing (which they don't even acknowledge as a bad thing), their goal is to please the potential investors and not their community.

The Fediverse is refreshing, made by passion and not for profit, I like Lemmy and I will still stay here even if Reddit backtracks on their decisions.

On Android, Jerboa is pretty ok right now, and the influx of new contributors is a great thing, the development of Jerboa will be way faster now.

[–] timmytbt@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 year ago

Both. Even if Reddit step back this time I think this action is just another on the road to their demise. But Lemmy/Fediverse still needs the critical mass shift to become the true alternative.

[–] Z3DT@feddit.nl 11 points 1 year ago

I probably will, because I know the communities I was part of there will never be as big and succesful here. Let's face it, Reddit is far simpler. Lemmy takes a little effort to figure out how to navigate, and many casual internet users won't want to put in that effort.

Probably not besides looking up old posts and info. After the past week or so of not using Reddit, can’t really say I miss it. Lemmy reminds me of the pre-social media days of web forums and I love it.

[–] Tarrega@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If reddit took a step back I will definitely use it, but the fact that you can ask a question without being flooded with bad jokes makes this platform have value for me. I'll happily use both.

Exactly. About time reddit has some real competition. Also it's scary how much important info you can get only on reddit, I hope we can get backups.

[–] Ashiette@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago

Lemmy is still new. But that's a boon ; it has plenty of room to grow and already it is teeming with life and a plethora of new ideas.

I was thinking of deleting Reddit before the fiasco because I just wasn't enjoying it anymore. It was the same with 9GAG many years ago, whose era came to an end when I discovered Reddit.

I find pleasure by browsing Lemmy, so... Now is the time for change. I am not looking back.

[–] beto@lemmy.studio 8 points 1 year ago

I'll stay.

One of the reasons is that I don't think Reddit will step back. They might do some changes, and revert some of the decisions, but I'm pretty sure those would be temporary. I don't trust their CEO and I don't trust their intentions.

But most importantly, I like the Fediverse. I like hosting my own services, so I don't depend on a big company which will inevitable change their terms of service, close their APIs, or do something that is not in the best interest of the users, but of the investors and share holders.

[–] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago

Depends if enough people move to make it fun.

[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

inb4 sorry, long wall of text.

I'll stay across multiple fediverse instances, likely including lemmy.ml. I won't be back to Reddit, not even if Reddit rolls back all the third party app changes, and if spez is fired.

There's a reason my Lemmy account is two years old, not new: I am already extremely displeased with Reddit, for years. (More than two, by the way.)

It is not just the admins and the businesses. It's also the moderation system:

I don't think that the users becoming moderators in Reddit are intrinsically bad people, I was myself a moderator there, but the whole moderation hierarchy boils down to "everyone competent will eventually leave, and the top mod will be eventually a clown with too much time at hands, too little reasoning in his head, and too much power hunger in his stomach".

It's also in large part the userbase. Users there behave like braindead morons: they're assumptive, context-illiterate, they don't even see what's wrong with "X said it so it's true/false" and prone to oversimplify complex matters, in a way that boils down to "u think dat 50 is not 100? than u think dat 50 is 0? dats dumb lol lmao". And they are extremely disingenuous.

I don't think that it's due to inability to reason; I think that it's the environment of Reddit dictating how you should behave there. What I described about the Reddit user might potentially apply to myself, too, when I'm there. And I don't want to feel disgusted with myself.

It should not be a surprise that the userbase is like this, when the admins set up the example. A site that launched itself by expecting users to be stupid enough to notice "this place is empty, it's all sock-puppets" is bound to attract stupid users.

[–] arp@lemmy.studio 7 points 1 year ago

I'll stay. While lemmy, at least for now, is a bit harder to use than reddit, and also lacks content, I see both of those as temporary issues. This feels nice and fresh, and i'm excited to see how it evolves. That applies to the entire Fediverse.

[–] alternativeninja@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If your girlfriend/boyfriend hit you with a baseball bat but then said sorry didn't realize you would leave me I wont hit you again. Would you go back?

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[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

Unless this place becomes as dead as before the exodus again, I don't think I'll be spending much time on Reddit anymore. I've been meaning to browse less anyways as it's often a giant waste of time. I don't expect that to be much different here but it might be less of a waste due to the smaller scale.

I'll still google for Reddit when I need to find some actual answers though; no way around that for now.

[–] TableCoffee@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

If Reddit isn't destroyed, and I don't think it will be, I'll likely keep using it for the main function I use it for. Using a search engine to search "technical problem I have Reddit".

While there's many online resources to find the answers to my technical issues, Reddit typically has the highest quality discussions on average or serves as a jumping off point to the answers at least.

But I will continue to use Lemmy for browsing and adding in my 2 cents when I feel the need. I've become a somewhat recent enthusiast of FOSS, Linux, and the fediverse.

[–] VerbTheNoun95@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reddit burning its bridge with Apollo’s dev probably sealed the deal for me. Beyond handling things poorly, most of my time on Reddit was on my phone via Apollo. I highly doubt Christian ever works with Reddit again even if they did completely pull everything back.

Things have been pretty good here, I don’t see any reason not to stick around, and there isn’t anything to make me go back. I’ll probably check hockey news on Reddit occasionally, but I can’t see myself being active.

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That's a difficult question for me. I'm a mod of a small niche subreddit over there. I don't like the idea of leaving that small community to die, and I'm not sure I could rebuild it here. But at the same time the enshittification of Reddit is progressing in a way I'm not at all comfortable with. I'm definitely in on the blackout, but I'm not sure what it'll take to make me stay or make me leave after that.

[–] Kaiser@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Honestly yes, if Reddit steps back and Apollo stays around I’d probably go back to it. While Lemmy is a good alternative IOS support is limited with Mlem and the communities aren’t as large. I’d still probably use Lemmy but less often.

[–] fratermus@fedia.io 5 points 1 year ago

Will you go back to Reddit and other centralized social media platforms, if Reddit step back from the API changes?

No; I didn't even know about the API issue until after I registered on a lemmy instance.

My transition from twitter -> mastodon was so smooth and pleasant I started sniffing around lemmy again. I'd looked at it a year or two ago but didn't take the bait at that time.

[–] manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech 4 points 1 year ago

No, I am a 16 year redditor and have been meaning to get out for at least 6 of those years. Time to get out.

There will still be something at these subs, though I plan to turn them all into fediverse links until they ban my accounts.

[–] Speckle@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I'm going to stick around on lemmy and see what happens. I'm enjoying it more than reddit already and am posting/commenting a lot more than I used to.

There's a couple of places that I'm not sure will be replicated here any time soon that I'll really miss, but hey whatever.

Saying that I've only logged out of reddit, not deleted anything yet 😬

[–] empireOfLove@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah. Spez is still a piece of shit and my old accounts with massive gobs of post history are still banned. My "familiar reputation" that was well respected in a few car groups is long gone, and I can't get it back via alts without running afoul of the "no ban evasion" policy, so fuck 'em. Lemmy has been working just fine for my light, casual browsing needs. Why would I go back now?

I've been hearing a lot about the "fediverse" and just haven't had any motivation to bother looking into it. But here I am now.

[–] carnha@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago

Even if Reddit walks this decision back, the fact that a corporation is making the decisions instead of the community/content creators means that similar drama is inevitable. I can't blame them for making a decision to try and be more profitable, but that also means I will leave and put my effort towards a network that is community-led.

At the same time, running a Lemmy instance isn't free - I have concerns about how these instances will stay funded in the long term. I'll also miss the niche communities that haven't made their way over here yet, but hopefully they will!

[–] Cratermaker@lemmy.click 4 points 1 year ago

I'm done with Reddit even if Lemmy doesn't work out. I hope it does though. Even if there are barriers to entry and confusing aspects, there are definitely enough people out there to overcome them and keep this place interesting. I think social media needs to be more socialized.

[–] vortexal@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago

I plan on staying but I'd use both if they did. I believe in the saying "competition breeds improvement" and while I know that Lemmy is essentially built to have it own sort of "competition" in the form of alternate instances, I think it would still be worth using both, along with other Reddit alternatives because they do have their sets of pros and cons. I don't want Reddit to shut down, but I also don't want to support a platform that very clearly doesn't care about their users.

[–] WreckingBANG@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

I already deleted my reddit account, so there is no going back.

[–] MrLux@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Like most of the other people around here, I will definitely stay at Lemmy. But I will also use Reddit as long as it has viable subreddits for me, that I cannot compensate with a Lemmy alternative.

But I hope, that Lemmy will have the same impact than Mastodon had and that many cool communities will rise from this!

[–] ribboo@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I probably would, yes

[–] SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago

I mean you can't really say no to the critter in the sweater. What kind of monster does that? (I bet they put pineapple on their pizza, too)

[–] BobQuasit@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Absolutely. Capitalists are mad dogs. You are never ever safe with them. I like the Fediverse. I'd like to see it improved by becoming fully democratic and publicly funded.

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[–] TWeaK@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I might still google "[question] reddit" when looking for how to do things, and there a couple of subs I'll check for that kind of purpose, but I've already stopped actively contributing to the site and have edited and deleted most of my comments (at least the ones shown on my profile, reddit doesn't show all of them - need to find a way to automate editing + deleting from the GDPR CSV files).

Hopefully Lemmy will grow and take over to fill the reddit knowledge gap.

What's more, they've blocked old reddit if you're not logged in. Now it either redirects to new reddit or you get a "you broke reddit" error page. It won't be long before they block old reddit for existing users, I reckon.

[–] GillBates@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

I will. No Apollo no Reddit. Easy as that.

[–] electrona@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

At the point I'm at now. I'll probably use both. Depends on the engagement and if the content is there. I'd much rather use Lemmy, but I'm not going to deprive myself of content.

[–] balerion@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

I'm probably going to keep using both regardless, though I may cut back significantly on my reddit use.

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

I will probably end up using both, regardless.

[–] pineapple@lemmy.pineapplemachine.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Simple question: Will you go back to Reddit and other centralized social media platforms, if Reddit step back from the API changes? The benefits of Reddit are obvisiouly, it has million of users and even small communitys have thousands of users.

Most likely yes, I'll be sticking around. Something I very much appreciate about lemmy as an advantage over the big social media sites is that lemmy is set up such that you can be reasonably sure that there are many more human users than bots. On reddit you can mostly avoid the bots by sticking to the smaller subs, but I think lemmy may be able to grow larger than that and still avoid being overrun by propaganda and marketing bots due to the prevalence of manual approval for newly registered users.

I'm definitely hoping to see even more features that emphasize this advantage of lemmy. I'd like to try contributing some code for this myself, at a time when things feel more stable (i.e. no huge sweeping changes in the pipeline, like the HTTP client is now) and I can find some time for it.

For example...

One obvious improvement would be to add an invite system, where new user registration occurs via reputable users sending invite links to people they know.

And I envision a feature where one instance may mark some of the instances it federates with as low trust. Users on the instance would have the option not to see content posted by the low-trust instance's users, or the option to have their content explicitly marked in the UI. This could be used, for one thing, to still federate with larger instances that are less stringent about disallowing bot accounts, but provide a means to view only content where there is a higher degree of confidence that it was posted by a human, or to at least clearly mark low-confidence content.

[–] thenexusofprivacy@fedia.io 2 points 1 year ago

There was a thread on lemmy.ml with somebody suggesting an invite system. One of the devs replied they didn't have the bandwidth to do it but invited others to look at implementing it, not sure if anybody's working on.

It's a good point that the current binary choice of federating vs. not federating isn't flexible enough. Mastodon has a couple of in-between options, not sure if they're the right ones, but at least points to some possibilities.

I don't think this place is inherently any more bot-resistant than reddit, it's just that bots haven't started to target it yet.

I will stay here. The way reddit has acted is completely unforgivable and it would be an insult to my self respect to go back.

[–] retnuh@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

Yes I’ll stay but I’ll also keep using Reddit. You can use more than one app depending what you’re looking for

[–] grizzzlay@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Will I stay at the quieter, cooler and more positive communities rather than be addicted to the endless scrollfests of cringe and toxicity? You bet I'm staying here :)

Besides, even if they step back, odds are good that they'd just make other, less pleasing changes anyway.

[–] manned_meatball@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, I don't think the problem with Reddit is just a collection of recent poor decisions, rather it's a fundamental result of it being a centralized platform that aims to be profitable. Same as Facebook, Twitter, and other networks.

But I'd like (and hope) to see many UI/UX improvements to Lemmy on desktop and mobile in the following weeks and months.

[–] _pete_@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

I think I’ll become a lurker and have a read only account and only log in with an ad-blocked to hell web browser.

I hope the lemmy community continues to grow though, you guys are great 👍

[–] minorsecond@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, because the reddit admins have shown their true selves and I don't like it.

This is basically why I'm sticking around, besides being able to have a copy of the content I consume on servers I can do something about (ie, backup.)

Not expecting things to get better after IPO personally

[–] techknowdude101@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

I'll stay in the Fediverse. With reddit, the damage has already been done, even if they do backpedal.

[–] peanuts4life@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like to browse reddit for fun. I'm a casual user, and so I'll stick with Lemmy. I see less people dying in terrible accidents and hate speech, so I don't see much of a reason to go back!

[–] towerful@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Yeh, for real.
It seemed like the last year or so, everything on reddit became gore.
I found myself blocking new subs every week (even older subs that previously had interesting stuff suddenly having gore)

[–] rcsheets@lemmy.picote.ch 2 points 1 year ago

On the one hand, I've gone to the trouble of setting up a Lemmy instance. I've invited some users. If they stick around, I'll definitely keep it up and running, and keep using it myself. That doesn't mean I can't use Reddit.

The point of the protest, in my opinion, has to be that if they accede to our demands, we'll do something they like. So if they make API access cost something reasonable, then it would only make sense to reward them. Otherwise, why protest at all? Why wait till now?

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