OpenStars

I'm happy doing things this way though.

Ah, this is indeed the main thing:-).

Fwiw, it also helps to block people. I mean, that sounds obvious, but in a couple cases I started to notice how I may not need to block an entire community since I could get the same effect by blocking the user - plus also not see their posts in other communities as well. Or maybe I'm deluding myself and perhaps I later went on to block the entire community. Some really do just have so many trash articles that it's not worth getting upset about each one individually so much as simply moving onwards to better ones:-).

I use Vim everywhere I go - Linux, Mac, even Windows:-). It's just beautiful. And also a command-line window, and like you said, a browser.

Also MS Office bc unlike their OS, that one is fairly solid, and works well especially when collaborating with others, unlike open source offerings for so many years (I dunno the history either but apparently it's sordid, with "drama" and various forks being developed and abandoned, so sad).

PCs get expensive as well - especially if you use them for gaming. I don't, but if you do, then a $1-2k (USD) Mac is nothing in comparison to a $3-5k gaming machine, and the former offers a fantastic experience in return for that value, whereas before Linux improved (and probably more relevantly Steam did - again I am not fully aware of the history but I think that's what I've heard), a Windows machine was something that you mostly had to spend hours and hours trying to disable as much of the built-in OS as you could manage. No wonder people prefer Linux these days - if you are going to have to delve into such details regardless! But with Macs, all of that is entirely optional bc it's a great experience right out of the box.

I've given up on their phones though, bc iOS is really difficult. Then again these days so too are Android phones, and I don't know what to do about it all. An iPhone on a network with something like a Pie hole (I've never set one up before) could be a nice experience, maybe? But I just enjoy the experience of Android too much - except I won't pay the price for an expensive Pixel (I barely even use my camera!). I was thinking for my next phone to just buy any cheapie, or perhaps a Fairphone. I'm done chasing "good" phones though.

Mac is awesome!:-) Sorta. Apple has become "The Man" that it used to despise but... the product, I mean the desktop product, is still good. For now.

The GNU utilities are some of the most highly optimized on planet Earth. Actually they probably are the most highly optimized!:-D

Also, Mac OSX is POSIX compliant, making it more fully "Unix" than even Linux itself is - or at least, some flavors of Linux are allowed to not be POSIX compliant. templeOS is not POSIX compliant, and some parts of Arch (e.g. fish shell) are not either, reportedly.

Whenever I say that I enjoy using Mac OSX, the only pushback I tend to receive is that it typically runs on expensive hardware. However, it is unix with a pretty candy shell - e.g. that Preview program if f-ing amazing! and the Anti-aliasing everywhere, and the Spotlight search, and... it has much wow factor overall!:-P - and I think a good fraction of people who like Linux would enjoy using it, if it were free (which technically it is, the OS I mean, and that doesn't even get into Darwin...). The major caveat being Arch users, who want to customize every tiny thing to their heart's content. Which is fine - we don't all have to enjoy the same things:-).

I am fortunate enough that my workplace offers me a Mac OSX:-). Which I promptly use to ssh into a Linux ofc, but that one I do not have privileges on. And I don't do much rooting or OS replacing on my Android at home lately.

My point is that they all are "under God" (from templeOS perspective?). Except Windows ofc, which is under Satan:-P.

Yup, same. Though you'll still miss the extremely niche ones that way - e.g. I had an account on discuss.online and noticed the community !drpg@discuss.online mentioned in the sidebar featured area. To this day my post offered there remains the single one - even the creator didn't bother making one, probably just squatting the name.

And I noticed !tech_memes@lemmy.world by the creator making a post announcing having created it.

I think browsing by All is helpful but by the time you find good communities there they have already taken off enough to be noticed.

Which is why I really enjoyed browsing by New often - you get the bleeding edge stuff that perhaps few people will ever see or upvote:-). But you also get a LOT of e.g. anime posts that way too, as new communities for them kept popping up.:-P

Many people lead busy lives and don't use Arch btw (you know that funny saying here on Lemmy? well if not, you'll learn it soon - in fact you're hearing it now!:-P). They use what works best for them. We could improve our tools to entice them to want to come here, but we can hardly blame them (imho) if they don't want to yet, if Lemmy (or Mbin, PieFed, etc.) does not meet there needs (yet).

We are growing though. e.g. check out !loops@midwest.social, which I would guess probably has no counterpart on Reddit atm? (their internal video player sucked, and presumably still does since they seem so focused on profits rather than usability)

Unpopular opinion: it's okay to like Reddit, if that's how you feel. I don't - it's far too toxic overall, and that was affecting me to the point where I made the decision to leave it, regardless of the outcome of the protests (based in large measure on having read this article that further developed the thoughts that I was already starting to think: https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb ). And I don't like where it's going in the future - you may use it for awhile then be surprised when yet another horrendous decision by Huffman or the people behind him sends content creators fleeing to other platforms, again.

But if you have found a particular niche group there, and they are not willing to leave Reddit, then you go to where they are, right? Perhaps you can also help make moving here more welcoming by starting a similar community of your own here, even if you are the only one posting there for awhile. That said, we simply don't have the userbase here to handle e.g. most individual games (some fairly major exceptions such as Minecraft aside:-) or sports teams or some such, and you may want to enjoy interacting with more generalized content, possibly in addition to rather than fully replacing Reddit.

Conversations here tend to be better than there. Deeper, richer, and fuller. But to each their own - if Reddit meets your needs while Lemmy does not, then it sounds like you have your answer. But perhaps read my link above and think about what it means: Reddit is predatory, and you'd be willfully walking back into that, hoping against hope that the leopard would not eat your face off (spoiler alert: it will:-D).

Well, I hear that but at the same time the counterargument seems fairly strong. As I understand it (not being a mod of any communities here myself) apparently the mod tools suck pretty bad, especially across instance barriers. And in particular it is reportedly lacking standard filtering capabilities so that if Threads were ever federated with, the sheer VOLUME of content would quickly overwhelm the ability of the mods to keep up. Hence, if Threads were to join the Threadiverse, then Lemmy as it currently is now would have no chance but would cease to exist, almost instantly. And we would become an unmoderated playground.

I have no idea how Threads itself handles moderation, but at a guess, it wouldn't (fully?) apply if people with Threads accounts were to comment on posts in Lemmy communities?

So Threads really is a special circumstance, not at all like federating with hexbear or exploding heads etc.

Even so, the admins do seem to be listening to the feedback of the users, rather than forcing that choice upon everyone, yeah:-).

I was really hoping to see the growth of the new community !tech_memes@lemmy.world.

Right, that's how it works on PieFed now: only in posts but not comments, as separate fields not just the pound sign.

Weird, I don't see a thumbnail at all on Lemmy.World (without an account). Though PieFed shows an embedded video, and I think Tesseract on dubvee.org does as well. I love that feature!:-)