Both suck.
Reddit has the base and the niche communities and the activity, but is scummy for its own reasons.
Lemmy has the structure/organization but none of the niche interest activity that kept me on Reddit for so long. Plus it’s got all the weird pro china shit and an even worse problem with the hive mind bullshit than Reddit.
With the death of third party apps, I would say that my time that was formerly spent on Reddit is now spent 10% still on Reddit, 15-20% on Lemmy, and the rest just isn’t spent on that sort of thing anymore.
I’ve been reading more, maybe a 2-5% increase on Facebook of all places, going to the source for news (Axios, Washington Post mostly), gaming with the computer time, maybe a 15% increase on YouTube time…started streaming more shows and stuff, and spent more time outside, even in the sweltering summer heat.
So basically for me, Lemmy has turned out to not be a reddit replacement, and instead that time has just been split up many different ways.
I do miss Reddit, and wish that Lemmy had indeed been a workable alternative, but it’s just not. I won’t go back to Reddit because I accessed it 95% on a mobile 3rd party app…but just because I won’t go back doesn’t mean that Lemmy is just as good.
As time goes on, I’m starting to realize that the time I still spend here is mostly because I want it to be better and I’m trying to be active long enough to see that change happen…but the longer I just kill time here waiting for it, the more I see shit I don’t like.
I would expect that while I’ll still keep my account open, I’ll probably be done with Lemmy by the end of the year.
I feel most of these issues are just due to how small the userbase is.
And that a sizable portion of that small user base are batshit extremists
Agreed. I see a lot of the same names around various different subs. My only complaint is the sports subs have a lot fewer folks and thus less engagement on GDTs but otherwise everyone seems to be more real and less toxic as a community, hopefully that vibe stays as the numbers grow.
I just see too much of the same posts and I’m not sure if it’s a user issue or not sometimes i reopen the front page after 3 days and 25% of the posts I’ve already seen plus a lot of posts are about reddit anyway :(
6/10
Thing is that is a fixable problem. It’s technologically very possible to set up a simple algorithm to try to get like 3-5 posts max from one community, have them be as recent as possible, and return the most popular ones.
Reddit has a problem that is rooted much more deeply; their CEO.
I think this is unironically a big problem with Lemmy. The sorting is way, way, way too fixed and inflexible. You can sort by active which ends up being the same few communities. Hot is too much like it’s kinda new. Top Day is usually what I use since I want to see the most popular posts first each day, but then more niche content is just hidden.
There is no best sorting order, because the best sorting order would be a combination of multiple sorting orders. This is one thing reddit really excels at with their sorting orders, they seem to have like a “combined” approach, like an intelligently-designed system of sorting algorithms to show people good, active content while not hiding important things.
On a community/platform like Lemmy where it’s less popular and less active, having proper sorting is even more important.
Like you said though, this is entirely fixable, and something Lemmy definitely can improve. The question is, will they improve it? I certainly hope so.
I feel like this is where 3rd party clients can really shine. Offer a good default algorithmic sort, and let users configure it themselves as much as they please – it’s their feed after all.
I’d do it myself if I didn’t have enough work on my plate already lol.
That’s true but this is the kind of thing where it’s important enough that it shouldn’t require a third party client, it should just work on the main website itself.
This is basically me, but reverse the lemmy and reddit percentages. I’m halfway through the Vampire: The Masquerade Clan Novel series 🤘
Wait, where did you get those?
Thriftbooks! If you don’t know about thriftbooks you have to check it out, it’s incredible. So many extremely cheap books 😍
I commented that China’s state sponsored hacking probably contributed to their new processor looking surprisingly like competitors’. The responses… were disappointing. The China thing and stale content have been my only issues. Stale posts are a problem, but has meant that I’m done earlier and put my phone away sooner, which isn’t great for engagement, but makes me feel better.
I mean we can build niche comtent, just going to take a lot of time. For now lemmy is refreshing because most are here toconverse on topics and not 100s of trolls like
Honestly, that’s fine - Lemmy is now a known alternative and best of all, has time to grow more naturally and be better situated for the next eventual migration (I’m a Reddit migrant myself).
A bit of downtime is good. Gives me chance to work on Sync until the next wave joins.
The lack of niche communities is one thing, but the real long term drag is the fact that most of this place is just c/Linux or c/linuxmemes even if it’s just c/memes or literally any community.
Can’t go anywhere without some “Microsoft bad, Chromium bad” content or comments clogging everything up. Keep that shit in the places it belongs or you’re going to see more people abandon the site as they realize it’s all just the same people with the same three interests in every place.
That and it really feels like the worst of reddit came here, I’ve seen people get downvoted to hell over obvious misinterpretation of their comments by people who have almost zero reading comprehension skills.
Lemmy needs to fix its shit.
The first paragraph is why, Linux users appreciate privacy and open source more than content and usability. They make their own, with blackjack and hookers.
Reddit is a business, so it will care about what the majority does, and what it can get away with. The rest is just side effects.
I do agree with the shallow downvoting though.
Oh I understand why but as someone who uses Linux and doesn’t really put any data into social media, it’s fucking exhausting to constantly have people act like they understand the one extra little key thing that’ll save you from the government or private entities. Most of them just regurgitating random bullshit they hear and don’t know a fucking thing about.
Oh you gotta have a DNS pihole, you gotta have Linux on everything or you like sucking Gate’s dick, no not that distro! Arch/Debian/Mint! Why do you need tab stacking/side bars/whatever else Firefox doesn’t have? Chromium based browsers bad!
It’s clear why people hate Linux users, they’re insufferable. Truly the vegans of the internet.
😂 I get your points about monotony.
As a redreader user, I moved here because I couldn’t suffer reddit without SOME parsing and garbage collection.
Yes, even Linux vegans. :)
Holy shit the vegan part was savage.
I mean I feel like it’s an overmade analogy I just didn’t think crossfitters had the same ring.
FOSS-fitters, heh.
Yeah its to much for what is a harmeles subculture. They dont desrve that harshnes and are not even annoying imho. But still, i find it very funny.
It’s also why so many of the memes are boomer memes. I’m sorry, but a lot of the Linux userbase are 40+. I’m close to that myself, so I’m not criticizing or saying millennials shouldn’t be welcome, I’m just saying we also need an infusion of younger people here to keep things fresh and make sure the stale stuff gets tossed into the garbage where it belongs.
Oh there’s plenty of kids, who else would be legitimately convinced that the USSR was a good place? Lol
…will I get called a nutjob if I say intentionally nefarious agents possibly aligned with certain governments and institutions?
I mean it’s possible, but we don’t have the population to really support the effort IMO. That kind of stuff usually sticks to the places it can get the most eyeballs and the quarter of a million lemmy users ain’t the place.
I think you’re underestimated how widespread, advanced, and insidious those efforts are, tbh
I think you believe lemmy is larger and more important than it is.
There’s a reason everyday people don’t get hacked, because bad actors aren’t seeking out bill and his $1740 bank account, they’re going after Microsoft or coca cola.
Russian bots? Sure. On reddit. With millions of people. Not lemmy with like 15 comments and a few hundred upvotes.
Based
So many tankies, and an unhealty obsession with foss and anything foss related (if you don’t live off the land, you’re part of the problem yadda yadda).
Disc: I love linux, Firefox, etc and use them everyday (but also use chrome, amazon, etc), but ffs stop the preaching and shaming.
I am just never going back, lemmy has less content of course but the comments on what is here is just a totally different level, reddit just feels dirty and corrupt in comparison,
It’s good for me, keeps me online for about an hour before I go out and get an irl life
Great benefit that many overlook!
I’m really trying to be positive, guys. I’m daily driving Lemmy, watching all the content here. I’ve only logged to reddit once thinking “at least old.reddit.com works”, and it does, but after clicking on posts it goes back to new so I said “screw it” and I’m sticking with Lemmy for now. But all communities I’ve followed on Reddit are either small, non-existent, or just bots reposting Reddit posts. I know about this site, and I’m guessing a lot of you too, by googling “reddit alternative”. Hate on Reddit will only get you so far. Maybe I’m wrong here, but in my opinion main problem of Lemmy is a lack of reach. I like Lemmy and I’ll definitely stick with it, but I don’t think it will be as big as reddit. Lemmy needs something that would make people go to it, and “it’s not reddit” is not enough.
It’s only new, in time it will have more original and niche content.
If you log in there’s a setting to keep you on old Reddit. Not that I think we should go back, just if we have to at least it can be semi tolerable.
Yeah I really miss my niche porn
Honestly same. But I like all the SFW stuff
The only reason I left is removal of third party apps. The more Lemmy users shit on the rest of it the more likely I am to return occasionally on desktop cause it makes me think people here dont want the same things I want, or actually have problems with the things I want.
I check out reddit every few days and tbh lemmy has the same amount of mainstream content. The only difference is that reddit niche subs are more active.
I think the fact that anyone can make the same community on a new instance diminishes niche communities more. If I pick a game on reddit ill find 2 or so instances with lots of use. On lemmy there will be 10 communities all mostly abandoned.
You can feel a difference on reddit though. Quality content and content numbers are greatly reduced from even a month ago.
I used to use Sync for Reddit. Now that you can use Sync for Lemmy, it’s easy for me.
I like motorcycles and assholes, I have a hard time not going back to reddit.
You’re gonna love motorassholes.
But who, exactly, is supposed to create this “niche content” for them? I think this is something we underestimate—large swaths of people see themselves as consumers of quality content. It is not for them to bring in comments or interesting finds to the communities. This I think is what makes the internet ripe for centralization. You can’t be a non-paying consumer and choose your menu. You can pay with your behavior datapoints and get fads packaged to you, or you can help create an ecosystem where you don’t have to be spied on every click and tap of the day. Choose your path and make peace with it. The worst would be to help create content for a community and be spied while at it.
That niche content is built up over years of the right person finding the right thing, which all in all is pretty rare, because only a percentage of thoses people will actually post and make their knowledge known. It’s institutional knowledge, and institutions arent built in a day.
It will happen. It will be slow. It’s how it works everywhere. The community needs to prove itself after all!
With the exception of a few of the “grad” communities, Lemmy has just been a whole lot less toxic. I don’t deny occasionally slipping back into reddit for exactly two subs that don’t seem to have any chance of taking off in Lemmy. But Lemmy has really killed my reddit urge permanently. Every time I enter reddit, I see a message trolling or attacking me or whatever.
Lemmy reminds so much of the beginnings of Reddit when I started there over 17 years ago.
Totally. I can only see it improving from here. It’s clear there are tons of committed users, one’s that will continue posting for years to come.
I am one of them.
Honestly kinda cool that I recognize a few recurring people
Me: I am the niche content now. Starts up 10 communities and actually posts to them.
Like, I need help, I can’t keep this pace of posting up forever… Please contribute!
