We are happy to see that many of you are exploring Lemmy after Reddit announced changes to its API policy. I maintain this project alongside @[email protected].
Lemmy is similar to Reddit in many ways, but there is also a major difference: Its not only a single website, but consists of many different websites which are interconnected through federation. This is achieved with the ActivityPub protocol which is also used by Mastodon. It means that you can sign up on any Lemmy instance to interact with users and communities on other instances. The project website has a list of instances which all have their own rules and administrators. We recommend that you sign up on one of them, to avoid overt centralization on lemmy.ml.
Another difference compared to Reddit is that Lemmy is open source, and not funded by any company. For this reason it relies on volunteer work to make the project better, whether it’s programming, design, documentation, translating, reporting issues or others. See the contributing guide to get started. You can also donate to support development.
We also recommend that you read the documentation. It explains how Lemmy works and how to setup your own Lemmy instance. Running an instance gives you full control over the rules and moderation, and prevents us developers from having any influence. Especially large communities that want to use Lemmy should host their own instance, because existing Lemmy instances would easily be overwhelmed by a large number of new users.
Enjoy your time here! If you have any questions, feel free to ask below or in the Matrix chat.
I still think the fediverse is using language that most people don’t understand. My cousins, let alone my parents, won’t understand half of what’s written there. Federation? ActivityPub? Instance?
The best comparison I’ve heard that everyone I’ve explained it to seems to comprehend is that the fediverse is basically email 2.0. You can send emails with only pictures, text, video, or all the aforementioned together. In order to do so, you need to pick a server, just like you do with email, but in the fediverse they aren’t “google”, “aol”, “yahoomail”, but “lemmy.ml”, “feddit.it”, “mastodon.social”, “chaos.social”, “kbin.social”, “kbin.pub”, and others.
You will notice that “lemmy.ml” and “feddit.it” look very similar, but have different names - that’s because they run the same software called lemmy. “mastodon.social” and “lemmy.ml” look very different and have different features, and that’s because (you guessed it!) they run different software (mastodon vs lemmy). It’s just like GoogleMail runs different software than YahooMail, has very different features, but can communicate with each other.
The fediverse is the same, just with 2 major differences: it uses email 2.0 (aka activitypub) and the software is opensource. That means developers (or anybody who wants to for that matter) can see the source code of the software. This is unlike Google, Yahoo, Yandex, AOL, who keep their source closed.In the fediverse, the different software focuses on different things. Lemmy presents the fediverse to you like reddit, mastodon like twitter, peertube like youtube, diaspora like facebook, and so on and so forth. The great thing is, they can all talk to each other using email 2.0 (aka activitypub)! Therefore somebody on a server using mastodon can view post made on a server running lemmy with a video hosted on a server running peertube and comment on that video, right from their server that runs mastodon!
So please, pick a server with the software and conditions you like and have fun on the fediverse!
Twitter makes a series of bad and user-unfriendly decisions, causing many of it’s users to flee to Mastodon. Now Reddit makes a series of bad and user-unfriendly decisions, causing many of it’s users to flee to Lemmy. When will the big suits learn?
I think they know and don’t care. First they make a good platform to attract users, then exploit the users and run away with the money. They know that making moves like this will eventually kill the platform, and don’t care; They can always make a new platform under a different name and repeat. This happens to all platforms owned by publicly traded companyes, because they are obliged to make money for the shareholders.
So long as a significant portion of users stay and pay, they probably won’t tbh
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I’m so tired of Reddit, so here I am trying this out!
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And it DEFINITELY feels like a lot of tech nerdy Millennials and Gen-Z have completely tired of the commercialized internet entirely and are inventing and finding ways to control their own communities.
I’m early gen z and it’s so disheartening to see what’s happening. I remember a time when people would fight for the right to post youtube poops, or when people went to war over uncredited reposts on ebaums world. For a while, there was no fighting. Things go bad? Oh just rest it off. Thankfully I think stuff like this is a return to form. Fight to keep the internet free and creativity high!
I would say “If you’re posting here, aren’t you signed up by definition?”, but I’m posting from Mastodon, so I am literally my own counter-example. I don’t actually have an account on any Lemmy instance.
@smallerdemon @nutomic it really puts things into perspective not being fed ads constantly, I stopped using Twitter since March and I definitely notice a relief…
Same thing with the algorithms ‘suggesting’ content: I prefer to browse the content by myself
The algorithms are what I’ll miss the least. I used Apollo for Reddit so I didn’t see ads, but Reddit telling me what I’m going to see whether I want to or not really irritated me.
that moved me. you sir, made my first day at Lemmy awesome
I don’t quite get it. How do you see posts from communities residing on other instances?
In the search type “!CommunityName” “@” “server.tld”. an example [email protected]
Swap from “Local” view to “All”. It’s on the top of the web page and in a menu top-left on Jerboa.
Are communities unique? e.g. could you have a !gaming community on Lemmy.ml but have another !gaming community with different content on another server?
Yes, that can absolutely happen. In fact, that exact situation is happening right now with [email protected] and [email protected]
Not really an issue if you subscribe to both though.
In the longer term, I fully expect duplicate communities like that to resolve themselves with people predominantly using one over the other. EDIT: Or another possibility is that they might end up different due to moderation and rules (i.e: one is the memey gaming community and the other is the more serious one)
I would like to know this as well. In Mastodon, I’m pretty sure you could access all Toots regardless of server, but communities seem to be locked to the server.
Thanks for the welcome! This place seems really cool and I really like it here so far, I hope I can contribute some way in the future.
Thanks for the warm welcome. This is my first time exploring anything fediverse related, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around how all this works. All I know is that I’m really dissatisfied with the decision making that is going on at Reddit, and if there comes a day where I can no longer use my beloved Apollo to access their service, that will most likely be where I officially dip out.
Thanks for the welcome! I look forward to seeing this website grow into the thing Reddit should have been!
Glad to have you!
Just recently made an account with kbin.social. It’s crazy how all of this works right? But yeah, I’m really looking forward to this new style of doing social media. Can’t wait to see how this evolves.
Hello everybody! I was a Digg refuge, now I’m a Reddit refuge. This is pretty neat that its not funded by a company and relies on volunteers. I think this is going to be a good place. I was wondering if there is an app for IOS?
Would love a native iOS application. Maybe @[email protected] could be convinced as the brilliant creator of Apollo!
Interestingly, Reddit was open-source between 2008-2017. I’m hoping we can kind of re-capture the feeling of old Reddit without botspam, adspam, and more focus on community and improving experience than on “premium features” and monetization.
You mean to say you don’t want to spend thousands on avatars?
Hahaha that’s one of those things. “Look at me, I spent a bunch of money to get a bored looking monkey face, it’s exclusive!!!”
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How are you guys responding to the OP? I am only able to to reply to comments on here. I’m confused lol
There is a text box just under the post with a “Post” button,
I was using Jerboa and it was buggy as hell. Just using the mobile web at the moment. Hopefully the infinity (or Apollo Dev) will get things going over here.
If you’re on Jerboa there should be a text box with three dots in it on the right side below the main post.
I was on Jerboa and I didn’t see that. On the mobile web now. I heard there’s an alpha for Jerboa so I may try that one instead.
Edit - I am on the alpha and I can see it now.
Cancelled my Reddit premium renewal (it’s 10 months away but still…) and donated with the link above.
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Thanks for the welcome! I was a little standoffish about signing up but then found an app for it and it honestly feels like reddit should at this point. (For those curious, it’s Jerboa for Lemmy on the play store)
I’m hoping this new influx of users helps to improve jerboa over time. It pretty as it is, but some areas could use attention.
I wonder if there are any other app alternatives. This one is nice, but lacks most features that many of the 3rd party apps had for Reddit
Lemmur is another one I’ve heard recommended for Android.
Lemmur is no longer being maintained, I’d love it if some of the apps that are about to not work on reddit anymore switched to lemmy though coughinfinitycough
That’s a pity, I had Lemmur installed and was wondering why it wouldn’t workm IMHO a better name for a Lemmy app than “jerboa”.
Yeah I tried it too before I found out, imo one thing lemmy really needs is a selection of usable apps like mastodon has and reddit is about to throw away
Lemmy looks great, I hope it manages to comes out on top on the upcomming battle of the reddit alternatives because due to it’s decentralized nature it’s pretty much impossible for lemmy to go south like reddit and digg.
The biggest issue with this platform for me, as someone who lurks more than posts, is the smaller user base and, consequently, fewer posts and communities. Otherwise, I love the decentralization, open source nature, and general community.
This reddit issue could be what pushes this platform forward. Will be interesting to see.
Reddit was once tiny too, with very little activity. Now its frustratingly the opposite… a lot of bots, karma-farming, thinly-veiled advertising, copaganda, unpleasant and rude interactions.
I’d love to have back the feel of old-school forums, with smaller, tight-knit communities, and good content. While at the same time the fediverse gives us the opportunity to click the
All/ Global view, so we can see a wider universe of content.Oh yeah. I joined Reddit pretty early by most standards (2007/2008), and it was a much different place, especially before the big Digg migration in 2011. Not sure if I was just younger, but the default experience wasn’t quite so intolerable as it is today.
I’m hoping this platform can be similar to those early days. I really like the community here. It’s probably better than the early Reddit community. And the federated nature offers so many benefits compared to more traditional sites like Reddit.
There is a critical mass of users needed to drive posting and interactions for any online platform like this. It’s a delicate balance. Further large growth is when you may start seeing the culture degrade, the dreaded eternal September. Maybe the federated structure will allow this platform to avoid that.
I do think this Reddit issue is definitely an opportunity to attract that critical mass of users though. I think you’re on top of that.
Looking forward to seeing how it goes
the big Digg migration in 2011
fyi, that was in fall of 2010. although, I suppose, more people continued migrating into 2011, but the mass exodus was almost immediate in 2010. I remember how reddit had trouble handling all of the new traffic, much like lemmy instances are now, lol
I also lurk a whole lot and thats my biggest issue as well. It looks like a lot of people talk about Lemmy when the topic of migrating from reddit comes up though, im hopeful that it takes off.
I’ve been on Lemmy for years now (before it could even federate!), but never really used it because there was nobody really here (and at the time there weren’t any good Android apps - that’s changed with Jeroba though).
The biggest competitor I’ve seen appears to be Tildes. I actually got an invite link to Tildes and have been trying it out.
The main difference is that Tildes is focused on high-quality discussion, trying to replicate old-school Reddit - before it went mainstream. Tildes purposely doesn’t have memes or cat pictures, and comments are closer to paragraphs than anything else.
I think that’s valuable… but I also know one of the big things that attracted people to Reddit were the memes. Not having memes is going to cause a lot of people to not want to stick around.
Lemmy is a lot more loose, so those people will be right at home. The main complaint I’ve seen from Reddit is that a lot of people are turned off when they see Lemmygrad as one of the most active instances, and they’ve been associating Lemmy with hardcore tankies.
i moved over to reddit from digg in 2007 during the whole digg v4 fiasco. migrating here feels very much the same. it’s new, much smaller, works a bit differently (in a good way), and is still mostly undeveloped. This platform has a ton of potential as a reddit replacement, and, if they really do go through with pricing out the 3rd party apps, you’ll likely see this place explode with traffic.
You should have seen this place a week ago, it was very quiet. With all the new users its its getting a lot more active.
Haha, I was here 3 years ago, before Federation even worked. It was very slow, to say the least. ;)
It’s been my first time back since 2020, and it’s kind of wild to see it taking off. I’d imagine it’ll only grow as the enshittification of Reddit continues.
I am very curious what’s going to happen to the larger instances like lemmy.ml and Beehaw.org. Lemmy.ml was struggling to load for me a bit earlier; come July 1st when everyone gets their access cut off I’m very curious how slammed this’ll be.
