Reddit Migration

The reddit blackout is even more effectivte than expected! 5177/8829 (~60%) of subreddits are still dark [1] and the posts per minute are down to 1000 from 1400 [2].

This is huge. Subreddits were supposed to be back up yesterday. I personally missed Reddit the first day but now I am super comfortable here.

Glad to have found a new place to hang out!

Edit: Reddit has 100k subs, 60% out of those who officially signed up

[1] https://reddark.untone.uk/

[2] https://www-heise-de.translate.goog/news/Reddit-Blackout-dauert-an-30-Prozent-weniger-Aktivitaet-Werbebranche-wartet-ab-9189048.html?wt_mc=rss.red.ho.ho.rdf.beitrag.beitrag&_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Pulling as many punches as he usually does….

The whole reddit situation has been quite the storm, certainly for people fed up and looking for an excuse to move on.

Reddit was in the fortunate position that it started out What You See Is What You Get -- Compare new reddit to old reddit. Click link of interest, get content. These Fediverse instances harken back to that, and I am happy for it. The spread out nature of the fediverse however is a pro and a con. Information and content will be less accessible and more difficult to interact with, but at least it is not _in_accessible instantly if a storm brews - unless folks decide to defederate.

However, another positive for Reddit has been its name: it rolls off the tongue, it is memorable enough, and accessible/understandable to people not tech-savvy.

In this regard, Lemmy (in my opinion) has a foot in the door opposed to KBIN. What does KBIN stand for? How am I going to convince fellow enthusiasts to 'kbin' something? Lemmy just feels like more of a verbal substitute.

Having spent some time waiting for the nice folks to gather in the correct place, I'm really rooting for kbin to gain a foothold. Even more so now the actual Developers of Lemmy are showing their cards and dangerous ideologies.

I hope more people become aware of these issues with Lemmy, and will flood to a more neutral place like kbin, or perhaps another.

It started as an answer to a comment, but then I figured it might be worth a post on it's own.

So here you go:

1. The blackout was not noticeable in terms of engagement. There were plenty of threads that still got tens of thousands of upvotes, so the frontpage didn't look more empty than before. There were just some missing subs and an occasional reference to the blackout on the subs that were closed. The impact was much, much smaller than people here and over at lemmy suggest. Of course your personal frontpage is a lot more empty if you subscribed to the subs that are part of the blackout. It's absolutely not the case for /all though.
   Additionally, the blackout trackers are confusing. They show how many subs went black in relation to a total amount. Many people, me included, at first thought the total was the actual total amount of active subs, while in reality it was only the subs that pledged to close down. Reddit has up to 140,000 active subs, so in fact not even 5% closed.
   The attempt to show that reddit is generally uninteresting without a certain part of mods and users failed.

2. The API/3PA changes affect like 5-10% of users, so for most this isn't even a problem. I was really surprised when I found out about that number yesterday, because i thought it would be more like 20-30% for whatever reason. Every time there is a discussion about 3PAs that fact is omitted, so that the problem seems larger than it is. Why should the overwhelming majority that doesn't use 3PAs care about that topic?

3. The company doesn't consist of total morons. The user base of reddit is known to have a certain amount of people who are able to organize a protest network (think back to the net neutrality protest). They knew this was going to happen and it was already priced in. They stay on their path because reddit will be more profitable than before. They are losing troublemakers (aka people who want to have a say in their company policies aka us) with this move and will probably gain a multitude of new users with whatever they are aiming for. Everyone is asking why they have 2000 employees. Well, a bunch of them are surely hired in the marketing department. I assume they studied that shit and know exactly what they are doing. They certainly have business psychologists, marketing experts, data scientists.

To reword what I'm trying to say here: Instagram et al aren't that huge because they do what the users want, but because the companies know how to shape a service to cater to the majority of people. Reddit will do the same. In capitalism, going public is the logical step for a company to scale with their amount of clients. Catering to shareholders is inseparable from that, so rationalization is inevitable. The users who recognize that seem to be a minority. This minority is moving to the fediverse now, which, to put it in a more optimistic light, is kind of a win-win situation.

1. I'm starting to care less about all that. I reflected about my reddit usage and figured that I mostly subscribed to smaller communities anyways. I rarely commented in subs that regularly got more than 1000 upvotes for their contributions. Having hundreds of comments under a post gets annoying fast, because you'll be having a hard time being part of a conversation and there is no way to find out if the thing you wanted to say wasn't already said anyways.

Posting was already starting to get annoying in medium-sized subs. I asked a question about fungus gnats in my plant pots, specifically pointing out that I want to use chemicals and not nematodes. Guess what? About 30 people recommended nematodes anyways. I don't want this low quality spam, so I'd rather have a smaller community where people read before posting and not comment for the sake of commenting. I'm also okay with the Fediverse having multiple communities about identical topics. The mycology subs on reddit where flooded with ID requests of the same mushrooms multiple times a day, so people cared rarely to help identifying, because of course there is no incentive to write the same thing multiple times a day. Having that phenomenon spread out between multiple communities will take the load of a single community and their mods to handle these low effort posts. Yes, having really small communities is shit because nothing happens and it gets a self-enforcing effect until everyone leaves. Having huge communities sucks because of the reasons I named. Medium-size are the best. A few thousand subscribers, a few threads a day, a few dozen comments per thread. That's my personal optimum for the communities I want to interact with.

1. I don't think the Fediverse will grow rapidly and I don't think it needs to. We saw the rapid growth of mastodon after apartheid clyde took over twitter. The rapid shrinking of the active userbase a few weeks after was seen as a proof of its failure. But why is hardly anyone talking about the fact that the userbase three-folded compared to before? Sounds like a huge success to me, something any for-profit company would dream of. The same will happen to "reddit alternative"-services. We saw an influx of users in the last days (I was part of that), we will see another influx around July 1st and when old.reddit is shut down. Surely some decline here and there, but most probably constant growth when looking at a larger timescale the more the idea spreads and the more content is generated.

The shittification of for-profit platforms will continue indefinitely, users will always be driven away from them. Services come and go, there will be new trends, older concepts will be seen as outdated. It has always been like this, it will happen to services on the fediverse, too. But the fediverse as a general structure has huge potential, because it's a perfect base to adapt to these changes. The widespread confusion about how it works will sort itself out by more and more people understanding it and explaining it to their peers. It had to be done with internet/email 20 to 30 years ago, it still has to be done with things like 2FA. I'm a tech-savvy person and still find a lot of functions on the Instagram app unnecessarily confusing, but its one of the most used apps worldwide. Confusion will not stop people from joining a cool thing.

So, I guess I got you until the half of my post and you thought I would only be ranting about the situation. But its the opposite: as a matter of fact I'm firmly on the optimistic site of things :)

Hello there everyone!

I am one of people who decided to migrate from Reddit, but I wasn't a content creator or mod, just an average user who read some posts, liked one here and there, very rarely commented anything. But as someone with some IT knowledge that also read many posts regarding protest, I dropped the site like a hot potato once it started to show my support for mods.

The kbin experience for now is fine, obviously the site needs to get accustomed to recent user influx one step at a time. I wish the devs the best! Thank for your hard work <3

But the only issue I have is that not every community I have followed transfered here or not every sub found its magazine substitute. While some of them are already growing or I can deal without them, there're few niche ones that still hold valuable information. I don't want to help create an illusion that users don't care at all, but there were times when I found solutions for work related problems there or resources and answers for questions I couldn't find elsewhere. Not to mention the niche communities. Thus forcing me to go there lurking in these cases.

And here's my question - how do you feel about it, mods and ex-redditers? In a few months that probably won't be an issue, but I'm now troubled with that as I want to make moraly right decision.

A week ago I could just use google to search for something specific and just append 'site:reddit.com' in the query and found the answer.
Multiple subreddits went from private to restricted recently so new posts are pretty close to zero and no new content is added.
If I assume people migrated to kbin/lemmy, how can I find an answer to my question/problem/wHaTeVeReLsE? I'm not speaking about searching for a Magazine/Community, or title of article, but users' answers.

Question From Former Redditor
I came over from Reddit and I am confused!

Firstly, is Lemmy, Mastodon, and Kbin the same?

Secondly, can I see the same content on Kbin as I would if I was on, say, Lemmy? Like a “cross-post”. I’ve seen some posts where someone says “replying from Lemmy” on Kbin. So would I be seeing the same exact posts on Kbin as I would Lemmy/Mastodon?

I made accounts on all 3 but I am totally lost and confused. Can someone ELI5 (or something) to help me better understand?

• Former Redditor, Lost & Confused
  P.s. is this post even allowed? I don’t know what I’m doing if you can’t tell. :, (

P.p.s. I am on mobile so if formatting is an issue or weird, that may be why…

Thank you kindly in advance, anyone!

#RedditMigration

Beehaw's Post

I created an account on Lemmy, but I haven't been able to log into it. The login process just spins without cessation. I cleared the browser cache, but still had the same issue. Next I clicked on Forgot Password and Lemmy sent a link to my email to create new password, but on keying in the new password and trying to submit it, again the same issue.

In this post, I argue that Reddit should begin to pay people for their contributions to the platform, or barring that, people should leave Reddit and share their writing in different ways.

There's a reason people add site:reddit.com to their google searches, and the top story about how joesmith42069 got 50k karma on their totally dank meme isn't it.

Idk what the culture is over there but it was just a bit funny to see the entire thread I was replying to just removed. Like that doesn't happen here on kbin lmao. a bit of a culture clash there I guess.

I wonder if that's the norm for lemmy and beehaw? Here on kbin basically nothing is removed it seems. at least for now.

I mean don't get me wrong, its cool a lot of subs have and still are participating in the blackout, but I think it wouldve been better to link a new home for the subreddits participating somewhere in the private message. Show spez, hey if you dont change, we aren't going to use your site (or use it less).

People discredit every type of protest, IRL or not. I think back to every major protest that's happened in response to some major event, and the response every time is "That won't ever work", "You're wasting your time", "Imagine caring about that".

This isn't the death of Reddit, not even close to it. Reddit may even get more popular after this. However, that doesn't mean all of this was pointless.

The Fediverse continues to grow, and that's genuinely a good thing. Every time a platform fucks up, people give X ActivityPub app a new set of eyes and continue to help developers strengthen these platforms and build up the community.

A lot of times the things we want don't happen in 1 big moment, it's a lot of continuous smaller moments that eventually form into something greater.

It's going to take a lot of effort to build out a new platform, especially one built off the concept of decentralization. I think we should continue to build our communities here, and do our best to help this platform thrive.

I originally went with the same name but have been using this one now since it's new and the idea of starting fresh appeals to me.

My initial thought was to reuse my existing name so others who already knew me might see that I'm here since we never communicated outside of the given subs we were apart of. I'm not sure how likely that would actually be though. It's not as if I was anyone popular or well known. So, my thinking is I'll stick with my new one and move on.

What have you chosen to do? Start fresh or carry your username over?

This is just a reiteration of a comment I left on an earlier, probably more useful article, but I’m posting as its own article for visibility. I hope it can help make sense of the fediverse to at least a few more of my fellow migrants.

Basically, rather than having one Reddit with a bunch of subreddits, you have a bunch of Reddits each with their own set of subreddits. Each Reddit operates with its own admin, features, UX, etc. so you just join any Reddit that feels good to you.

Let’s say you make your account on “Reddit.one” because not only do they have killer memes, they also have a dark mode!

What makes the fediverse so great is that you don’t have to worry that “Reddit.two” actually has a far more active r/gaming community than Reddit.one, or that “Reddit.three” has the only r/catsatwork subreddit on the fediverse, because you can actually just subscribe to those subreddits from Reddit.one anyway. Now you can have r/memes as well as r/[email protected] and r/[email protected] all in your feed at Reddit.one with dark mode on!
Some reddits even let you follow your favorite twitter personalities as well!

It would be like being able subscribe directly to 4chan’s /b/ and then follow elon musk’s Twitter account directly from Reddit and vice versa. I don’t know why you would actually want to do those terrible things, but you’d have the freedom to do it at least.

Now imagine if Reddit.one’s administrator goes all u/spez on everybody and you just can’t even anymore. You can easily jump ship over to Reddit.two, or any other Reddit you prefer, and resub to all your favorite subreddits again. it would be like you never left.

Hope this helps. Feel free to set me straight on some points or just post your own explanation in the comments.

TLDR: Lots of different Reddits. You join the Reddit you like, but you can subscribe to any of the other Reddits’ subreddits as well!

It’s disappointing to see some of the larger subreddits going public with a ‘what’s the point?’ tone. Most are staying private, but some aren’t. As if Reddit doesn’t exist solely because of its user generated content. If enough subs permanently shut down, they’ll be forced to reconsider their API position. Social media can't run without social media.

I decided to write a message to subreddits I’ve been lurking for years via messaging the mods saying how vitally important it is for subreddits to protest right now, at this critical time, before it’s too late. I’ve politely implored them to continue the protest saying how these API changes with have a long-lasting, permanent impact on Reddit as a platform for the worse.

I’d suggest you guys come up with your own letter template and message the mods of those subreddits in polite form. It’d be great if we can convince these exceptions to go private again. I also understand some moderators may be afraid Reddit will just replace them with mods willing to reopen the sub, so I added a section saying it they’re treated like that, Reddit don’t deserve their time and maybe they should consider spending their time elsewhere if that happens. This is their prime chance to stand up for the right thing right now for the future of Reddit.

I used Reddark to determine which subreddits to contact. I’d say only contact hobbyist ones such as sports rather than more politically-inclined ones like Ukraine that have a fair reason to stay open. Also some subreddits have made poll posts asking their users if they should go private like Gaming and NotTheOnion, so please don’t message those ones.

Reddit is redirecting some impressions away from existing communities, and some advertisers are pausing campaigns.

A Reddit result in Google might take you to a private page now

At least for me, the API changes are just a final straw and something which mobilised enough redditors to make other platforms viable alternatives.
Here are the reasons I won’t be going back:

[Removed by Reddit]

Admin power is misused. I’ve seen memes [Removed] where the only logic to their removal is if you’re a little bit of a bigot and are butthurt about it, or if you want to appeal to advertisers over actual people. In general, admin decisions seem less about people and more about business, how else do you wind up with a site where subs that exist to hurt people or put them down thrive openly but NSFW subs wind up a topic of debate or censure? Make no mistake this will go the YouTube direction, where things like LGBT content are determined not safe for advertisers. Having this in the context of a site known for cradling the manosphere and the incel movement and you can see where the dumpster fire is headed. Spez has no backbone so neither will Reddit.

The Advertising

It is so bad, my previous point is largely an issue so Reddit can be an advertising platform and then they fail at being an advertising platform. Other social media that relies on advertising revenue rewards advertisers for honest, accurate, and well targeted ads. Reddit has their audience opt in to their interests, how hard can it be to serve a fair quantity of relevant adverts? Reddit is the cheapest platform to advertise on and it’s treated like a big old billboard. The average CTR on Reddit ads is a third of that on Facebook. If they could manage to target even the right country half the time they could make more money showing less ads, and ads people at least don’t mind seeing.

This is assuming advertising is necessary at all, what’s interesting here, and with the federated internet in general, is that we can have communities that aren’t expected to be profit centres and try out new ways of financing platforms that centre users and not the advertising industry.

The bots

I’ve been on Reddit for at least 6 or 7 years, and it feels like outside the news and current affairs subs, there’s been very little new for about three of them. The place has been suffocated by repost bots. Even now, if you dare to look, you’ll see a lot of Reddit’s current activity is coming from unaware bots on dead subs reposting whatever hit r/all in 2020.

The most blatant bots are porn accounts, spamming their dead eyed content indiscriminately across the platform, spare a moment for the poor users of r/analog.

These issues can be improved on by cutting off access to the API, though I don’t doubt they would just rely on web scrapers without it. Users have already made bots to flag the bots, is Reddit less capable than it’s userbase? Or are they relying on bots to keep the site in a mundane content loop?

The experience

I’m really enjoying using alternative sites now Reddit has given them a userbase. It feels like the internet used to feel before it got carved up between the “platforms” for advertising revenue and I love it. The major points above are massive contributors to user experience but so are the users here, Lemmy and Raddle, the ethos and terms of service for these spaces and small design choices that centre users.

TLDR: I’m deleting my Reddit account(s), not because I want Apollo, but because the alternatives are better.

Here (kbin), Lemmy, Tildes... I hear Mastodon had a user spike. Is there something obvious I'm missing?

I ask because I haven't felt the same mass of users that Reddit had. Obviously users have spread out, servers have been hammered, UIs have a learning curve and so on... But there might be other alternatives I haven't looked at that are worth that look.