I'm low-key glad for the Reddit API debacle that caused me to migrate over here. Although it seems that Reddit has become especially awful nowadays, Lemmy made me realise that this degradation had been happening for years.

Part of what masked it is that my favourite parts of Reddit were the niche communities that still had quality discourse in them. I especially liked the craft subreddits, which were full of vibrant users and useful resources. In hindsight, by the time I left Reddit, I was spending most of my time in these small communities, rather than the defaults.

To some extent, Reddit's front page and default subs have always been a bit of a cess-pool of toxicity, but it wasn't always as bad as it was when I left. It seems like it's even worse now though. I wonder how much of that is because people who care about quality discussion migrated to platforms like this. Given how much I enjoy the vibe of Lemmy, my gut says that surely must have had a significant impact. However, my brain says that I'm probably overestimating the significance of our little pocket here.

Regardless, I'm glad to be here, and I'm glad you are here too. I hope that people like your partner will eventually find their own pockets of enjoyable psuedonymous community, whether on Lemmy or elsewhere — I'm not a drama enjoyer myself, but it'd be nice if people who like that could have a place where they can indulge in that without the unpleasantness you describe. I sympathise with people who feel overwhelmed by the fediverse, and I sometimes have to try not to evangelise too hard.

sounds like getting to complain is part of the experience for her, no offense to either of you but i kinda see why reddit suits her lol

I’ll be honest, a good number of the content and comments on Lemmy are just people ripping on Reddit

Was on a thread that caught onto the post history of one user going from being a teacher, to 18, to a girl with period issues, to a guy with a "child from an ex he just found out about"

The user had a post history going back like a decade and it seemed to be just a chain of made up identities, but no political stuff so not necessarily a psyop etc

i think for a lot of people it's more FOMO (fear of missing out) instead of actual interest in the internet.

people spend time on instagram because everyone else does it as well, not because anybody actually cares about the content that's shared on instagram.