Ask Lemmy

We are Lemmy, we were on Reddit.

A distinct lack of Monetization/ads

Feels smaller and more cozy to me.

You can actually participate in discussions. On the popular Reddit subs, you click a thread and there are 9000+ replies already. No matter how insightful your post, no one's gone see it.

I was using my phone to access Reddit through an app called RIF. It stopped working.

I can access Lemmy on my phone through an app called Boost. When I revisit a thread, it displays the new comments in a different color. Very very very convenient for active threads.

I recognise usernames, so it feels like conversations between people are happening rather than just throwing stuff out there for it to be ignored.

honestly, I always feel so much more part of the conversation here. on Reddit, unless you time it just right and browse young posts, chances are your comment will never be seen. on here you'll be one of 50 top level comments at most. and that's only the biggest threads. it would be nice to see more activity on more threads, but often when i comment on something with no comments it's enough to start the conversation.

almost none of my comments here get ignored, and the conversations that come out of them feel better. unless it's about Linux. you people are insane and unapproachable when it comes to operating systems. not because you're wrong, you're just... a lot.

Lemmy allows 3rd party apps and is not run by a company that would disallow them

Commenting on a post doesn't feel like yelling into a void, comments are more than a number here. Also people are always trying to be helpful, which is so nice compared to reddit.

mods can suck, admins can suck, but you can go off and start your own instance, with blackjack and hookers.

I also like that I can see that someone is posting from hexbear, and I can disregard their comment. It saves time.

I love the whole premise, brought by the ActivityPub protocol, that no individual or group has full control of the whole.

It isn't like nobody wants to become Lemmy's Spez. Plenty people do; they simply can't.

By the users, for the users. Almost all they instance admins are just like everyone else. We just know some it infrastructure.

I know it's arguably part of why it's intimidating to your average newcomer but I adore that it's mostly nerdy techies lol. I'm so used to dropping something vaguely technical and being met with the online equivalent of blank stares so people being willing and able to engage with that sort of thing is super nice!

Not owned by corpos

One thing I love here is how I can disagree with someone and still have a civil discussion. It feels weirldy amazing to reach a consensus instead of just getting stuck in a cycle of unrelated personal insults. Sure, shitheads like that do still exist here, but I don't remember ever having a civil disagreement/argument on Reddit.

I also feel that I've embraced the practice of blocking & moving on a lot more after I moved here, and tried my best to be more constructive.

It has a smaller community, which makes it easier to recognize people.

The percentage of linux users is also great.

Third party clients.

• It's not constantly being tweaked and reworked to look and perform worse for the sake of profit.

• Fewer fascists

• Fewer people who are completely illiterate and can't follow a conversation that's already laid out in an easy to read format.

• Community rules are not so bloated that only the mods and their friends can make top level posts in the biggest communities.

• 3rd party clients

Nicer, more intelligent community.

Also I can comment on a thread even an entire day late and it'll still get seen and upvoted.

Less fake accounts, less political censorship, less trolls, and less bad faith argument clowns.

I'm either much nicer here, or people are far less confrontational. I've said it a hundred times, but every time I receive a notification on Lemmy I brace myself for another senseless asshole. But it's almost always positive on here.

Lack of spez

Feels like I'm talking to normal people again,

I went on a bit of a rant during a recent low point personally, but still hold the opinion.

Reddit is full of people who want to be right and don't understand when a discussion is over. Constant misreading of comments to fit their narrative or enable them to try to correct, even if it doesn't make any sense, but they have to have the last word.

People actually make comments rather than the same 10 jokes reused over and over.

I don't feel like I can hold a decent conversation where my mind can be broadened or changed like here or traditional forums, it's just an opportunity to hyperfocus on one thing for upvotes.

I post something and actually get quality engagement. Just did an asklemmy post a few days ago and got tons of good advice thanks to everybody here!

Along with everyone else's great points, I'm so glad I don't have to suffer through another "thanks for the gold, kind stranger!" Or yet another painful comment chain of "puns" that are more like weak rhyming/word association, often reusing the same tired phrases. That entire place is so boring and uncreative.

Long live Lemmy!

No algorithm.

The intelligence level on reddit has hit rock bottom. That's not to say lemmy instances are the opposite. It's just that reddit has reached what must be some kind of end stage. Someone else posted already about being met with blank stares about technical topics. It applies to pretty much any topic.

Not being very informed about a certain topic is not a problem in itself. Reddit seems to have internalized some sort of personality. One where the social milieu is about petty squabbles. They don't care about the topic itself but coming away from the replies feeling like they're the bigger dog who barked louder. More often than not I find myself just letting them have their victory. There's no real discussion happening anyways.

In the first half of reddits existence it was ridiculed for being the site full of neckbeards who think too highly of themselves on account of nerds being smart-aleck nerds. What I've seen the past several years goes to show that it isn't a nerd thing. As reddit has become more a sample of any given part of the population, this trait of reddit has not changed. People go to reddit thinking they're engaged in some kind of high intellectual discourse simply because reddit is supposed to be that.

I can't tell if these things are a trait of reddit which bled over from the other social media like Facebook and Twitter. I never used those. Just about any other platform is better compared to reddit. Whether that be lemmy instances or small forums. Could be some kind of social media mind rot or something. I don't know but that's what I attribute it to.

i still scroll through both but i engage with way more posts on Lemmy now almost everyday

so i actually find the content on Lemmy more interesting which is slightly unexpected. i thought it would end up the same

Shitters often self segregate. The Donald or FatPeopleHate would get run out of existing instances, start their own, then go to defed hell. Contrast with reddit where they were allowed to fester in the name of "valuable conversation"

I like that it's slower moving and the moderation is open. I like that the different instances have different culture.

I like that the content and discussion generated is open and will remain open forever. I don't have to worry about the content being locked away behind a paywall or bad company direction.

I love that the platform is open to alternative technology and values open source and copy left philosophies.

Less assholes for the most part.

Things just don’t get buried the way they do on Reddit. On Reddit I often didn’t comment on something if it was slightly older because nobody would see my comment anyway. Here it’s a completely different story. Sometimes I still get replies after like a week.

The fact that it's not run by reddit and it has working 3rd party apps. And that's pretty much it TBH.

The mods are actual humans, not bots with no life who scroll reddit all day. It's free, doesn't track my data and can be used without an app on mobile...

We got instances, modlogs, third party apps, more community, open source, transparency, self hosting, decentralization, less corporate influence.