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As a casual but persistent user, it pains me to say it - because ethically I support the grassroots side of the equation - but as a path of least resistance to

As a casual but persistent user, it pains me to say it - because ethically I support the grassroots side of the equation - but as a path of least resistance to casual, anonymous public engagement on a wide range of topics, there seems no viable alternative. [For a given subjective value of 'viable', naturally!]. So after a period of abstention, I gradually ended up back there, simply because I know of no other sizeable gatherings on certain topics that aren't either annoyingly gatekept (technically, and/or socially), and/or are far more toxic themselves. Look at HN - simple hierarchical discussion forums with a negligible barrier to entry and no grating artificial limitations, and we quite rightly love it. In short, I still use Reddit, but there's nothing ideological about that choice.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
on the other end, I've replaced almost every community I used to browse on Reddit for. The non-casual thing is that it doesn't take one alternative, but many: - tech topics I browse on HN for. 90+% of what I'd see on places like r/technology I'd see here with tons of discussion - more political or otherwise touchy topics I replaced with tildes.net. And honestly I am the much better off for it. It is a lot quieter than Reddit, but there are very few times where I feel such topics devolve into the polarized turf wars you know r/politics to be. - Don't browse it as much, but for memes/humor stuff Lemmy and KBin work well enough. still very much growing and I hope they can become more general purpose replacements, but for now non-meme stuff is a trickle unless it's that 1-2 posts that blow up (usually political stuff or more reddit drama... not what I go there for) - lastly, a lot of gaming stuff I migrated to discord for. Definitely the worst experience when on large servers and it feels even noisier than Twitter. But the small community for niche genres or specific games are surprisingly cozy. It's a real mixed bag. So I'd say it's 90% replaced. But I can also admit there are some few communities I reluctantly go back to that keep me from fully disconnecting to reddit (though, note that I deleted my account way back in February. I fully lurk): - gamedev communities are a huge one. The best alternative to that is Twitter and... no, I still can't do Twitter/X/Whatever Musk fancies that day of the week. Never liked it before, and I'd rather deal with Reddit's madness than try to learn it in 2023 at its worst. maybe I'll try Bluesky one day, but I'm personally rooting for Mastodon (haven't checked it out myself, though). - in a similar vein, I still find it easier to skim for industry news on r/games and related subs than to scour the net. This is definitely laziness on my end so I can't pretend to be immune from the path of least resistance. I can alleviate half of this with a proper RSS feed (never used one, but I am very curious about setting one up), but research into this really made me remember how many sites I used to discuss on removed their forums or comment sections. Or in some cases, the comments make reddit look like a bastion of nuance in comparison. well, one day. I'm still searching in the meantime.
rexf 3y ago
agreed. The loss of Apollo was a huge blow to the UX since the official Reddit app is hard to use and has poor design choices (in favor of business choices). Why would the official app have TINY up and down vote buttons? There are countless baffling decisions in the design & functionality in the official app. Without an alternative to reddit, using the reddit app remains the way to stay informed & engaged in various niche reddit communities.
mlrtime 3y ago
Looking at these posts people want to be on the "right side" of this issue and I don't get it. I still use reddit the same today as I have been for the last 10+ years (chrome + RES). /r/all is as bad as it's ever been, however my subbed feed hasn't changed much.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >Looking at these posts people want to be on the "right side" of this issue and I don't get it. HN is a highly skewed techy community. And I imagine many are reddit vagrants as well. I see it less as "giving the right answer" and more "asking a biased audience". It's the opposite of asking people on reddit what they think of the blackout; many who stayed and never used 3rd party apps probably didn't care or even argue it was an abuse of mod power. And of course, Reddit isn't just one website. Some places may have barely changed. Others are indeed irreparably changed. Others still are literally shut down. The question is highly sensitive to how you browse, and what you browse.
seydor 3y ago
lemmy is not that empty

johnnyanmac 3y ago

on the other end, I've replaced almost every community I used to browse on Reddit for. The non-casual thing is that it doesn't take one alternative, but many: - tech topics I browse on HN for. 90+% of what I'd see on places like r/technology I'd see here with tons of discussion - more political or otherwise touchy topics I replaced with tildes.net. And honestly I am the much better off for it. It is a lot quieter than Reddit, but there are very few times where I feel such topics devolve into the polarized turf wars you know r/politics to be. - Don't browse it as much, but for memes/humor stuff Lemmy and KBin work well enough. still very much growing and I hope they can become more general purpose replacements, but for now non-meme stuff is a trickle unless it's that 1-2 posts that blow up (usually political stuff or more reddit drama... not what I go there for) - lastly, a lot of gaming stuff I migrated to discord for. Definitely the worst experience when on large servers and it feels even noisier than Twitter. But the small community for niche genres or specific games are surprisingly cozy. It's a real mixed bag. So I'd say it's 90% replaced. But I can also admit there are some few communities I reluctantly go back to that keep me from fully disconnecting to reddit (though, note that I deleted my account way back in February. I fully lurk): - gamedev communities are a huge one. The best alternative to that is Twitter and... no, I still can't do Twitter/X/Whatever Musk fancies that day of the week. Never liked it before, and I'd rather deal with Reddit's madness than try to learn it in 2023 at its worst. maybe I'll try Bluesky one day, but I'm personally rooting for Mastodon (haven't checked it out myself, though). - in a similar vein, I still find it easier to skim for industry news on r/games and related subs than to scour the net. This is definitely laziness on my end so I can't pretend to be immune from the path of least resistance. I can alleviate half of this with a proper RSS feed (never used one, but I am very curious about setting one up), but research into this really made me remember how many sites I used to discuss on removed their forums or comment sections. Or in some cases, the comments make reddit look like a bastion of nuance in comparison. well, one day. I'm still searching in the meantime.

rexf 3y ago

agreed. The loss of Apollo was a huge blow to the UX since the official Reddit app is hard to use and has poor design choices (in favor of business choices). Why would the official app have TINY up and down vote buttons? There are countless baffling decisions in the design & functionality in the official app. Without an alternative to reddit, using the reddit app remains the way to stay informed & engaged in various niche reddit communities.

mlrtime 3y ago

Looking at these posts people want to be on the "right side" of this issue and I don't get it. I still use reddit the same today as I have been for the last 10+ years (chrome + RES). /r/all is as bad as it's ever been, however my subbed feed hasn't changed much.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>Looking at these posts people want to be on the "right side" of this issue and I don't get it. HN is a highly skewed techy community. And I imagine many are reddit vagrants as well. I see it less as "giving the right answer" and more "asking a biased audience". It's the opposite of asking people on reddit what they think of the blackout; many who stayed and never used 3rd party apps probably didn't care or even argue it was an abuse of mod power. And of course, Reddit isn't just one website. Some places may have barely changed. Others are indeed irreparably changed. Others still are literally shut down. The question is highly sensitive to how you browse, and what you browse.

seydor 3y ago

lemmy is not that empty