[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation

Less content to go through, so you end up going through posts and comments a bit more thoroughly. This translates to higher engagement from users overall compared to Reddit.

The con of course is less content to go through.

I think matured reddit is literally correct. People here at least seem older.

However people here definitely are also of a certain group. Which is not too surprising - it's a certain demographic taken from Reddit, not a random subsample. This is not really a good thing.

People here also seem more extreme in their political opinions (as in, not very "usual" or "casual" political views). This makes discussions a bit one-sided and polarized... But then again political discussions on reddit have always been so nice and proper and productive in comparison right /s

However I also see a lot of reasonable people and a lot of hope. I see more politeness (mostly outside of any political stuff).

I also like that people have choices - choice of instance and choice of client for example.

There's some good and bad but for me it's basically reddit with a bit less activity and slightly different experience but not significantly so. I'm confident that more people will come over time and that will solve most issues. And the benefits will still be there by then.

Friendlier than reddit, but a lot more really stupid hot takes than reddit. Not as many shitheads; but the shit heads that are here are even shittier than anywhere else I've been on the Internet. Mostly the super paranoid security and super hardcore "free speech" folks that are like the main character of Conspiracy Theory. This platform seems to attract a lot of those.

As an open platform that's similar to reddit, I'm in favor of it.

The reality though is not that great. And a lot of it comes down to at least some of the people who are here.

There doesn't really seem to be enough content to allow for browsing a curated list of communities yet, so I mainly browse by all. And what I have seen are a handful of seemingly extreme viewpoints with little to no room for nuance and discussion and an attitude from those people that they are absolutely correct in their beliefs and ideas. I'm talking tankies, hatred for Israel, hatred for cars, hatred for landlords/renting, and evangelism for Linux.

I know that having extreme attitudes is certainly not unique to lemmy as it exists all over the Internet and elsewhere. But it does seem to be fairly concentrated here. And again, without enough engagement in the smaller or more niche communities there isn't really enough content on its own.

So instead of actively browsing communities I want which would likely end up with very little content, I have started blocking instances and communities instead so I can still get a mix, but filter out things that I don't like. And that doesn't make for a great experience.

I have also seen some really stupid/ridiculous admin/mod drama that people also seemed to think wouldnt carry over from reddit, but of course it has.

All that to say, I still enjoy it enough to continue to browse. But I don't really participate often. And it has to a degree eliminated at least some of the bullshit from reddit.

Personally, I find the people here very elitist and unwelcoming, and I have found myself spending less and less time here because of it.

If Reddit was a water park, Lemmy is the small adult jacuzzi room in the back.

Apparently i should install Linux.

More depressing news and Linux enthusiasts.

As someone who spent around half my life in IT and half in humanities, there's a lot less humanities content here than in Reddit or old Twitter. You might not notice it because you might have gravitated towards the IT side of those sites but it's noticeable here

Feels like an echo chamber filled with angry political activists that seem more interested in hating and breaking things rather than discussing solutions. Can't say I like it here but for some reason I keep coming back. I probably block on average 3 to 7 people a day but doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Makes me further lose my hope in humanity if I'm completely honest.

Compared to Reddit

• too small. Most communities I’m interested in have too little activity
• more wholesome. More than once I’ve been shocked at answers that were nice instead of snarky
• too many UI bugs and unstable, yet somehow much less buggy and more stable than Reddit ever was
• if you don’t feed the trolls, they go away quickly

I feel like half of the people on here are 45yo Linux sysadmins, and the other half are Germans

I was enjoying it, but two things are getting tiring: the lack of social sciences and humanities, and especially the misogynistic 'tone' of some users.

For the first few months on the platform, I noticed these trends that I would end up agreeing with later on:

• Liking, or straight up adoring Linux

• Disliking, or straight up despising cars

• Everyone is left-wing and liberal

• Israel stinks

• Rainbows galore

• Big companies are cringe

• Independent media is based

• Products made by big companies are known to be spyware

• The Chromium "open-source" browser, as well as the engine that it uses, is basically the reason why Firefox is dying out

• Right-wing politicians are bad

• Piracy is basically fighting for freedom of information on the internet, especially when big companies tend to be so overprotective of their intellectual property in situations where they don't really need to

• Free, open source software is basically the future

• The European Union is basically where everyone on Lemmy lives in real life, and if not, it's where everyone wants to live (which is my case given that I'm from Morocco)

Other very notable points that I have when comparing Reddit with Lemmy are the following:

• The community is very passionate yet very small, it kinda feels like Animal Crossing

• Goddammit, having multiple instances federating with each other is such an amazing thing that literally nobody can wholly own the thing and make crappy decisions that end up ruining the whole thing at once (cough cough Twitter)

• API is free, API is free, API is free

• Being such an obscure platform, it has helped me tremendously with cutting down on social media usage due to how insanely addicting it can be at times, sometimes in the worst possible scenarios, like when you have an exam tomorrow

I'm pretty grateful that I made the decision to ditch Reddit for good. I really like this place, and I mean a lot. I wouldn't be called "Resol van Lemmy" if it weren't for Spez being such an ass.

I came over during the Reddit migration but I'm so tired of every post either being about Israel/Palestine, late-stage capitalism, or femboys...

or worse - when the post is about something completely different but the comments are about Israel/Palestine, late-stage capitalism, or femboys...

I had somehow curated my Reddit to be mostly about the topics I wanted to read about, but I can't seem to get that to happen here. I've been blocking communities and instances but my feed is still mostly stuff I don't really want to read about...

I'm currently waiting to see what happens when Reddit IPOs but I doubt I'll go back there and will probably just stop coming to lemmy too.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

My overall analysis is positive. Not a full perfect score, but better than Reddit. (Note: ++/+/=/-/-- indicated in comparison with Reddit, not in absolute terms.)

• [++] Migrating to avoid bad admins works great in practice. And it imposes a limit on how shitty any admin team can be, as nobody wants to see mass exodus from their instances.
• [=] Your typical Lemmy moderator is as clueless as the Reddit one on things like transparency and nurturing a good relationship with the other users.
• [--] Mod tools? Which mod tools?
• [-] Overall less content, even if you're in an instance that doesn't defed other instances willy-nilly. It's still enough to keep you entertained across the day, as casually glancing across threads.
• [++] The userbase used to be better, but it's still leagues above the one in Reddit. Your typical Lemmy user seems way more eager to understand what others say, abler to follow a simple reasoning without "I dun unrurrstand" tier idiocy, and less eager to boss you around with uncalled advice.
• [=] Same fucking love for genetic fallacies here as in Reddit.
• [-] Witch hunting is actually worse here than it is in Reddit.
• [-] As well as intrusive political discussion in non-political posts and communities.

I'm really starting to hate it, but really don't want to go back to Reddit. Every post about Israel and capitalism makes me want to quit. I wish there was a better alternative.

Maybe it’s because there’s less comments, but it’s felt needlessly hostile. Even a small disagreement leads to this weird ‘well you’re obviously a fucking idiot that has nothing worthwhile to say’. I didn’t have that impression when I joined post API BS, but now that I’ve noticed it it’s hard to ignore. A lot of people just reading what they want to read, and drawing conclusions that don’t relate to the immediate action.

I'm only here because of an unjust reddit ban, and I'm very sad to say that I still would prefer reddit to this. The shear scale of reddit means there was always something interesting me through the far more varied and active communities available there. Lemmy is great and all, but I feel way less engaged with anything going on

I was active, and even a recognized name on some subs where I was particularly active, but here, those same communities are either woefully underpopulated and inactive, or just straight up don't exist. When I need to ask questions or get a wide variety of opinions, or even share a story, I knew reddit had enough activity for me to get at least some traffic. Here, I haven't even made a post

Sorry, Lemmy, but we're only together because reddit left. You're my rebound

I'll bite, I miss the sysadmin and msp communities. I didn't post much ever and won't ever, but I learned a lot there over years. I'm not getting that here, and it's pretty much why I was on reddit.

As a sysadmin, I handle windows, cloud, Linux, networks, BSD, and more daily. But the "Linux desktop is best" crew are more cult than community & my personal desktop is Linux, which I like, but it's not the answer for my parents, my partner or most of my friends or clients.

I gloss over American politics since I'm not American.

I don't hate cars. But I'm an advocate for walkable cities. I love cars in fact. I would quit my job if I could earn enough just restoring cars slowly all day.

But I'm still here. So that's also a statement.

I'm less settled on Lemmy, but fully settled in the Threadiverse. Basically I see Lemmy like my current Linux distro: It's good and getting the job done, but I'm always watching the next iteration in the ecosystem.

That said, I feel like I've landed on a good host and alternate frontend that I like. And I LOVE that I can choose my host and frontend.

(I'm making this post so that people who love Lemmy can help me understand, not to hate. I want to love Lemmy)

I've been on Lemmy since the reddit migration and every day I dislike it more.

I never understand what people are talking about when they say they like Lemmy for the "closer community", most posts I see barely have any comments, and the ones that are there mostly look no different to what I used to see on Reddit.

the smaller community results in less posts about less topics, so it's difficult for me to find anything I'm interested in. on Reddit I could join dozens of videogame-specific or niche hobby subs and they'd all be at least a little active, here it seems the only posts I can get to show in my feed are environmental and big tech doomerism and occasionally some Linux discussion, with very few memes or otherwise just funny/easy posts. I like talking about Linux, sure, but I don't want a sinking feeling in my gut every time I wanna scroll idly.

there just seems to be a lot of toxicity here on top of everything. I'm constantly seeing people arguing or being rude about Linux opinions, big tech/privacy topics, etc. I worry it's a bit more of an echo chamber than reddit ever was for me as well. I feel there are just a lot of perspectives I'm not getting here.

I left reddit because I hate the business decisions they're making, but every day I get closer to going back. I don't want to support such a shitty company that treats users more like cattle than customers, but I'm struggling to adjust to Lemmy even all these months later.

I get attacked by hyperfixated debatelords here just like reddit, 10/10 would recommend as reddit replacement.

Its also interesting that you can recreate an accurate miniature reddit with a fraction of the users, in that regard I guess its a more efficient reddit?

Reddit but with less content (which is fine), I browse by top past 6 or 12 hours, and just check in once or twice a day.

Also I don't know about more mature... There's a lot more people here arguing and gatekeeping and generally being weird about Linux for some reason.

I mean, I like Linux, I use it a lot, but these people make it their identity, like it's an obsession, and they violently hate people who dare to use Windows.

...I get the impression these are actual grown adult men and women, acting like big babies :-P

There's a lot of people here engaging with Linux discussion in a normal healthy manner too of course, just the weird ones are the loudest, you know? It's off putting.

I like it. Just wish niche communities were more active.

I’m starting to see the propaganda bots and spam creep in. I guess that means it’s reaching a certain popularity level.

It's about the only place where you could post a photo of a houseplant or something equally random, and people will reply asking why it's not running fucking Linux.

I'm digging it. It reminds of reddit when it was good, which was like digg when it was good, which was like /b/ when... wait, /b/ was never good.

I can handle the Linux fanboys because it's been my daily driver OS since 2003.

I do miss the driversity of topics. Yeah, I'm mostly about my computers and cars, but I like maintaining a surface knowledge of pretty much everything.

On Reddit I would feel like I was speaking to one individual all the time. All of the top comments were like they were written by the same person. Here I think everyone is unique

More nerdy than Reddit, more of an emphasis on Star Trek (less Star Wars) and programming/linux memes than anything (at least when browsing Top/New posts). It's a bit higher brow I guess than Reddit, though not nearly as much content. In Reddit, I would very rarely see everything there was to see in a single day if I was looking at the Front Page. It's not too bad though. I'm not going back to Reddit, so I guess I have to smirk at all the Trek jokes now.

Otherwise, still seeing some of the same issues that affected Reddit and some that I never saw there, out-of-control mods, abandoned communities, seemingly intentional misunderstanding of blatant sarcasm, some rudeness (not as much though), and an overly Leftist worldview (I consider myself left-leaning, but it gets kind of ridiculous at times). It's just part of the whole social media thing I guess.

Like a lot of people, I came here around the API protests at Reddit. Back then Lemmy was filled with "fuck reddit" circlejerking which was made worse by the relative lack of other content. But I have watched this place grow and mature into something I would consider a suitable replacement for the most part. That said, the amount of content here still pales in comparison to Reddit back when I was actually there. As for all the complaints about the culture here, you get what you dont filter and I filter the trash out of my feed.

For non political content, not bad, of course a lot smaller than reddit, but it's a good start.

But the left wing populism echochamber is a bit annoying. It's ok to have an opinion, but all the silly so easy to refute things that get repeated here over & over again because it sounds nice & fits the agenda is just annoying... "Why do billionaires need more money?" because they're addicted to ego & power, it's not about the money. "The right wing are so violent, we are the good guys", every other thread: eat the rich, prepare the guillotines. -insert a not so common incident that supports an agenda- 'see, this happens all the time, we should do -insert short sighted measure that will just cause different problems-. etc...

I'd love all those topics to be actually seriously discussed here, but so far it feels like it's just edgy teens shouting whatever fits the popular narratatives...

Definitely needs more content, more active communities but on the whole it’s OK. It’s unrealistic to expect it to be as large as other platforms at this time. I’m doing my part by participating in threads that I usually wouldn’t jump into.

Unpopular opinion: it’s very much like Reddit.

It has ridiculous memes that overwhelm the ‘verse.

It has niche subjects that overwhelm the ‘verse.

It has a hive mind that doesn’t like unpopular opinions even if they’re correct.

It’s like Reddit before it started clamping down on things that were distasteful when viewed by advertisers or the general public, which I like.

There’s lots of drama sometimes.

It has mod problems. Sometimes it’s the absence of mods.

It’s attracting bots and karma whores, even though it’s meaningless here. For now.

Sometimes people show up with an agenda and talk at you instead of with you.

Thank goodness asklemmy isn’t overrun with the same damn stupid sexy sex and other same old shit yet.

Overall I’d say it’s better. People realize it’s new and the growing pains that the newness means. People are happier to have a discussion and enjoy the growing variety of the fediverse. People are people, though, and some of the same old stuff is showing up.

I wish that a lot of communities would consolidate. It seems like there was such a rush, and all these people trying to stake out their homesteading claim, that the community with a capital C wasn't able to develop. With reddit, subs would get big and shitty, then you'd see something like,"Hey, join us over at . It's like this sub, but with(out) ". And that spinoff had enough momentum from the start to keep going.

I'm not a sports guy, but it's like there are 30 NBA teams (I don't know the number, don't care, and irrelevant to what I'm attempting to stay). The first community should have been NBA@... until there are enough people visiting so that the fans of TEAMA can go create their own TEAMA@.... As things stand, instead of starting with 30 basketball fans having a common community to bullshit, we ended up with 30 communities with 1 person in each and often zero traffic.

Technically speaking Lemmy's improved a fair amount since before it blew up in popularity (compared to pre-Reddit API shenanigans), but it's still lacking in a variety of other areas, e.g. moderation tools & lack of any sort of modmail to avoid having to coordinate off-site, user tools/settings related to privacy and federation such as hiding profile elements or the opposite like enabling a microblog-esque mode for federating with Mastodon/Misskey/etc., and some other odds and ends (like not being able to mute/disable notifications for posts/comments, sorry OP!).

Culturally speaking Lemmy has similar problems as other federated platforms in that to this day no one seems to have worked out a way to better communicate them so that they're more widely adopted and grow significantly beyond the early adopter Linux/techie crowds (Mastodon's very gradually been getting there though). Some people also much prefer that, which is part of why and how these platforms have remained that way, but they seem to forget that small communities can exist within larger communities, and with well-developed federated platforms, ideally one could better curate their spaces more than they ever could in more popular corporate platforms.

Also regarding content, it's in a weird spot. There's a decent amount of it, but part of the problem is that it's neither all that varied nor original. There's a glut of news, political/technology mainly, memes/shitposts, many of which being older and thus reposted, and some mix of technology posts in general, then there's kind of everything else. If we were to throw together BS percentages, I'd maybe guess at like 32/32/32 of news/memes/tech, with the remaining 4% being everything else.

The issue then is, much of that content you can easily find on more popular platforms with greater variety and also originality, with potentially timelier posting, so outside of principles, what's the draw of any of the Lemmy instances? I think there's greater potential with more topic-focused instances (e.g. programming.dev/ani.social/etc.) and original content. That is, compared to the corporate models of attempting to be everything for everyone but really no one, and in turn also opaquely barring/removing/demonetizing creative content due to some ambiguous advertiser/copyright compliance measures.

Unfortunately you hit a causal conundrum where there aren't enough people yet for others to justify contributing original material, and there's not enough original material to draw enough people here to justify creating it and on and on. Classic network effect situation, in other words, which in turn also affects variety and timeliness of posts, and leaves everything in an awkward limbo state until several somethings start to change.