Why does Lemmy feel so fresh compared to Reddit?

As a long time Reddit user, there's something about Lemmy and the fediverse that feels really refreshing and new. I think it has to do with a few things...

  1. People are more respectful of each other and interested in discussion and being social.
  2. Less trolls (users are probably older?)
  3. Due to it not being absolutely huge, I feel like people will actually see my posts and comments instead of being lost in a sea of content. I suppose once Lemmy grows this will change, however the cool thing about the fediverse are the new servers. So you can stick to the server when you want smaller community discussion and go to "all" when you want more populated threads.
  4. The clean UI feels refreshing and clean, almost like the early internet.

What have you noticed? Do you find it refreshing too?

_haha_oh_wow_,
@_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works avatar

Because it is?

interdimensionalmeme,

I think because everyone has their own corners, the common spaces don’t need to be as toxic. Also, Lemmy’s population is self selected because of the still high bar to entry. Lemmy basically feels like early Reddit. The hostile influence of moderators and the backlash anger everyone feels from being mistreated by them into silence is not yet here.

Che_Donkey,
@Che_Donkey@lemmy.ml avatar

I find it a lot more like old forums, and there is a loooooot less ragebait (post about Matt Walsh and his piss fetish, Tim pool and his homoerotic fascism, etc).

It’s very refreshing and I find myself spending less time on here (searching for interesting content) but more time engaging (instead of lurking)

god,
@god@sh.itjust.works avatar

I like that I can block entire communities. Never gonna see those weird people that obsess over certain public figures, positively or negatively, again 😍

Che_Donkey,
@Che_Donkey@lemmy.ml avatar

But that’s the thing, on R no matter what you blocked they still pop up in other feeds…so many “news”, meme etc. featuing those shits and here…nada. My thoughts are most of thier shit is bot driven, so here it wont get traction (yet) and if they do its easily avoided!

Spliffman1,
@Spliffman1@lemmy.world avatar

Totally agree man, it's a refreshing change lol... I've popped back to a couple subs I check and noticed the difference right away over there.

Ado,

This is how Reddit felt 15 years ago. This too can slide in the wrong direction, so we’ll have to be cautious

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

Advantage is if this thing slides in a direction the majority disagrees with it can be forked. On reddit all changes had to be accepted or you could leave. With lemmy and ActivityPub it's easier to fork the service and have it run in semi parallel to the OG. (Granted forking should only really be done if shit goes sideways)

Edit: besides, due to the open source status the community has more of a say in where things go

Very_Bad_Janet,

This is why I am not putting all my eggs in one basket (e.g., I have a Tildes account).

Ado,

Great idea. I’ve not heard of tildes. I’ll have to check it out

socialjusticewizard,

There's no way to prevent it entirely. A larger community will slide that way.

I do think that it can be less encouraged though.

bigbox,

No repost bots, karma farming, or idiots (mostly). The learning curve to joining the fediverse filters out your average facebook/twitter type that Reddit is filled with today. Lemmy right now is how Reddit was a decade ago

zettajon,

The learning curve to joining the fediverse filters out your average facebook/twitter type that Reddit is filled with today.

Let’s call a spade a spade lol this is honestly it.

rozno,
@rozno@roznotech.xyz avatar

It’s really not hard to sign up either; for how small the barrier to entry actually is, it’s made a huge difference in demographics

Konman72,

Agreed. All of the comments against the protests on Reddit kind of give it away in how little they seem to actually understand how Reddit works and what made it great for so long. They see it as just another feed for them to browse and not a community to foster and participate in. Lemmy feels so great in comparison.

jonuno,
@jonuno@lemmy.ml avatar

I love how when I’m creating a post, it acts as a search box that finds similar already existing posts.

faltuuser,

It is indeed refreshing. But not sure how long it will last.

bunjix,
@bunjix@lemmy.world avatar

Just wait until September... ;)

rm_dash_r_star,
@rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee avatar

Haha, I was around then, when AOL got big it was like, well there goes the neighborhood.

faltuuser,

The flood will eventually come

mcpheeandme,

By now, we've all been around the internet long enough to know that good things never last. That's really life: Everything's impermanent. Lemmy will probably suck someday, as will much of the fediverse. But I'm grateful it's good right now and for the foreseeable future.

Scew,
@Scew@lemmy.world avatar

It could suck someday, but it doesn't suffer from the same things that made myspace -> facebook -> reddit suck. No money hungry executives profiting off underpaying employees to implement features no one asked for and selling astroturfing as a service. At least it doesn't seem that there's astroturfing as a service here yet.

rm_dash_r_star,
@rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee avatar

No money hungry executives

I think that's going to be the key difference. You can destroy something good, but to really destroy it takes an executive.

mcpheeandme,

You're right. The fediverse is definitely in a better position to ward off the suck.

kiwifoxtrot,
@kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world avatar

We didn't think those things would suck initially either. Facebook was amazing around 2004 - 2006 before it opened up to the general public.

scottywh,

I don't think I know a single person who ever thought Facebook was "amazing"... Even back then.

kiwifoxtrot,
@kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world avatar

Before it opened up to the general public, we used it to organize parties, share photos without concern, and keep in touch with friends that went to other colleges. There wasn't anything else like it.

floofloof,

I have hope that as the big corporations enter the Fediverse and start enshittifying it, some of us can sneak off to new instances that just don’t federate with them. Then the masses can enjoy their Meta-branded Fediverse, and the tech bros can make their money from it, while the rest of us carry on quietly in a parallel one.

bobs_monkey,

Let's hope it keeps that glimmer!

Zetaphor,
@Zetaphor@zemmy.cc avatar

We're not all trapped in the same building anymore. You can just move to a different instance and still have the same software experience but with the community you prefer.

CIWS-30,

Other people have made good points, but one I've noticed is that there's no advertising or profit motive (so far) and there's also no leadership that encourages dark patterns like increasing negative engagement through encouraging stuff like doomscrolling or starting or continuing arguments.

I'm on Kbin, and I like how by default all the notifications are turned off. So people aren't automatically told to respond to every little thing they participate in. If they really care, they have to manually go back on check on things they wrote about or were engaged in. Makes it less likely that people will argue endlessly, lowering the quality of posts and replies, and derailing them with long subthreads of off topic discussions or arguments.

unix_joe,
@unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

There aren't any bots here promoting a narrative, or auto-downvoting people. From around 2015 until its final days, Reddit was manipulated by business and political entities to steer groupthink. Turning off reddit unplugs you from the Matrix, so to speak.

On Lemmy specifically: its a higher barrier to entry, there's less karma chasing here. Especially if you aren't on one of the larger Lemmy instances. It feels like a community and not like karma-whoring. In my preferences, I turned off viewing the number of votes a comment has, which is nice.

random72guy,
@random72guy@lemmy.world avatar

Passion. The people here care enough to have not only left Reddit, but to have made a new community here.

original_reader,

I love this comment. I want to believe it to be true.

May,
@May@kbin.social avatar

There are less reposts bc its newer and bc there is a lot less bots

leosa,

For me the vibe here resembles that of hacker news. So I’m inclined to think the population here is early adopters and technically inclined.

drascus,

It's likely all this will change as the user base grows. However there are some distinct advantages.

  1. Having instances focused purely on certain topics or ethics makes it so you can join the communities that align with your ideas. while all these communities federate having a home base that aligns with your ethics is important. Also if any particular instance becomes overly trollish there is the option that your instance can defederate from them. While this is not ideal having smaller instances with a more homogeneous community means that it will be easier to lobby for things like that than a monolithic service.
  2. people at the moment are focused on building something that is community oriented and that people will want to use. Right now we have mods, power users, tech enthusiasts, and community leaders mostly. We don't have a ton of trolls yet. This will change but I think we can adapt to it.
  3. There is a sense of comradery. People are dusting themselves off after the collapse of a former community of bolstering each other. This will wear off. however hopefully by then the service is robust enough that people will have found their new communities and groups that they jive with.
knova,
@knova@links.dartboard.social avatar

RE: #3 - we can all choose to be kind to newcomers. Be patient with people as they make those “Testing from Mastodon - can you see this?” Type posts.

StarLuigi,
@StarLuigi@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

How does Lemmy even work with mastodon? I couldn't figure it out when on mastodon.

May,
@May@kbin.social avatar

This is kinda random but till know i always saw "camaraderie" which i guess is more of a French influence spelling, but TIL comradery also an allowed way to spell it! Also ya I agree w you PLUS there seems to be less bots than Reddit atm

drascus,

I am aware of the other spelling. The "comradery" way agrees with my lazy American attitude a bit more. English is a strange language.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

I've never seen that spelling of it. No sir, I don't like it!

Kichae,

The community size thing is going to be interesting as the space grows. The fact that there are functionally infinite name spaces means that "politics" doesn't just get to become the default politics discussion space for everyone wandering into the place. Lemmy.ca/c/politics can be a very different place than Lemmy.ml/c/politics, which will be very different from lemmy.world/c/politics, which will be very different again from beehaw.org/c/politics.

And you can suppose that everyone will just use the biggest one by default, but I don't think that's necessarily true. The biggest subreddit got that way predominantly because of their name, and there's a good chance that people'll see their local one first, not the biggest. Or that they'll see multiple of them, and end up engaging with multiple communities before they realize what's going on and settle on the one that suits them best.

There will always be a biggest, but there can be a larger number of smaller, lively communities because they don't need to take on names like "r/truepolitics" or "r/onguardforthee" (which is a so very discoverable and intuitive r/Canada alternative).

We'll have to see how the dynamics play out over time.

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