They are saying it’s hard to figure out as it’s hard to figure out. It, as you say, has a learning curve that isn’t really present in Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok etc.
Choosing an instance seems important. Many of the large instances are overtly communist, quietly communist, piracy, porn, nsfw focused or a safe space for lgbtq+ people. Instances are changing hands and de federating each other. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of GDPR type agreements about user data. If a server vanishes with all your data, can you legally retrieve it? Are they obligated to delete data on request? who is they?
Choosing communities is complicated. There is massive duplication of communities across instances most of which have have very little content or members.
The apps are all alpha quality from what I know. curious about accessibility options too, r/blind was hit hard.
Whilst I was trying to get a grip on how Lemmy & kbin interact, Lemmy seems to have blocked kbin access.
I think I could sell Lemmy to the average linux user but it appears I don’t have to as most of them are here anyway. It’s the other 99% of the user base that’s the issue.
Honestly I wouldn’t even bother trying to convince my meat space techy friends at the moment never mind a non-techy community with a few hundred thousand iphone and windows users.
Whilst I was trying to get a grip on how Lemmy & kbin interact, Lemmy seems to have blocked kbin access.
That was lemmy.ml, not all of Lemmy. Lemmy.ml is an important instance -- one of the larger Lemmy instances, and it is run by the Lemmy devs -- but it's still but one instance among many.
I don’t think that really justifies a lot of the comments I’m seeing in Reddit alternatives threads that it’s hard to figure out.
Haven't been back there and didn't read the comments...
But I think I can understand to a degree:
Too many choices: Picking an instance can be confusing for folks that are used to only having to remember 1 name. I personally think this is a bit like people trying Linux for the first time and getting confused by all the choices available. Basically, it's what some people call "analysis paralysis" but add to that the fact that you'll get 12 different recommendations from every 10 people you all (e.g. there's no clear consensus on the "best" one bc "best" means something different to each person). I think one list I saw on GitHub literally had over 200 instances... For non-techies, I could see that being a bit confusing
UI differences: some things like making a post on kbin are a bit different (IMO not bad but still different enough that I could see some folks getting confused). Doing searches on lemmy for specific topics (not finding communities but searching for something in a community) is done from a different area on lemmy than on Reddit and IMO is kind of a pain in the ass currently. And on kbin, frankly, I'm not even sure we have that feature at all.
Missing features: haven't tried mobile apps (which could again be another point of confusion) but for desktop at least, AFAIK we don't have anything comparable to RES yet. There's no analog to multireddits. And we don't have anything similar to reddit's Saved feature yet. All valid complaints in my opinion. And someone used to any or all of those, might spend a lot of time looking bc they just don't know if it's hidden or does not exist. So, yeah, I could see so confusion there too.
I think there are a lot of advantages they're probably missing too. I like that kbin/lemmy we can choose whatever fucking avatar we want instead of being limited to customizing our snoz or wtf Reddit calls their mascot thing. I saw one guy mentioning how there's no karma bullshit to deal with for new accounts and absolutely agree with that sentiment.
tealdeer; meh, I like the fediverse and it's not hard for me but I'm not shitting on people who don't get it. If they want help, would probably help but not going to push it on people either. It is what it is and that's good enough for me
I like that kbin/lemmy we can choose whatever fucking avatar we want instead of being limited to customizing our snoz or wtf Reddit calls their mascot thing.
I like that kbin/lemmy we can choose whatever fucking avatar we want instead of being limited to customizing our snoz or wtf Reddit calls their mascot thing.
You can still do that on new reddit. When looking at your own profile while logged in, there's a little camera with a plus in the corner of your current avatar/placeholder. (There's also a separate icon further to the right for uploading a banner image.)
Edit: Dang, I didn't expect that image to look so big, it's only 600x300
This is correct. I'm also excitedly watching Sync for Lemmy as Lemmy and Kbin are pretty neat so far and will only get better. I have been finding myself using all of the above.
Although @ljdawson and I have been vicious blood rivals in the past in the Reddit third-party Android apps sphere, we've been interacting more lately and see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Great person and great developer.
It took me a little while to figure out reddit. After migrating from reddit I actually found it easier to pickup this time around. I am sure some people might have some trouble but as long as we make this place welcoming and helpful for new users asking questions people will want to migrate.
For example, some of the complaints that people had about Mastodon early on were just odd to me. They made such a big deal out of "you have to pick a server, no one understands that" or nitpicking UI interfaces between Mastodon and twt. They didn't have logical arguments IMHO it was them just not being happy about change and not being honest about that.
Saying "I don't want to deal with different servers within a single website" is illogical? Seems entirely logical to me. Anyone used to Reddit is going to be turned off to the whole messy fediverse thing. Me included. Legitimately, it evokes feelings of the dead on arrival Metaverse.
People want simplicity. We're decades past the days of BBS boards.
It’s not a single website. And what’s with all the hate I see around here about BBS boards? BBS boards were great. I just want someone to loop me in about the hate. I just think with the fediverse we’re seeing a rise of a model that brings the best things about BBS boards to more modern web technologies
Part of me thinks the rapid growth is over and that user retention is the new struggle; but part of me holds out hope that the reddit api finally dying will push over yet another wave of users
One worry I have is the opposite scale. Active user growth have been pretty linear so far, but the network effect is pushing user activity growth at a higher rate.
But there is still under 100 kbin servers.
If there is a burst of new users and post activity after the API change, will the system be able to scale up fast enough to cope?
It's the number of users logging in and hitting those servers that's the main issue. 44,000 users is a lot for one instance to be pushing content to. I wouldn't say it's just aggregating Lemmy content either though, there are plenty of popular communities on kbin as well, including this one.
Reddit has been around for quite a while. There are those of us who used to be tech-savvy "back in the day" that don't handle change either quickly or well. For a casual social-media only user, this can be similar to the experience of a cave-person discovering fire. There are bound to be questions, especially when dealing with multiple types of instances on the fediverse. If we want this to grow into its full potential, we NEED to be patient and welcoming to even the most technologically illiterate.
There are those of us who used to be tech-savvy "back in the day" that don't handle change either quickly or well.
I feel personally attacked, lol.
The problem I find with the technologically illiterate is that they immediately blurt out what’s on their mind. They ask the same fucking questions over and over, without searching first. The signal to noise ratio drops way down and every day is the same shit.
I am more than happy to interact with people of all walks of life but the internet is very “Groundhog Day” compared with when techies were the only ones on here. I’m not sure what the solution is that gives us perpetual cake.
this platform doesn't have search and as far as I understand, doesn't want to have search. so where are you thinking people are supposed to search exactly?
I would love to see your tutorial about how to search for information here.
For those that enjoy using Reddit, they are perfectly happy to remain... so why try to force the issue?
Their criticisms of this place are most often correct - it does have less functionality, it does have a barrier to entry, starting right from the beginning in picking an instance to join, and if you later switch then you have to make a new account and start over (I think? although your old content would still be accessible, it wouldn't be "yours" anymore without logging into the old one). We prefer it anyway, but it's up to them what they want to do.
I’ve also noticed a pattern of people asking for the fediverse to just behave exactly like reddit and thinking ant architectural decision that differs from a users perspective is an antipattern
Yep, this. I'm old, and I used to be super technically literate, but not anymore. Now I'm happy to keep my kids alive, use my smartphone to run my life, and ask a lot of questions. It took me embarrassingly long to figure out how to subscribe to something, and I'm not even 100% sure I did.
I'm cranky for at least 2 days if I have to get a new work computer for any reason. I don't want to lose my reddit communities, so I'm trying, but I won't if people are just rude to start.
The people who are still in the Reddit Alternatives subreddit still haven’t moved over yet. You’re looking at a subset of people who haven’t made the move, not everyone.
Anything new is scary
Reddit is complicated, they just forgot.
The digg users said reddit was ugly and they would never use such an ugly site.
I tried explaining reddit to a diehard forum user, why are all the replies out of order? why are upvotes changing the posting order? this is so complicated!
Don't explain, tell them where to start and how to start. then it explains itself.
As a forum user, it was absolutely crazy to me when I first signed up on Reddit a decade ago that the replies would be out of order and sorted by popularity. But I grew to understand that it was a crowdsourcing effort in most ways and that the cream rises to the top. It was really quite good to get the information you needed out of the thread.
Anything new is scary
Agreed. Most people just want to settle into something comfortable.
This is 100% it. Also some people have only ever used iOS with the Reddit app and Twitter and Tiktok which are so easy to use a literal 3 year old can use it
I think this is also the cause of the squabbles.io Vs kbin/Lemmy split. Squabbles is like new Reddit, kbin is like old Reddit. And people like what they know
This last sentence is the crux of the matter. People don't like change, but quickly forget that they spent time learning the site that they're so familiar with.
I don’t see the decline refund page. But I changed my apple id into another mail address. I’ve contacted him since there’s no way I can decline now. Hopefully it can get stopped. But it took me some time to realize that i changed my apple id 😅
I mean, there's a reason that Linux is used by less than 3% of the market, and the same will likely be true here. The fediverse is not the answer for over 97% of people, and that's a problem.
11+ years here. A moment of silence, 99% of my redditing was through this app. I feel bad that I only just bought the premium version because I didn't realize just how good it was, but I hope I made up for that. Thank you for your years of service.
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