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?

z3rOR0ne,
@z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml avatar

I was on Mastodon and Lemmy roughly a year before the Twitter and Reddit fiascos. I never was active on Twitter, never even had an account, but I’ll admit Reddit was my jam. I didn’t even use any of the 3rd party apps, I actually did use their main app and had no issues with it (except for the occasional annoying ad on my mobile device…). But when the needless greed of Spez started to show at the seams and the communities there started to divide, I took an afternoon to delete everything from nearly 4 years of posts/comments.

Both Mastodon and Lemmy were FAR less active prior to these migrations, and so I honestly checked in once every couple months. But then Mastodon started showing up in my main news feeds due to Musk’s idiocy, and I knew it was time…

Similarly, when Spez started to make the same decisions, I already knew where the party was likely to move.

I only started using Lemmy again yesterday when Memmy came out as I dislike using social media from my desktop (though I do occasionally).

It’s nice to see so much more activity here now. It’ll probably never get to the levels of Reddit, but hey that can be a good thing in its own right.

nicerdicer,

I noticed two things, along with all the good answers in this thread:

  1. There is no such thing as Karma, and I hope it will never be implemented into the fediverse. The reason is that on Reddit Karma was handled like a currency, an in order to obtain Karma, the general quality of the content declined, as a result of Karma-farming. Also it was used as a threshold for posting comments in certain communities. Imagine you could join an instance only when you have a certain ammount of a Karma equivalent. That is something I don't want to see.
  2. At this moment there are mostly tech savvy users (former heavy Reddit users) here, who are interested in creating content and participation. Also these folks are helping each other. It feels like a little community. I think, the threshold to join the fediverse is still too high for the average mainstream user. Maybe it will be easier to get started when there are mobile apps.
whiny9130,

Karma is useful on things like discourse or mattermost as a spam prevention feature, you gradually expose features to people who aren’t being spammy. The same thing is true of a user joining a new community on the same site.

Gorillan,

I think it all boils down to an older and more geeky user base.

floofloof,

Let’s enjoy it while it lasts. This feels comfortable like the internet until the late 1990s. I didn’t realize I missed that. And when it starts to be exploited for profit, trolled for whatever reason people troll things, and swamped by bots, let’s sneak off somewhere else they don’t know about and do it again.

solrize,

It is still full of geekery: the sociopaths are not yet here. See:

http://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths

Chathan,
@Chathan@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Great read. I am fanatic then. 🫣

geqo,

I’m a recent reddit semi-convert (haven’t left Reddit entirely just yet) and I’m loving it so far

DaedalousIlios,
@DaedalousIlios@pawb.social avatar

I think there's many contributing factors. I actually was thinking about the same thing before I found your post, and the answer that came to mind outside of some of the ones people posted here was:

It feels like a breath of fresh air because we're outside the Walled Garden. We're not trapped on a platform who's soul has been crushed and wrung for every penny's worth like Reddit or Twitter. And we can see that there is a world on the Internet besides the Walled Garden and that fact is very liberating. It makes you feel like you don't have to go back.

Shaggy0291,

Because the people are all lovely

SturgiesYrFase,
@SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml avatar

I’ve had more traction on my posts and comments in the month or so I’ve been on lemmy than the entire 14 years I was on reddit. I’m glad I’ve moved, couldn’t give two shits how it does from here out, I’m away.

floofloof,

It’s nice to be able to speak without being drowned out by cave-fascists.

Underwaterbob,

While sometimes mildly amusing, I don't miss the strings of puns that dominated ~50% of the "discussions" I clicked.

midas,

Genuinely felt like filler most of the times, fast food comments, an AI would’ve generated something better etc. Mildly amusing things get beaten to death quickly.

Send_me_nude_girls,

Aside of people probably being a few years older. Less bots and astroturfing and I bet most people who moved to Lemmy are not your average mainstream user, usually more informed than average. It's easier to talk to calm people instead of the "whoosh I got you buddy" person. With fewer user the chance to get heard and not drowned by meme and joke replies is also much higher. But when more user join this likely changes.

TheLurker,

Lemmy "feels refreshing" because it is new to you. This deliveres a dopamine hit to your brain because we inherently find new things exciting.

As a concept it is the same public forum we have had for a long time. But it is decentralised which does help with restricting the ability of single groups of people from taking control of the native, so that is a good side-effrct.

MedicareForSome,

On reddit, half of the users are bots controlled by various corporations and state departments.

potterman28wxcv,

One key difference I found is the lack of user karma. You have no incentive to post something "just to get karma" because there is no global karma on your profile.

This encourages to post what you want to post instead of posting something that someone posted years ago because it's easy free karma

PizzasDontWearCapes,

I just noticed that thanks to your comment. I hope it stays that way on Lemmie - karma farming leads to a lot of low quality content, including bot reposts

floofloof,

If Lemmy accounts with a plausible history ever become valuable like Reddit accounts are, we could see the same behaviour without karma just to build up a history. But for now that seems a long way off.

Send_me_nude_girls,

I got to agree. The first thing I did was looking for my karma on my profile but then noticed quickly that it actually doesn't matter. But has it the same addiction like effect in the long run? At least I can still see people enjoying a well though out comment, which is most of the joy.

Obi,
@Obi@sopuli.xyz avatar

I won't lie my first reaction when I figured that out was negative (oh my god but then how will I keep track of how much people love my comments..) but the more I think about it and use Lemmy the more I like it, like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

And what you said, no point to being a karma fiend when there's no counting, so a lot less easy karma grabs going around.

szczur,
@szczur@lemmy.ml avatar

Fediverse denizens are really active.

Heimchen,

Yea, I became more active on lemmy than ever was on Reddit

SrEstegosaurio,

Yeah, engagement is in the Fediverse is colosal in comparison.

Xer0,

The people aren’t assholes. The place is not that big to be totally ruined.

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