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.

sideone,
@sideone@lemmy.world avatar

People are more respectful of each other

Less trolls

I think you mean fewer 😜

floofloof,

I see what you’re doing there, but it caused me real pain on Reddit that no one could do effect/affect or reins/reigns or populace/populous or phenomenon/phenomena or you’re/your or they’re/their/there or lose/loose or who/whom or counsel/council or “she and I”/“her and me” or may/might or i.e./e.g. or its/it’s or lay/lie or pique/peak or pore/pour or… sorry, I’m a bit anal and a bit traumatized. Anal trauma, if you will.

sideone,
@sideone@lemmy.world avatar

Sounds uncomfortable

Domille,

I feel like people who moved to Lemmy from reddit are really incentivized to help it grow, so I am constantly seeing encouragements for people to interact / upvote / post content, which is great. I think that the community here is very motivated, and so even though there are less people, you get more engagement.

god,
@god@sh.itjust.works avatar

This is a huge part of it. People are in "this is my new home, I'm gonna wash the dishes just this once!". I imagine things will calm down later.

Domille,

yeah, that's pretty much what happened with Mastodon, as far as I can tell. There are still folks there, but it is much quieter now vs when I first joined it.

esty,
@esty@lemmy.ca avatar

i dont feel that its quiet, more that people have settled in, the users that stuck with masto use it religiously just like how people used twitter

swoos,

This

Pmmeyourtoaster,

I've experienced this as well and have enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing.

lvl100magikarp,

Yep, I try to upvote everything and comment as much as I can. I’m still confused about how to post to specific instances on Jerboa though. Like I’m typing the name but it’s not showing up in the dropdown

The most discouraging thing that happened was that when I wrote a long and thoughtdul comment and press send, Jerboa gives me the “java type blabla” error, and I lost everything I typed. Then I don’t wanna type it again and I just give up on commenting

Hopefully these issues will be fixed soon! As I understand it it’s not even an issue with Jerboa specifically.

Varyag,
@Varyag@lemm.ee avatar

I've gotten to the habit of Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C my comments right before hitting Reply, just in case that happens. Luckily, it's been happening less and less, at least on desktop browser. Hopefully Jerboa gets to that point soon, too.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

sauna7843,

There was a time where the internet was a place for fun. Purely fun! No profit-based platforms, no mass abuse of users, no privacy violating practices, no forced ID verification, and no political correctness censorship enmass.

This age was known as The Golden Age of the Internet. It was something I saw gradually disappear like a frog being slowly boiled in water.

I’d like the hope we can one day come back to this era. The Golden Age was an escape from reality, while this corporate ran bullshit has been nothing but profit focused greed with a constant reminder of reality.

I cannot express in words how amazing the Golden Age was. We never knew we were in it until it was one day gone. Decentralization and freedom from centralized entities may allow the Internet the perhaps return to the Golden Age. An age where the Internet purely exists for everyone to have fun in and be able to express themselves freely without censorship.

AB7ORH7D,

That's sort of what I feel like this is - or at least that's what I've felt from browsing Lemmy. No ads and no ragebait/doomscrolling. There's nothing requiring that I stay engaged - in a way it's almost respectful of my interests and time.

Mugmoor,
@Mugmoor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I remember when it died. Web 2.0

PizzasDontWearCapes,

As in when the advertising apps came along, right?

Mugmoor,
@Mugmoor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It's when YouTube and Social Media began to take off.

krdo,
@krdo@lmmy.net avatar

Yeah, I loved the golden age. Back when everyone had a Geocities homepage and just linked to each other's sites. Back when getting a link to your homepage into the Yahoo index meant something.

Bruce,

If I were given the opportunity, I wouldnt swtich back to the state of " the good old internet" .

It was full of popups and viruses. DL speed was 3kbps on good days. Hence without any form of streaming. Depending on operator, you had to pay for the landine communication between your PC and the provider. If a family member picked up the phone from another room while you were using the modem, you got dcded. Of course, one coulnt be joined by phone when he was using internet.

You have to weigh the pros and cons.

morrowind,
@morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

Just because we go back culturally, doesn’t mean we have to go back technologically as well.

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.

git,

I think it has people with above average reading comprehension because amount of people I saw that said opening a Lemmy account is too hard and they couldn't manage to do it is way too high

Grosshirn,

Yeah that's true! If an article is posted, the discussion shows that people really did read the article!

Very_Bad_Janet, (edited )

Early adopters of any innovation likely have certain personality traits that make them able and willing to assess a new technology and learn/overcome some obstacles to use it. Maybe those traits translate into pleasant, respectful online communication?

ETA: I need to see if I still have my old grad school copy of Diffusion of Innovation. It might have some answer in there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

ETA1: Most everyone seems thoughtful and patient. So maybe those are early adopter traits?

dodgypast,

That's my thinking. As an example the people who usually end up answering people's tech queries are the most likely to end up here.

gylotip,

What does ETA mean?

Very_Bad_Janet,

Edited To Add. :)

MyMulligan,
@MyMulligan@lemmy.one avatar

My wife is a teacher at a small district. She's watched student's abilities drop over the past twenty years and the time of covid left them severely lacking. Yes. Their writing skills are practically not there. It's truly sad.

PrivateNoob,

I have noticed similar things, just like you. Here are mine:

  1. More respectful, thought-provoking commenters
  2. Being early on a fundamentally different site is cool (federated vs centralized)
  3. In really small sublemmies (Less than 10 posters I guess) I kinda get the small village feeling, where eventually everyone will know eachother, which is kinda wholesome.
MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

I'm really liking number 3, as well. Hello PrivateNoob!

PrivateNoob,

Literally you're the reason why I wrote the third one. ^^

SkyNTP,

I feel like I’m eavesdropping a private conversation.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

I'll translate your comment into Reddit-speak: "now kith"

StarLuigi,
@StarLuigi@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I just wanted to say I love your banner and profile picture, what are they from?

PrivateNoob,

Oh, thank you for the compliment! I don't know if they are a specific character from a series or a video game, I just took them from Pinterest. With the banner, I specifically wanted to find a wallpaper that captures a bit of retrowave internet aesthetics.

OSHI NO KO ENJOYER. It's a pleasure to meet you.

StarLuigi,
@StarLuigi@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Pleasure to meet you as well!

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. 🫣

Bruce,

Here, people still feel as guests whereas on reddit, people stayed long enough to feel the place is their’s.

(“old timers shouln’t have to deal with this shit again”)

blek,
@blek@sh.itjust.works avatar

Exactly, I am very new to Lemmy and have been met with nothing but open arms from every community. Reddit at times definitely felt more elitist.

Knutsen,

Agree completely. I thinkk my reddit account is 13 years old now. I got over the new reddit UI, took me a while. Still the main thing is, the discussions are what made reddit. Right now, everybody seems to be jumping ship to lemmy/kbin, but most of the main topics are either crapping on reddit or trying to compare reddit with lemmy/kbin, instead of letting it be it's own thing.

My main site will still be reddit, if the quality of posts starts rising without bashing reddit on every 2nd one, then I might change completely.

Also, the UI still feels a bit basic to me.

thetreesaysbark,

I think the comparison is valid though. People want to know if Lemmy is a good alternative for them and you can only do that by comparing.

It doesn't take away that Lemmy is it's own thing.

geqo,

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

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