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?

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.

Grosshirn,

I have been a user on Mastodon for quite some time but wasn't that active and felt it lacked some content for me. Now that I joined lemmy I learned that mastodon is federated and I learned about kbin! That's what makes it refreshing for me. A lot of new stuff and small communities emerging :)

kiddblur,

The thing that I think makes lemmy more valuable than mastodon is the focus on content versus personality. With Twitter, you followed people because you were interested in what they had to say and share. With Reddit, you followed communities. So even if a lot of the people don’t move over, once enough of the community does, it’ll feel the same (or better). I was never super active in my various subreddits (although I did comment, I just never posted), but I’m making an effort to comment and vote a lot on here just to help build that sense of community

Grosshirn,

Yeah that perfectly summarizes my feelings aswell. The topic oriented communities are what I preferr!

yads,

Really good summary. I think this is exactly why I never really took to Twitter and I never really realized why, but it's exactly that. I'm more interested in topics than specific people.

danielton,
@danielton@lemmy.world avatar

Not disputing what you're saying, but one feature that was a game changer for me on Mastodon was figuring out that I can follow hashtags in addition to people.

But I do agree with everything you said!

kiddblur,

Oh yeah, that is nice, but I guess at the end of the day it's still just that idea of "I'm a person saying a thing" (and using a hashtag) versus "here's this article I found"

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.

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.

chaddy,
@chaddy@feddit.de avatar

I think the lack of a karma equivalent, and thus karma farming, results in much more thought out and unique posts/comments.

WalrusDragonOnABike,

Torn between replying with "this!" as a meme about how generic responses like that are used to farm karma and making a joke about how "of course someone with only 1 reputation point would say there's no karma equivalent." Idk how reputation works and if its only internal to instances or a shared across instances. But its possible it does become a karma equivalent in the future.

DoucheAsaurus,
@DoucheAsaurus@kbin.social avatar

Reputation seems borked at the moment, it counts downvotes but not upvotes so I'm sitting at -34 right now lol

Kantiberl,
@Kantiberl@kbin.social avatar

Boosting is the only way for reputation to go up. I boosted you for science.

Very_Bad_Janet,

Interesting! I gave you a boost as well, also for science. Funny how we all seem to be tinkering and figuring what does what here.

ivanafterall,
@ivanafterall@kbin.social avatar

I'm not sure I feel comfortable taking advice from a person with -51 reputation...

Kantiberl,
@Kantiberl@kbin.social avatar

Ooo everybody come look at Mr. Non-controversial over here with his +40 reputation.

cunnilingsus,
@cunnilingsus@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Do you mind explaining what boosting is for us on Lemmy?

Kantiberl, (edited )
@Kantiberl@kbin.social avatar

It adds your comment to my profile feed if anyone is following me. I think it's a way to work better with Mastodon like sites but I don't really know. I understand that @ernest is in the midst of changing that.

chaddy, (edited )
@chaddy@feddit.de avatar

Lol, I think the first one would definitely have flown over my head without explanation. Also, I don't know if it's instance specific, but I can't seem to find my reputation on my profile, neither on feddit.de(lemmy-ui) or Jerboa. Where do you get that information?

Maybe it could be useful for moderators or admins to access that information? But that also poses the risk of accounts "reputation-farming" like on reddit to sell the account to some bot-farm that uses it for astro-turfing or sth similar.

russjr08,
@russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net avatar

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the reputation thing is a Kbin feature, at least everyone I've seen mention it so far has been on a Kbin instance.

I do not think Lemmy has the same thing, but don't quote me on that!

Very_Bad_Janet,

There is a thing called Reputation (IIRC) tucked away in your profile. Im not sure if that's a true karma equivalent. Also not sure what you can do with it.

awsamation,
@awsamation@kbin.social avatar

It doesn't matter what you can do with it. You couldn't really do anything with karma either.

Shaggy0291,

Because the people are all lovely

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.

ulu_mulu,
@ulu_mulu@lemmy.world avatar

I noticed the same, probably because reddit has become really bad in the last years but I didn't realize it until I joined here a couple of weeks ago.

It's indeed refreshing being able to have honest discussions on a platform that's not infested by bots, propaganda, disguised ads, mass shitposting, hidden agendas, etc.

If lemmy becomes wildly popular to the masses, it's possible things will change for the worse, who knows, but I'll enjoy it a lot in the meantime.

incompetentboob,

I feel exactly the same. It’s really feels like the early days of reddit on here. Everyone is nice and the content is genuine.

I got really tired of typing out comments only to delete them because I didn’t have to patience to be told I’m wrong.

If things go bad here and the bots and the ads take over, we can move to another instance make new communities and start over.

MargotRobbie,
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

Because everything is small and manageable for mods right now, and everyone is talking to everyone else.

Lemmy also has the advantage that the default "hot" sort favors recency instead of upvotes so that you can get into a thread pretty late and still have your comments be seen.

Akasazh,
@Akasazh@feddit.nl avatar

Hi Margot, just wanted you to know that you're always in my "hot" sort. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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.

fleabomber,

A lot of us have been nofapping reddit for a while so it's it a bit of a release to interact in this familiar way.

ergifruit,

"nofapping Reddit" is the greatest way i've ever seen anyone describe the situation

danielton,
@danielton@lemmy.world avatar

It seems like the people who actually cared about Reddit and the community left for Lemmy (and others). It definitely shows.

Reddit will learn very quickly that there is nothing particularly special about it. It's a forum. With the people who posted and moderated on there being chased away or even banned, there isn't going to be much of value left on Reddit going forward.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

The only thing special about Reddit now it that it became insanely popular and got its hooks into millions of people. Those who are interested in actual discussion will go elsewhere, and those who want to mindlessly doomscroll reposted memes and have ads shoved in their face will stay. That's where they belong.

Haan,

I agree. I think Reddit is delusional if they think they will be able to successfully monetize what are essentially just forums. Reddit users themselves don't give a hoot about Reddit as a brand, company, or product. They care about communities and being able to have discussions on their favorite subjects. There's no secret sauce proprietary to Reddit at all and people will go where ever everyone else is

Noedel,

It will probably continue as a shell... Like Digg, Facebook and other failed social medias that once were golden.

danielton,
@danielton@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, I don't think Reddit is going anywhere, but it won't be as good as it used to be.

5redie8,

Yeah, couldn't have put it much better myself. I'm fine with it, let them stay.

tyo_ukko,

I have also noticed the absence of alt-right/populist right-wing people. But that could go under your point 2. It's refreshing nevertheless.

Also less guerilla marketing. Not missing that shit one bit.

PrivateNoob,

Are trolls more likely to be alt-right? Idunno, I think all sides can have the same ratio of trolls in them.

bobs_monkey,

True, but there's also a lovely Venn diagram where a significant overlap exists. No one's perfect, but a certain mindset definitely leans more towards being a dick to people than not.

tyo_ukko,

I'm sure for many trolls the goal is mainly to cause a reaction, and I think the alt-right stuff is an easy way to do so. Maybe that's a better way to put it.

Then there's the crowd that populated r/the_donald back in the day. Not sure how much of that was just trolling, but I'm certainly glad not to see that activity here.

PrivateNoob,

Honestly seeing alt-right trolls here sounds logical, since Lemmy is definitely more progressive leaning.

bobs_monkey,

I've seen a few, but they were mostly contained to more random offshoot instances, and those stirring up bullshit were booted pretty quick.

I think the inherent instance ownership gives admins a greater sense of pride to keep their localities positive, and a lot off us are still feeling from what reddit became in the last 5ish years and there's a communal sense of keeping that outta here.

And yes, at least for now. Hopefully those marketing ploys are readily apparent and get kicked to the curb quickly.

forgotmylastusername,

I think it’s partially attributable to Lemmy phone apps haven’t taken off yet. Phone posting is a different medium than desktop posting with regards to McLuhans “the medium is the message” principle. Phone usage appeals to the lowest common denominator. People use it as a time waste to mindlessly scroll. The cognitive load is much lower. Thus shitty content bubbles to the top because that’s all the brain power people are giving it. Phone usage is not conducive to consuming depth of content nor contributing it.

Additionally I think the lower cognitive engagement tends to lead people into greater fuckwad behavior. You aren’t on a board with human beings on the other side of a keyboard. It’s just a stupid app on your phone.

I think if I’m right then in time Lemmy with death spiral not unlike reddit if phone apps mature and Lemmy apps become a mainstream daily use type of affair. I doubt that will happen without the capitalist engine driving it though.

god,
@god@sh.itjust.works avatar

Am on phone. Should I skip for low cognitive effort?

Potato_in_my_anus,

I’m on my phone too using Jerboa.

TrinityTek,

I've only ever used Lemmy from a phone, and mostly using Jerboa as well.

Zetaphor,
@Zetaphor@zemmy.cc avatar

You're also forgetting that with a centralized platform everyone is stuck under the same roof. If we do reach that level of saturation then the communities can always splinter into a different instance or group of federated instances.

The problem with reddit was once we reached the point of everyone being there and the overall quality lowering, there was no refuge for the more engaged users to congregate and reform the communities that focus on quality over quantity. You could try and flee to more niche subreddits but it's really not the same, as demonstrated by OP making this post.

And then as you pointed out, the financial incentives are very different here, which will change how users engage with the platform and how the platform evolves as a result. Centralized platforms do everything to drive engagement to increase ad impressions and potential value to ad distributors. We have an opportunity to build communities with entirely different business models where growth is not an imperative.

clausetrophobic,

I don't actually think it's got much to do with having a phone app or not. I see what you are saying with the medium being the message, but I don't think the "medium" is phones or computers.

You're right about the medium being the message though, it's just that the medium is a nerdy federated social media. Right now we are in the first or second big wave of new users. Not quite the nerdiest of the nerds who would have been using Lemmy since the beginning, but we are getting the "early adopters" and the people willing to go out on a limb to try something new. These are the kinds of people who are likely to interact with a community in a positive way, because they are already investing themselves into something before it is established.

I am using a phone app to write this message right now, it was really easy and accessible for me to login and get to grips with the UI. There are loads of people just like me, in fact I would be willing to bet Lenny is being used by 80% mobile users. It's just how we communicate with the world these days. Very few people browse social medias on a computer.

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