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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

_haha_oh_wow_,
@_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works avatar

Because it is?

GrayBackgroundMusic,

The type of people to leave reddit over the shenanigans going on are certain demographic. The crowd is different, here, bc we're more likely to deal with a new website that's not run by narcissistic sociopaths even if there's less content.

voxov7,
@voxov7@lemmy.world avatar

More left leaning for sure.

loffiz,

Agree on all your points! Not trying to sound arrogant here but I think content gets a lot more "bland" with more users, or at least in communities without great passion. It's much more personal here and posts generally puts interesting thoughts in my head as opposed to reddit.

bitsplease,

As much as I’d love to think otherwise, i think a significant amount of the good feeling and comradery that we’re seeing now is due to us being in a bit of a honeymoon phase. You saw the same thing on Mastadon after the Twitter migration, everyone was singing kumbaya and holding hands, but overtime it started to regress a bit (though not nearly as much) towards a more “twitter” feel.

I’m sure over time it’ll stop being quite so feel-good and happy, but the fact that it’s community run and less centralized will help a lot in the long run i think. A lot of the friction and tension on Reddit was due in one way or another to it’s centralization - if you had a popular subreddit that was run by shitty mods, there wasn’t much you could do about it. here, you can just create a new version of the same sub on a different instance, and it’s a lot easier for people to “move” over to the new one.

I think the lower population helps a lot as well, right now the majority of the people on Lemmy are good faith users who care about the platform and want it to succeed. When you have 100’s of millions of users like Reddit does, you’re going to get a lot more bad faith users and people who just want generic content to scroll on

god,
@god@sh.itjust.works avatar

Soon we'll all be strangers and snobs and kick each other in the ribs to say hi

buckykat,

It's not run to maximize shareholder value

xtratrestrial,

That was my favorite part! Don't you just love being a tiny cog on the capitalist wheel of despair?

krackalot,

I just wish the orphan crushing machine wasn't so slow. JUST DO IT!!! Or preferably don't and stop sucking, but I know that won't happen.

Spacemanspliff,

Even if they were to come out fire spez and go say ‘our bad let’s stop and talk about this’ I’m still not going back.

buckykat,

On reddit I deliberately refrained from up/down voting because I hate feeding capitalist algorithms. I'm trying to unlearn that habit now.

RedCanasta,

At least here there is no algorithm I think?

buckykat,

Certainly there's some kind of algorithm behind sorting by Hot or Top Day or whatever, but it's not trying to sell me stuff or sell my preferences to anybody

Zetaphor,
@Zetaphor@zemmy.cc avatar

The only algorithms here are for sorting posts based on activity and recency, rather than trying to maximize engagement so you see more ads. Also it's all completely open source.

JoeBidet,
@JoeBidet@lemmy.ml avatar

Because it’s run by the people for the people! :)

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.

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 ͡°)

Venutianxspring, (edited )

I think the biggest impact is that the early adopters that have left reddit are the heavy users that respected the flow and community of Reddit. So the good of Reddit has come here, but the general populace and the keyboard warriors haven't figured it out yet, fortunately.

It does feel fresh though, like Reddit did when Digg first ate shit and everyone left for Reddit

god,
@god@sh.itjust.works avatar

Ehh I just like people owned things vs corporate overlords dictating what I can do or see. Keyboard warriors are here tho, have seen many an argument around here about whether to defederated this or ban that or nuke some country.

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