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?

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.

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.

CIWS-30,

Other people have made good points, but one I've noticed is that there's no advertising or profit motive (so far) and there's also no leadership that encourages dark patterns like increasing negative engagement through encouraging stuff like doomscrolling or starting or continuing arguments.

I'm on Kbin, and I like how by default all the notifications are turned off. So people aren't automatically told to respond to every little thing they participate in. If they really care, they have to manually go back on check on things they wrote about or were engaged in. Makes it less likely that people will argue endlessly, lowering the quality of posts and replies, and derailing them with long subthreads of off topic discussions or arguments.

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.

dogmuffins,

I agree. If lemmy continues to grow, inevitably some servers will be shit, but I imagine there will be other non-federated or less-federated instances. beehaw has already started down that path.

Trolls are generally looking for maximum carnage, so I imagine there’s less incentive / reward posting somewhere like lemmy.

god,
@god@sh.itjust.works avatar

As an experienced shitposter, the shittiness of the posting often correlates directly with the inability of moderators to clean it up.

Wander,
@Wander@yiffit.net avatar

You don't have your post deleted for forgetting a minor rule and there's a chance that your post will be seen instead of hidden under countless new posts.

Vlyn,
@Vlyn@lemmy.ml avatar

Even worse when you browse /r/all, find an interesting post about some topic, join the discussion, type out a long reply, hit send…

And 3 seconds later you get an automod message that your comment was removed. Because you aren’t a subscriber to that (default!!!) sub, or you aren’t verified, or you used a word they don’t like.

And even worse: You join a discussion, got some good points back and forth, everything is great. You try to reply to the latest comment in that chain to keep the conversation up and suddenly your comments get blocked. Because it was a /r/blackpeopletwitter post (you didn’t even notice as you found it on /r/all) and at some point they only locked it down for verified black users, kicking you out of the discussion.

I mean sure, have your own space on Reddit (even if it’s basically racism), that’s fine. But then subs like these shouldn’t be default subs on /r/all when they constantly lock down threads.

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.

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.

N1cknamed,
@N1cknamed@kbin.social avatar

This is a group of like-minded, technology-affluent users that most likely have a higher average age than Reddit.

CynAq,
@CynAq@kbin.social avatar

As well as higher average IQ, it feels like.

Kichae, (edited )

IQ probably has little to do with it. It's socialization and learned expectation that are acting as a filter currently.

CynAq,
@CynAq@kbin.social avatar

Yeah, of course. It was a tongue in cheek comment that didn't land well.

Kichae,

Ah. I got woooshed!

clobubba,

Barriers to entry occasionally have positive side effects. The current dynamic in and around the Fediverse reminds me of how dial-up bulletin boards self-selected for computer-literate (and typically intelligent) users. I suppose that implies that we should also expect our own Eternal September, too.

CynAq,
@CynAq@kbin.social avatar

If the adoption rate continues and quality of life improvements such as efficient mobile apps keep getting made, I think it's inevitable. But I also think it can be a good thing, especially if the distributed instance culture with semi-independent communities persist. If the culture shifts so much to instances just being nodes into the larger "verse" so to speak, the general experience could shift a lot with it.

In any case, with all the different user experiences available already with Mastodon, kbin, lemmy, Calckey, Pixelfed and Peertube offering vastly different experiences into the same ecosystem, it'll be a lot more diverse I believe as everyone will find their own comfort zone.

tehgamemail,
@tehgamemail@lemmy.ml avatar

I felt like Reddit was plagued by the mainstream user during the pandemic. I used to go on Reddit to lurk subs like r/Carding to understand how people(criminals?) steal credit card credentials and dump the balances.

By reading them I change the way I manage my own OPSEC. I could read just about anything there. Now it’s all banned or tightly moderated. Can’t say this can’t say that. Hope lemmy won’t be the same.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

If you don't like it, you can always set up your own instance here. That's the beauty of it!

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.

JoeBidet,
@JoeBidet@lemmy.ml avatar

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

unix_joe,
@unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

There aren't any bots here promoting a narrative, or auto-downvoting people. From around 2015 until its final days, Reddit was manipulated by business and political entities to steer groupthink. Turning off reddit unplugs you from the Matrix, so to speak.

On Lemmy specifically: its a higher barrier to entry, there's less karma chasing here. Especially if you aren't on one of the larger Lemmy instances. It feels like a community and not like karma-whoring. In my preferences, I turned off viewing the number of votes a comment has, which is nice.

leosa,

For me the vibe here resembles that of hacker news. So I’m inclined to think the population here is early adopters and technically inclined.

skip0110,
@skip0110@lemm.ee avatar

You kind of notice how annoying all that corporate fluff and UI optimized to serve you advertising is when it’s gone.

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.

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