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?

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.

Xer0,

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

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.

Shaggy0291,

Because the people are all lovely

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.

May,
@May@kbin.social avatar

There are less reposts bc its newer and bc there is a lot less bots

SirEDCaLot,

This is absolutely true, and this is how the internet was back in the old days before Big tech and megaplatforms. People would set up little servers on their cable modems using spare laptops. It was experimental, it was imperfect, but it was ours. One side effect of this, was that you had to be at least a little bit smart to get yourself connected to it. Even if that just meant knowing that connecting to it was something that you wanted to do. That weeded out a lot of idiots who contribute low quality discussion. Also, because there is no giant company with a financial incentive to get everybody to use it as much as possible, things were built for raw functionality rather than trying to make them easy for people to get addicted to in 30 seconds. That naturally makes them more usable for anybody with an IQ over 90.

Also, no advertisements. No sponsored posts.

neanderthal,

Also, no advertisements.

It didn't take long for ads to come along. Remember the 90s banners where you would punch the monkey to win $20? Or the text links that were ads? Pop ups?

SirEDCaLot,

Okay that's fair- I'm sure some instances will choose to advertise in some way.

TBH I'm more concerned about spam. Reddit has an army of anti-spam stuff, and that's just one site. As Lemmy grows, it will become a spam target, which will be more challenging due to its open nature (IE spammers will spin up their own instances eventually). I suspect that much like e-mail, some kind of RBL list will emerge.

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

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.

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 ͡°)

_haha_oh_wow_,
@_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works avatar

Because it is?

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!

aski3252,

I think right now, there are a lot of passionate old school reddit users on lemmy who are exited about it and eager to participate and who are finding a lot of things they were missing from reddit.

The community is a lot smaller and made up largely of enthusiasts.

CalcProgrammer1,
@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml avatar

Definitely this, Lemmy feels like the early days of Reddit. I wasn’t a super early Reddit user as I came over just before the Digg migration (and mostly used Digg prior to the migration) but 2010 Reddit felt quite different to modern Reddit. Lemmy recaptures that smaller community feel, but I am excited to see it grow.

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.

bionicjoey,

Less repost bots. Seriously, I'm pretty sure 1/3 of posts I would see on Reddit were repost bots.

May,
@May@kbin.social avatar

Thats a big one i think. Iirc people would use an extension (or maybe a 3rd party app?) to block those users that commonly repost things and for a period of time i saw people saying their feed changed a lot on Reddit just from that. Tho Idk if thatd change much lately bc a lot of reposts I saw before coming here were from new account that were bots tryna build karma :/

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