Ask Lemmy

I wasn't enjoying myself there. The API fiasco made me aware of lemmy and I switched over.

I was bored, again

Shutting down 3rd-party apps

Got banned because I approve of people killing Nazis before the Nazis try to kill them. Why was I contributing even shitposts to a site run by far-right lunatics? It was always a struggle to get blatantly racist subreddits banned, but if someone suggests killing Nazis is a good idea they are on it.

Got sick of being sold to, when they got rid of third party apps I bailed.

I might be one of the few that was already on their way out. I had been getting sick of Reddit It wasn't the same thing it was when I first joined in ~2011ish. Back then, content was more scrutinized and users were kinder. As Reddit became mainstream, the content slowly changed to reflect that. It started to be more like an anonymous Facebook. I remember it sticking out especially after the Game Stop incident on WallStreetBets.

A few months before the API fiasco, I was banned from a sub because they misunderstood a comment I made as violating their rules. Because I had been banned from another sub recently (I think I had joined a China one then commented in an anarchist one for the lulz), I was suspended from Reddit entirely for a week. I didn't realize that I was doing it, but I used several usernames depending on what content I wanted to focus on. I commented using another username and was permabanned from Reddit entirely for trying to bypass the temp suspension. The specifics might be slightly different since I'm going from memory.

From then on, I would lurk in my favorite subs sporadicall using Reddit is Fun. Once the API fiasco kicked off a few months later, there was a push for Reddit alternatives, which gave me the opportunity to find and join Lemmy. I've been here ever since.

Like a lot of others I left when spez decided to fuck everyone using the API and kneecapped Apollo.

I'd been flirting on and off with Lemmy for a year or so, not using it seriously (different username) but then u/spez deciding to sell user data to LLM's coupled with the general air of permanent aggro in just about every sub led me to finally ditch it. I've had to go back a couple of times and every time I did I regretted it. It's become Twitter level users intertwined with bot armies all flinging shit at each other.

The API changes were the starting point but it was when Spez said something along the lines of "Meh, all these annoyed users will come back"

A year later and I haven't been back and have no plans to.

Killing third party apps. Fuck that. I didn’t even use a third party app, but that just showed me, clear as day, that they’re not concerned with their users, just money. They benefitted from third party apps, then just stuck a big middle finger to their developers and users.

That greedy little pigboy Spez's API shenanigans.

The official app was obnoxious, so I used a better 3rd party one. Then, they borked it. And then when I tried to just use the website it was obnoxious too. And then when I tried to use the old.website, It sucked specifically for my phone.

I don't want to deal with that, so I hopped aboard the bandwagon that was going on at the time, and its all been... pretty okay, actually.

Ultimately, the deciding factor was the API locking out 3rd party apps. I found the Reddit App to be unusable and poorly designed, but the final straw was the unblockable ads. By this I mean, unlike other social media, there is no way to opt out of a particular ad and be served another in its place. For some users this was not a big deal because all ads are equally annoying, but for other users it was actively harmful. Recovering alcoholics were served unskippable beer ads. Gambling addicts were served ads for sports betting websites and casinos. Being a religious minority, I was frequently in groups targeted with aggressive proselytizing. It's dehumanizing.

Without the ability to use the apps that were better designed more efficient and didn't serve offensive ads, the site was useless to me. I ended up deleting all of my posts and comments as a security measure. Years of posts made it likely that my account could make me personally identifiable. Initially I planned to keep some of my posts intact that were offering troubleshooting or expert content but without the use of api tools, the task of doing so was impossible.

The general toxicity of the site, indifference to bigotry, and the CEO/Corporate behavior were all contributions. It made it exhausting and unpleasant. so I was not too sad to leave.

The API got me interested. Now I use both. Lemmy has no ads, better news, and better apps (currently on Arctic.) Reddit has a better desktop experience (well, new.reddit, I hate old.reddit and new new reddit) and better niche subs. I’d love it if Lemmy grew enough so that the niche experience reddit offers became viable.

We all have essentially the same answer.

How did a non-ex-redditor get here?

I never used Reddit directly, only Bacon Reader, when that stopped working, I gave up.

Reddit is Fun no longer worked, that was my initial reason for leaving. Then I started to see that reddit was becoming more of a corporate thing that regulated what we could see and couldn't see. I know it was like that before but now it just seems to be more...sanitized in a way if that makes sense.

Because fuck Spez. Lying, greedy asshat.