Came from reddit like many others. I had been unhappy with the artificial and corporate-sterile feel of reddit for a while. And second to that, the way subreddits were set up made it rife with powermod agendas and no good alternatives to escape them.
I much prefer the “interconnected islands” of lemmy that reduces the ability of anyone to advertise, astroturf, or have ownership of the whole system. It feels looser and puts more control back in the hands of users, which is refreshing.
I used to use RiF (Reddit is Fun). Then it died. I searched for an alternative to Reddit.
The Free Software
Did you have to pay for Reddit?
when people say free software, they usually mean free as in free speech, rather than free as in free beer, as the saying goes. it’s not about money, it’s about if you have a piece of software, having the freedom to use, modify and share it how you’d like.
“Free Speech” as to what racist say they are using when people call them out for being racist?
Ads, ads, and more ads. Especially once my feed got flooded with that “He Gets Us” bullshit every other post. I finally found out about Apollo only about a month before the APIcalypse happened, and the thought of going back was draining. I participated in r/place as a last hoorah before deleting Reddit, and that’s where I saw the Lemmy ad… Haven’t looked back since
uBlock Origin + Raspberry Pi with Pi-Hole and a strict block list with regex.
I haven’t seen an ad on the internet in years. Even on reddit.
Reddit’s crimes were worse than just it’s ads.
Never had the energy to muster to figure out that whole process… also I’m on apartment-wide wifi
Yeah, Reddit did a lot of shitty things, but the constant religious ads shoved in my face was just the final push that made the entire user experience itself annoying for me
also I’m on apartment-wide wifi
Oof, yeah, that’s understandable. There’s still ways to set that up, but yeah if you’re using WiFi provided by the apartment complex, the setup just got more complicated.
It’s super annoying too, cause I had a pretty nice router that’s just had to be shelved since I moved…
Granted the internet speed itself is better than my last place, but I hate not being in my own network
You could potentially find the best spot in the apartment for reception and set up a repeater router for your “private” use if it’s not against your lease agreement. Then you’d be able to directly connect to e.g. hardwired things, roku TV or local server if you have any.
Would that impact my internet speed at all?
Also, how would I go about doing that
There are ways to do it that do not cut the rate in half, e.g. dedicating one band to the internet connection and one band to your client connections, using two routers (one as client, one as AP).
Most of the front-page posts on reddit were sponsored content, so you still saw plenty unless you have a good way of blocking those out. On Lemmy I have a blocklist a mile long so I’m not constantly inundated with crap I really don’t care about.
Reddit forcing me to use their shitty app
Which app do you use for Lemmy?
I’m personally using Voyager and so happy with it so far
I like Voyager, I just wished that I could see my avatar or other people’s avatar
Ex-Apollo user. I’ve witnessed how centralized systems are inherently fragile. One asshole in the c-suite (e.g. spez) can fuck the whole thing up.
That is Capitalism. CEOs are emperors.
Because spez killed Apollo.
Who is Spez?
The reason for the Reddit protests could have been justified, but the CEO’s response couldn’t.
He messed up, doubled down, and then continued to mess up. I don’t know why the rest of the team let him keep talking
That is capitalism man 🤷🏽♂️. The CEO is emperor.
Truth. Lemmy by design resists the influence of capital by being federated.
What if Reddit and the government paid billions to the creators to fork over the servers and to make the source code and apps proprietary?
The API pricing change and the closing of r/ProgrammerHumor.
It is still active
The original plan was to close indefinitely. It became active again after Reddit’s threats to change the moderators of big protesting subreddits.
They threatened with changing moderators?! Source please!
Permanent Reddit ban
Why?
I was brutally honest on a political thread and got a suspension. Made another account and got the lifetime ban for subverting a suspension
You are right wing, aren’t you?
Any opinion left of the democratic party will get you banned as well, don’t be presumptuous
If you would have met as many right wing people as I have who use covert language like that , you would also jumped to the same conclusion I did.
Lol. No. I was calling out Trumpers on their racism and hate in non politically correct terms
Oh, my bad.
Being Perma-Banned from Reddit for having a different opinion…
Are you an alt-right individual?
Reddit has been in decline for over 10 years. It has been slowly getting worse and worse. I have been seeking a replacement for a long time.
About three and a half years ago I heard about Lemmy and made an account to check it out. Promptly forgot about it for a few years until reddit pissed me off again.
Wasn’t Reddit openly okay with racism, homophobia and sexism until like 3 years ago?
Pretty sure they’re still openly okay with them. Not the reason I was looking to leave, though. Unlike a lot of people, I wasn’t scared of the Lemmy developers politics.
Racism, sexism and homophobia is not “politics”, but okay 😂
What do you mean by “being going downhill for 10 years” then?
I think you’re misreading me. Racism, sexism, and homophobia weren’t the “politics” I was referring to, because you’re right, those aren’t politics, those are people being trash. I mean the Lemmy developers being socialists/communists didn’t deter me from making an account here, because I’m not some capitalism worshipping pigboy. Their hard-left politics (the kind that led them to banning transphobic EMPRESS) are not scary to me, because I’m not a racist, sexist, homophobic douchebag.
As for Reddit and its decline. Reddit has been managed by State actors for a long time. At least since 2013ish.
Example:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.5644
This is far from the only research paper around controlling discussions online produced by Eglin Air Force Base. They were the “most reddit addicted city” because they’re trying to massage the message into what they want it to be. They flood the site with persona management software and bots to influence the perception of what “people’s opinions are.”
If you’re in any way a leftist, this alone should have been enough reason to pack up and bail on it, because they are openly going out of their way to try minimize and hide voices like yours.
EDIT: Here’s another paper on the subject from EAFB, this is the one I 'member from long ago: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1402.5644.pdf
Are you a communist?
Sort of, I’d say I’m way more of a socialist than communist, but I also think that both capitalism and communism suffer from being very old ideas that actually don’t address issues of the modern world as much as they could. I think about the LGBT community, and remember that communism didn’t just forget they existed, they ran on the same macho bullshit that vilified them for existing as capitalism. Castro admitting he made a mistake in regards to LGBT people near his death bed is far too little, far too late for the lives they destroyed.
There are valid critiques of both communism and capitalism, but we’ve basically got worldwide capitalism, so the critiques of capitalism simply matter more since it represents the status quo. I’ll worry about critiquing more of socialism/communism when communists actually have real power worldwide beyond China, which is having it’s own struggles right now as well. (Also, most of the critiques of China I have seen fall under propaganda messages from the US/Europe, and fewer of them have real meat of critiquing the actual functions of Chinese politics and how they work.)
Also, when it comes to theory, I fell in line a little more with people who weren’t strictly communist, like the Situationists. Guy Debord is my pfp for a reason, and that’s because he was fucking brilliant, in my opinion. I have a dog-eared copy of Society of the Spectacle that has more notes in it than any other book I’ve ever read.
Anyway, yeah. I’d say socialism is as good of a “fit” for me as I can find in existing political ideologies, and even that is more a close fit than a perfect fit. I’m definitely a fan of Critical Theory and the idea that we should always critique the status quo, whatever the status quo may be, because there is no such thing as a perfect world, we can always pursue improvement. If we had worldwide communism, I’d promote critiquing that as well.
What do you mean by socialism? Do you mean the abolishment of private property? Or just higher taxes for the rich?
