Ex Redditors of Lemmy what made you come on over? What happened at Reddit that you made the switch?

The API changes. I use Sync, and not being able to use Sync made Reddit more or less unusable for me on my phone. I also fundamentally disagreed with the direction Reddit was going. So, Lemmy it was, and it's great. And now there's Sync for Lemmy, which is even better!

They murdered Apollo.

Shutting down 3rd-party apps

API changes killed the App I used.

API changes. I hate ads.

Reddit is (no longer) Fun.
Like others, the API change was the final straw. I used Reddit is Fun (RIF) for years, even paid for the full version, because both the official Reddit app and the mobile web interface were terrible. I was also using the old web interface with the Reddit Enhancement Suite, and that went on "maintenance mode". Overall, Reddit just reached a point that the enshitification was getting to be too much for me to stomach. So, here I am.

The API-copalypse last year.

API changes / forcing 3rd party apps to shut down.

I'd been dissatisfied with Reddit for a while due to things like hive mind mentality and jokes repeated ad nauseum. I always enjoyed more when people were just posting their honest opinions or analysis of current events from a perspective that I don't have. There wasn't really anywhere else to go as an active "forum based" aggregator, so when the ground swell of people leaving due to the API fiasco came along and enough of a crowd started setting up shop on a different platform I jumped at the opportunity to ditch that place.

Glad to be done with it.

I really don't like Reddit's attitude as a corporation. The sense of entitlement from a user driven content aggregator is insane.

My app of choice stopped working.

They killed the apps.

I felt like Reddit had been in decline for a long time. Then there was the API change and the debacle with the third party apps and I realised it was run by someone with no respect for the users, whose first instinct when something doesn't go according to plan is to lie and blame someone else. I didn't like that much, so here I am.

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

Because fuck Spez. Lying, greedy asshat.

When Reddit killed the use of its API for third party clients

I left with the 3rd party app ban, Reddit's quality had been dropping steadily for a while at that point and now I couldn't even use an app that worked.

The official Reddit app stopped working for me altogether early last year, with comment sections taking upwards of a minute to load.

I still use Reddit for specific gaming communities that I check from time to time, since they don't exist here on Lemmy.

They’ve been dicks with the API.

Also, Reddit is flooded with coomer level maniacs who are desperately looking for any kind of discussion. To the point they misread shit intentionally just to start some shit.

Aaaaaand I got banned from r/gaming for calling someone out when he tried to justify pedophilia. Mods must be professional SSB players.

I'd been fed up with reddit for a while, but the API bullshit was the final straw for me: As soon as discovered the fediverse I was sold.

Connect is a great mobile app btw.

The killing of the API, and the disgusting behavior of Reddit suspending users like me calling out the violence by Trump.

Apparently, Reddit admins LOVE violence and Trump.

As everyone said, the API change was a big deal. But for me, the cover-up was worse than the crime. I was a 13 year user (came over on the Digg boat) with over 100K comment karma. Reddit's reaction, and Spez's "landed gentry" comments, were so insulting I just couldn't support the site.

I thought they may possibly change in response to the boycott. But when Reddit started replacing mods with unqualified scabs, that meant the site content itself was definitely going to go downhill. It also confirmed that it was no longer a site that valued its users (who, as many have said, were providing the very thing that made the site valuable for free, purely in exchange for not being treated poorly).

At that point, why remain? Niche communities are the only reason I ever check back in. And like others, I'm seeing Reddit devolve into karma-whoring discussions that are just a battle of one-line snarky jokes, a huge amount of bot content, and reposts as a rule, no longer exception.

Conversely, there are people on Lemmy who actually want to read, think and actually respond. Pretty cool. I'm good with this trade.

I like the idea of decentralized social media. Having a single for-profit company moderating all content feels sleazy.

The beauty of the fediverse is that there's independent competition. If you don't like how a certain space is being run, you can choose another or create your own. It's ironically very "free-market capitalistic", in contrast to the political leanings of the user-base. Lol

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

The end of third party apps was the end of being able to tolerate the reddit experience.

The killing of Apollo (and all others) really rubbed me the wrong way, and I refuse to support companies moving in the direction of forcing ads in front of people.

I was ready to switch for a long time. When everyone else left, lemmy got large enough to sustain conversation.

The reasoning behind the API changes, the CEO's entitlement, the ever-more-annoying interface changes (I hate the "More Posts You May Like", the algorithm is pathetically shitty).

I refuse to install apps to navigate websites. If your site is decent, it should work in a browser. If not, I'll just go elsewhere.

API changes

I didn’t feel like I was creating enough shareholder value to justify my existence there.

They killed the standalone apps. The desktop version redesign was/is crap. And the official mobile experience is less pleasant than having the clap.

I switched over when I read an interview with the CEO — I think with The Verge — and figured it was over. It was obvious he was juicing numbers to go public and there was no point investing time on a platform that would only get worse for users.

Everyone else was doing it. I just wanted to be popular.

The amount of obvious bot posts and comments just essentially copy pasting the same basic shit all over the place got exhausting.

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.

I exclusively browse on mobile and their app sucks. The API changes were the last straw, but I was slowly on the way out the door anyway. The bigger an online community gets, the more it will resemble your average online community. The average online community is a toxic mess. Reddit is so big, even the niche little weirdo run subreddits weren't the same anymore. It looked like reddit but felt like Facebook.

API changes, I use to use Infinity for Reddit and it was good. Then they killed it effectively.

So I moved to Eternity for Lemmy until support dropped. Now I'm on Voyager.

Good apps design keeps me using a platform and I like the slower pace of Lemmy. I still use reddit for time to time especially for smaller communities. But do my part here.

Reddit API + going public

Permanently Deleted

I came over because spez is a greedy little pig boy

The third party switch. Plus I have found lemmy to be quite refreshing. On Reddit all I did was lurk. But now I actually comment and participate. Because it feels like I'm talking to real people.

Losing RIF. But after more than a decade on the site, most posts felt like something I had read before.

I got permabanned for telling someone to crawl back in their hole and apparently that's a euphemism for telling someone to kill themselves?

Meanwhile the person I was replying to was talking about how she saw female genital mutilation as abhorrent but all her sons were circumcised for "visual reasons" (she thought uncut penises looked gross).

So yeah, I noped tf outta there and have been here ever since.

It's an upgrade in most ways but lemmy seems pretty 50/50 on how they treat poor people and technology.

I like that Lemmy is independent and Im not providing free content for a giant corporation

The API changes were the last straw; but it had been heavily destroyed by astroturfing for years before the API restrictions finally just pushed me over the edge.

Technically, the fediverse would be even easier to astroturf. Luckily we’re early enough that astroturfing is foolish on Lemmy.

I find Lemmy much more ethical. It truly is by the community, for the community.

On reddit, a select few are getting rich by the content YOU create. Seems a bit weird to me. You create content, they get to buy a new house/yacht. No thank you.

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.

We all have essentially the same answer.

How did a non-ex-redditor get here?

the june 2023 api protests

Unlike most, I survived the API garbage because I primarily used the desktop site.

But the subsequent response and then the removal of the "don't sell my personal info" option was clearly spez saying the quiet part out loud. Asshole doesn't deserve to get richer off of my effort.

Two years ago, I noticed the comment section was getting worse.

Someone would post a thoughtful post, and the top comments were jokes. Thats not my problem. But when I clicked on the commenter, I noticed a pattern. All their comments were a single sentence joke for like a year. I'd do it a hundred more times and would continue seeing it for the top comments.

Bots or not, it didn't feel like comments meant anything anymore. Redditors weren't sharing thoughts or talking to each other. It just felt like they wanted upvotes and validation. That sucks for conversation.

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.

RIP Apollo

I loved using Reddit Is Fun, and I couldn't stand the amount of bots on Reddit in recent years

Permanently Deleted

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

The main cause for why I wanted to leave reddit was the "hustle" for getting as many upvotes as possible. It just felt like the content was not genuine, but merely manufactured for clicks, meaning that you wouldn't really get proper or meaningful conversations with other people. What triggered my switch to lemmy was reddit's api changes and the censorship moderators and spez did.

Here, I can have an actually meaningful conversation without the toxicity and childishness of redditors on reddit. One thing I miss though is leaving the huge bank of information that accumulated on that platform from decades of people sharing information.

...catastrophically hostile UI + overrun with bots...

Fuckers killed rif is fun and I was gone, once they took the api away you could see the entire project it was already well enshittified. Had an account of almost 20 years too.

1. They killed 3rd party apps, and I'm not going to use their shit app or the shitty layout on the web version.

2. Their admin staff is full of Nazis.

API stuff and the general response to the community feedback and blackout. I used Apollo and wasn’t interested in switching to the ad-riddled official reddit app. Tried Kbin first and eventually found myself on lemmy. Liking it here.

Content there is artificial. Getting banned for providing uncomfortable historical fact in the "wrong" sub, perma banned.

At some point, makes you wonder who is filtering these discussions.

API changes I learned about them in a really good infographic.

line This, RIF dying, and the general apathy people had to Steve bald face lying to everyone and banking on people just forgetting the whole thing.

Everyone cheered when the jannies got booted for "abusing their power" only to be replaced by someone less capable but more willing to toe the line for the company

It was a progression of things. Closed source, ads, Spez, terrible content feed filled with reposts and the same botted comments, and finally the end of API and 3rd party apps.

Now I'm on a better platform helping to build out my smaller communities.

The API changes, and that reddit now blocks VPN users which means that I can’t even browse the site to read.

I actually stayed after the API (I used Relay and paid), but Reddit just seems... Mean, I guess. People say awful things to each other on there, and the shift in the community has been distressing. It also feels like the dead internet theory in practice. Repost after repost, bots commenting, commenting to themselves/each other. Ads, and not regular ads but "omg, I just happened to go to McDonald's and got this ccrrraaazzzyyy drink." And, God, so many communities about just women? Big tits, small, tits, red head, goth, this celebrity, that instamodel. It's like a menagerie of porn over there. And not even anything good.

I also realized I was blocking way more than I was looking at. I didn't feel good after being on reddit. I either had my feelings hurt, was outraged, or disappointed because I was comparing myself to everyone. I don't think that it's reddit fault for all of that, but I like this better. I know this may sound backhanded, but there's less here. I remember feeling kind of bored when I first switched. Like, where's my endless stream of garbage??? But I find myself looking at my phone less, and I feel like the information I do see makes me want to engage more. I've posted more on this account than I have in my entire time on reddit, and I was on that site for almost 7 years. It's not that everyone agrees with me, but I'm not afraid I'm going to get my head chewed off if I get something wrong. It feels like moving from table to table at a bar I guess. I've never been to a bar, instead of trying to hear a voice through a mosh pit.

Lost Bacon Reader app, Redit's app is a shit show. I use Boost for Lemmy and it's got its problems but it's better than Reddit's hot pile of garbage. I used reddit mostly to read the news and make snarky comments and I can do that here so...bye reddit.

The API thing. After so many user-hostile and manipulative UI changes I was done with the official app. I also loathe the algo feeds and blatant manipulation. That and the complete disregard for the disabled made me commit to not give them more content or traffic.

Also, not great that the CEO is a musk fanboy and wannabe slaver.

Two words: Fuck spez

Banned for expressing my more than esoteric dislike of a certain fat orange child rapist that reddit deeply loves

The demise of third party apps made me look for a Reddit alternative. I had been using Apollo for years, and it was so much better than the official app. I had been using Reddit for more than a decade when they made the API changes.

The official reddit app is trash. The’ve injected more advertisements, and now they’re even injecting ads into comment sections. it’s the very definition of enshittification.

This is all only stuff that’s visible on the surface, too. Under the hood, there’s definitely bots manipulating the conversation and posts that get upvoted and downvoted.

It’s still fine for smaller communities that are more niche, but that doesn’t change that Reddit has a monopoly over online forums and we really need alternatives. The fediverse seems like it’s able to do that, though it still needs to grow and diversify a bit more.

They took away my app. Hard to believe it's been over a year now.

The API change, I still have RIF on my phone as a reminder of why I moved here.

I used to browse Reddit, and I was about to make an account there at one point, until one of my friends warned me that artists with certain art styles are getting banned and harassed due to mods accusing them of using AI, even in the face of proof otherwise.

If there's anything that AI image prompters cannot do that artists can, it's provide WIPs, timelapse drawings and Paint Tool SAI files. Which is why I always have them ready if I ever get accused.

I didn't care too much about API changes at first - I used an open source app on my phone, but mostly browsed desktop. Would have been fine going back to desktop only. As long as they keep the old site design around, I'd be fine to stay.

What killed it for me was the absolutely un-caring, not-budging response from leadership. I don't feel good continuing to feed the site my attention at that point.

I like quirky Foss stuff anyway, so I was already curious about Mastodon and Lemmy. But I'd always figured they'd be ghost towns. Twitter and Reddit deliberately being proudly, blatantly awful was enough to push me out to here, along with enough other folks.

API change protests. I am not giving up in just 2 days.

I used to use the official Reddit app, but you know, the more people that join the better.

I left due to the abusive, lying mods over at /r/steamdeck, I got permanantly banned (reported me for harassing over and over even though I wasn't) simply for criticizing them. Eleven years, gone. But.. I wasn't even upset. Reddit is a dead site full of karma bots and abusive mods. The admins didn't even check me out, they just killed my account.

I wouldn't say I switched because Lemmy isn't perfect and lacks a lot of the smaller communities that Reddit still retains, but:

1. API apocalypse. I didn't like Reddit's upper management at the best of times, but Spez showed how much of a money-grubbing snake he was.

2. Power mods. Many of them are sociopathic basement dwelling assholes who will banhammer you for breaking hidden rule #273, and then cry 'harassment' to the admins when you call them out. To be honest, the only silver lining to come out of the API purge was watching iBleeedOrange and AwkwardTheTurtle finally piss of Spez enough to get the banhammer. Fuck those guys.

3. Bots. Aside from automoderator being used to effectively censor and shadowban 'bad words' on a lot of subs, the fact that 95% of the chat requests I get are from spam accounts and e-girls mindlessly spamming their OnlyFans to every user in existence should say it all.

Multiple reasons. I first started on Slashdot as a news aggregator/discussion forum. Also SomethingAwful, then Digg. I've moved from platform to platform as the enshittification spreads, until I've landed here. I think the fediverse has the best chance to not go down the same holes the others have. The final straw though was the API change and elimination of 3rd party applications.

Got banned for joking that we could find out if old torture methods were real by trying them on child molesters. At the same time there was a thread about some shitty thing HP had done and 100s of the top comments were suggesting the same type of things for their executives. I appealed my ban and asked what the difference was between my comment and theirs and provided a link. All I got was a canned "fuck you". A week later all those comments were still there so I can only assume reddit admins care a whole lot about creating a safe space for child molestors. Not interested in participating on a site like that.

I got permanently banned for suggesting that the fastest, most effective way to deal with someone hanging a Nazi flag on their front porch was through the ancient Nordic practice of hús-brenna. The ban ended up affecting all my electronic devices that I'd ever used to access Reddit, so that even new accounts got permanently banned within a few hours.

This was before the IPO, or banning access to their API.

Death of third party apps

Reddit just banned me, a moderator, for fighting bigotry just because one of my responses to bigotry looks like bigotry itself in a vacuum. The rest of the mod team is appealing for me but this could be the last straw.

I do 5x more mod actions than the second place mod so the community right now is headed to the dump.

I've never used 3rd party apps, but I was planning to participate in the blackout in solidarity of the protest of reddit's API changes. Then greedy pig boy made statements about how it wasn't a big deal and everyone would be back, and I immediately started looking for a replacement. I do miss the super niche subs that Lemmy doesn't have nearly the population to support, but the overall experience is much better here and reminds me of ye olden days of the internet before corporations took over everything. I deleted as much as I could from my 10 year old account, but didn't delete my account itself because all that does is remove any control you have over comments that get missed for deletion.

.

I noticed that reddit stock has went up a lot and almost doubled. That shit company somehow managed to make everyone believe they have a future.

Bots

Commercialization

Too much mainstream marketing honestly

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.

I was kicked off Reddit for criticism of Israel

It just got too busy and corporate for me. The pace of Lemmy is better and more manageable, and I believe its structure is more resistant to commercialization.

Their IPO was my line in the sand.

I left from Reddit after the AMA with u/spez and over the API. I knew at that point he wasn’t relenting on the third-party apps and the loss of access for me personally, but mostly for the deaf and blind community, showed me that the CEO had no intention of putting accessibility over profit. I was an Apollo user and I was looking for an alternative while continuing to browse Reddit - using them as a resource, as I always had - and I was seeing censorship abound. Reddit was blocking mentions of alternative sites and blocking discussion about Spez, which just solidified my decision.

I used those last few months of Apollo to help with the protests (John Oliver in /pics) while exploring other options (I started with Mastadon simply because they had an app). When that was over, I went full fediverse and never looked back (okay, I did participate in the r/Place that they ran soon after to contribute my pixels to “fuck spez” one last time).

Permanently Deleted

Reddit API thing. After they announced the changes I was gone. I still use reddit for porn certain enriching activities but other than that - not really.

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.

The day the API key for my 3rd party app expired. I still append most searches with Reddit though.

Shutting down API changes and the official app being garbage.

Since the blackout and realizing that someone on Spez's team had read and understood The Prince by Machiavelli.

The entire thing from start to finish was planned and executed, there was no fall out, they didn't lose mods, the entire bullshit from last year was a masterfully executed engagement that fulfilled its objectives and netted everyone involved pockets full of money. And yes, we all got played.

Please read The Prince before you start carving me up.

Not sure how many knew about "Compact Mode", but when that quit so did I. Was once as simple as appending ".compact" to the end of a Reddit URL to switch to a nice, simplified interface without ads.

It’s full of trash comments. I spent too much time arguing over obvious facts. High ranked comments often have nothing to do with the content of the story. It’s become too popular.

I tried Lemmy during the API BS and found it was a lot like the internet chat rooms of old, with way less manufactured rage.

They banned me

Reddit is unusable with its native app, so I used a 3rd party one (Joey). Once that was no longer possible, I migrated.

The way the API changes were done showed a disconnect between public best interests as a public commons and corporate interests to monetize. It implied that I was being targeted individually for monetization. I feel that anyone collecting individual data about any human and selling that data is a new form of slavery through an ownership of a part of that person with the intent to manipulate. The manipulation of information through the nondeterministic targeting of search results is a coup of a pillar of democracy and all governments of the world. The free press must apply to all information on the internet. With the monopoly of only 2 relevant web crawlers providing results directly or indirectly, there is no freedom of information in digital form. This would be no different than every news paper stand being owned by two companies a hundred years ago. Targeting the individual directly is what the API move was designed to handle. So, to me, it was an attempt to enslave my digital autonomous person. When faced with such a subtle attempt to subterfuge one's autonomy, I feel like the choice was obvious.

Everything I say here is scraped, but only the server host knows my dwell time, sensors, and various fingerprinting mechanisms. Ideally I would self host, but lack the skill and resources. This place is still hosted in a datacenter, but I'm using the API through a 3rd party, so it is even more obscure. I used reddit through an app with a scraped interface before, when that quit working, I quit using the site. Reddit proved it can only get worse, not better.

I got a lifetime ban on all accounts for no reason. It made me want to use a platform that isn't corporate controlled. Lemmy fit the bill. No power tripping mod can ban you from all of Lemmy. At most you get kicked off their instance which is fine.

I also generally hate corporations and capitalism so using non-corporate alternatives is always nice.

Once I heard that the people who made mastodon had also made a federated version of reddit, I started hanging out here. I lurked for months, then posted a few times through, i think, 5 accounts. Now I am only really on Lemmy.

Is it great? no, a lot of the problem with social media is the people. Is it a better design than places like reddit and twitter? Definitely. So I am here.

That greedy little pigboy Spez's API shenanigans.

Blatant nazi stuff, mod infiltration, creepy mod rules for NSFW subs

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.

They ban you for bs reasons. That's it, even if you don't go against their rules, apparently saying the truth is enough to get banned.

Definitely the API debacle.

Sync stopping development and switching to Lemmy brought me with it.

Content here is robust enough for me to mostly keep me off the other guy. Just been waiting for a few more niche communities to make their way over here to be perfect.

The overwhelming oppression of free speech and expression of ideas through power hungry and immature moderators and anti-human rules made me leave. I have had several 10+ year accounts banned due to "breaking rules" of a Sub... BANNED, with zero explanation that made any sense if you can understand the English language.

The mods use any excuse to tie your comment to some "breakage of rule" and instead of warnings, post removal, or ya know, something CIVIL that would RETAIN USERS. They just outright ban people for anything and the appeal process is a fucking joke.

The death of the ".compact" version of the site was the final nail in the coffin for me. I don't want to install an app, especially not the official reddit app to have a usable mobile experience. Once ".compact" was gone the only option was "old.reddit" which is a horrible mobile experience even though it is a fine desktop experience.

Lemmy mobile web user experience is VERY close to the ".compact" reddit user experience.

Reddit likes to create some big periodical drama with its changes. Some of them already had me uneasy, and the way they gave their back to users with the API changes made end up doing what I had pending.

I still use Reddit, but less after the API changes. I was already using Mastodon and aware of Lemmy when that happened, but the biggest server previously was lemmy.ml, and even that wasn't very active. I put it in the back of my mind to check on again in hopes it would gain relevance. Reddit pissed off a bunch of its users, so it did.

Lemmy.world launched around then, and I'd heard of its admins by way of their well-known Mastodon server so I signed up.

Not completely stopped using Reddit, but making the switch to the Fediverse + forums with a new name. I’ll still be checking in daily incase anyone i talk to wants to message me, tho.

For me, the biggest issue is that Reddit just feels dead. If you look at pretty much any sub, there is a huge discrepancy between the member count, and the activity (posts + comments and upvotes on posts) of said sub. You can have a sub with like 2-3 million members, but the top posts get like 20k upvotes and less than 1000 comments. 5 years ago it could easy be close to 100k upvotes and 30k-40k comments. That to me is an extremely strong sign that the site is dying. Another piece of evidence is looking at old subs (will use r/futurology as an example, since that’s the kinda space i’m most familiar with) such as r/futurology , and seeing how drastically the activity has dropped. That sub is a classic reddit forum and has over 20 Million members, and yet the top posts get like 6k-7k upvotes and 200-300 comments. Other subs have suffered similar drops in activity. Compare it to Lemmy, which has 50k active users as of me writing this, but gets a similar level of engagements in the top communities as reddit does in smallish to medium sized subs.

Another big issue is the API changes. Reddit got way too greedy and ruined a lot of what made the site fun. All they had to do was just not be extremely greedy, and none of this would’ve happened.

EDIT: forgot to add that another issue is the power hungry mods. Reddit is notorious for having power tripping mods that will ban you for literally the slightest reasons, or no reason at all.

API changes and spez being a cunt

Corporate douchebaggery

Funny I used their app but still left due to the API changes, that and there was talk then about them going public. I just assumed it'll probably get worse from there so I jumped ship. I just need to start posting more.

too many ads

Years and years of reddit getting more and more problematic and lower quality:

Reddit is dangerous. The admins are out of control. Humanity needs a viable alternative.

Group effect. I have heard of the Fediverse before. It seemed to be an interesting concept but I did not see how it could fit into my life. Also were to find a website to registered, communities I'm interested in.
It wasn't so long after I join Reddit that the API protest happened. Community I have already join started to discuss moving to Lemmy, instance name were mentioned, guides were written. I found no reason not to finally join a social media that was much closer to my free-culture value.
Now, I feel more in my place here than on Reddit. I'm much more active. I haven't found everything there was on Reddit but I find plenty I could not find there that I like much more: Group culture to build from scratch, interoperability both btw instances and software, less corporate and marketing interference, human scale places of interaction.

Closing of r/ProgrammerHumour

When the API changes happened, I hadn't discovered third-party clients yet, but I knew what an API was, and the consequences of the pricing change.

I can't be left. I can't be right. Mods power tripping and I don't like walking on egg shells when I'm talking.

There were 2 things:

1. Over time it became obvious the site was promoting mass market fluff over the unique content that made reddit what it used to be. In particular having r/all as a default sub and no option to remove it seemed particularly egregious. Seemed like an attempt to impose a monoculture on the user base, and I didn't like that culture which was mostly images of tweets which is a trend I especially hate.
2. The API pricing and going public was the last straw. I looked at reddit as a wikipedia-like place where information was shared freely, for whomever and even whatever wanted to see it. I even bought gold in my younger and more naive years. But if the officers were so keen on making profits for themselves on my shitposting, why am I not getting paid? Injecting greed ruined the whole thing.

Reddit is Fun stopped working.

They permanently banned my original account. Lol

I'm an open source freak heard of Lemmy sounded cool switxhed

Not one particular reason in general, just the site's atmosphere in general was getting tiresome. Everyone trying to be the funniest person in the room to get the most upvotes. There's a place for that, and I still use Reddit from time to time, but for learning about current affairs Lemmy is much preferable.

I used the API to see what mods were censoring. The lack of mod transparency is gross.

I used reddit on a mobile browser. At some point they completely blocked that and made it app-only on mobile, and I started looking for an exit. When the API bullshit happened shortly after I found one and took it

Losing Apollo and what reddit did to the dev Also when Spez publicly said he admired Elon Musk

I prefer to support free, open, and decentralized solutions to things and I want to help the Fediverse grow.

It took years for me to really disconnect.

• They introduced, with much fanfare, a mysterious new way of counting votes, and back-propagated it. Suddenly, all upvotes of past and present posts and comments got boosted by a factor of 8-9 or so. Felt hollow, manufactured, disingenuous.
• The founders admitted that in the early days, they made up lots of sock puppet accounts which talked to each other. That eerie, self-congratulatory sentiment never really left the site.
• Proven to tamper with comments.
• That derailed AMA with Julian Assange. It felt 99.9% inorganic.

And so much more.

My Discord registration was denied several times without explanation, so as soon as I discovered Lemmy, I came over and never looked back.

I loved the Apollo app which Reddit destroy by changing the terms of their agreement with.

But more than that, the day after the apocalypse— I forget what they called it, but basically every smart person from Reddit left and the site became dog shite.

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.

Kept getting banned for no reason. Last straw was when I was getting constsntly harrased and threatened by this massive dipshit who had been following me around for months. So I reported it to admins and I was the one who got banned for "inciting violence".

The new API rules in advance of the IPO rubbed me the wrong way. The multiple monetization schemes were already pretty creepy as it was.

And the Fediverse feels better all around.

1. RIP Apollo
2. I almost didn't join lemmy because the first time you sign up in the fediverse it feels like a big deal. What got me to actually follow through was to impulsively join a silly instance (RIP iusearchlinux.fyi)

When israel started their Genocide the entire frontpage was filled with Zionist bots and any criticism of israel would lead to a ban.

All while IDF propaganda of beheadedbabies was spammed all over the place.