2y ago

I like these federated services being kinda "rough around the edges"

In part because it reminds me a bit of the old internet, with stuff being spread around everywhere.

Being "harder"* to understand than reddit, twitter or other big companies' services is also a good thing, because people should remember that they have a brain and they should use it.

"harder" because not everyone understands the fediverse right away, since usability is extremely similar

PS: ^{superscript doesn't work with phrases? at least not on preview}

62 comments

As a soon to be 30 yr old this reminds me of the internet I grew up loving lol, feels just the right amount of old school to me
- When I see the notifications popup in the top right corner, it surprisingly reminds me of old FB. Back when instead of an app buzzing in my pocket 24/7 with notifications that are actually just ads or BS, I intentionally choose to log on, see the notification, and think "Oh, someone interacted with me, let's go see what they said."
  
  Oh man, I never thought about that, but you're 100% right. I've had this nagging feeling of nostalgia while using Lemmy for the longest time, and that's exactly what it is.
  
  Yes! At first I wasn't too keen about that, but it's actually more freeing this way. I get to choose when to notice a notification, not the other way around
- Same. I’m loving it. Feels new and nostalgic at the same time.
I like that the rough edges keep the boomers away. That's the point where I know to move on from a social media site.
- I used the old site for more than a decade, and I remember when the highest upvoted posts on the frontpage had only 2K upvotes. Lemmy is at that point now and its future is full of potential.
  
  When I first joined the old site, the top post all time was the one about the guy trying different things with rice (either that or the guy posing with asscracks at an MTG grand prix)
  Reddit 0/10
  Lemmy with rice 10/10
I'm loving the community feel of it, everyone seems to be here because they want to be here rather than just cus it's where everyone else is
- Glad to have you around here!
- I'm here because I want to be on Reddit, but the Reddit I want to be on doesn't exist anymore.
Late 90's, early 2000's internet was fun. It was the wild west.
- I still miss altavista, ska the fun with IRC. Good times.
- If you've used Gopher nothing else will every scare you again.
It's definitely forced me to learn a lot within the past few days. I guess I should thank reddit, because if they hadn't forced the 3rd party apps out of business I wouldn't have ever heard of Lemmy or kbin.
- What is kbin and how does it relate to Lemmy?
  I am guessing kbin is an app for Lemmy like wefwef?
  
  It's actually another Reddit clone similar to Lemmy, but much newer. You can use kbin to see posts from kbin, Lemmy, or Mastodon. There's a bit of a guide to it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/145npay/the_redditors_guide_to_how_kbin_works_your/
  After using Lemmy and kbin a little bit over the past few days, Lemmy seems to be a bit more stable at this point so I'm sticking with it for now. But with more development time, kbin might ultimately be where I head to.
- If reddit hadn’t banned me on the most ridiculous of charges, I wouldn’t have learned of this place.
  Over the course of a decade reddit became less and less satisfying, yet I still grieved when I got banned. Over twelve years I accumulated a lot of cool stuff I’d written and I had the evidence of it touching thousands of people. That hurt to lose.
  But then I found Lemmy, and it’s like being back in early reddit.
Oh ya buddy? Well change is scary for me and I've been cowering in a corner. This jerboa app seems yo sort of be working tbo.
- For me lemmy is pretty much impossible to browse without jerboa, the oficial site has a very clunky UI and jerboa solves that problem. Thankfully third-party applications aren't going extinct here
I've come to like it more than Reddit at this point. The community feel here you can't buy and can only make it with actual factual care.
The only complaint I have is a minor one, and that's speed and sometimes things don't load. Though I know that's a symptom of growing pains. That will likely be a non-issue in the future as the tech grows with the popularity of the community
- Hey, the speed issue is solely because the instance you're on, Lemmy.world, is way overcrowded. You can resolve this issue by joining a smaller instance or even hosting your own. The best part of Lemmy is you aren't tied to any one server. You can create an account on a different instance/site and never miss a Lemmy post. I'm on my own private instance and have zero issues with loading speed
  
  That sounds very doable. I'll have to look for a tutorial and work on that next chance that I get.
  
  How do I transfer my subscriptions to another server, though? Do you really just have to re-sub to everything all over again?
  Because I have so many subs now…
- Reminds me of Reddit in 2008 when I joined. Legitimate communities forming and finding their way. Wasn't super intuitive how to use or what to do, but something special.
  Reddit has since just transformed into something almost unrecognizable, but its tough to beat the size and reach it's built.
  On thing Lemmy is going to have to worry about is bots. I'm hoping the decentralization is a good solution to both monetization and bots. We shall see.
- Unpopular opinion: it should stay a little bit slow. Every other commercialized platform trains us for immediate gratification.
  
  Agreed. "Losing" Reddit was and is still painful, but I'm more and more convinced that it was necessary. Both in general and for me as a person. I'm going to try to get back into reading and other oldschool, 'slower' stuff. Modern internet has been poisoning our brains for like half a decade at the very least.
Also forces me to learn more about the Fediverse, third party apps, hosting my own Lemmy instance, etc which I always appreciate
I Just have to say that I am seeing much more success with my posts and comments than ever on Reddit
reddit also started out rough around the edges too!
I like when things take more time to build but it's far more of a collaborative effort. It makes me much more invested and devoted to the platform's success!
This is what genuine grass root communities look like. Compare that to crypto and NFTs which had insane amount of VC funding to pretend to be grass roots.
- Crypto and NFTs are money-laundering scams with a lot of technobabble thrown in to hide the truth from normies. I knew it was a scam when one of my friends, who is a smart guy but not a tech guy, bought into BTC because he thought it was clearly the future. I think he made money on his first BTC, and I’m pretty sure he lost on his second and third BTC, and I feel terrible for him because it was with some of his retirement. He’s going to have to work a trade job for years longer than if he’d just put that same money in an index fund, because he got sucked in by the allure of crypto.
  I’m not huge on governmental regulation of people’s decisions with their money, but I have a personal rule. If you can’t explain it in a sentence to the average 10 year old or they understand it and it sounds like it should be illegal to said ten year old, it’s not a good idea. It’s easy to explain how a basic investment in a company that makes physical goods can be profitable. Try to explain NFTs to a fifth grader without using words like “profit from nothing” and see what they think.
  If the stock market is already artificially high for a few reasons, crypto and NFTs were/are even a step higher in artificial pricing and being a tool for rich people to get richer and hide their money from the few governments powerful enough to dare tax them.
  
  I think the original Bitcoin proposition had some merit in introducing a new concept and a new type of trustless economy. However probelms in scaling the PoW mechanism and transaction fees make it infeasible for daily use.
  99.9% of the other stuff? Never understood why people see value in NFTs. Especially given that they mostly link to image files on someones web server that would point to a 404 page if taken offline.
- Fuck those crypto shills. I've fallen for their bait back in '16 and 17. I learned the hard way that it's grifts on top of grifts all the way down
I want Lemmy to grow but it's a lot of fun right now because the people that took the time to figure this out all genuinely want to be here and have a sense of community.
Imagine if back in the day all the PHPBB forums were federated
- Reddit would never come to exist in that case, I think. MySpace and Facebook would probably've had a harder time growing. The sheer amount of php forums over the net was mind blowing.
Tbh I was spoiled for ten years and I have to get over that. It's definitely an adjustment coming to Lemmy, but I'm having fun.
I remember being surprised when anybody in the media knew what reddit was. This was only 5 years or so ago. I felt happy at that time, but didn't realize that was the jump the shark moment for reddit.
I totally agree. Gives me something new to learn which I always appreciate.
Agreed 100%. There was definitely a barrier to entry in the internet’s early days which is why it was so nice. People that were there had to learn because they WANTED to be there and make it something great.
Eh, I have mixed feelings about how the Fediverse welcomes people by not really explaining how the whole thing works, but people have found their way around in no time at all.
It's definitely a growing platform, but there are rough edges in the usability of it aside on desktop and mobile, and in many third-party apps like Jerboa.
- I'm sad to hear you did not feel like a good explanation of the fediverse was given. Is there something you'd still want to know? I'm no expert but I've been here for a while, so I might be able to help or at least guide you!
  Feel free to ask! And if you don't feel like commenting on here, feel free to DM me with questions too.
Also, the usernames are amazing. Since there are so many available people choose the most random stuff
Agreed. It's nice being here.
Agreed, I’m getting nostalgic feelings for slashdot, digg, and old Reddit.

62 comments