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Why does Lemmy feel so fresh compared to Reddit? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 year ago by AB7ORH7D to c/[email protected]

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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...

People are more respectful of each other and interested in discussion and being social.
Less trolls (users are probably older?)
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.
The clean UI feels refreshing and clean, almost like the early internet.

What have you noticed? Do you find it refreshing too?

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] franzfurdinand 5 points 1 year ago

That last bit feels amazing. The big thing that was really grossing me out about Reddit was the three particularly egregious ad types I was getting. Using the official Reddit app, it took me a while to realize how bad the ads were.

I would get ads for "He gets us", which isn't directly incompatible with me being LGBT+, but... it definitely didn't leave me with warm and fuzzy feelings.

I'd get ads for alcohol. A lot. Which is atrocious, especially since I'm almost six years sober and have made repeated mention of that in my posts. It's pretty fucked up to do that imo.

In the same vein, I was getting sketchy ads for casinos and gambling. It's something I avoid because I know I have a problem with forming unhealthy habits and gambling can be just as habit forming as alcohol. Both of those last two were starting to feel... predatory.

[–] neanderthal 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.