Asklemmy

I may be unusual for around here: I was using the first-party app and thought it was fine. When it was announced that Reddit was effectively closing their API to third-party apps, I thought “welp, sucks for those people, but it is their API; if it puts them in trouble, maybe they shouldn’t have put all their business eggs in one business basket”. (Honestly, I still think that.)

What pushed me over the edge was Selig’s post which exposed Huffman’s entitlement and his pushing Selig under the bus, without realizing that the calls were recorded. I have no respect for that kind of behavior. I considered deleting Reddit at that point, but I didn’t, thinking I wanted to first see what they had to say in their damage control.

And then, there was the AMA where he doubled down. So much for damage control. That’s when I deleted the Reddit app. I assumed it would be a tough detox, so my main reason for actually deleting the app, was to avoid opening it without thinking. My stance was “I’ll go back to Reddit when they fire that guy”.

At some point I heard of Lemmy, so I signed up, and then something happened that I didn’t expect: it made the Reddit detox very, very easy. Lemmy posts would have links to Reddit sometimes, and it would refresh my memory of how much negativity there is in that community, all the while I was really enjoying my time in Lemmy and basically all interactions. Eventually it became clear I wouldn’t be interested in going back to Reddit anyway, so when they started sending those nasty threats to mods, I went ahead and destroyed my Reddit account.

Even if Lemmy as a community ended up shrinking again and becoming boring (which I’m really rooting for it not to happen), I’d probably stop using Lemmy of course, but I don’t think I’d go back to Reddit anyway. By showing me what Reddit could have been, my pleasant time here has totally ruined Reddit for me.