Lemmy has blown up within the past week. "Taking down reddit" was always a pipe dream, but now we have a real alternative with committed users. I'd call that a success.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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I also think lemmy now has more momentum. More users and content will follow, even if not in as massive groups. This new usage will help improve lemmy and next time Reddit fucks up, lemmy could be even better situated to handle the refugees and less will return. I joined lemmy when I left Twitter and was exploring the fediverse. But it wasn’t too active til now
I haven't used reddit for like 4 days which probably hasn't happened since I signed up. I'm planning on staying here. The reddit of today isn't like it was in 2011, it's exploded in popularity. If the vast majority people truly cared about poor social media business practices ~~Facebook~~ Meta wouldn't be around.
I never expected the blackout to kill reddit or even for them backout of the API changes (especially after the spez AMA). But I will say I'm surprised at the influx of people to lemmy, I started on lemmy 5 days ago and even since then there's been an explosion of content and discussion which has made it a viable alternative for me.
I was a huge lurker on reddit because it seemed like my voice would never be heard or that it was probably already said. I'm trying to break that on lemmy and I encourage everyone else to as well.
I think we all know that these blackouts aren’t going to be the death of Reddit. The admins always had the power to in-blackout subreddits if they are deemed important enough. The best thing that came of this whole ordeal is the absolutely MASSIVE spike in Lemmy users (see https://the-federation.info/platform/73).
As long as enough people stay here, we can continue to grow based on momentum, and we won’t even need to think about Reddit moving forward. At least, that’s the way I see it.
I agree. I'm watching /r/ModCoord and it seems quite a lot of subs are going dark indefinitely - but we need the biggest subs on board to make a difference.
Advertisers are taking note, though, which is promising - especially if we can get a bit of steam behind the campaign to bring subs down indefinitely.
The whole thing had a huge effect from my perspective - I deleted my 14 year old account.
Hey, twins! I was 14 years 8 months.
Keep in mind that some subs are back online specifically to ask users what their next move should be. A few subs I'm subscribed to are considering rolling blackouts or allowing posts only one day a week. There's still 2x the amount of subs currently private than total subs that originally signed up! Many news sites are reporting that the blackout is continuing today (shout-out to all the reddit journalists fighting back with the tools they have). Its way too soon to declare this whole thing "didn't work".
I think the best thing to do at this point is to use a tool to overwrite all your comments with something like
Edit: Moved to Lemmy
before nuking your account. That's what I plan on doing before the end of the month.
Yep. I did that last night. It feels so weird!
As subs come back online, I might pop in from time to time until Apollo shuts down at the end of the month. But as marshoepial said above, we have real viable alternatives now, and I want to stay on the fediverse and watch it grow. If Apollo shuts down on June 30 I will use redact.dev to edit all comments as others have done. Reddit isn’t worth much to me without Apollo.
Disappointed, but more people now figuring out the fediverse!
I think I'll still hang around here, it's bound to get better. I think as it grows so will the users.
I'm curious about when the 3rd party apps stop working. I think a whole mass of users were really lost as to what was happening and why. I was also surprised at the number of comments I saw of users who never used a 3rd party app. I felt bad for their experience. It's like learning that someone doesn't know what sunshine feels like on their skin, cause they've only seen it through glass block.
It's going to take at least a month to really see the effects. Once the apps go dark on June 30th, the number of mods leaving will rise, and the spam, garbage and low-effort crap they were filtering out will quickly start creeping back. But it's going to be a gradual thing and a slow decline, not some big abrupt meltdown.
Reddit's one of the biggest and busiest websites on the planet, there's a lot of inertia and it takes a while to even notice when something that big starts to list.
I can't believe anyone put up with the official app. There were rare moments when I would open it, but overall old.reddit.com on Firefox with an ad blocker was the way to go, or Baconreader Pro. The experience was a night and day difference. I didn't get a lot of the inside jokes for a while about the ads.
i just broke my own rule and posted to reddit modcoord using a burner account. will react and burn it in 24 hrs.
my message to them was this: unfortunately human mods will be the next to go - they've shown their power to reddit and once this ipo happens they move from becoming a thorn in spez' side to a risk to shareholder value that needs to be "mitigated."
spez wants control. control of the apis. control of the app. control over the platform . he can get there first two but then mods prevent the last. he needs control if the ad revenue is to happen so he can exit with his golden parachute. health of the communities or platforms be damned.
i suspect at some point he'll not only demod all of the human mods in favor of botmod + ftes but may also go the extra step to delete the mod accounts entirely -- he'll justify the killing of their handlers with some bs policy.
this will leave mods demodded; powerless with no voice or identity - consider... how can u/newname prove they're really u/ex-mod without revealing personal info that might doxx themselves?
recommended they establish an alternate means of communication with their community here or on discord.
we should also consider standing up an mod coord here so they have a place they can freely speak and plan without sock puppet spez accounts or bots courting the conversation.
I think the idea of federation (choose a server, subscribe etc.) is too much for the average user. A small bubble of tech enthusiasts and more tech-friendly people will stay and enjoy the niche place. Maybe that's for the best for now. But in the foreseeable future most of the users will stay on the big platforms... Most people are afraid of changes in every aspect of life, so they stick to the known.
Why do so many people return to their abusers?
- Some victims return to abusers because they believe that despite the mistreatment, the rewards outweigh the costs of separation.