Ask Lemmy

API changes. Now I only use it for some niche communities, all the big ones are overrun by bots anyway.

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

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)

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".

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

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

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.

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

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.

The official app was obnoxious, so I used a better 3rd party one. Then, they borked it. And then when I tried to just use the website it was obnoxious too. And then when I tried to use the old.website, It sucked specifically for my phone.

I don't want to deal with that, so I hopped aboard the bandwagon that was going on at the time, and its all been... pretty okay, actually.

Not banning one of my accounts. "Incidentally", the one that I used for moderation. That screams "we don't want you here unless you're working for us, for free" from a distance.

As a secondary reason: the ban message about "multiple, repeated violations of the content policy". It was one violation dammit. (I told a Nazi to kill himself.)

That was years ago. In the meantime I hopped from alternative to alternative. While still using Reddit mostly for trolling. Eventually the APIcalypse happened and there was enough content in Lemmy to make me forget about Reddit, instead of lurking once a week (like I typically did years ago).

While the "recent troubles" put energy to my leaving, I have always been uncomfortable with Reddit, Twitter, Discord, Stack Overflow, Quora and Fandom, as corporate-owned repositories who work by, in one way or other, profiting off of freely contributed work.

It used to be that if someone wanted to help people with freely-given information, they'd offer it in a forum, on Usenet, or on a website they started and hosted themselves, or if it fit in there, put it on Wikipedia. Now, people add it to a freaking pile that corporations monetize. Don't just hand them value! Put it somewhere that won't beg you to install an app, or beg you to "upgrade" to "Nitro," or force you to watch intrusive ads, or force people to create an account to see it, or track you! Your volunteer labor should not be a profit center!

It was a result of the 3rd party app collapse that triggered the migration of reasonable people out of reddit. I was the mod of r/mapporncirclejerk and saw my mod queue explode with the most hateful shit that went unchecked by other commenters.

Then my friend told me about where everyone went, glad to see all of you!

I'm now mod of [email protected] so stop on by!

I was bored, again

They made things worse and invalidated everyone else's hard work before demanding to be paid for that while they live on the content we produce. Yeah get fucked. It don't work that way.

The API got me interested. Now I use both. Lemmy has no ads, better news, and better apps (currently on Arctic.) Reddit has a better desktop experience (well, new.reddit, I hate old.reddit and new new reddit) and better niche subs. I’d love it if Lemmy grew enough so that the niche experience reddit offers became viable.

It wasn't just the API thing, but also how all the mods handled it. So many Reddit mods are pathetic losers that will throw us all under the bus to hold on to their petty power.

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