Why did you decide to join Lemmy?

Reddit killed the app I used.

Fuck Spez

Reddit was a death of 1000 cuts.

The strictness of communities. Shadowbans. Intercommunity drama. Overly critical usrers and doomers. Removing the ability to see upvotes/downvotes. Old reddit slowly going away. Api changes.

One day i just found i wasnt having fun on reddit anymore. It was just doomer content rolled into just another social media. I spent 12 years on that platform and l learned a lot. But now its mostly its just clickbait and drama to keep you on.

So i went on lemmy, contributed to the code for a bit. Found i liked piefed because of the better fediverse interop. Stayed here and contributed a tiny bit of code.

Was banned permanently from Reddit for correctly identifying a certain South African billionaire's political leanings.

I left reddit when they shut down the 3rd party readers. I don't like ads, and I wasn't willing to compromise and use their shitty app, so I came here and haven't looked back since!

Reddit killed third party apps with absurd API fees.

I'm a hipster and also anti-capitalist. Tired of dogshit corpo social media enshittification

wow, nobody mentioned the open source thing yet. I'm here because I really like the open source thing and the idea of federated servers run by hobbyists.

Left reddit as part of usa boycot. No regrets.

I left Reddit for Lemmy for the same reason I left Digg for Reddit: Enshittification, both technical and administrative.

I'd been using Reddit for quite some time. I wasn't willing to use it if they weren't going to allow third party clients.

I got sniped by a bot on Reddit, just two weeks shy of 15 years.

Didn't even ask for the account to be reinstated but got a denial reply nonetheless that claimed it was decided by a "human" (..who obviously could not understand, "..So long and thanks for all the fish.." was a goodbye, and not a "please reconsider.." "Human" responder my foot..).

They also won't let me delete the account.

Obviously its being run with AI now and the bots are doing the moderation and the refusal to delete accounts means they're also ginning the numbers for the investors.

It really went off the rails when the IPO dropped.

Also, they're deprecating the old reddit style and for people like myself with eyesight issues, the new layout is a visual mess.

I found old.lemmy.zip and fell into it and fell in love.

Haven't missed a beat and don't even thnk of Reddit anymore.

The API shenanigans

https://fortune.com/2024/03/19/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-defends-193-million-compensation-following-backlash-unpaid-moderators/

Reddit is a Wall Street corporation that sells users to corporate advertisers

Lemmy is free and open source.

Every other post being "Promoted" bullshit, the slow-ass web UI, my former favorite app no longer working, and the bloated and track-y first party app. I was never a fan of "old reddit UI" , so that wasn't a crutch like it was for others.

The API thing. I was using RIF for a very long time at that point and had no intention of using the official Reddit app.

Democratic freedom and democracy in practice.

the 3party killstreak. My app got some workarounds later but decided against reddit

Because fuck corporate social networks.

Least fucked option.

Reddit: fucked. Twitter: fucked.. Meta: fucked since forever. Bluesky: signs of future fuckededness. Mastodon: not what I was after.

Lemmy: hey, these people seem to be my kind of insane.

Reddit gradually began to suck. Enshittification started to take its toll, but I was protected because I used Old Reddit with a lot of blockers, and I never used the app. Then the API crisis happened, and I thought "Why am I supporting a corporate big-tech platform?" So I left, because a bunch of other people were doing the same.

TLDR: everyone else did everyone who counts did.

Reddit has just been steadily declining in quality the past few years.

The bullshit with the api and 3rd party apps was the start of it for me. I use to love alien blue. Then came the censorship… I’ve gotten two warnings so far within maybe a year of each other about upvoting, not making a comment or a post that would be offensive, inappropriate, or alarming but a fucking up vote. Apparently it violates a Reddit rule. Best part… they won’t even fucking tell me what I upvoted that was so egregious.

That was the final straw for me.

The apicalypse.

I'd been looking for Reddit alternatives for years, but most of them were full of sparse content I wasn't interested in and users who seemed like assholes. Lemmy meets a higher standard, and my interest in gradually moving away from Reddit and supporting others abandoning it has also gotten higher. The decentralized design is also a big plus, gives free network effects to potential new software efforts because they can freely plug into it.

Well, I guess to be completely honest with you guys

I got banned from reddit after 13+ years and over half a million comment karma. Same username if you want to go take a trip.

There was a post in the game collecting sub and the guy, a European, had a MAGA hat in the background. People were going back and forth, as they do. One guy then says that a European having a MAGA hat as a novelty souvenir is fine. To which I responded, Nazis only belong 6 feet under. I was slightly worried that a simpleton may interpret it as a threat, but I figured there's no way someone with common sense and critical thinking skills would think that.

Well, of course this one hit a little close to home to the admins, big surprise, and I was permanently banned. 13 years and 500,000 points later, I get banned for saying nazis deserve to be dead.

Honestly, I'm not surprised given how the site was going. Posts being removed, comments being deleted. That used to happen back in the day but never to the degree that it is happening now.

My only chuckle on the way out is knowing I modified the reddit API to use third party apps long after they were shut down.

I do wish this place was a bit more active, but it's still pretty good. It's not like I don't have alts on reddit anyway. My only regret was not selling my account for a ton of money before it got banned. Oh well lol

Fuck Reddit.

Reddit killed my favorite app Joey so I, nuked my Reddit account by talking shit about a mod, came here, and never looked back.

Reddit was going downhill. Conversations are near impossible. You have to agree with the hive mind or you get down voted into oblivion. The monetization of the platform. The gamification of the platform. The AI bot problem.

There are too many to count. Lemmy is still small, and while it has its own problems, is not completely fucked yet.

Reddit basically banned 3rd party apps to fake a growth and show shareholders they can be profitable... so yeah, they can get fucked.

Reddit got rid of my All button because they want to push people into echo chambers and controlled feeds. I only made an account to bitch about the Knicks, let me lurk.

When you browse by all, you see the patterns of subreddits turning political, same recycled posts being passed around, generalizations, things taken out of context, agendas.

By the way this place isn't as different as you'd like to think, just a lot more 'fuck the USA' posts so idk, I'm still searching

It's the same layout/format as Reddit, but with far less bullshit or total fuckheads. When it was announced that Reddit was shutting down 3rd party API access, Lemmy came to my attention and I've been here since (though a couple previous accounts were on instances that have since shut down).

I joined shortly after Reddit announced the death of their API.

reddit's api drove people here to the point where conversation could happen. Was willing to go anywhere that didn't have mods that protect and coddle nazis.

Freedom of free software.

I'm a refugee from Reddit & Twitter. I still lurk there without posting anything.

I didn't want to install the official Reddit app on my phone.

I got banned from Reddit for quoting Worf from Star Trek.

I got banned from Reddit for calling Daniel Smith a traitorous jabroni

the API exodus finally drove enough traffic here to keep it lively

I came here because I wanted to run some communities, but ultimately it was impossible on Reddit. All the names are taken, all the aging mod teams set in stone. You essentially have no meaningful opportunity to build anything new on there. In contrast, and especially with federation, the Fediverse is a completely different system. A fresh start - still after 2 years. And it has way better internal advertisement of communities than Reddit does.

And to be clear, on Reddit you can easily just shout into the wilderness at no-one. Big audience means you can get drowned out.

Because Reddit died with Aaron Swartz

Reddit killed my favourite apps with their obnoxious API access charges.

Pure, unadulterated spite.

got tired of my comments being removed for saying stuff like dead Nazis please me

although apparently some mods around here don't like that either

It's a site that allows me to follow topics/subs/communities instead of people. I hate following people.

Less corporate, less centralized, open source tech. I don't quite fit in here, but I guess I'm weird enough to stick around anyway 🙂

Didn't appreciate Reddit's hostility toward their userbase over the API concerns.

I used a third party mobile app once in a while, but was mostly viewing from desktop anyway. I've not been banned (AFAIK), and whenever I peek back at it things still seem fine. But the whole controversy and their poor handling was as good an excuse as any to start using a more open, decentralized platform.

Was also already curious about Lemmy anyway, had heard of it before all the kerfuffle. Figured it would be dead, and the 'choose a community' thing was enough of an obstacle to keep me from getting into AP platforms for a while. When the mainstream closed platforms started heavy degradification though, both problems got solved(ish).

I couldn't use boost in reddit anymore and the native app is complete and utter hogwash.

2023 reddit exodus. I use both though. I have looked for a viable reddit alternative for a long time, this one works and has people posting stuff. Fediverse is nice too.

I used Apollo for Reddit on my phone. The dev was very active in the subreddit, and using Apollo truly felt like being a member of a club. When they shut down the API access, Christian, the dev, tried to negotiate with them to keep the app alive. Not only was Reddit not negotiating in good faith, but they actively lied about the interactions. Unfortunately for them, Christian produced the receipts that made them look like idiots. (But they apparently couldn't care less.) I went looking for alternatives and found Lemmy. Voyager is "heavily inspired" by Apollo (which means it's almost a carbon copy), and scratches the itch. Now, with PieFed, I'm even more happy here.

For me, it was the simple recognition that concentrating power and control over online communication behind a small handful of corporations and their billionaire overlords is extremely unhealthy for society.

i could no longer stomach reddit and am uncomfortable using mainstream internet.

Because PieFed didn't exist yet

Reddit killed rif(so Reddit stopped being fun) So I installed connect instead of the actual Reddit app. Still use Reddit in browser for a few more niche subs, but that's almost always been lurking for me anyways

Too much AI slop on Reddit. Most of adds on Reddit are AI SCAMs about cryptocurrencies.

Because once the news broke of the Ellisons buying US TikTok (and their transparent reasons for doing so), it became clear to me that for the free and open internet, “winter is coming”.

Oct 7th and the global outpouring of support for Palestinians (and trashing of the reputation of Israel) was a huge wake-up call to the ruling classes. I think until then, they were largely content with controlling the narratives via traditional media spaces. The aftermath of Oct 7 taught them that social media and the internet cannot be ignored and in fact must controlled. It’s not like anyone under 65 is watching Fox News or CNN, and not many reading the NYT. All of the actions we have seen in the last 2 years - making sure Facebook / Google / Twitter / Reddit and now TikTok have tightly controlled messaging, requiring IDs and verification, etc - are pointing towards a future where free expression online is severely limited. I don’t want to be a part of that.

And I do believe that it’s important to get out there and discuss things that are important to me with others (Palestinian and indigenous liberation, communism, online privacy). I’m not happy to just retreat into my own bubble. That is ultimately the reason I joined (I was of course already included to using the fediverse as I’ve long appreciated FOSS and decentralized systems and non-commercialized things in general).

I joined around the time Reddit changed their API pricing and killed Apollo (RIP). I hate how Reddit pushes content in their app or new website. I got tired of browsing old.reddit on my phone. I still do occasionally (I.e everyday) but I also stayed here because the memes are actually funny.

Got pissed at corporate social media for the way they've accelerated the damage being done to our already degraded public discourse but I still needed somewhere to doomscroll and find... gifs... of... nothing in particular...

Banned from reddit obviously.

Ad allergy - when the API went I tried default and fled screaming into Lemmy pursued by 100 "hot singles" ads.

The enshitification of Reddit, especially the auto-mods and the prevalence of site-wide, permanent bans for minor infractions.

Plus, when accessed through your fave app, it feels like older Reddit, but I obviously way quieter and, in my experience, nicer people.

Reddit API locked, RIF fell into a grave, then Lemmy and the voyager app rose up to take it's place for me :)

because cough

FFFFUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK RREEDDDDDDIIITTT

/clears throat

I was banned

Everyone else was doing it, I just wanted to be popular. 

I'd already been on the microblogging side of Fedi for about a year prior, but the first time I saw Lemmy I thought it wasn't really there yet, no critical mass. Then the API debacle happened and I decided to try out Kbin, later Mbin. Never looked back, even if this place can't actually replace the kinds of niche communities I used Reddit for, I still refuse to go back to Reddit on principle.

From a previous comment of mine on the same topic: 

I was browsing around on r/kde sometimes, and there was a banner-thing Saying that KDE Supported open platforms like Lemmy. I took a look at Lemmy's Wikipedia, and browsed around a few days later. I liked the stuff on c/programmerhumour, So I joined. Also my Reddit account got banned (i think, might be deactivated, idk) due to inactivity (I wasn't on for 2-3 years), and I didn't care to do anything about it. Also, as a bit of context for the above, it did take a while from hearing about Lemmy and browsing and joining.

I have recently switched to PieFed because it has a faster development cycle and more features (same username). 

Reddit API apocalypse and their plan to IPO to sell everyone's posts for data.

I remember I was talking to a dev who worked for Facebook and he mentioned that big tech shadowbans users and suppress posts which can affect them or the ruling government and nobody will notice it and eventually all thr outrage dies down.

Gave me an example of how people have accepted phones without headphone jack, microsd etc. And are now okay with it.when apple and google wants something to sell, they shadownban and suppress posts that create outrage.

Another example was Facebook pays billions to ISP in 3rd world countries to lobby their government and then pays phone manufactures to preinstall Facebook so it never gets banned even after toppling government, fake news, killings , terrorism etc.

So basically using decentralised apps and avoiding apps controlled by single entity especially built in US us the only way you don't get brainwashed.

For the michmichs

I had been looking for a reddit alternative for some time, but nothing I found was both active enough and not a receptacle for all the shitheads who were too reactionary for reddit. When the API fiasco happened, it seemed like there was an opportunity for federated link aggregators to be that. So far, it seems like that has been true. I was also attracted to the open source nature of the thing.

Reddit banned my account site wide.

Idky.

The combination of shadow banning on Reddit and the Reddit right wing platform wide rule enforcement shift that happened about a year and a bit ago.

They already made a bunch of decisions earlier that I also really disagreed with, but at some point it was just too much. I still miss the super niche crafting communities. There aren’t enough crafters on Lemmy to go full niche like that, even if I made them myself.

I don't love Reddit as a whole, plus they broke the apps I was using. I was already thinking about the Fediverse (Mastodon specifically), and then I found out about kbin. Checked it out, stuck with it, moved to Mbin when kbin.social died.

API apocalypse, stuck around and rediscovered my enjoyment for linux and got into selfhosting. Also become even more anti-corporate lol. I get less content, but I probably was on reddit too much before anyway lol so it's self moderating in a way.

I grew up on forums and 4chan

The great Reddit APIcallypse exodus - but not for the reason you'd think. I actually used official app, didn't care much for the 3rd party stuff. Though I understood why people might care about it.

No, what did it for me was how Reddit handled it. The arogance. The hostile takeover of the subreddits that went down. I didn't like that one bit. Plus, every day Reddit felt less like how it used to and more like your typical social media. But what can you do, eh? I liked the format. But there is nohing other like it... right?

Well I said something like that in some thread where the discussion went off-topic to discuss the situation (pretty sure it was a Harry Potter sub). "If only there was an alternative!" Well there was, and it's called Lemmy, one user said. Intrigued, I checked it out - and was utterly confused. Instances? Federation? Makes no sense. So I figured I would ask. The guy (or gal) was super nice - answered all my questions, gave me pointers... and here I'm.

It was like you don't know something was broken but suddenly it's fixed and you don't know how you could've functioned like that before. It certainly helped that at the time I came here for the first time, the activity was booming so it was easier to switch. Died out a little after a while, but I feel like it is in a very good place now, activity wise. There aren't ultra specific communities for everything, but usually there is a general one at least. And it feels more like the Reddit I first joined than what it ended up being.

Infinitely grateful to the guy (or gal) tbh. Inevitably, being here taught me there are alternatives to more than Reddit. That open source apps are great, actually. That there is something like degoogling. That Linux might not be as scary and foreign, or for programmers only.

I don't know who you are, kind lemming - but hope somehow you read this.

Irreversible PermaBan with no explanation. And I always disliked the prevailing culture there.

Got shadow banned from Reddit for Luigi support last December

I really like Reddit as a resource for niche topics. Would like to participate but it doesn’t feel sustainable to do so on a privately owned platform.

Lemmy has it own problems regarding this like instances shutting off. Maybe it’s not really made for this. Regardless i have stayed because of the conversation and human interactions.

Api thing was the final straw. But also privately owned for private mega media is bad, so fuck them.

I answered this 5 "Why did you decide to join Lemmy?" questions ago.

Banned for reddit

I answered the question, “If you had to commit a misdemeanor in 60s, what would you do?” and then used another account.

First one got overturned by the mod, but then the account got banned for ban evasion. When I didn’t break the rule in the first place. /shrug

Reddits enshitification.

First time I was banned from Reddit. Now I’m permanently banned so y’all stuck with me.

I was never active on reddit, but did lurk sometimes. I love that Lemmy is free software and part of an open network, and I initially just joined because I wanted to support the theoretical idea of it.

But, the communities being quite small and the relatively friendly/good-faith vibe made me engage more actively and start posting more.

Content is better, discussions are better, even though volume of posts and comments is much lower than on Reddit. Reminds me of early Reddit days sometimes actually.

With Reddit’s enshittification, censorship, massive influx of misinfo & propaganda, etc, I am no longer comfortable posting there (but I do still lurk there). I don’t think this place is immune to all of that, but for now it’s tolerable.

Already hated reddit, then got banned for "harassing" a climate change denier by @ing him on climate change related posts. Didn't bug him in his dms or call names, just tagged him. That was a good enough sign for me that it was time to fully jump ship.

Like almost everybody else - Reddit is just too awful to make excuses for even if you want to.

It’s the same content posted over and over and over with people acting like it’s new each time (probably bots). It’s mindless or disingenuous content posted to evoke emotional responses. It’s everything you’ve ever commented or posted being used to train some corporate slop machine. It’s just… awful. I like the format (of old Reddit), so here I am!

My journey here took a while. I was on the standard Reddit app for a while, then they started promoting that “He Gets Us” bullshit ad. I blocked the account and it was gone for a while, then it showed up again. I had been dabbling with the Apollo app and I switched to that to avoid those stupid ads. Then the API stuff happened, I logged off and never logged back on again.

I went to Threads for a bit, which was nice because I had IRL friends there. Then Meta changed the community rules where calling trans folks mentally ill and bullying LGBTQ+ folks wasn’t considered inappropriate. So I logged off and didn’t log back on until I deleted my account in January 2024.

I joined Mastadon, which is nice, but it’s not easy for a newer, not quite techy user to figure things out. I figured it out, but I get why some folks find it confusing.

Then I joined BlueSky and hung out there for a bit. I still do because I like to follow specific reporters and organizations. But I soon realized, I don’t really like the short form formatting, so I joined Lemmy, then swapped to piefed recently.

Since then, I’ve been hanging out here for actual discussions and on BlueSky for breaking news and info.

Reddit removed free API access and simultaneously became more corporate than Walmart. Is fully enshittified now.

There was obscure rules and hard to post in some subreddits. Sick of the people/bots

I hate Reddit. This is so much better. No shitbots, no bad faith argumentative posts, no ads, little censorship.

Because I knew it was only a matter of time before I got banned from Reddit after they started clamping down hard in terms of censorship, so I left there and moved to Lemmy while I was still ahead.

Left Reddit when they killed access to 3rd party apps the API. Switched to Lemmy and haven’t looked back.

Cuz got perma banned from r*edit. I argued with one of the many power tripping mods. Anyway my mental health is a lot better after the switch

I was banned from Reddit in June of 2024 for saying I hope the libs of TikTok women would get hit by a bus. I heard of Lemny through a google search and I’ve been here for almost a year now.

General purpose web forum that isn't corporate owned. Signed up pretty quickly after hear it about it

Got banned on reddit for telling someone to crawl back in their hole.

They were trying to defend circumcision while admitting female ventilation mutilation was bad. I pointed out the hypocrisy of that mindset and finished with "now crawl back into your hole so the rest of us don't have to deal with you".

Instant permaban.

I was already on my way out anyway because of the whole 3rd party app thing so this just kickstarted my emigration.

Reddit alternative/recommended to us/better communities

Lack of centralization and profit seeking, massive disputes with Reddit moderators and corporate and so on.

Too many people and too much advertising

Accessibility that reddit stopped supporting because of paid API bullshit years ago.

In the wake of the API shit I would use the report function for basically everything via browser. It was the easiest way to block a user and waste effort for the mods who stuck around all in one go. Never really posted or commented so I didn't catch a ban that way.

And by everything I mean I had a short fuse. Bad grammar, saw the post twice, the post or reply is just too "reddit", the post didn't bitch about the API thing enough, accidentally clicked on it, saw the post twice, user beat me to the punch with a joke worse than mine, sometimes I wouldn't even read posts and just start smashing that report button.

My understanding is that moderation tools were also fucked over like the apps we loved. So to me it was a good way to kick em while they were down and make them get familiar with the shitty interface to do their volunteer moderation for free.

Without fail I would report admin and mod comments. That's probably what got the bans for the first few accounts. Eventually I got browser fingerprint banned and found my way here.

I joined after finding a good username/avatar combo