I'm afraid you just described everything that begins well, but eventually becomes popular. The more the general public engages with a thing, the shittier that thing becomes. Things that are not yet mainstream or become/remain private tend to have a lasting quality.
A major difference being that the fediverse won't get that "advertiser friendly" corporate sanitization with how it's set up.
It's nice not being advertised to or feeling like a product.
I think you underestimate the sheer fuckery of corporate advertisers.
Aka eternal September
I was on Reddit since almost the beginning and I would not say it's similar, but I also don't think that culture exists on the internet anymore, closest thing might be tildes?
What I really miss is the intelligent conversion and actual debate in the comments. People don't really lay out arguments anymore, complete with sources and logical conclusions. Back in the early days of Reddit you'd be downvoted and told off if you made a claim without evidence. Anecdotal evidence, speculation, and bias were called out. There were still jokes and light comment sections, but comments aiming to make a point were essays where you could actually learn something. Might sound exhausting to some, but it feels like the internet has turned into just upvoting whatever confirms your bias, whether there's evidence of it or not. I'm sure you can find some excellent examples in the old r/bestof posts.
The content was a lot different too, the community was just a lot more scientific. Studies were posted over articles, and clickbait articles (before they were even clickbait) were called out as not having substantial content or evidence. Even studies were heavily scrutinized by identifying the bias in the methodology.
There were a lot less communties (subreddits) too, which I think lead to healthier discussion overall and less of an echo chamber effect. It was still always criticized as being a "hive mind", but it felt less like one to me back then anyways.
I guess overall it feels like the main difference is everything nowadays is meant to radicalize you, or get a reaction out of you. Back in the day if something political or scientific was being shared it was shared with the intention of changing minds, not confirming bias.
Anyways, that's my old person rant. I'm probably looking at it all through rose tinted nostalgia glasses, but there's definitely been a shift in how we communicate on the internet for better or for worse.
Downvoted.
Not a laid out argument, complete with sources and logical conclusions. This is anecdotal, speculative, and biased information.
Serious note : Love your perspective about the old reddit I’m always curious to know what made internet what it was. I wonder if that’ll happen again.
My favorite was old days of Reddit you’d be skewered for posting a .jpg instead of a .png of the image had text.
I also remember constant reminders to vote on the quality of the post, not if you agree or not.
I don't know, I'm a pretty left leaning person. The vitriolic, almost violent responses to some of my comments is shocking. I knew Lemmygrad was a thing here, along with tankies, honestly it's off putting to say the least. OP talks about Reddit being an echo chamber. I got news for you. This place is just as bad for lefty type discourse being regurgitated. My experience is that it has been anything but friendly.
Also just as hostile to women as reddit, sadly.
I honestly wouldn't give those people the dignity of calling them leftists. They're too concerned about cosplaying as activists and dunking on people to actually give a shit about advancing the rights of real people or trying to protect anything good.
I see comments like this, complaining about tankies, more often than i see "tankies".
On the occasion politics comes up, and i say anything socialist, I'm jumped on by people who seem either angry or smugly dismissive of the notion of people organising.
I find Lemmy to be an echo chamber more than Reddit was. Depends on the community but Lemmy can be pretty caustic if you don't agree with something.
That being said, is fine there is different opinions. Creates discussion.
Honestly, the fact that Lemmy displays upvote and downvote counts (like reddit, at least with RES, used to) makes it a lot friendlier. If you say something unpopular, better to see +10/-4 than just -6 - if you're saying something unpopular but true, at least you're seeing some positive reaction.
I was around when reddit first started. There were Nazis. It seemed fine, because Nazis were useless idiots, and people told them to go fuck themselves.
Reddit in 2016 actively helped install a fascist who eventually tried to overthrow American democracy.
Reddit now is a place where "fuck off, Nazi" is punished more reliably and more harshly than being a goddamn Nazi.
This service feels familiar - but not for the reasons I'd like. The fools in charge of every popular instance think scolding "be polite!" and punishing rudeness instead of trolling are a force multiplier for trolls. If you can just keep saying dumb shit until someone says a no-no word - they get the boot, and you win.
I want a forum where "here is why you're an asshole" is moderated based on whether the explanation is correct.
I actually got told by Reddit Staff that they'd contact law enforcement if I made anymore references to "punching Nazis", then they banned me for "Report Abuse"
They never did a damn thing about the trolls who kept flagging any post referencing me being trans or anything positive about transpeople as "Suicidal" or "Promoting Self-Harm"
Got those "A redditor has asked us to reach out to you concerning...." all fucking day.
I'd say less so. There wasn't much by way of disinformation campaigns and bots back when Reddit first started so the posts and comments felt more genuine and organic. Even with Kbin/Lemmy being much smaller, there's still a ton of weird shit that gets posted here or comments that feel really suspicious. It would be nice for that kind of environment to make its way back, but it seems those days are over.
hey I'm doing my best to be rude, scabulous, irascible and misanthropic out here.
It's already like that here, friend.
Lemmy might be friendlier on the surface but has a much stronger hivemind-y aspect to it where you agree with it or else.
It’s already like that here, friend.
Lemmy didn't take off until well into May 2023, despite being online and open source for over 4 years. The quantity of posts, communities, comments was very small for 4 years online.
Then everyone flocked out of hate and anger of an API money matter with Reddit.Then crowds got hate-filled and angry when Threads was launched by Meta/Instagram/Facebook on July 5. And crowds became hate-filled and angry over Elon Musk rename of Twitter to X on July 23.
Outside big growth in memes and shitposts, there haven't been big numbers of people flocking here out of organic goodness on organized topics. It has largely been a HiveMind of hate as a motivation to come here since May.
Some good seeds have been planted since May, but the atmosphere of hate motivates change is pretty much Mob Mentality / reactionary.
Definitely, you can also see that on certain communities, there are very strong opinions which don't allow for discussion.
Say anything that goes against the grain and you will be shunned immediately.
Also - not that that is always a bad thing but Lemmy is extremely left leaning and you just can't discuss certain topics here at all.
(Guns are always bad / Cars should all be banned and traded for bicycles / traveling by plane is bad and you should feel horrible for destroying the environment..)
What I enjoyed about early reddit was the tech/nerd focused community that did not try to push their political opinion into every thread.
Basically the worst part of reddit is already here, just that the echo chambers are smaller for now.
Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about it.
As someone who was on Reddit when it was young I am going to disagree with you here. Young Reddit was absolutely full of political ideology. It was a Ron Paul, legalize weed, atheist, soft anti feminist, cypher punk, USA style libertarian pool of ideology.
All places have an ideology. We are all constantly swimming in ideology. It’s just when an ideology matches you (either you being molded by the ideology or you joining a place with a matching ideology) you don’t notice it. A fish only has to think about the medium it is in after it is pulled out of the water.
I thought you were going to say, full of weirdos, degenerates and outcasts. 🤣
I feel like you might be looking at early Reddit through rose coloured glasses. 😆
Honestly the lack of content helps people mellow out.
I like the fact that I'm not doom scrolling and being fed rage bait by algorithms. I also like the fact that I'm reasonably sure most people here are actual people and not bots or paid actors.
my experience so far is people are as, if not more toxic then reddit. honestly I feel like half the people here were sick of people blocking them on reddit and decided to attack people with their stupidity here instead.
If you're reading this, please go back to reddit, they need you so much more over there.
The vast majority of people on Lemmy right now are directly from Reddit and they act exactly like the bog standard Redditors they are. Stop deluding yourself.
You can use the wayback machine to see how Reddit was at any point in the past. I was there from even before subreddits were a thing, and yeah it was pretty great. The fediverse does have a bit of that feel.
In 10 years we'll look back on this early Lemmy period with the same nostalgia, and wonder how Lemmy ever got so shitty.
wait, warm? cuddly? can you show me this magical fairy-tale corner of lemmy?
I feel Lemmy is like reddit without the normies making this infact more reddit than reddit
I miss the 'normies', I interact with enough tech people in my daily life
Lol no Lemmy is just as bad as Reddit
Where are these warm and cuddly people? If you express viewpoints that are not central dogma to the left of center folk, you're just as ostracized here as you would be on Reddit.
I'm left of center and I get yelled at by a communist at least once per thread I engage with, on average.
I'm at a point where I'm just blocking them as they pop up.
Yeah, it's much worse here.
This is just how it seems to go, before reddit there was Digg, after Digg went down, everyone went to reddit, now that reddit is going down, people are migrating to alternatives, with Lenmy being the most prominent one right now. I think Lemmy's ability to have multiple instances will help cement its popularity though
I was user 2600 or so on Reddit, and yes indeed it does. I just love this size. When I compare the content here and on Reddit, for me it's a world away now. The vast majority of things on here are relevant and interesting to me compared to reddit where it's all just low effort garbage and reposts.
I'm not sure, i made a comment on the controversy over linus tech tips, basically there may have been miscommunication and we should wait and see before demonising anyone. But people took what i said the wrong way and downvoted me to eternity. It was quite depressing. I didn't say anyone was wrong or anyone was right. Just stated i'd been in a position before where people misunderstood my intentions so i understand how easily it can happen.
The concept you're describing is called Eternal September and happens to all web services that get popular enough.
And Lemmy isn't an echo chamber? Try posting any conservative opinions around here and see how many downvotes you get.
I don’t know if that’s fair. Contemporary “conservatism” is pretty indefensible.
To be fair, the GOP has shifted so far Right, that conservative opinions nowadays are less "We need to be more fiscally responsible and try solutions outside of throwing money at problems." and more "So lemme tell you which minorities don't deserve rights and the specific reasons why they don't... the short version is it's all of them.. except my asian wife and my black friend... for now.."
Honestly, it's begun to feel more hostile and shady. Pretty sure the Russian trolls are here, but hexchan ain't helping either. I'm waiting for a client side instance block feature. We really need it.
My Brother in Christ any online community will have toxicity as long as it has people
"cuddly and friendly" aren't the words I'd use, but I suppose it is better than the way you can get dog piled on reddit over the most stupid stuff. Also less people tend to accept bigotry here most of the time which is nice.
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.