‘Front page of the internet’: how social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit::A mass user protest six months ago over technical tweaks had big downstream effects, and now the ‘front page of the internet’ is changed for ever
Despite spending around 15 years on Reddit, I found it surprisingly easy to quit. I do miss some niche subreddits that just won’t get traction here, but overall my switch to Lemmy worked out for the best.
With that being said, Reddit is still going strong, and you’re deluded if you think this will change their IPO fortunes. The quality will plummet, but once the shares are owned and sold they won’t care.
It will definitely affect the ipo. Ipo’s are all based on expected growth. Any loss of users, mods, content, etc affects that. It was already in the news that whatever company wrote down the value of their holdings.
In fact, they’ve already failed their quarterly projections from ad revenue which has already negatively affected their IPO evaluation.
And people are getting wise to traffic numbers being inflated by bots.
As a moderator of a fairly large sub over there, I strongly suspect this is happening on a mass scale. According to our stats, we’re getting 120k unique views a month (dropped dramtically during the exodus, but has seemingly returned to normal now), but posts rarely get more than 20 upvotes or comments. I know most redditers are lurkers, but even still, that just seems like an oddly high number of views.
Give it time. Eventually the AI with learn to completely mimic human activity. Just not their actual spending habits.
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I’ve been having trouble finding another site with so many sub topics.
I’d use discord - but you have to manually find each room. There’s no generic search function (not that I’ve found on mobile anyway - feel free to correct me)
If there’s another large site I could use (other then lemmy which lacks the numbers) let me know. I’m watching reddit die and I genuinely feel the void it’s leaving in my heart.
Damn I hate Discord for information. It’s not open. It’s nice as a chat (except for the whole thing with using Electron), but not for having information available.
Exact same. Was there for 12 years. Easy switch.
I said I’d leave Reddit on July 12 and July 12 is when I left. Sure, I miss it, but it was an unhealthy, 4 hour per day/8 year addiction that’s been broken.
Now I scroll Lemmy for maybe 30 mins a day.
This is delusional copium. By just about every single metric nothing has changed at Reddit. Mods were forced out as everyone said and Reddit is still the front page of the internet.
Reddit won’t die tomorrow, likely won’t die for years yet, but Lemmy is very much a viable alternative when it wasn’t a shadow half a year ago. It’s not a perfect change, but it’s something.
Lemmy is very much a viable alternative
Oh, how I wish that were true. Alas, stats keep showing that Lemmy is not continuing to grow, on the contrary. There is close to zero activity in anything but the most main stream communities and Lemmy is only now making very, very slow and tentative steps to actually surface more niche communities after effectively burying and suffocating them in every release up to and including the current stable.
Lemmy is not continuing to grow
Great news! So glad we’re not becoming a mainstream piece of shit
I can’t be the only one that more and more sees ‘growth’ as a disease for a company or institution.
You aren’t the only one. I feel like there’s some number of users that will ruin lemmy. I don’t know what it is, but a guess is if we exceed 10 million it’ll get much worse. So I’m good with the (last I heard) ~1 million
What are people using Reddit for? Why does Lemmy have to continue to grow to be a viable alternative? It needs a certain critical mass but it seems to be at that point at least. The number of new users and daily users went down from the first peak after the Reddit exodus but that’s to be expected, what I’ve heard last is the numbers aren’t dropping rapidly but just the usual attrition of the wave of users. From my instance the communities I frequent are more than active enough for me, I’m able to see any news that would be relevant as quickly as any other social media, I can discuss things in communities that feel welcoming to me as a queer socialist that I could hardly find on Reddit.
I’m able to see any news that would be relevant as quickly as any other social media,
That’s not what I use Reddit for and that’s sadly the only Reddit (and other social media) thing today, that Lemmy mimics successfully.
I’m using Reddit mostly for the niche and special interest communities. For specific tech advice and troubleshooting. For all the stuff that once used to be home on newsgroups and bulletin boards and can now only be found in subreddits and, even worse, Discord communities.
And a lot of these smaller tech communities were super motivated to move to Lemmy, but Lemmy’s complete inability to surface anything but the most popular posts in the most popular communities (there’s still no equivalent for multireddits and there was no weighted popularity until 0.19) rapidly killed and suffocated virtually all of them.
That’s the reason why you can type “obscure technical problem Reddit” into Google and almost always get a relevant answer, while that will likely never be the case for Lemmy.
I can discuss things in communities that feel welcoming to me as a queer socialist that I could hardly find on Reddit.
I’m not saying Lemmy doesn’t have good communities, it certainly does, but once you go beyond news, politics and memes there’s neither enough content nor enough users to keep anything else alive.
Yahoo and Facebook are still very much around. But they’re nothing like when they were on top.
Well…clearly the guardian does get paid under the rocks to STFU about Lemmy and Raddle.me and I never "donated to them because I don’t got much money but used to on common dreams(fuck them and Jake for not listening to obvious solutions and gripe with none of the answers I have and they don’t listen to) and when I get paid enough, prolly in February, I’ll be donating a little bit to Grist. Now, never will it be to theguardians.
“We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private,” he said.
They respect it so much they forcibly remove mods to make them public again. That’s so respectful.
“We will teach them our respectful ways. By force.”
Come on now, give him some credit. He waited a whole few days before completely going back on his words.
I only use reddit for tech related inquiries, but besides that I quit it.
I went from 8 hours of screen time a day to an average of 2 to 3 hours and Lemmy often isn’t on the top. For me it has to do with a lack of content at some point, but I started enjoying it like that. If there’s nothing new, I shouldn’t have a reason to stick around in an app
Exactly. I still occasionally land there due to google searches for obscure tech issues, but that’s only to read and lurk. I used to be a regular poster, (I had ~1.2m karma between all my various accounts) but haven’t even commented since the API lockout.
Damn! That’s an insane amount of dedication lost to greed :(
Same here. Spend several hours a day on reddit since 2014, but haven’t logged in since the API shutdown. Only the occasional Google search brings me there.
Well that’s the issue. Reddit as a tool/service is fine. The only thing that I have an issue with is the api / third party app stuff and their leadership. Subs like Homelab , league , etc are ones I used heavily and they still function the same more or less. I just lurk more and use Reddit in browser with an extension that helps.
Lemmy and the various instances and apps are cool, but the lack of content(or content creators rather) is what makes it a little depressing. Outside of memes and discussions like this, it doesn’t replace Reddit because the user base is like 10+ years behind. I can show up and find posts from days ago which just leads me to keep using Reddit and rss for new content
Same. The UI got so much worse on mobile.
That’s why I use boost for Lemmy as well
Reddit having a huge audiences feels more like a disadvantage than a advantage
I was on reddit for 12 years. My time spent on that platform and posting directly correlates to when I first found it (posted a lot) vs. when I quit earlier this year.
Reddit in it’s infancy was great and the users and the subreddits, with a few notable exceptions were great too.
Once it got too big/popular… About 6 years ago you could note the decline and quality of the posting
Weird how it feels manageable to keep in the loop on Lemmy compared to Reddit. I like it a lot more.
I deleted all my posts and stopped using the place almost entirely. I go back, like, once a month because I moderate a niche subreddit that I haven’t been able to find a home for on Lemmy.
Anyways spez will go down as one of the innumerable examples of greedy hurensohns.
Completely stopped using Reddit since they blocked third party apps in July 2023. I never accessed Reddit through other channels than smartphone.
Exactly. This wasn’t a protest as far as I’m concerned. They shut me out. So I no longer visit reddit or moderate any of my subreddits. It’s that simple
Just FYI, I can still access Reddit through the Infinity app on F-Droid on Android. I don’t have a clue why or how, but it works.
Same, my version of boost still works for some reason. No idea why but it’s useful if I’m trying to search for something
That’s why I’m here too 🤝
Yup. Both the desktop website and the official app are garbage UX. With no third party app option, I could not use Reddit even if I wanted to.
You can still get to the compact interface with /.i on the end of the URL. But they are making it harder and harder to not use their terrible default interface, which is clearly focused on ad delivery not UX.
None of the Reddit interfaces were ever any good IMHO. The service was only usable thanks to third party readers that redefined its user experience. Without them it’s about as pleasant as gopher.
Oh compact was just right for me. Fast and mobile friendly and not loads of space taken by pictures.
RedReader on mobile still works. You can find it in the fdroid app store. There’s also rtv for a terminal reddit client on the desktop.
Wait, how is it still working?
old.reddit is still usable, but I’ve also pretty much stopped using reddit since the blackout.
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Lemmy is radicalized. It won’t be even 20% as popular as Reddit. Keep projecting your false premises. A normal person won’t even consider getting into an environment full of tankies.
I used to be a daily Reddit doomscroller, but now I just vibe on Lemmy. I only ever visit reddit now to experience my niches that don’t yet have a community here, and that’s just to watch, not contribute.
I look forward to the future, where communities aren’t corralled into one website, where different interests can be free of anything overarching.
Is 500k or 1m subreddit a niche? Because for god’s sake I cannot find any alternatives here on Lemmy.
I somehow end up doom scrolling here on Lemmy. Seems all my feed is news and technology is doom and gloom. I wish there were more discussions and jokes in the comments like ask reddit had. I participate every once in a while but I miss lurking and reading this type of content on my phone.
Doomscrolling bad news is really bad for your health. https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/what-is-doomscrolling-and-why-is-it-bad-for-us/143139/
Bad news is also literally addictive and it is important to break that habit https://www.fastcompany.com/90269566/how-to-stop-your-brains-addiction-to-bad-news
I’d suggest subscribing to some of the more positive news threads on Lemmy. I ended up blocking those ones that only seem to post negative stuff. The world is a bad enough place as it is without Lemmy ramming it down my throat to. I’d also suggest regularly visiting other positive news sites to remind yourself that there is good news happening, you just don’t hear about it from the normal places. Certainly helps put things into perspective. https://www.groovnow.com/blog/where-to-find-good-news-online
It’s important to try and stay happy, friend, now more than ever.
Thanks for reminding - that is a good point. Do you have any good mood communities here on Lemmy to recommend?
Sure! There’s [email protected], lemmybewholesome@lemmyworld, [email protected] and [email protected]. They’re all small communities, but they’re worth checking out. I’d recommend those news sites on that link I listed to. Definitely eye opening to see all the good stuff that is just ignored by the mainstream media. Stay positive out there, friend! 👍
Thank you so much! I sincerely appreciate your suggestions and have already subscribed to the communities. I actually have already noticed lemmybewholesome, but I havent known there were the other ones as well, so thank you a lot for the information :)
Doomscrolling being bad is literally implied in the name.
Just block the news and politics communities. It’s good for your sanity.
Yeah I’ve started doing that, just too depressing otherwise.
I deleted a 13 yr old account due to spez’s fuckery and I haven’t been back. I used to be very active in several subs but now I want fedi to happen.
I remember reddit was constantly advertised by their users as a more “elite” platform and everyone was moving to it at digg 2.0 times. What I seriously started getting curious about is: Did the collective IQ level drop on Reddit, way before the API golden shot? I sometimes share my opinion there and very interesting things happen. They clearly “don’t get it”. The scene of my native language (Turkish) went totally hopeless. Think like Storm Front for Turkish audience. It all happened in 3–4 years, they say, after Bitcoin madness.
Crickets on the fact that so many users of 10+ years left, deleting their content on the way out? Seems writer didn’t dig very deep. Not that Rodent would give them accurate numbers or anything.
Company entirely reliant upon an army of hard working volunteers makes some noise about listening. Noise is just air vibrations.
