I have fully transitioned to using Lemmy and Mastodon right when third party apps weren’t allowed on Spez’s place anymore, so I don’t know how it is over there anymore.
What do you use? Are you still switching between the two, essentially dualbooting?
What other social media do you use? How do you feel about Fediverse social media platforms in general?
(I’m sorry if I’m the 100th person to ask this on here…)
Lemmy is my main social media account. I also switched from Reddit when Spez killed third party apps, and I won’t go back. I use Sync for Lemmy on my phone and tablet. I paid for the lifetime Ultra account, because that’s how much of a “fuck you” I wanted to give Spez. I’ll gladly pay the $100 for an alternative ad-free app than use Reddit’s free app.
I also use Imgur, although it’s been suffering from enshittification ever since Sarah and the team sold it. I can’t even save a post without getting a pop-up asking to subscribe to the user or follow similar content tags. Or downvote without being asked if I want to block the user or related tags. Just let me do the thing and move on! Stop trying to customize my experience! I’m still able to block their ads, thanks to my VPN service, but they built a dedicated ad space at the bottom of the app that I can’t make go away. So a section of the bottom of my Imgur screen is unusable black space. I miss being able to use my full screen to browse images.
I still have Facebook, but only because everyone I know from my childhood until now is there and it’s my main way of staying in touch with people. If I dump Facebook, I’ll have practically no one left in my life, except for my sister, wife, and maybe two friends. If I need social engagement concerning something going on in my life, I’ll post it there. But I don’t use it much.
I have LinkedIn and spent years keeping my profile up to date and super detailed, expecting to need some good references and a solid history of experience and accomplishments. But then I retired at 38 years old and found out I don’t need to work anymore, so it’s just been collecting dust for the last 2 years now. I still get the occasional request to connect from someone offering to help me find a job (I’m a veteran), but I don’t need their assistance. I’m quite happy being retired young.
I have a Discord server I built for my closest friends to stay in touch, but only 2 people regularly interact on it. I subscribed to maybe 30+ other random servers, but I mute pretty much all of them so I’m not inundated with Discord notifications all the time.
I have Twitch, but mostly used it to stream the games I’m playing when I’m bored. I’m happy if I get 1 or 2 views. I do it just for the fun of it, not to build a following or anything.
I have NextDoor, but there are thousands of people in my town who use it regularly, so it’s hard to stay in touch with my “neighbors.” I mostly ignore it unless I’m trying to find suggestions for something local.
I made a Bluesky account last year; got an invite from a friend before it opened up to everyone. But I hardly ever used Twitter in the past. I always felt like it was pointless unless you were a celebrity with tons of followers. So I’m having trouble thinking of ways to use Bluesky now.
I have Instagram, but only because Facebook merged my account with Instagram when they bought it. I’ve never used it, not even to browse others’ content there.
I made a Snapchat account in high school, but never used it. That was over 20 years ago. Back then, Snapchat was just used to share selfies, and I didn’t like taking selfies so I had no use for it. Is Snapchat still a thing?
I had a MySpace account when I was a teenager, but I guess the site got sold sometime in the past decade or two. I kinda forgot about it, and the last time I went to check it out, it was a totally different site and didn’t recognize my login anymore.
I made an account on Pixelfed last year to share pictures, but I don’t really have anything to share right now. I only remembered I had the account because I just now found their app in my phone.
I use Patreon, mostly just to follow a few people I know and support them.
I worked as an IT guy in the military, and we were explicitly banned from using TikTok when it became popular, because it was a Chinese spyware program and they didn’t want it stealing data on US military members. When you installed it, we found that it embedded itself in your phone in a way that was extremely difficult to fully remove, then granted itself full access to your phone and started trickling your data to Chinese servers. It was a massive security vulnerability, which is why President Biden pushed to block TikTok from the US. But the app was so popular, he got a lot of pushback and it never got blocked. It’s still wildly popular, but I’ll never touch that program.
the tiktok part was really interesting. thank you for sharing!
Mastodon and lemmy, can’t choose
I pretty much only use Lemmy (and loops but it’s not really finished yet) but I have mastodon too.
Same for me. Mostly using Lemmy and Mastodon since they’re filling two different roles. I also reluctantly still use Instagram since all my friends are on it.
Some people seem to see it as a negative that Mastodon with its linear feed doesn’t get them nearly as addicted as corporate social media but for me that’s a huge plus.
Same! The “lack of content” is really refreshing somehow.
Not having some proprietary algorithm spoon-feed you content is very nice. It literally only shows you exactly what you tell it to.
hey, I know this funi! I’ve seen this guy on 196 before!
Lemmy is the only thing i post to occasionally. On Reddit and Instagram i just lurk
I am so sorry, but several of my favorite journalists are still on Twitter.
I have been Lemmy only since the 3rd party app thing also. I also stopped using Twitter when Musk bought it, and have Mastadon on my to-do list but I’m not sure if I want to spin up my own instance or make an account elsewhere. Other than that I have no other social media accounts and never have.
As for other Fediverse platforms, I’m strongly opposed to the for profit ones, but happy to see all the open source ones.
I see it very similarly, it feels good having the users of the platforms actually create the platforms themselves.
The way how Facebook is trying to get into this with their Threads or whatever it’s called feels very unnatural. Thankfully I haven’t seen any people from there over here.The way how people can create their own instances is super fun. It feels like what people call the Reddit hivemind, but actually realized by the people from within it.
I feel like Threads was dead on arrival. I never hear about it anymore since it’s launch. Never tried it though so I can’t really say first hand how active it is.
I was never much of a social media guy, especially after moonlighting one summer as a social media marketer on Twitter and Instagram (really, really kills it for ya), but I was a redditor for a while.
I swapped over to Lemmy exclusively during the API fees, but to be fair I was already getting frustrated by the service. The karma farming was just too much, so many stupid reposts of the same stupid made up wholesome stories and crap. I think I only miss r/comics and r/idiotsincars, the later requiring a critical mass of people to actually be worthwhile.
I’ve got a private chat with a small group of friends. That’s my primary social media. We share news and discuss ideas.
newsboat is a gem.
I completely switched to Mastodon and here, I’d rather not use platforms that are locked down by corporations and will inevitably enshittify without leaving me a simple way to migrate
For me its startet for some years ago with Mastodon,then I grew into the fediverse (I didn’t know anything about it) and now I use loops.video (stil its made for doomscroling) mastodon, Lemmy and pixelfed. Loops I think I’m to old to use that much, (to fast for me) but else I’m really happy with the social media. I haven’t been on a mainstream SOME for 3 years.
It is. Both lemmy and Mastodon.
I cannot use Reddit or Twitter anymore.
Yes. For over a year, from Reddit. Although I like Bluesky more than I expected. Also Discuit is awesome.