If Reddit had a soul/conscience, I think it was us, and we're all on Lemmy now...

As a little background, I didn't actively use Reddit for months following the blackout. I still barely stop in over there and if I do I'm never logged in our contributing to the communities there (where I was previously a daily poster/commenter).

Just bringing up a point that I'm not sure I'd seen anyone discussing directly over here; the general sentiment and quality of posted information on Reddit has become tangibly worse in multiple ways (I think coinciding with this group, us, leaving).

Now don't get me wrong, Reddit sucked in many ways and for long before the migrations to Lemmy, but there is a noticeable difference in a few key areas:

  1. Less skepticism in replies

  2. Less sourcing of information in posts and replies

  3. Less counter positions expressed generally

  4. If there is a decent reply, you have to scroll much further down to find it

  5. Less plain labeling of obvious bullshit

Many of us used to introduce counter viewpoints or clarifying information into posts, with sources. That functionally worked as a roadblock to stall the quickly building momentum of disinformation/misinformation. Those roadblocks often feel absent over there now, IMO.

Not saying we hold a responsibility to go back there or that we were saving lives before, but the difference is very apparent to me - Have you seen it? Any examples?

njm1314 ,

Oh is that what we're doing today? Big Ole circle jerk?

muntedcrocodile ,

Lemmy is barely any better its just more left leaning.

IronKrill ,

I don't reckon Lemmy users are as great as all that, but I definitely agree on the downturn of Reddit. It's been on a downward trend for years but we've past a milestone recently where I truly no longer want to interact with most of it.

I saw a Reddit post a few weeks ago that was a 1-minute cut down clip, clearly reuploaded from a YouTube video without credit. Several thousand upvotes, fair enough as it was a good video, but I went to the comments to find a source as you always could on Reddit. One person. One person out of hundreds of comments had posted the source and they had about 10 upvotes so I only found it after scrolling multiple pages. In the old days that would have been top comment with a "why didn't you post the source of this stolen content" attitude, now it was almost impossible to find. Made me realise the audience truly has changed. The top posts are all Facebook slop for people that want to pretend they're better than Facebook users.

BonesOfTheMoon ,

Someone says this here every week. I haven't been on it save for search results since the API thing, but it really must be bad.

NutWrench ,
@NutWrench@lemmy.world avatar

I still have a few niche subreddits that I check a few times a month (like /SamsungWatchFaces) but I haven't posted anything there in ages.

PrimeMinisterKeyes ,

I noticed AMP links started popping up all over Reddit. Before Google started injecting money, posting those was discouraged. Surely it's a total coincidence.

Tag365 ,
@Tag365@lemmy.world avatar

Strange. What happened to the discouragement of AMP links and why are they suddenly popping up now?

Woozythebear ,

Lemmy users acting like they are superior human being to people on reddit is the most cringe shit I've ever seen.

Yall are exactly the same and people on Reddit.

Anyolduser ,

No, it's worse than that

The folks here are people who got shouted down on Reddit for being nut jobs.

Mastengwe ,

This is cope if I’ve ever seen it.

Woozythebear ,

Cope for what? I don't think you know what that word means

Mastengwe ,

Cope harder.

whotookkarl ,
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

I think there's also a general age demographic shift down as the mods and people who care about moderation, third party apps, bots, etc left. Something similar happened during the digg exodus where social norms and consensus around some topics changed, just not at much with the bots at the time. People who remain may not care, or they just may be unaware. There was always some propaganda blindness too in the 'i don't use social media just reddit' crowd.

werefreeatlast ,

Well, I started the keitruck subreddit and look at me now banned from the site. They just lef me build it until they came and then banned me from the entire site. But yeah I bet they gotta be filling the place with bots now.

Default_Defect ,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

lmao, its really not that different here, other than there just being fewer of us.

fuckingkangaroos ,

I think the quality is better here, although there's a shit ton of propaganda.

douglasg14b , (edited )
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

I think you're grossly overestimating

Lemmy shaved off 0.0057% of reddit users. An actual inconsequential number.

This would be like you losing a grand total of 1 grain of rice, from ~35,000 rice bowls.

Even if that was the best tasting grain of rice of the whole bunch, you wouldn't notice.

kralk ,

What proportion of Reddit users are "good" though? 0.0057% might be all of them

fuckingkangaroos ,

Sounds about right

andxz ,

That number doesn't really tell us anything about the amount of post/content generation that was lost. One or two persons could change the general tone of a smaller sub easily, and often did so.

If only those two hypothetical posters left it could very well lead to a downward spiral into whatever bullshit is going on over there now.

Some of the smaller more specialised subs I frequented simply don't exist anymore due to what happened.

douglasg14b , (edited )
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

I thought I explained that pretty well no?

If you had a grain of rice that tasted unimaginably, unmitigably, good. The highest quality grain of rice ever seen in the world, in all of history.

It will not change the flavor of 30k bowls of rice.

We're talking an absolutely tiny amount of users here. And we shouldn't delude ourselves over it, circle jerking for being the "higher society". Reddit didn't change because we left, the number of users on Reddit change more on a daily basis than 5 Lemmy's.

That said, the smaller niche subs definitely saw some hits. I won't deny that. However, by definition, a small number of users leaving from small subs isn't a "gotcha" moment for what I've stated. That's is, almost by definition, what would be expected.

The discussions here are of higher quality for sure. But you'll still notice that in many threads it's almost indistinguishable from Reddit in many ways.

LesserAbe ,

I generally agree with your point, that said, in the analogy you gave, the flavor would come from the posts, not the users. We don't know what the breakdown is between "active users" who create more posts and comments and those who are more like active readers.

Devi ,

What numbers are we using here? Reddit has roughly 70m active users, the fediverse has between 2 and 3 million, that's quite a few people over here.

douglasg14b ,
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

I last did this math a while back so let me redo it.

Lemmy != The fediverse. Lemmy is fairly small with 45k monthly active users. https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy

Reddit has 430 million monthly active users (70m daily) according to their disclosures for IPO.

So a 0.000104 multiple. Or 0.01% a little less than 2x my previous calculation. So, still a tiny number.

livus ,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

I've noticed it too but I don't think it's only because of the exodus.

I think it's also because by removing mod tools and opening the floodgates for bots, Reddit has enabled all kinds of vote manipulation and content manipulation by all the shill armies.

Everything from the Hasbara, the 50 centers, Putin's troll farm, Musk's troll farm, whatever Zucc runs that used to come and sealion me anytime I talked about facebook's role in genocide ... all those things have come into their full power now.

Snapz OP ,

Definitely multiple factors contributing

tfw_no_toiletpaper ,

☝️🤓

Kotking ,
@Kotking@kbin.social avatar

Yeah I would agree that for casual conversation Discord overtook for me. I was lurking r/warframe and after losing pc capable running game started gacha and discussed on r/Arknights. So with api fiasco I left Reddit and tried Mastodon... have account and check it out but there is no activity on , joined discord server for R/Arknights that was made during blackout and still going strong. Like I got better of R/Arknights and not on Reddit. People some use Reddit, some silently, some like me abandoned and even people who never used Reddit joined. Moderating m/Arknights on Kbin but with Kbin dev having unlucky strike and generally hopping he have health to both have normalcy and work on Kbin. So without proper mod tools and some broken features (like webp not displaying, where microblogs from Misskey converts to webp to consolidate space) and some other little wants that I would propose if I knew there would be implemented.

Using Misskey.io before it closed registration to Japanese only (happens when everyone was leaving twitter for Musk dumb thing he implemented). With Misskey at least found artists and players for Arknights but as it is Japanese instance, they only thing I can do is share art so tag weren't dead on Mastodon.social .

So TL DR left Reddit, joined sub Reddit discord server which is where I spend most of my leisure time, using Mastodon for news, Kbin for moderation (but no one visits, at least no spam as I clean up) and news , Misskey for fan art.

BurnSquirrel ,

Reddit is large enough that it's user base is very diverse and niche hobbies can still get a substantial following. From what I can tell, us lemmings are all kinda the same nerdy person who's into Linux and gaming with not enough of us to really make communities for divergent interests.

When I first came in a few people were trying to get /c/bjj going but it just kind of fell off because the middle of a venn diagram of people who are nerdy enough to be here and also into grappling is like me and 6 other people

Still, I peek in here now and again because the shitposts tend to be better.

Blaze ,

Maybe try martial arts as a whole rather than bjj?

Detheroth ,

But that is no longer a niche community for my specific interest. Tai Chi, Muay Thai and BJJ are all martial arts. They are not alike.

Blaze ,

Indeed, but that's a way to have a more active general community that would build some traction.

The alternative is having a niche community with only one or two posters, and those tend to stop posting quite fast

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