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0 pointsunshavedyak3y ago0 comments

I think they're right. Lemmy/Kbin exist, but they're not ready for it. They're in a worse (less mature) place than Mastodon was with Twitter, and even that was rough.

With no alternative i think Reddit will be fine in this storm. I see many posts on Kbin/Lemmy discussing Reddit addiction, how they can leave it, etc, and those are niche people. The majority of Reddit users i suspect won't even know anything is wrong in a week. I suspect at worst Reddit will start suffering from lack of mods, but that's a solvable problem. Especially with IPO coming, they've got incentive to solve it in a way that they control with an iron fist.

Regardless this event, similar to Twitter with Mastodon, has brought a large number of "new normals" to Kbin, Lemmy, etc. I myself am looking far closer at ActivityPub, working on my own implementation that iterops with the existing ecosystem.

I actually think this will be quite good for the "fediverse". If not from massive direct usage, it will highlight scaling woes with the protocol, etc. Hopefully the next time this happens the Fediverse can be in a more mature position to leave CEOs like Spez feeling less invincible.

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4 comments · 3 top-level

joseph8th3y ago· 1 in thread

Interestingly, I've found Lemmy to be surprisingly engaging and active after just a day of Reddit Migration. Sure, there's still a lot of "Reddit sucks" posts, but certainly not all, or even close to the majority.

I was on Mastodon for the Great Twitter Migration of Nov. 2022, and yeah... it was pretty hard to watch. Never have used Twitter, but I saw a lot of Twits struggling with Mastodon. I don't think the migration went well. The Twitter experience didn't translate.

Reddit, I think is a more traditional forum. And that does translate well. There are hundreds of threads with hundreds of comments on Lemmy, and it's really the same experience as Reddit. Reddit users find Lemmy familiar in a way that Twitter users did not find on Mastodon.

unshavedyakOP3y ago

Agreed, and i should clarify that i didn't mean it was inactive or w/e, i just think it's less mature of a tech stack, less active as a whole, etc than Mastodon was in it's time of need. That difference i think has a meaningful impact on how quickly new instances can spin up, tooling available, UX of users, native mobile apps, etc.

The shiny things that keep "normal users" around.

Which isn't to say that it is plagued with problems or anything. I just think we have to remember that Federation and a FOSS development model alone will bring a large pile of challenges and confusion to the average user. As you said, we saw it with Mastodon. That friction is survivable if framed right, but any additional friction will be meaningful for normal users. Just my opinion of course, not making any factual statements here.

ItsMonkk3y ago

> but that's a solvable problem

This requires explanation. If they staff the moderation in-house, costs will rise significantly and there is no chance they can ever profit. The people with the time, expertise and patience necessary to mod will know of alternatives. Mods are niche niche.

But the bigger issue that you allude to for reddit here is that they aren't pulling off the band-aid in one go. Once the apps die, they still need to kill old reddit and RES, they still need to end NSFW. Each time they do this the federated clones will be stronger, and each time more and more will jump ship.

pclmulqdq3y ago

Reddit wasn't in great shape when the Digg thing happened either. Reddit is just a platform for forums. There are literally thousands of alternatives.

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