The great Reddit APIcallypse exodus - but not for the reason you'd think. I actually used official app, didn't care much for the 3rd party stuff. Though I understood why people might care about it.

No, what did it for me was how Reddit handled it. The arogance. The hostile takeover of the subreddits that went down. I didn't like that one bit. Plus, every day Reddit felt less like how it used to and more like your typical social media. But what can you do, eh? I liked the format. But there is nohing other like it... right?

Well I said something like that in some thread where the discussion went off-topic to discuss the situation (pretty sure it was a Harry Potter sub). "If only there was an alternative!" Well there was, and it's called Lemmy, one user said. Intrigued, I checked it out - and was utterly confused. Instances? Federation? Makes no sense. So I figured I would ask. The guy (or gal) was super nice - answered all my questions, gave me pointers... and here I'm.

It was like you don't know something was broken but suddenly it's fixed and you don't know how you could've functioned like that before. It certainly helped that at the time I came here for the first time, the activity was booming so it was easier to switch. Died out a little after a while, but I feel like it is in a very good place now, activity wise. There aren't ultra specific communities for everything, but usually there is a general one at least. And it feels more like the Reddit I first joined than what it ended up being.

Infinitely grateful to the guy (or gal) tbh. Inevitably, being here taught me there are alternatives to more than Reddit. That open source apps are great, actually. That there is something like degoogling. That Linux might not be as scary and foreign, or for programmers only.

I don't know who you are, kind lemming - but hope somehow you read this.