As everyone said, the API change was a big deal. But for me, the cover-up was worse than the crime. I was a 13 year user (came over on the Digg boat) with over 100K comment karma. Reddit's reaction, and Spez's "landed gentry" comments, were so insulting I just couldn't support the site.

I thought they may possibly change in response to the boycott. But when Reddit started replacing mods with unqualified scabs, that meant the site content itself was definitely going to go downhill. It also confirmed that it was no longer a site that valued its users (who, as many have said, were providing the very thing that made the site valuable for free, purely in exchange for not being treated poorly).

At that point, why remain? Niche communities are the only reason I ever check back in. And like others, I'm seeing Reddit devolve into karma-whoring discussions that are just a battle of one-line snarky jokes, a huge amount of bot content, and reposts as a rule, no longer exception.

Conversely, there are people on Lemmy who actually want to read, think and actually respond. Pretty cool. I'm good with this trade.