I'm not here despite what it is, I'm here because of what it is.

Interactions feel genuine. I like talking to people here.

I’m here because fuck Reddit and the US.

The people. Gotten to know a lotta lovely people here. Like you! Also the Lemmy community as a whole is nice. It's also a small cozy place.

Here because its a great experiment and a reminder of the old internet that is otherwise mostly lost.

I like this place because it’s a work in progress and because of all its perceived imperfections.

I’m an old GenXer who remembers AOL chat rooms and Usenet. Each featured a small cluster of folks you’d talk with each day and thought of as friends. Reddit offered that kind of connection once, but now it’s become a monolith that believes its own hype. Not to mention the infestation of bots and trolls that no one cares enough to do anything about because engagement is engagement.

I’m new here so I’m still learning my way around but I like this way better. I have more control over what and who I see, the memes are fresher, and the communities feel more human.

Pfft

I love the FV. No ads. No algorithm.

And that it requires a little effort means fewer dumbass jerks around.

It was pretty rough for the first 2 years, but I feel like the overall popularity is growing, and in general it's attracting more of the type of person I'm interested in talking with.

Sure, even highly intelligent people can be jerks at times, and I'm no exception. But despite the friction that all discussion forum have, overall the community is just better for me.

I can talk about all kinds of different types of technical and artistic interests and when I do, people pop out of the woodwork to share connect and share their experiences. I am frequently informed by others here and I in turn can share my knowledge. That makes it worth it.

Because I'm a dirty commie who believes in the adage "give a brick, get a house".

Something that is built by a community will always survive longer than a corporate profit-motive alternative.

If one instance turns to crap, there will always be others to fill the gap. It's the same reason most FOSS software exists, because the community wants it too. As long as there are people that are enthusiastic about something, they'll keep it around as long as they have the tools to do so (source code). That is the ultimate power of Federation and of FOSS in general; it was built by humans, for humans for motives that are separate from profit.

If Gimp went away tomorrow, someone would fork it the very next day because they want to keep using it. If a Fediverse instance gets filled with nazis tomorrow, someone will create a new instance the very next day and people will move to that and then defederate from the hateful one.

I firmly believe that if humanity is to have a future, this is the way that it has to be, and I'm going to champion that mentality everywhere I can.

I don't accept the premise of the question.

That's been the whole Internet for a good chunk of my life. This feels more comfortable to me than slick corporate sites.

I feel comfortable here. Fediverse overall gives me an earlier Internet feel. Organic, but better. Maybe it feeds my nostalgia…

The app is decent.

That's honestly 90% of it. If Reddit hadn't programmed their app and mobile website with their feet, I'd probably still be over there.

Joined Lemmy because of the whole r€ddit API thing. I was only on there maybe a couple years at the end, so I had no real super attachment like people who have been there for years. Not much else to say.

This is actually my third attempt at trying to stick to Lemmy since Reddit changed their API rules and gutted third party apps. My problem with Lemmy is pretty simple: it just doesn't generate content as fast.

But Reddit, Reddit I have really come to loathe, but after spending what's probably over a decade on it, it's hard to leave.

I hate that the most upvoted posts on Reddit are lowest common denominator jokes that can often be predicted at a glance. It used to be there was a good chance you could get something informative at the top, or a source if showing someone else's skill/talent.

I hate that the most common response to skill/talent being displayed is often a declaration of normalcy rather than praise for the skill/talent on display. For example, someone pulls off a skateboard trick, then you get a mini-thread of people saying variations of "I walked up the stairs this week," or I "tripped and fell leaving my house today."

I hate that Reddit has repeatedly narrowed what can show up in /all over the years.

I hate that Reddit does not allow me to block communities that show up in all.

I hate Reddit's algorithm, it is complete ass at predicting what I want to see.

I hate Reddit ads.

I hate that Reddit now has politics make up a huge chunk of /all these days.

I hate shitpost, circlejerk, and buddy subs. Subs where people encourage one another to just be stupid and asanine for fun. It is my firm belief that they played a major roll in the dumbing down of reddit comments over the years, as idiots were given the space to be idiots, normalized that behavior, and then it spread outside those subs to the other serious ones. And there's so many people that participate in it, and it caught on. I would put these subs to the torch if I had my way.

I hate the proliferation of certain cultural media fanboys. An example is EldenRing and FromSoftware fanboys. I have some 80 hours in Elden Ring, and played the first Dark Souls. They're not bad games. They're not great, either. And for whatever reason, they just seem to have a massive fanbase within Reddit, that the games genuinely do not deserve, leaking out of their sub and constantly posting elsewhere about the game or showing up in my /all since, to reiterate a previous point, Reddit won't just let me block that shit and save me the headache. For a while, Jujutsu Kaisen Fans and memes were the same as well, but it has since died down. But the point being that this kind of thing happens in the first place.

I hate how Reddit community has latched on hard with image replies, leading to a proliferation of non-comments that are nothing more than passing memes around. This is also something that I believe was fostered and encouraged within the shitpost/circlejerk/buddy subs.

So, when you ask why I still hang on to Lemmy, that's why. Because I fucking detest what Reddit has become. It is a shithole and a shell of its former self, and I desperately want Lemmy to be something better.

I can share stories of my experience as an immigrant and almost never get a "go back to your country" comment.

Like if you tried that on reddit, jeez, they'll dig up that one comment you made against the administration in power and send you death threats and try to get the authorities to swat me. Also, they ban proxies, so all they have to do is make a false accusation and trick reddit admins to revealing IP to authorities. I use Tor on Lemmy, and, while its not foulproof, its another barrier to add more effort, and usually law enforcement is lazy and aren't gonna do much effort for a "lol donnie is so dumb" comment.

Because it is small enough.

the memes and posts are much more often related to my interests than other social media

because i am a nerd just like everyone else here lol

I think for me its about being around fellow travelers. I've been on the internet for a while. Started commenting forums, then in political threads via craigslist. Then fark, digg, reddit. Users and commenters made those places, and when one went to shit, we just moved along to the next.

I have to say that I think I truly see the fediverse as a place to build a home. It meets my values where they are, and I don't have to make compromises.

And I think my fellow travelers would agree, if this place goes to shit, we'll vote with our feet.

It's good enough to keep me interested.

It's not good enough to replace Reddit yet, in the sense that I'm still active on Reddit. But there is enough worthwhile content here that I can check in each day and find some stuff that I enjoy. And that's enough to give me a reason to keep coming back.

The issues get fixed, conversation happens, and there is content worth engaging in without feeling like an endless trap of doomscrolling.

What's wrong with the Fediverse exactly?

I enjoy the discourse and the memes here more than anywhere else in the internet

What else am I supposed to do? Use fucking Quora????

No billionaire owners and algorithms.

The fediverse is a "work in progress", and that is fine. All the other social media sites are a "collapse in progress".

It is much more fun to be on a small and growing platform, than on a big and dying platform.

My heroes? The instance operators and good mods, of course, along with everyone who contributes material.

Plus there’s more community when dealing with issues, such as problem instances and users. The fediverse doesn’t have the “old internet” feel, it’s still more restrained than that thanks to instance owners probably not wanting to host a lot of darker material thanks to the instances being under private ownership, but it feels more free than a place like reddit.