Similar, just smaller. It keeps me from going on Reddit but tbh, I would be back there in a second if I didn't have to use their app or use the browser.

It works for me because I'm into a lot of the stuff discussed on Lemmy. My biggest problem with reddit was that at some point they seemed eager to smoosh all the subs together into one big Basic Betty fest. For example having r/all be a mandatory sub and having a million default subs...It kind of felt like towards the end everyone was discussing the same stuff on every sub, and it was basically the same stuff being discussed on Twitter (and many posts were just pics of tweets).

I know Lemmy kinda has some similar issues, but because the whole ecosystem is its own niche it still works for me.

I just love it here. But I also know that while most communities are really nice, we rely a lot on two (2) individuals who provide a sizeable part of Lemmy's content (Picard and PugJesus). We should all try to do our part!

As others have said, as a "front page" with voting and real people in the comments, I like it. It's like hanging out at the one locals' coffee shop in a small hippie college town somewhere. You don't get to talk about everything you might like, and there's a definite vibe, but the people are generally polite, informed, and surprisingly cosmopolitan. That's where Lemmy really shines in relation to reddit, the quality and accessibility of conversation on general interest and shitpost threads. Even assuming they're not overrun with bots, and they likely are, the biggest subreddits are just noise and fake internet points, or at best a passing conversation with a stranger on a bus.

I still go to reddit for (American) football and mechanical keyboards, but for the former I don't even bother participating, because we've got a fun handful of folks here (to extend the coffee shop analogy, imagine a table in the back with a few professors who fondly remember going to a big football school 20 years ago). For the latter I can get the occasional fix here, and I seek that out, but I like seeing the pretty aluminum rectangles and sharing the little bit I've learned with newbies. To the extent there's still a baby splashing around in the bathwater, I'd prefer not to throw it out, but I'm clear-eyed about reddit's trajectory, and "home" is here.

It's working for me, but might not be for everyone.

I like that when I scroll through the comments, I recognize names. Commenting feels less like shouting into a random crowd, and more like having a conversation at a party where strangers may pop in and out.

There's definitely less content. If you're looking for something to doom scroll, you're going to burn through everything quickly, but for me, I open it up when I'm bored, see what's new, and in 5-10 minutes, I'm all caught up and back to the real world.

Not everybody is looking to ween themselves back from constant social media, but it's turned into a benefit for me.

Depends on what you are looking for. I think Lemmy works great and I only really go to reddit when a google search leads me there for something. Though I do miss the niche communities and the "there is a subreddit for everything".

Lemmy is also healthier, I used to just scroll through reddit for literal hours, it's possible to reach an end of sort for the time.

Lemmy is fine, but less busy than reddit.

There's the complete absence of u/spez being a cunt, so you have to adjust to the idea of your experience not being constantly downgraded.

It feels like a more-manageable, more-personal, bite-sized version of Reddit. It scratches the itch, but I spend less time here overall than I used to on Reddit.

If you pick a good, internally stable instance, it's great. Local can be more curated to your tastes, All can be more general.

Good:

• I can use it for mobile without a first party app.

Bad

• There aren't as many communities here as there were on Reddit.
• There isn't that much content as on Reddit. Also, while the meme ratio of content feels the same to Reddit, the non-meme Lemmy content is rather small.
• Comment conversation seems lacking.
• Moderation tools are rather limited and heavily dependent on defederation to function.
• The idea of "start your own" mindset in the design makes community formation just as bad as Reddit. There doesn't seem to be any tools for a more collaborative approach to running subs or instances.

I'm here because I like the idea of defederated social media, but I hope there will be further attempts at making even better alternatives.

kinda so-so, so far. shows promise but I've also run more immediately into what could be called 'reddit rot'. For example mod behavior that resembles russian bot farms, etc.

Nah. Lemmy is nothing like Reddit, it's actually good.

Sure it's the same thing without all the corporate interference. Reddit was small once.

its effective for me, but I always find myself going back to reddut due to the data thats already there.

as the fediverse continues to grows, I'm sure my reliance on visiting reddit will begin to go down