I had heard of it way back when, and basically thought it was going to be another dead OSS project. Years later Reddit was enshittifying and to my surprise it came back as the main alternative. Now I'm here and not leaving.

I found out about lemmy from the announcement for boost for lemmy(i had been using boost for reddit for about a week since then)

I was a r/196 user during the API change

In the wake of the Reddit API changes, I decided to jump off that ship. Saw Lemmy mentioned but a lot of posts were painting it negatively, due to federation things and tankies. I was on Squabbles (lol) as my Reddit replacement platform for a few months before that disintegrated and then finally arrived at Lemmy.

+1 for Reddit API exodus.

Lemmy was sold to me as a Reddit replacement. And it is, superficially. I knew it wasn't going to be drop-in going in. But the longer I use it the more I think it's not really quite like Reddit, and never will be. And that's fine. Lemmy is its own character and I like it for what it is.

I still use Reddit. Lemmy doesn't scratch all the itches for me. But only old.reddit on the desktop and on mobile with a UI de-shittifying extension. I'm amazed they still offer it at all. Once that's cut off, something I've been bracing myself for for years, I'll consider the UX enshittification to have fully completed and I'll truly bail. I simply refuse to use their gentrified UI. And I'm tired as it is having to slap on compatibility layers just to keep their less terrible alternative on life support; I'm not going to do the same thing to make their mainstream UI somewhat more palatable.

I was banned from Reddit for the crime of using a different computer to login. Fun fact - there's no appeal for that one. So I decided I had enough of that particular shit show, did some Googling for something similar to the older Reddit from years ago.

It was ether from one of the subreddit talking about alternative to Reddit which was around the time of Reddit did changes to API or from someone made post about Lemmy on Mastodon and wanted to try it out.

When the Reddit API thing was going down I was looking for a place to jump ship before Apollo went down and Lemmy was one of the options. I found Voyager and later I joined other parts of the Fediverse

It was indeed during the API exodus. I used the official app so I didn't have strong feelings about it, but I really hated how they handled it all. Of course it was discussed everywhere and I was like "I hate it like everybody else, but there isn't really an alternative" and someone was like "uhm, how about Lemmy or kbin [or other stuff I don't remember I think]?".

I looked into it, got confused, asked the guy some questions and they were kind enough to explain. Looked into it more and made a slow transition. Really helped this was at the peak of the exodus so everything was firing up here.

I started using Lemmy because, after a previous Reddit blackout a few years, the CEO of Reddit (Steve Huffman, AKA Spez) released a statement that (while I've long sense forgotten exactly what he said) made it seem like he was disappointed in the Reddit community for not supporting pedophilia. I used alternativeto.net to find Reddit alternatives and, because Lemmy wasn't at the top of the list at the time, I used a few other websites before using Lemmy. At first I used both simultaneously but I deleted my Reddit account after the API changes.

I didn’t come here directly after reddit. Stopped off at mastodon first, but it was too twitter-like for my taste. Saw Lemmy on a list of alternatives, and this place scratches the itch pretty well.

i used the android app "reddit is fun". i had stopped using reddit well before the api and public offering drama so i had absolutely no idea it was going on. i needed to get an answer to a question and the google search led to a reddit link. typically i normally chose web links, but this time i said, what the hell, and opened the link with rif. then i read the changelog of the app. that pointed to a lemmy instance for rif (which does not have a lemmy version btw) and that's where i caught up on all the bullshit i missed during the intervening 3 years.

ps i also have a .ml account. it was the easiest one to create an account with at the time. if i could transfer all the stats and comments i made with this account and transfer it to one that allowed swearing (for instance you can't use the word that describes selling one's self for money or other favors that sounds similar to a garden tool called a hoe) i'd do it.

The great Reddit migration when 3rd party devs realized how much Reddit would charge them to use Reddit's API in order to serve information to their apps. RiF was my shit.

I love Lemmy now though. Its federated nature, while abnormal and at times not the easiest to explain, has me hopeful for the cyberspace future that isn't fully dictated by corporations. Using Fdroid, getting over the hump from Chrome to Firefox, and now the prospects of switching entire OSs from Windows to Linux are within my visibility now, when before I was comfortable in my corporate bubble.

Think the next thing I need to start taking strides on after Linux is privacy. I still keep my passwords locked under OneDrive Vault and a password protected OneNote. Should probably dump that and move over to keypass or some other password manager. I just don't want to have to pay for a service right now on a recurring basis unless I choose to to support the devs.

It must have been somewhere around early 2020 when I was casually browsing Mastodon. I found about a federated Reddit alternative and got immediately interested. I registered to Lemmy.ml and in 2021 founded Sopuli when federation got implemented properly. And here I am!

I remember seeing lemmy maybe 4+ years ago on some open-source subreddit. It had practically non-existent user base, so I've ignored it. After that, I remember a first wave of people making mastodon accounts (even before elon). There I've first heard of concept of "fediverse". I liked the idea but I honestly thought it had zero chances to compete with mainstream social media.

And then everything turned to shit, making a gap between something like lemmy and reddit a lot smaller. So I've jumped the ship with everyone after the API shitstorm.

Saw it mentioned on Reddit

The ChapoTrapHouse-Hexbear pipeline

When the chapotraphouse subreddit was banned I learned about lemmy and hexbear. I lost the password to lemmy.ml u/HamidPayaamAbbasi now I have my own instance.

They took away apps that worked and apps that had accessibility features built in in favour of monetizing everything which sits very badly with me as a concept so I stopped being a part of how that company makes money and I joined here.

Now my stupid comments make nobody money. Win win.

I was on reddit when the api changes happened, after that (and the canvas) i deleted my account over there and went here.

Earlier this year, I decided to engage with social media, so I searched for lists of social media websites and signed up on the ones I could find. Lemmy was on one of the lists and also happens to be one of the websites I enjoy the most! 😃

Yet another reddit exodus user here, started with Jerboa and settled on Eternity. Trying to learn rust so I can help out.

im was banned in reddit because... i accidentally wrote lgor360 (first letter: L) instead of Igor360 (first letter: I) and reddit thought i was pretending to be a person with a nickname Igor360 (first letter: I and yes there is a person with such a nickname on reddit) and ban me...

Several years ago I stumbled upon ActivityPub and the Fediverse. I created a few accounts across services, I think Friendica was the first. I quickly got bored with it because no one else from my real life was on it and the overall userbase was tiny. Move forward a couple of years and I left reddit when they took away third-party apps and mod tools. Lemmy had enough users at that point I've stuck around.

I created a Mastadon account when Musk bought Twitter but that's gone idle. I was never that into Twitter, it's not a format I prefer.

I discovered it years before the great reddit exodus of 2023 but then it didn't have any discussions worth participating in so I didn't even make an account.

I went to kbin.social during the Reddit api exodus, and when that fell apart I had seen enough of lemmy through federated content to know that was where to go.

When Elmo bought Twitter I moved to Mastodon, when Reddit got rid of third party apps and the API changes I asked on Mastodon if there’s is a Fediverse Reddit, not really expecting a yes.

The one thing that does my head in about Lemmy is how USA centric it is.

I was 2 r 3 months into my sanity break from Reddit when my friends (who knew i was a redditor) started sending me msgs like "lol what are you gonna do now?"

Viewed the API drama from afar, then read some article mentioning lemmy. Tried a few instances but a lot had limits on new accts. Beehaw told me to pound sand. sh.itjust.works was the one that had the fewest roadblocks to join. Now i got a few accts spread out over grad, bear, and here.

People seem to pine for reddit (or at least more content/users) but i like the small community. You can actually be heard here, and so too can you hear speech that isn't the same fucking meme ad-nauseam

Just found it looking for new forums after getting frustrated with reddit's bullshit.

Started with some political discussions from my home country on mastodon, looked in to fediverse tech in general and managed to avoid .world from the start

EMPRESS moved here after getting banned from Reddit, so I moved. She got banned from ml shortly afterwards; but i stuck with here since i liked the concept.

Reddit API drama >> kbin.social >> lemmy.world