cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/37870004
reddit got bad because spez (the reddit admin) restricted API access to the platform for third-party apps, such that people would be forced to use the official app or web UI, both of which display advertisement and collect user data (e.g. scroll behavior).
the reason why this happened is because reddit is a for-profit company and tries to extract money out of the userbase, at the expense of the users.
another example of a bad decision that reddit made was to push a lot of ragebait (“Am I The Asshole?”) because company shareholders want to see “engagement numbers” go up, and if somebody writes an angry reply to a post, that’s “engagement”. but it makes you angry at the stupidity of the “Asshole”, so it makes your day worse. that is another example how reddit makes money at the expense of the users.
size (number of monthly active users) is not what made reddit bad. commercialization is.
we should probably get rid of the “don’t make lemmy grow, it will ruin the platform if we grow” idea.
About not saying certain things, I think that is normal everywhere and Lemmy definitely leans certain directions depending on the instance.
You are not wrong about the anti state/police stance. I have lived a good chunk of my life surrounded with the opposite belief so I don’t mind. It is nice to hear concepts that are not mainstream even if I sometimes disagree with them.
As far as normies, need I remind you that we are all different in exactly the same way.
I wasn’t on Reddit for long until I left for the Fediverse, but I didn’t get the feeling I had to hide who I was on it, because you had a bit of everyone on it. So it would be kind of balanced…
Here, people are really leaning on one side. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have really nice and helpful people on the Fediverse, but I feel like I have to censor myself more even if what I’m saying is nothing crazy.
Of course, I’m allowed to say what I want as long as it follows rules, but sometimes I don’t because I don’t want to have any hostility directed at me.
All of this to say, that a few things were better on Reddit even if most of them weren’t.
People here are also more vehement in their beliefs. Like if I say that I am a vegan but eat dairy products, some people here will outright tell me to kill myself. Also, many people here literally state “death to the USA”, which does feel somewhat exclusionary and contentious, just a little.
Agreed about the vehemence in their beliefs.
I think it’s bad because it doesn’t allow for nuance and debate.
But it is how it is.
I have my beliefs and they ain’t gonna change, but it’s always good to read the vision of someone else.
Humans gonna human.
We all have biases, the important thing is to know (some)what what they are, so that they sway us less than they otherwise would.
I have actually changed my positions based on friendly dialogue online. But not here - it’s far too toxic to discuss any matter of importance here. Here, even when I agree with someone I often nope out of a conversation bc it is simply too draining arguing alongside someone with the tact of a brick wall.
Tbf, it became somewhat like that on Reddit too, even before the APIcalypse, so it might be an inevitable consequence of being on social media. Here, the average quality of conversation is much lower, but it is still at least possible to have a good one (or was, a couple years ago, especially on Kbin when that existed). Also, the longer your blocklist becomes, the higher the average quality rises. (Edit: the “average quality” depends heavily on whether you visit the largest communities here, and whether your instance has defederated from hexbear.net and/or lemmygrad.ml - which these days most have but I was on multiple that had not in the past. After blocking the triad though, the average quality here is WAY higher than on Reddit. You can always visit those places if you want to read their views, but arguing with incels rarely brightens my day, and I love being able to remove that from my experience, even if it must be opt-out and sadly was not opt-in, which chases so many people away from here. Seriously, block early and often, for the sake of your sanity!!)
So now, I suppose my time of being open to new ideas is in the past? At least as far as being online in the Fediverse / Threadiverse is concerned - though I still hold out hope for such irl.
I’m just so tired of talking with someone who will only talk AT rather than with me, and who values (their own) “free speech” immensely but cares not one tiny bit about listening or even common courtesy or decency.
But again, corporate enshittified platforms are even worse these days, so online discourse free of “alternative facts” trolls seems a thing of the past everywhere. I think it’s just a consequence of what social media does to people’s brains: https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb.
I fully agree with you about the fact that some people care about free speech and openess only when it serves them.
It’s true that I should have thought about blocking the people I’ve had bad experiences with.
Luckily, it only happened to me once in maybe 3 years.