I saw Jerboa while scrolling through random apps to potentially install, and became excited that finally there’s a REDDIT alternative as well, instead of just Twitter. Mastodon might be nice, but I don’t use Twitter, and I probably won’t use Mastodon, either. Reddit, on the other hand, oh man…
Reddit is honestly so important to the internet at this point that you’re trolling if you do web searches without “reddit” appended at the end (be it technological, physiological, historical, political, or any other type of topic that you’re looking for information or opinions about).
However… Reddit is going towards a terrible corporate direction, and something like Lemmy has been desperately needed for a while now, and I hope it can eventually somehow become the new “reddit” at the end of web searches eventually, as nobody knows what could happen to Reddit soon…
I find the most random, but also INCREDIBLY important and crucial bits of information deep within Reddit thread replies, since each one can go anywhere, no matter what the original post was about, such as finding out that fabric softeners are damaging for everything, especially humans, and that they should just generally not be used… on a gaming-related subreddit. Of course I start doing my research afterwards as well, now specifically regarding what I just learned to make sure and verify I know the correct information from multiple sources, but even just that initial random warning is great to start off with.
And the worst part? We might lose ALL of these things since we’re at the mercy of Reddit’s shareholders (even more so in the future, most likely), and these incredible resources and HUMAN EXPERIENCES that one shares, and MANY others learn from, could just… disappear…
A quick major policy change, and goodbye Reddit…
I’m looking forward to Lemmy taking off!
This is the reason the fediverse is so damn important. Companies and oeople are totally misalligned. The goal of a company at the end of the day is to make money at any cost. Online that places them in a situation where they collect users and try to build a wall arounf them. Eventually they all fail and people batter down the walls from within to escape. Compuserve, yahoo, myspace, facebook, etc are all examples.
Yup, corporations hire psychologists, analysts, statisticians, and more in order to create a walled garden and keep users engaged with their service or platform for as long as possible (see the addictive Instagram browsing UX loop, for example).
It’s pretty evil just how far they’re willing to go to drive a profit…
I’m new to the Fediverse, but I’m looking forward to its future!