I joined reddit on the tailwind, so it was all echo chamber, we hate newcomers, gatekeeping, automod frenzy, too many rulebreakers, too many rules, etc I could be wrong, but thats what I imagine it used to be like.
A major difference being that the fediverse won’t get that “advertiser friendly” corporate sanitization with how it’s set up.
It’s nice not being advertised to or feeling like a product.
I think the fundamental question is, as the Fediverse gets more popular, then how will servers get paid for? Here are some possibilities I see for how Fediverse hosting could work at scale:
- Surviving off donations alone: Possible but in my estimation unlikely, and it could veer into the territory of big donors having a controlling stake or exerting their interests.
- Instances limiting number of users to what they can afford: This would require the network of instances process to really work well.
- Big instances selling advertisements: Without oversight or moral commitment, this could easily go towards creepy personal data collection.
- Crowdsourcing the costs: This would require transparency and fundraising or some other model
- Hosts financing the operation in other ways: This could also easily get into creepy data collection practices or other dark patterns.
I hope we come up with some process or plan for avoiding the pitfalls and forging an honest and community-integrating way forward.
Ah yes, the common addition that ruins pretty much every equation. People. People suck 😂
The only solution is to make your own private instance and never allow anyone to join. Perfection at last… Oh, wait there’s still one human ruining the atmosphere. Not to worry, there’s a quick fix for that. You just need to ban yourself and then the instance will be completely perfect forever.
I was on Reddit since almost the beginning and I would not say it’s similar, but I also don’t think that culture exists on the internet anymore, closest thing might be tildes?
What I really miss is the intelligent conversion and actual debate in the comments. People don’t really lay out arguments anymore, complete with sources and logical conclusions. Back in the early days of Reddit you’d be downvoted and told off if you made a claim without evidence. Anecdotal evidence, speculation, and bias were called out. There were still jokes and light comment sections, but comments aiming to make a point were essays where you could actually learn something. Might sound exhausting to some, but it feels like the internet has turned into just upvoting whatever confirms your bias, whether there’s evidence of it or not. I’m sure you can find some excellent examples in the old r/bestof posts.
The content was a lot different too, the community was just a lot more scientific. Studies were posted over articles, and clickbait articles (before they were even clickbait) were called out as not having substantial content or evidence. Even studies were heavily scrutinized by identifying the bias in the methodology.
There were a lot less communties (subreddits) too, which I think lead to healthier discussion overall and less of an echo chamber effect. It was still always criticized as being a “hive mind”, but it felt less like one to me back then anyways.
I guess overall it feels like the main difference is everything nowadays is meant to radicalize you, or get a reaction out of you. Back in the day if something political or scientific was being shared it was shared with the intention of changing minds, not confirming bias.
Anyways, that’s my old person rant. I’m probably looking at it all through rose tinted nostalgia glasses, but there’s definitely been a shift in how we communicate on the internet for better or for worse.
Downvoted.
Not a laid out argument, complete with sources and logical conclusions. This is anecdotal, speculative, and biased information.
Serious note : Love your perspective about the old reddit I’m always curious to know what made internet what it was. I wonder if that’ll happen again.
My favorite was old days of Reddit you’d be skewered for posting a .jpg instead of a .png of the image had text.
JPG should be killed off. We don’t need a lossy image format anymore were not on dialup.
I also remember constant reminders to vote on the quality of the post, not if you agree or not.
Haha yeah, I don’t know if that disclaimer is still there, but that totally went out the window in the mid 2010s
Kinda pain in the ass to add links and formatting on a phone which most of us use. Early days of reddit was all Desktops.
People don’t really lay out arguments anymore, complete with sources and logical conclusions
I only joined reddit like a year or so ago and have recently ditched it. I was never a fan of someone just spamming links to studies and condescending to me while doing so. I think people use links to sources as a way to control conversations. Or at least, that’s all I ever saw it used as.
I don’t know, I’m a pretty left leaning person. The vitriolic, almost violent responses to some of my comments is shocking. I knew Lemmygrad was a thing here, along with tankies, honestly it’s off putting to say the least. OP talks about Reddit being an echo chamber. I got news for you. This place is just as bad for lefty type discourse being regurgitated. My experience is that it has been anything but friendly.
I honestly wouldn’t give those people the dignity of calling them leftists. They’re too concerned about cosplaying as activists and dunking on people to actually give a shit about advancing the rights of real people or trying to protect anything good.
I see comments like this, complaining about tankies, more often than i see “tankies”.
On the occasion politics comes up, and i say anything socialist, I’m jumped on by people who seem either angry or smugly dismissive of the notion of people organising.
Dude is a Canadian landlord. But I guess since the right wing has literal nazis now, anything left of that is ‘pretty left leaning’
It’s shit like this. I’m just a normal guy, I have a job, kids, hobbies. I believe in less military spending, national healthcare, social programs, and support for our vulnerable population. I got into real estate because it seemed like a good investment. People on here make it seem like anything that doesn’t fit their idea of “left” or"socialism" just be part of the conservative machine. Jesus, my investment decisions are not politically motivated. I made the mistake of trying to be part of a discussion and ended up with someone telling me I’m garbage and that I should give my investments to the tenants. Lol.
I just said I knew they were present, I didn’t say I specifically had a problem with them. I personally think that we’re don’t have enough unions. Any time corporations are against something, that usually means it’s good for employees and the environment. (I have no particular opinion on people’s political notions). It’s sad that people here on both ends of the political spectrum can’t voice their opinion without being jumped on. Honestly it’s worse than Reddit.
I’ve had several people here already tell me (directly or indirectly) that I’m really a Trump supporter in disguise because I dare criticize Biden and centrists don’t exist. But that isn’t a problem specific to Lemmy, and the sites that aren’t like this are alt-right “Ultra MAGA” cult sites that I want nothing to do with.
lol i put up a post on here and people analyzing it from a “socialist perspective” the thing is i thin kits limited to certain cats [what u call communities] lemmy is like america 1790s, all kinds of people comign in here, some of the rejects from other countries, some criminals, and some opportunity seekers
Given your comment I’m not sure if this a positive comment on lemmy or whether you agree with the comment you responded to?
Someone being banned for arguing politics would never happen on Reddit, so given they were banned from two instances in <6hrs is a land speed record.
I find Lemmy to be an echo chamber more than Reddit was. Depends on the community but Lemmy can be pretty caustic if you don’t agree with something.
That being said, is fine there is different opinions. Creates discussion.
Honestly, the fact that Lemmy displays upvote and downvote counts (like reddit, at least with RES, used to) makes it a lot friendlier. If you say something unpopular, better to see +10/-4 than just -6 - if you’re saying something unpopular but true, at least you’re seeing some positive reaction.
This alone makes it worlds less toxic and less circlejerky. People won’t automatically groupthink themselves into disregarding you if they realize that your comment was divisive instead of wrong.
+15/-45 gets that across better than -30
YouTube/Google also made this mistake. Or, I’m sure it is tested to make some KPI look good. But, certainly not the ability to discern “is this video garbage/scam” at a glance.
Sure, I’m clicking more videos to find a relevant one. So, probably “increases engamement”, but also reduces my willingness to pay for the service. But, I suppose it’s mostly driven by ad impressions.
This must depend on which app you’re using.
Sync just shows the total, I’d prefer if it didn’t show at all.
I was around when reddit first started. There were Nazis. It seemed fine, because Nazis were useless idiots, and people told them to go fuck themselves.
Reddit in 2016 actively helped install a fascist who eventually tried to overthrow American democracy.
Reddit now is a place where “fuck off, Nazi” is punished more reliably and more harshly than being a goddamn Nazi.
This service feels familiar - but not for the reasons I’d like. The fools in charge of every popular instance think scolding “be polite!” and punishing rudeness instead of trolling are a force multiplier for trolls. If you can just keep saying dumb shit until someone says a no-no word - they get the boot, and you win.
I want a forum where “here is why you’re an asshole” is moderated based on whether the explanation is correct.
I actually got told by Reddit Staff that they’d contact law enforcement if I made anymore references to “punching Nazis”, then they banned me for “Report Abuse”
They never did a damn thing about the trolls who kept flagging any post referencing me being trans or anything positive about transpeople as “Suicidal” or “Promoting Self-Harm”
Got those “A redditor has asked us to reach out to you concerning…” all fucking day.
The worst sin of reddit mods was demanding “report and move on!” and then never doing anything about reports. Or scolding you for messaging the subreddit instead of using the report button.
Either do the fucking work or let people talk.
The worst part of that is they started banning people for “Report Abuse” even though I checked, “Report Abuse” is not even mentioned in the TOS.
How the fuck, are you gonna tell me to “Report and move on”, if you ban me for reporting.
Incidentally, guess why I had to stop using Reddit…
They banned me for very obviously joking that someone else should punch the fascist attorney general of Indiana in the face and it was some sort of punny reply based on something he said. They only reinstated me because a bunch of mods from multiple subreddits took my side.
They ban for “won’t someone rid me of this turbulent priest” comments apparently.
You understand that idiom, but not ‘go on, make my day?’ Even when it’s patiently explained to you?
There’s a negative stereotype that Transpeople kill themselves all the time, studies have shown this number to be dropping and the suicides to be caused by abuse from others and denial of transition related care.
The Far Right ignores this and goes “Lol transpeople kill themselves because transpeople dumb”
So it became a thing to report anyone Trans on Reddit, for “Suicidal Behavior”, which Reddit never looks into the validity of, they just send you a bunch of suicide hotline links… which is well intended, but there really should be a mechanism in place to find out if they’re trolling.
Eventually when it became common knowledge that it’s so exploitable it became a more in general method of griefing others.
I feel like political discourse didn’t start on Reddit until after subreddits were added
Haha, no. There’s a reason /r/Atheism was one of the default subs. All that Ron Paul didn’t come out of nowhere.
They say Atheism is to having a religion in the same way that not having a car is the same as having a car.
The same cannot be said of r/Atheism, the most dogmatic place on the whole fucking internet.
