Will they go the way of MySpace or will this truly blow over in a few week?
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I’m really excited about Lemmy and the fediverse in general. I’ve grown tired of small “for the people” web services turning corporate and fucking us all by jamming ads into our face or delivering a bunch of bullshit content they want us to consume.
I went to the internet at an early age in part because I could find content that wasn’t littered with advertisements and all the other bullshit on TV. The fediverse seems like it can be a space more like the original internet, separated from the few big players (Meta, Twitter, Google, and I suppose Reddit now).
Even victims of previous mass exoduses are still around. Take a look at the state of digg or fark now…
Whatever happens won’t be over in a week, a month, or even a year really…
Unlike the Reddit vs Digg situation, there’s no mature product to mass migrate to. Digg collapsed because Reddit was an easy move over. There was already a polished alternative.
The Fediverse is great, and has a lot a of promise, but it’s not fully developed and easy to move to. Us migrants are building it out now.
Reddit will lose it’s soul. It’s been showing signs for ages anyways. Spez wants to create a doom-scroll “social network” that caters towards the TikTok and Facebook crowd. That kind of cancer has been creeping in for a while anyways.
The core of Reddit was always the discussion. The niche communities where you had real enthusiasts. You could get your retro gaming PC diagnosed. Trade parts for your imported Honda Beat. Ask questions about utility locating. That’s the heart and soul. And also the hardest thing to move.
Digg is just a newspaper now. Not a community aggregator. There’s no soul. It became a domain. You can’t Digg or bury. You can’t even comment anymore. That’s where they’d like to take Reddit. It doesn’t require effort or mods. Just a like button.
You said it better than I could. I’m hoping this or one of the alternatives can step up.
Youre 100% correct that all the niche communities and discussion are what made the magic.
They want that TikTok brain type of experience. Scroll scroll, “damnthatsinteresting,” get mad about Elon Musk, ad, “aawww”, astroturfed pumping of upcoming movie or celebrity associated with a project, ad. They’ll get that, but it won’t be the same.
It’s been going that direction for a while. Even if we stated, the discourse quality in Reddit overall has been going down. Many of the “fun” subreddits have lost their point and have become shitty collections of short-videos.
For example take a look at r/HolUp. It used to be a very fun subreddit, with a very specific type of content, but now it’s just shitty videos that have nothing that make you think “hold up a minute”.
This is my beef with new Reddit too. I didn’t like the look, but I could have learned to live with that, the problem was it changed the fundamental way users were expected to interact with the site. Old.reddit is a discussion site. Someone posts a topic, either text or link, and other members comment. New Reddit wants you to scroll through linked content on the front or sub page (with interspersed ads) and commenting isn’t the point. If you do want to click through to the comments, they’re interupted with links to different posts. Fine if you’re just there to waste time and browse memes, intensely irritating if you’re after something specific.
They’ll survive but I don’t think they will be the powerhouse it used to be. They’re a link/meme aggregator with forum functionality. Memmy for me has already filled the void. I’ll pop back into Reddit sometimes the same way I pop into Digg.
TIL Digg was still around…
I agree, Reddit will carry on, but this will change them. They will possibly fall from their dominant spot. Although the sheep are stubborn (I still don’t understand how the people there could withstand that atrocious mobile app they’re trying to inflict on all their users).
