This is a fantastic comment, but I think it’s a little bit too focused on the platform and not enough on the community. I’m the mod of a couple of subreddits in the 6-digit subscriber range as well as a couple of much smaller ones. The reason I do it is entirely because of the community. Reddit as a platform has been going downhill for a long time, but it has excellent communities. I really enjoyed interacting with the people in my community, or sharing and discussing content I cared about. And while moderating provides value to Reddit as a company, it also provides value to the community.
The company, of course, knows this, and that’s why it thinks it’s able to strongarm us into doing its bidding. It thinks our love of the community is greater than our hate for their actions. I hope they’re wrong, but the response I’ve seen in comments on Reddit so far tells me that at least some users not just don’t mind what Reddit’s doing, but are actively supportive of it. That is…disheartening, to say the least.
My community is wherever I happen to be. Obviously I don’t know what you mod, but yesterday I probably wasn’t part of your community. Today it seems I am. Tomorrow is feeling pretty far away to know for certain. I can say I feel zero attachment to Reddit the URL or my account, which I recycle every few years anyway for privacy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a lot of good conversations there, but I couldn’t name a single /u I’ve ever interacted with. The anonymous interactions are the point for me. Lemmy doesn’t have to be Reddit, it just has to be big enough that it gives me enough to think about and talk about in my downtime. I won’t miss Reddit at all.
My experience of Reddit was obviously very different from yours then. I know a number of people directly by their usernames who I would say I’m quite fond of, and who I considered—not quite friends exactly, but pretty close to it. A few users I have met in-person and had drinks with.
I’ve had the same account for 11 years, and in that time have interacted with a lot of people and had what I considered very valuable discussion. It’s sentimental, but I value that. I’m saddened to see it go away.
There are more pragmatic reasons to be sad about Reddit’s demise too. The fact that you could just append “reddit” to nearly any Google Search and get results that were usually far better than the often-clickbait-ridden results that would turn up otherwise was made possible by Reddit’s scale. That’s a very valuable aspect that will be gone.
I guess I just do social differently. I’ve done a lot of total migrations from one platform or ecosystem or roleplaying group to another over the years. I’m not an overly connected person even IRL. I probably should’ve realized other folks see social media differently and that what I see as essentially zero cost or effort wouldn’t be how others see it. I’ll be more cognizant in the future that most folks are more connected to each other.
I think I am just nostalgic for the internet that was small, decentralized and uncommercialized. So I like to say fuck the big companies who bring together huge communities and then want to exploit them for money. I also feel like… you know (probably better than me) like a community of 100k people isn’t actually a community of 100k but more like 100 people who are really the community core and 99.9k people with a passing interest. I’m perpetually in the latter group - I feel like in any group of that many people I should just shut up and let actual authorities speak on any given subject and I’ll comment from the peanut gallery. (TBH, I often find myself wishing more people would be less self-important.) Even in areas that I’m arguably an expert in (been doing programming for over twenty-five years so I’ve got some comfort) there are always a ton of people with broader experience that is probably more relevant to the average person so even then I’m not the person folks should be hearing.
Hell, the idea that someone would remember me from one comment to another is a little intimidating to be perfectly honest. Maybe that’s why I delete my accounts every so often. Anyway that’s enough words that are probably barely interesting or relevant to you. This is where I’d normally delete a comment after spending an hour writing it but apparently not this time. Have a great day!
This is a fantastic comment, but I think it’s a little bit too focused on the platform and not enough on the community. I’m the mod of a couple of subreddits in the 6-digit subscriber range as well as a couple of much smaller ones. The reason I do it is entirely because of the community. Reddit as a platform has been going downhill for a long time, but it has excellent communities. I really enjoyed interacting with the people in my community, or sharing and discussing content I cared about. And while moderating provides value to Reddit as a company, it also provides value to the community.
The company, of course, knows this, and that’s why it thinks it’s able to strongarm us into doing its bidding. It thinks our love of the community is greater than our hate for their actions. I hope they’re wrong, but the response I’ve seen in comments on Reddit so far tells me that at least some users not just don’t mind what Reddit’s doing, but are actively supportive of it. That is…disheartening, to say the least.
My community is wherever I happen to be. Obviously I don’t know what you mod, but yesterday I probably wasn’t part of your community. Today it seems I am. Tomorrow is feeling pretty far away to know for certain. I can say I feel zero attachment to Reddit the URL or my account, which I recycle every few years anyway for privacy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a lot of good conversations there, but I couldn’t name a single /u I’ve ever interacted with. The anonymous interactions are the point for me. Lemmy doesn’t have to be Reddit, it just has to be big enough that it gives me enough to think about and talk about in my downtime. I won’t miss Reddit at all.
My experience of Reddit was obviously very different from yours then. I know a number of people directly by their usernames who I would say I’m quite fond of, and who I considered—not quite friends exactly, but pretty close to it. A few users I have met in-person and had drinks with.
I’ve had the same account for 11 years, and in that time have interacted with a lot of people and had what I considered very valuable discussion. It’s sentimental, but I value that. I’m saddened to see it go away.
There are more pragmatic reasons to be sad about Reddit’s demise too. The fact that you could just append “reddit” to nearly any Google Search and get results that were usually far better than the often-clickbait-ridden results that would turn up otherwise was made possible by Reddit’s scale. That’s a very valuable aspect that will be gone.
Losing the Google search is indeed unfortunate.
I guess I just do social differently. I’ve done a lot of total migrations from one platform or ecosystem or roleplaying group to another over the years. I’m not an overly connected person even IRL. I probably should’ve realized other folks see social media differently and that what I see as essentially zero cost or effort wouldn’t be how others see it. I’ll be more cognizant in the future that most folks are more connected to each other.
I think I am just nostalgic for the internet that was small, decentralized and uncommercialized. So I like to say fuck the big companies who bring together huge communities and then want to exploit them for money. I also feel like… you know (probably better than me) like a community of 100k people isn’t actually a community of 100k but more like 100 people who are really the community core and 99.9k people with a passing interest. I’m perpetually in the latter group - I feel like in any group of that many people I should just shut up and let actual authorities speak on any given subject and I’ll comment from the peanut gallery. (TBH, I often find myself wishing more people would be less self-important.) Even in areas that I’m arguably an expert in (been doing programming for over twenty-five years so I’ve got some comfort) there are always a ton of people with broader experience that is probably more relevant to the average person so even then I’m not the person folks should be hearing.
Hell, the idea that someone would remember me from one comment to another is a little intimidating to be perfectly honest. Maybe that’s why I delete my accounts every so often. Anyway that’s enough words that are probably barely interesting or relevant to you. This is where I’d normally delete a comment after spending an hour writing it but apparently not this time. Have a great day!