I had been active on Reddit for close to 15 years, and left due to the API decisions. That move feels more justified every time I bump into Reddit, from being unable to view programming questions from a work VPN, to the emails begging me to invest in their IPO, to their exec pay fiasco.

Reddit is a shell of what it was, but I think this is largely due to stepping away from it. I know several people that use it religiously, and they don’t notice it as much as I do.

In a similar vein, Lemmy can have some absolutely batshit views too, and can also be incredibly toxic at times. We just don’t notice it as much because we’re used to it, but I bet some people new to Lemmy would see some posts/comments and think “eh, no thanks”. I won’t say that Lemmy is as toxic as Reddit, but the community size makes it more obvious on Reddit.

I was active - and I mean ACTIVE - on reddit for well over a decade. When the API fiasco happened, I deleted my mobile apps, and stuck to desktop. When ‘opt out of selling your data’ became impossible, I logged out for good.

Lemmy is both better and worse than reddit ever was. It will likely never reach the same activity level, but will also not reach the same toxicity.

For me, it was not being able to use a 3rd party app. Accessing reddit through their garbage app is a painful experience. And unless I find the answer to a question via web search that’s a reddit thread, I avoid it entirely.

i stuck it out past the protest up until the day the company went public, and I can testify without any doubt that the downward spiral increased dramatically post protest. It got so bad that even though I go back to check my local sub, I haven’t once felt tempted to create a new account. I began to dread any actual interaction with other accounts

I’ve felt that the popular subreddits were on a decline ever since Reddit was featured in so many YouTube slop videos, but with time the effect of identity loss is becoming increasingly obvious. The crowd on there is not what it used to be. Gone is the desire for accurate information, meaningful comments, sources, and giving credit. Reddit is no longer a niche product but a mainstream one that my parents and “normie” friends know and it reflects in the lower quality content and user participation.

I haven’t gone to reddit.com and browsed around since I left.

But one thing that HASN’T changed is I’ll search ddg for an answer to a random problem and the most helpful link is a reddit post, either from long ago or recently.

The quality of Reddit has been declining for the last ~5 years. Even if you ignore all the shady shit Reddit themselves have done, the platform has been declining due to simple popularity. Simple-brained people joining and upvoting memes and reposts and fucking TikToks. There’s also just the toxicity of society in general. There used to be honest discussions and nuance and input from industry experts. Now it’s incredibly corporate, and hardcore liberal, and full of the same toxicity as Twitter.

It used to be mostly Libertarians and Atheists, kinda like how Lemmy is all sysadmins and Linux enthusiasts.

Reddit hasn’t felt the same for me since around 2021/22.

At some point it stopped being a platform for niche communities to come together and became a cesspool of corporate/government astroturfing and karma farm bots with a side of real people.

its all bots now. like its been getting worse and worse and i’m not surprised if theres now a much higher percentage of bots in there compared to that time.

The other day I was on one of those cloned threads where all the top starter responses were old copied responses posted by bots with numbers at the ends of their names and no one in the organically new comments even noticed. Just a few minutes ago I followed a link from the vanilla reddit homepage (I refuse to sign in to reddit but I keep going back anyway like a little baby brain) and there was a thread about a pride parade which was disrupted by a pro-Palestinian protest. All the pro-Palestinian comments were downvoted and all the highest voted comments were mocking “leftists.” In summary, fuck reddit, and this was the perfect moment for me to read your post.

I can’t even use Reddit anymore wince they don’t allow VPN users in. (I won’t turn it off for them)

Some things cannot be replaced. Spez destroyed something wonderful. There’s no going back.

Large subs are unreadable bot garbage. Small subs are still the same questions that have been answered a million times over and over. New OC is so rare that it gets drowned in low effort shit posts. At this point I don’t even open a tab anymore, just scroll lemmy till there’s no ‚new‘ stuff and then carry on with the day

Reddit has been generic for several years now. It’s, mostly, addictive trash content. I miss individual subs but the algorithm for popular / front page posts is doing the same thing every other social platform is doing. If that’s your jam, go for it. I value my time enough that I don’t need to be entertained by an algorithm. I hate it. A lot.

Edit:
I mean, I just went to reddit.com and the top post is a 21 year old married woman asking how to tell their 18 year old cousin they stink because they only shower every 3-4 days. THIS is engaging content? WTF is wrong with you people? This is why I’m thrilled to have left that dumbass platform.

I go back to Reddit now from time to time. Mostly to ask specific questions in communities that are niche and don’t exist on here. They are the only good interactions I see that are just as good as here. Elsewhere it’s just different. I’ve not been able to put my finger on why, myself like. But it’s definitely not the same.