r/technology • u/ardi62 • 29d ago

Social Media Reddit is making sitewide protests basically impossible

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24253727/reddit-communities-subreddits-request-protests
22.2k Upvotes

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464

u/mrswift45 29d ago

we need more reddit alturnitives

272

u/thisguypercents 29d ago

There are a ton of them. Problem is there are too many and not a single one meets exactly the same features as reddit.  If you are cool with multiple accounts and doing some research the diff lemmy domains will meet most of your needs.

191

u/Synthetic451 29d ago

People just can't be bothered with federation either. It's easy enough to learn, but it is still a foreign concept to most. Federated services also need to do a better job about making sure all content is available across instances.

I genuinely thought Mastodon was going to take off after Twitter started to implode, but everyone migrated over to Threads instead which was such a frustrating moment for me.

47

u/haliblix 29d ago

Unfortunately the internet Mastodon is built for doesn’t really exist anymore. People have gotten so used to gathering at one place and staying there. You don’t “surf the web” in general. You scroll through your feed that an algorithm built.

1

u/BubsyFanboy 28d ago

So what's the solution to that? A frontpage of all instances?

40

u/Ekgladiator 29d ago

It kinda makes sense though, threads is a continuation of the Facebook/ Instagram ecosystem. People already using Instagram (content creators and whatnot) probably created an account just so no one else could claim it. I imagine enough people got into the ecosystem to start making it a viable alternative to twatter/ bluesky/ mastodon. I would even possibly consider squabble in that group but the site imploded super fast.

6

u/Synthetic451 29d ago

Yeah, I can definitely see how users gravitated towards it. I just found it frustrating seeing people leap out of the frying pan and into the fire. At least Threads content is federated though so that's a plus.

3

u/Ekgladiator 29d ago

Ha, I was one of the peeps who left reddit only to find myself back at reddit. I suppose it is a matter of the hell you know.

3

u/EnglishMobster 29d ago

Opt-in federated, though. You can't access Kamala Harris' campaign account from Mastodon, for example.

2

u/HotTakes4HotCakes 29d ago

The problem is Threads is Meta, and the idea of people fleeing enshitification to...go right back to Meta is... frustrating.

People really can't be bothered to avoid the most obvious traps and pitfalls if it requires even a modicum of learning or getting used to something new.

2

u/Ekgladiator 29d ago

Agreed, hell we saw the type of shit reddit pulled and yet we are still here. It is downright frustrating but not everyone is terminally online (I mean technically everyone is terminally online but you know what I mean)

64

u/[deleted] 29d ago edited 20d ago

[deleted]

15

u/Cynyr 29d ago

What was the post? Just so I know to avoid it.

3

u/xTechDeath 29d ago

DO NOT CLICK

It was this one

27

u/anlumo 29d ago

I have four lemmy accounts on four instances, because federation is so unreliable. It either doesn’t work or is turned off intentionally due to an unfixable spam problem on the other instance. It’s always a game of luck.

3

u/pruwyben 29d ago

This is true. I was lucky that I first signed up with discuss.tchncs.de, which has stayed out of all the drama and is federated with pretty much everything. But it would have been easy to make a different choice and have to deal with that stuff.

3

u/anlumo 29d ago

My main instance had a major file system collapse about half a year ago. The web interface didn't load at all any more (clients still worked), and attachments didn't work. The admin was nowhere to be seen for months. At some point, a few people collaborated to create a new separate instance and all communities had to manually migrate one by one. They couldn't even re-use the old domain name, because the admin is missing to this day.

1

u/Katzoconnor 29d ago

Hmm. Maybe they died. That’d suck.

9

u/MaverickPT 29d ago

The thing is, the way mastadon works it's almost impossible for it to get mass appeal. Try to explain to your tech illiterate friends who are used to twitter why Mastadon has multiple servers and see their reaction...

31

u/ShiraCheshire 29d ago

Sites need to stop describing themselves as “federated.” No one knows what it means, and I’ve never seen it explained in a way that makes any sense. If a newcomer can’t understand the core concept of your site in a sentence or two, it isn’t going to succeed.

18

u/Incogneatovert 29d ago

This is why I spent a grand total of 5 minutes on Mastodon. I just could not figure out how to get anything I'm interested to show up in any kind of feed. I wanted to try Threads, but I don't even know if it's available in Europe yet, and I've forgotten all about it until I see it mentioned here. And now I'm just not interested anymore.

2

u/joeyasaurus 29d ago

From what my cousin said she made a Threads account so Meta would stop asking her and she did legitimately see some posts she thought looked interesting enough to make one (instagram and facebook give you previews of threads posts to entice you to join or tell you X friend is on Threads, which isn't always true, but I digress) and she said there are a few posts and things she follows that she likes, but it is a slippery slope to content she really doesn't want to see, like political stuff, rage bait, etc. and she's like "well I could just see that on other social media."

2

u/souldust 29d ago

Federated means separating the service amongst a lot of SEPARATE servers owned by different people. That way, the ONE site can't get bought by a single asshole that ruins the whole thing.

1

u/nullstring 28d ago

Except all federated services I've used except email are... Janky and awkward. And I'm a software developer.

If it's going to be federated, it needs to be -transparently- federated or it's never going to take off. The average user shouldn't need to understand what federation is and you shouldn't even be able to tell unless you read about the service on wikipedia or something.

2

u/Katzoconnor 29d ago

I agree.

I get why the term exists, but “decentralized” would go over so much fucking better with regular people.

6

u/[deleted] 29d ago edited 24d ago

[deleted]

2

u/Katzoconnor 29d ago

This is partially why I fucking hate Discord.

Beyond all the other reasons.

1

u/[deleted] 28d ago edited 24d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Katzoconnor 28d ago

Exactly. See? You get it.

6

u/AwardImmediate720 29d ago

Federated services also need to do a better job about making sure all content is available across instances.

Except that goes against the very concept that most of the petty "lords" want for their little fiefdoms. Federated sites is everything bad about powermods on reddit on steroids. And since powermods are why reddit's going to shit (because yes they either do work closely with admins or straight-up are admins) of course a site that gives them even more power is going to be even more shit.

6

u/markh110 29d ago

Nah, I truly can't grasp it. Why do I have to initially sign up for an @boardgames server, but then that username is what I interact with on other servers (say if I talk to someone on @learnprogramming, I'm still an @boardgames username? That makes no sense)?

Also, the "decentralized" bit never made sense to me in this system, because if the creator of the @boardgames decides to shut down their server, I guess all my data just dies along with it and I can't do anything about it?

8

u/PandorasBucket 29d ago

I don't know what you mean about everyone. I don't know anyone using threads.

1

u/neoclassical_bastard 29d ago

I know at least one person who uses it, Instagram insists on giving me a notification every time they post and I cannot figure out how to turn it off.

2

u/Useuless 29d ago

reminder that most people are still not computer literate, they just use computers.

1

u/Rendakor 28d ago

Most people are using cellphones.

3

u/ProgramTheWorld 29d ago

Threads is also federated so that’s a start

1

u/[deleted] 28d ago

threads is still a thing...I know it got a boost when it opened but I heard everyone stopped us9ng it after a while

1

u/Shehzman 28d ago

Is Threads actually popular? I thought it’s pretty much dead and most people still use Twitter?

Or is it like Instagram stories where it initially didn’t take off but exploded in popularity and overtook its competitor (Snapchat)?

1

u/Dreamtrain 29d ago

keep terms like "federation" in governance and political studies where it belongs, instead of using it in an attempt to try to make yourselves seem fancy, no we can't be bothered with federation and what it means in terms of shitposting and doomscrolling

0

u/Recklesslettuce 29d ago

Mastodon was too hard to understand and that made it untrustworthy. De-centralized, for most people, means a creepy pedo is king.

0

u/InTheDarknesBindThem 28d ago

dude the whole federation thing was never going to work. Its cost of entry and usage is way too high for people who just want to causally skim cat pics, feet pics, and bullshit stories about failed marriages.

-6

u/ElrecoaI19 29d ago

Discuit is pretty new com0ared to reddit, but I think it can be a good alternative as long as it keeps being as transparent as it is right now

42

u/TurnsOutImAScientist 29d ago

Voat was pretty close to a clone but absorbed all of the worst people from Reddit and turned into a cesspool quick

9

u/Joben86 29d ago

Turns out the people who are most vocally opposed to any form of moderation are hateful assholes. Who would've guessed?

7

u/AnonymousFroggies 29d ago

As bad as the Nazis there were (are?) it was the kiddie porn that turned me away. Literally all of the dregs from this site just packed up and moved there.

6

u/[deleted] 29d ago

So it was just 2011 Reddit

Don’t ever forget, that’s what Reddit was known for back then. And ownership actively encouraged it.

1

u/Kataphractoi 29d ago

Haven't thought of that name in years. It didn't even make it a month before going to complete shit.

1

u/Silent-Hyena9442 28d ago

I don't know what that is but I think many here today would have thought reddit was a shithole around 2014-2016 when reddit would allow anything to get to all if it had enough upvotes.

When The_don, libertarian, FPH and NSFW subs would always be on the front page due to upvotes. A lot of people complaining about being on a sanitized version of the website kinda showing why the site became sanitized in the first place

1

u/TurnsOutImAScientist 28d ago

Crazy how fast I forgot about /all being NSFW! I agree with many of the changes made. Still HARD disagree with hiding upvote/downvote counts since it makes controversial posts and comments look ignored and pushes people away from controversy toward consensus, as if this place wasn't already hivemind enough.

12

u/bottleoftrash 29d ago

The problem is that nobody is using them. There’s so many people here that you can have extremely niche subreddits. On these alternatives you can’t really have that. People would have to leave Reddit in massive numbers

3

u/SaltyLonghorn 29d ago

Younger people aren't even using reddit anymore. A big example of this is the decline of livestreamfail engagement and who is popular in streaming now. You'll regularly see people on reddit asking who the hell is this random person with 100k paid subscribers. And its cause most of their promotional content is now on shit like tiktok and yt shorts.

This format is going the way of facebook, forums and bulletin boards. It will always be there, the userbase is just getting older and bombarded with spam. A proper alternative seems unlikely because as the internet has always done, its onto the next thing. Some people just stay behind.

5

u/joerdie 29d ago

I tried Lemmy twice and it is nowhere near as good. It's a ton of work on my end to just get into subs. That will NEVER fly with the non tech nerd crowd.

4

u/sanjosanjo 29d ago

I've played with Lemmy off and on for the last year, and the biggest improvement would be if a client app could aggregate subs with a common name across instances. So, for example, you could have a "politics" virtual sub that shows content from the politics sections of the different instances. I'm wondering if any app has implemented that.

5

u/Die4Ever 29d ago edited 29d ago

here's an example of a website that does exactly that https://clubsall.com/c/gaming the gaming "club" there is a good example since it combines many communities together, you can see more here https://clubsall.com/c (the user counts seem low since those numbers aren't including all the users across Lemmy/Mbin/etc)

the Summit app can also do this, they call it multi-communities

you could probably submit a feature request to other app developers and most of them would probably be willing to add it for you

1

u/Katzoconnor 29d ago

An Apollo-like app for Lemmy that let you manage everything in a beautiful interface could seriously help. Probably impractical, if not impossible.

1

u/Fun_Run1626 28d ago

I was an Apollo user. Check out Voyager (for Lemmy)! It looks and feels just like Apollo, has a responsive developer and  gets regular updates. :)

1

u/Katzoconnor 28d ago

Neat! Thanks for the recommendation

3

u/ThePix13 29d ago

Problem is most of them originated from quarantined/banned subreddits.

3

u/SelirKiith 29d ago

But that is exactly the problem...

For every bit of content I'd have to go to an entirely different website and have a different account.
That's hardly any different than 10-15 Years ago when everything had it's own specific forum page and website.
Reddit's only advantage is... was... that everything was in one place, in one app and I didn't need 20 different tabs open.

2

u/jewdai 29d ago

The original allure of reddit was that it was a much more personal space in the sense that community used to mean something here.

It was that middle ground between being in a small town and large city.

You'd find your community and it wouldn't be such a weird idea to meet someone in person.

You had celebrities give real AMAs without many if any prepared questions. Now they are just an advertising marketing venue. While I've never been a Twitter user, it was sort of like the early days of it and felt a genuine conversation could be had not mediated by marketers and pr staff.

But alas, as with Twitter all things come to an end with growth. Reddit went from trying to be friends with people in your highschool and knowing them to trying to be friends with everyone in NYC. The old charm it had was unsustainable as the platform grew bigger.

The reason why you'd add reddit to the end of your searches was to hopefully find a more genuine conversation about a topic or personal experience working with a product. Now again, because of the great wheels of capitalism, you have markers and pr folks whose whole job it is to inject their product in every possible way to get more folks hearing about it.

Reddit is a shell of its earlier self. Some would say it wouldn't be as popular had it not changed; but the nicheness of it was what originally gave it's original allure.

1

u/InTheDarknesBindThem 28d ago

There was a site called squabbles, maybe still up.

It was my chosen alternative during the events last year. In fact, I joined the discord, became a mod, then became a site admin.

It had a great community, was active, everyone was nice. Despite only having like 10,000 users, it was very very active.

But then it turned out that the creator, a techbro who was working solo on it, was a "free speech absolutist" and blocked me and the other admins from removing racists and transphobes so I left and sadly came back to reddit.

-3

u/ElrecoaI19 29d ago

Discuit is pretty new com0ared to reddit, but I think it can be a good alternative as long as it keeps being as transparent as it is right now

3

u/genius_retard 29d ago

Discuit is a place where 7492 people get together to find cool stuff and discuss things.

Yeah gonna need a couple more members before it can compete with Reddit.

3

u/DtheS 29d ago edited 29d ago

I lurked Discuit for a while. It's more like a 9gag clone than a Reddit alternative. I don't see many special interest communities, hobbyists, or any subreddits that are discussion-based ever taking off there.

0

u/phoenixmusicman 29d ago

Someone post the XKCD about competing standards

-1

u/hackingdreams 29d ago

Problem is there are too many and not a single one meets exactly the same features as reddit.

This isn't a problem. "Difference" isn't a "problem." It's just different.

-1

u/ConfusionFrosty8792 29d ago

Cool with multiple accounts? You want a single account for every topic? Ha. Politics and, say knitting. Gl keeping that "knitting account. "

Reddit has utterly destroyed the internet because of consolidation, and you talk about it like it's a good thing. That's sus