A lot subreddits end their blackout tomorrow. Will you go back to Reddit, or continue with kbin and the Fediverse?

First comment here.

I am not enjoying kbin.social right now. The latency is beyond atrocious, at 10+ seconds to load each page. The UI reminds me of 2004 forums that don’t know how users work. The mobile UI is just the worst.

Some pain points:

I’m a software engineer so I can figure this shit out, but how the hell do I subscribe to a magazine? If I go to it, there should be a “subscribe” or context menu at the top to subscribe/favorite/mute
Why is the comment box all the way at the bottom? Where’s the “add comment” button on a post?
Why are comments paginated like a forum? Why not just a “load more” like Reddit? What’s the point?
Selecting the comment box should NOT zoom slightly into the page. The mobile web UI needs a lot of work from people who know how to do mobile UIs.
Is there no “homepage” button? Clicking the Kbin logo at the top just brings up a menu, which requires another click on the homepage button to get back.
Edit: And you can't collapse comment threads? What even...

I really want a Reddit replacement, but this is not it with this terrible UI. It’s unusable, literally–if I can’t subscribe to a magazine then it’s not working.

•Subscribe is literally on the sidebar?

•They want to encourage people reading before posting first, but there are style sheets you can apply to move the comment box. Really, kbin just needs a service like RES so people can adjust things to their tastes

•Because it's not Reddit?

•Yeah, some fixing needs to be done

The great thing about it being federated though is that you can find a community that better fits your needs, and still get the content from here
- Res isn't the solution for mass adoption. The product needs to be good as is. Unfortunately afai can tell kbin is the best alternative.
- On mobile, the sidebar is actually under comments...
Off topic but:

I’m a software engineer so I can figure this shit out

I'm also a software engineer, and I love it when other software engineers act like being a software engineer means that they are smart and if they can't figure it out, then it must be someone else's fault.

I've met other software engineers like this, and sometimes they actually are worse than others at figuring things out.
You’re not wrong about many of your complaints but nothing is going to replace Reddit right now. Its going to take time to create something that will fully replace Reddit. I think Kbin is a good start. I see promise in Lemmy as well.

For me, I’m going to enjoy my time away from Reddit. I have been very productive the last few days because these sites don’t consume as much of my time. To me that’s not such a bad thing considering a large portion of Reddit posts were crap anyway. I am very excited to see where this community is in a year from now.

One last note. If the creator of the Apollo app decides to build something around one of these platforms like Kbin or Lemmy then that is where I will end up. That app was a joy to use.
Why are comments paginated like a forum? Why not just a “load more” like Reddit? What’s the point?

I like this design choice and I hope they keep it. Doomscrolling is a plague.
- If infinite scrolling is forced on for posts or comments I'll be so distressed. It really is a plague even if you're not doomscrolling. It makes sinking infinite time into the app too easy.
I can definitely see how that’s all frustrating, and I’m sure we all have our experiences with lag or with that goddamn Cloudflare verification or whatever, but I hope you and everyone else will stick around so we can help shape this space the way we want it. You’re already doing that with your comment above. Imagine the almost impossible chances of making suggestions to Reddit and having changes made. At least here that’s a possibility. I hope to see you around.
- The site is still in its infancy too, so people just need to be a little more patient for a little while.
While I know it'd be nice for us to just have a breezy experience where all our expectations played out before us with a snap of the fingers, please try and remember this site has been here like one single month, and the dude who's running things managed to accommodate like 120000! new members signing in yesterday. It's slow because it's new and we're all donating money to get this ramped up as quickly as possible.

Just have some grace, and some sympathy, and maybe even some patience.
- Personally I'm not here for a slick interface and lightning fast performance. Those things can be fixed. I'm here for the community -- that's something Reddit doesn't have, and can never be fixed.

I'm here to stay. Even if Reddit reverse their API decision, they've made it abundantly clear their first priority is pleasing their shareholders. I don't want to use a platform that so blatantly ignores the wills of the community that caused it's popularity in the first place. It's a shame they've decided to die on the hill of temporarily pumping their potential IPO value via the API at the cost of what made Reddit special in the first place. They've already disintegrated the trust of a lot of hardcore Reddit users like myself overnight. It'll never be the same now they've shown how they really value their users.

At the same time, I'm really excited to see how the various alternative platforms develop. Spending time away from Reddit has made me realise its sheer size can be quite overwhelming and there were a lot of subreddits I followed that were more doom scrolling wastes of time. Going to these other, smaller platforms is taking me back to earlier Internet days in a good way where it feels like you're part of an engaged community rather than a nameless voice among hundreds of thousands. I've been finding the quality of discussion here refreshingly high and respectful so far.

It's honestly exciting being at the start of what feels like a new social media wave. I can't remember the last time a major social media platform went the way of the dodo and people had to start migrating to replacements. I'm finding it really enjoyable being on ground zero. Whatever platform ends up being the most popular, it's a pleasure to be talking with you all whilst we figure it out. :)

I have also stayed away from Reddit since the blackout started (only ever accessed it through Apollo since the Alien Blue buyout). I don't think I'll delete my 11 yo account just yet (Reddit's behavior over the next couple of weeks will determine that). Either way, I plan to stick around on kbin and watch it grow. Reddit has been spiraling the drain for years. Hoping as an internet community we can recapture the good about it (good progress so far!) while also avoiding the bad. The federated nature of kbin/lemmy is very promising.

I'm definitely staying here, but there are a few niche communities that only exist on Reddit that I'll probably go back to, just not nearly as frequently.

Would it be in poor taste to steal posts from reddit and post them here? That would be the only reason I go back.

I'll stick with the Fediverse and kbin. It's got teething pains for sure, but it's a solid foundation to build on.

It's looking like a lot of subs are staying dark, so idk if the blackout really ends tomorrow.
Either way, unless Reddit actually goes back on that API nonsense and apologizes, I'm staying here I think.

Even will the current "jank" on kbin, I love it here. I'm really looking forward to seeing how nice this is in a few months, and I'll be around to see it. I just can't stand for Reddit killing off all my favorite apps and blackmailing Christian.