Lemmy users, do you use it because of the wider fediverse or because of reddit?

I came here a couple weeks ago precisely because of the recent upcoming Reddit API changes. They have kept breaking the trust of us users for many years and we have just rolled with it and adapted, but at this point i just don't want to be part of it anymore. So, now i have a huge Reddit-shaped hole in my internet life, currently checking what will fill it. Lemmy holds promise to fill it, although there isn't remotely enough users/communities on it yet to fully fill it, and i've yet to get used to it. We'll see, hope it works for me.

I want to see more FOSS/FLOSS projects succeed. One of Lemmy's biggest obstacles is its lack of users so I joined to be a part of the solution instead of the problem.

Hopefully Reddit's changes provides similar benefits for Lemmy that Elon's Twitter changes did for Mastodon. I'm not sure if Lemmy will ever reach the size of Reddit (or even Mastodon), but it honestly doesn't need to if the community is engaged enough.

As you say, size isn't end-all-be-all. It's the engagement. There's plenty of old-school forums online that thrive with around 100-200 members. Lemmy probably has double that in active monthly users spread across the 4-5 big instances. It already feels bigger than VOAT ever got. And, at least this instance (beehaw.org), seem to be way better modded and ran.
- I agree that beehaw is rad, but the last few months were very quiet on lemmy. Too quiet for my taste. Since the recent reddit thing there was a big influx of new users and also new ideas and whatnot.

I use it because it's the best shot we have to build a real alternative to Reddit. It feels a bit like Reddit at 2008 or so.

But I have the feeling that I might just stay for the community.

Both? I started using it because it's on the fediverse, and I keep using it because it's on the fediverse and it isn't reddit

Huh … hi Ada! Blahaj.zone has a Lemmy too?! Cool! Is it in any way integrated with your calckey instance? What got your hosting both a lemmy and calckey instance?
- Yeah, we have a lemmy too! Basically, I tried to join some lemmy instances, but had to wait too long for account approval, so we decided to spin up our own instance. There's no integration at the moment, aside from those included in default federation.
  Same admins though :)
Yeah both for me too. Reddit is good, but federated makes sense.

Gonna be honest I don't really understand the Fediverse yet but I'm here cuz it feels cool and reddit kind of annoys me these days

Same here. I know Lemmy should, in some way, connect to Mastodon, which is getting bigger
- mastodon, lemmy and a few other softwares can speak activityPub, a standard, just like e-mail is one. You can follow a user, read their posts etc. Lemmy uses this differently than mastodon, where on lemmy there is an emphasis on the groups feature (which is shown on lemmy through the reddit like communities), while mastodon focuses on users and their posts. It's not yet 100% compatible in all ways, but it's getting there. For example you can follow a lemmy community from a mastodon server and you'll see that community as a groups that boosts all the posts and comments that are made. Something like that ^^
  I don't even understand it 100% anymore, it's getting more complicate the more things are built. But I think in the future it will get easier and each software (lemmy, mastodon, etc) will focus on something and then have a set feature set of what they can do with other servers.

@koncertejo

Both!

I like that #lemmy is federated (like this mastodon account I'm commenting from) and that it's a #reddit alternative.

Can you elaborate on how you came across this post? I'm having a hard time understanding the federation.
Are you following asklemmy@lemmy.ml?
- @butter
  I just recently learned you could cross-post. I don't have a lemmy account so I just copy/pasted the URL from lemmy to mastodon's search so I can comment/upvote. looks like you can follow specific lemmy communities tho! Search for asklemmy@lemmy.ml on your mastodon instance and click the "+" to follow.

The fediverse is the future of the web. Reddit has been a massively important part of the modern web experience, but it looks like their pursuit of profits will begin to diminish It's usefulness. Lemmy is slowly filling that void for me. Hopefully it continues to grow and fill that void for others too.

Lemmy being an open source project has been the main reason for me, Fediverse support is a bonus. I think that social platforms fundamentally need to be open and publicly owned. I wrote about this in more detail here https://justiceinternationale.com/articles/2020-12-02-we-must-own-our-tools/

I enjoy your posts!
- thanks!

Because of Reddit, but I'm very excited to see the fediverse grow such that Reddit is the last network I have to leave

I still browse reddit without an account for informative material and niches but my activity is all dedicated to lemmy, mainly for its open source and non commercial nature.

Finding out about Lemmy was this amazing extension of the Fediverse that could improve (and maybe eventually replace, but I'm not there yet) Reddit, which I've used for 10+ years and really love.

I am not a fan of micro-blogging style social media. I find sites like reddit and lemmy a lot more useful for me.

I think the answer to your question is maybe both? Lemmy is attractive both because of its reddit-like features and its fediverse features. But maybe more reddit than fediverse

I use it because I miss what reddit used to be. Now, all the moderators talk about subs as their "projects".

@koncertejo@lemmy.ml @asklemmy@lemmy.ml I use it because I prefer shared spaces to posting solo.on the Fedi. Reddits just slowly moving through the cycle locking things down bit by bit, not interested in contributing there.

I’d agree with both. The generally calmer and ad free experience here makes it a good Reddit alternative. It being federated opens things up better as well.

Mainly because of fedi. Had been using fedi for years, never had a Reddit account.

I am already in fediverse, just discovered Lemmy after Reddit decided to charge for api access making my use of third party client difficult. I find this approach really annoying so here I am.

Not sure I understand the question to be honest.

I use it because it is federated and open source software. But also because I like and support this kind of platform, especially in contrast to the weirdly microblogging focused set of fediverse platforms, where in my opinion microblogging is actually the worst form of social media.

I came here because reddit community is really bad (upvoting bad stuff) and mods aren't helping. Still reading posts there. Here I feel comfortable voicing my opinion and I love the FOSS part of it (and I love infernoJS too).

I can see some uses for reddit for professional related topic, I once publish a blog post that got me traction and clients. I never used reddit for small/personnal/political talks because of this too.

I have never been in social networks (no twitter/facebook/mastodon/etc), I don't see yet the pros of the fediverse.

Sort of both, my brother runs a plemora instance so I knew about the fediverse, and Reddit's recent move to try to cut out 3rd party apps prompted me to give lemmy a try. The only reason I used Reddit was because of how functional the 3rd party apps were.

I use lemmy since the admins here allow magnet links

I came here because it feels right

I do like how diverse reddit is though. I think Lemmycouldd benefit from stronger free speech safeguards

There are instances that offer that. And there are instances that prioritise protection of vulnerable minorities over free speech. The advantage of federation

A bit of both.

In short: Came for the Reddit, stayed for the Fediverse.

Reddit was down for several hours a month or so ago, then the new site was back up much faster than old.reddit.com and apps. That clued me in to the fact they appear ready to shut down the API even before any announcement, so I made a Lemmy account then and there. So right now is the transition period for me between the announcement and when free Reddit JSON API access gets cut off.

Before I joined Lemmy I heard about Mastodon, looked through Peertube a bit in passing. But those generally aren't my kind of social networking style.

Both, I was interested in the Fediverse, made this account as a just in case. Then Reddit started to become like digg, pulling the API thing, forcing me to use the app and not the webpage when I was on my phone. The final straw was the realization that they might pull a twitter.

Currently, I'm checking if I can find similar lemmies (I hope that's the correct word for a Subreddit equivalent) to what I was subscribed to.

You can always make them if you can't find them!
- I plan to, I already tested it out and created one. Though, it's going to be interesting because if it's too long, I might have to create an instance instead.

What is this thing called Reddit?

Just for the fediverse