A video about the effectiveness of the Reddit protest
Leaving Reddit is the only protest that works. The site looks basically the same as it did before that 2 day black out.
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Telling people they need to quit Reddit is not realistic. People are more likely to respond if we give them easy and realistic advice.
The most realistic course for most people is to join a few alternative communities that match your values. Join a Lemmy instance, join a Mastodon instance, etc.
- Sign up for a new community; a Lemmy instance for example.
- Take a few minutes to sign into the new community on all your device, you want it to be as easy as possible to start using the new community.
- Prefer to use the new community whenever possible. When you’re bored and going through the usual websites (you know what they are), visit the new community first, move Reddit to the bottom of the list. Avoid using Reddit, but don’t stress too much if you end up there occasionally, just give preference to everything else.
This advice is not too intimidating, anyone can act on it, and even if only a few people act on it, it’s still effective for those few people. This plan has everything it needs to be effective and spread.
You’re right that telling people to quit Reddit could come off as hostile.
Beehaw seems to be easy on sign up from my experience, so it’s here when July 1st rolls around when Reddit terminates API for third party apps. I think significant amount of users of Reddit use the app regularly, so they might leave Reddit once the app no longer works and I imagine that some of them would be unaware of the ‘old’ reddit UI so they would likely get a really negative impression of the current ‘new’ Reddit Ui that they would likely be deterred from using Reddit going forward.
+1 on your advice!
I think one of the most effective is answering posts people need help on while sourcing something that a user from the fediverse contributed. It’s not aggressive. It’s not a pitch. It’s just there so people might visit it and get curious.
Like nobody likes door to door sales people. Or cold calls. And that’s what the current approach is coming off to for people who don’t want and aren’t asking for alternatives. People who’ve felt strongly enough about leaving reddit already have. Those left don’t care.
If fediverse is too intimidating there is also squabbles which people there are those who made an effort to quit too. Destined for the same end as most for profit companies, but at least it’s not feeding into the current corporate juggernaut of community based companies. People do want to move and some aren’t ready for fediverse and that’s fine as long as they show flexibility to at least leave.
Powerless to change Reddit, yes, but not powerless to find a new community!
To everyone hanging in the fediverse, I just want to say, I am proud of all of you!
NGL I’ve found the communities on here to be much more genuine. It feels like things are less manipulated, like there are less bots and less advertising companies trying to do guerrilla marketing.
Might just be that these communities are small enough that such things are not worth the time of those who would do such things.
At this point I think I’ll always just migrate to smaller communities as time goes on.
I think so long that the community is on an invite-basis community, it raise the cost of botting the website much higher than other platforms so it can de-incentivize them from gaming the platform.
The only issue with the dynamic is that Redditors were too fixated with their position as “moderator” and were willing to acquiesce just to keep it. If they simply refused the free labor they’re giving a corporation who’s seeking profit by near any cost, they’d have had impact.
They need to embrace the dark side.
Walking away and not looking back is actually very powerful.
This has the energy of walking away from explosions in slow motion.
Yup, I am happier on the fediverse now.
Amen.
yeah, the only thing they are powerless is against their addiction
Yep, vote with your feet is all that we’ve got, and shouldn’t be underestimated.
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They’d get banned
They are not powerless. They have their own choice. Stop going there!
The ones who stay probably do see themselves as powerless, which is a pretty self-fulfilling prophecy.
I don’t know, my brother has been a Redditor for as long as I was (15 years) and he became angry and hostile when I told him about Lemmy. We’re both in our 50s.
He’s been using the official Reddit app for years and claims it “works perfectly for him”. He seems utterly blind to Reddit’s enshittificaton. He’s always been kind of an asshole- he behaved the same when I quit Facebook, though he eventually did the same- and he also fears new tech (he didn’t have a smartphone until 2020). I wonder if people like him- of which I’m sure there are plenty- will ever wake up.
People who wanted to leave would have already left by now. Those who remain cannot be convinced or coerced to jump ship. Because it is their choice to remain there. It’s like convincing a missionary that their god is not real.
Yeah, that’s exactly how I felt when I left Facebook, too. When my brother eventually also left it was so hard not to say “I told you so”- but I didn’t, and of course he never admitted that I was right all along. It’s good that I’ve matured enough that simply knowing it is enough.
I think that’s a portion but I know a few people that just take the path of least resistance. Right now, that is absolutely not the fediverse. In a few months with all the apps already in development, it might be a better experience with better content.
Most of the comments on the r/Piracy “sexy pirate John Oliver” posts are just Reddit bootlickers complaining about the protests (idk about other subs)
Your first sentence I agree with. Your second sentence I don’t agree with. It’s still early with the reddit exodus - things have been escalating incredibly fast and most people don’t even know much about it yet, or are still processing what’s happening.
Reddit was a big part of our lives for many people and it’s not easy to let go. I was so deeply offended by what happened that I let go quickly even though it hurt me. But people who already used the official app? For them, it’s a difficult conversation at best. But I’d say it is still early days.
Sounds like Morpheus was right about not freeing minds once they reach a certain age.
He’s two years older than I am, and I’m here on Lemmy with a deleted 15 year old Reddit account. He’s always been like this, age has nothing to do with it.
I actually think being older in general makes you more willing to move around on the internet, I’ve seen so many changes and joined and left so many things as they rose and fell that it’s just a fact of life that some things on the internet are very cyclical, I’m actually astonished that reddit got as far as it did while remaining relatively user friendly.
The more sure you are of something being perpetual the more ephemeral it seems to actually be.
Absolutely, I already was over “sticking to a platform no matter what” when LIveJournal was bought by Russians in 2007. At one time LJ was practically my life, but I took a “scorched earth policy” with my blog there just as I did with all my Reddit content.
We’ll see how it plays out. I have a feeling reddit may currently be putting in artificial upvotes and comments to save things. They’ve done it when reddit got their start, and as someone who works in tech, I know nothing’s stopping them to create a fake 10 year old account with thousands of karma and fake old replies to do some social engineering to make it appear that nothing has changed. This might work out especially for your brother who is afraid of change, or it might not.
I know nothing’s stopping them to create a fake 10 year old account with thousands of karma and fake old replies to do some social engineering to make it appear that nothing has changed
No need to create them, they’ve got lots of old ‘deleted’ accounts they can resurrect for this purpose.
If they are sick of it then come here or to Lemmy.
The people who see the protest as a failure were many of the users who used the official app, default settings, and seldom if ever contributed to the site. They were never going to leave anyway.
Look how many people came here, and there is a noticeable decrease in the number of bots and trolls. I see this as a huge win for us users.
Edit: Just realized this is ambiguous. There’s noticeably fewer bots and trolls here on Lemmy than there were on reddit.
Not only are there fewer trolls here but there are but more well thought out replies and less attention seeking in general. The entirety of Reddit is going to turn into r/teenagers
🌎 👨🚀 🔫 👩🚀
I should have seen this coming
I couldn’t resist :P
It’s a matter of education and how they understand the situation I suppose. I was a Reddit refugee moving over from the official app because the news really showed how anti consumer the company was being. It’s not much of a protest, but I only go on Reddit now if I really need certain information, so I don’t think it’s a total failure.
Bots and trolls will probably follow as Lemmy grows and gains traction, but I hope by that time moderation will have improved and will be able to scale to handle that.
“powerless” just use Lemmy it’s not like there’s really anything meaningful to hold you on Reddit, afaik people don’t really make friends on Reddit or anything
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If you are a member of such a small community, be sure to create it here. Users will usually take a look at Lemmy and first search for their favorite topics. If they don’t find anything, they will go back to Reddit…
This is what made the decision for me. All the enshittification aside- in 15 years on Reddit, I did not make one lasting relationship with another human being there, even though I tried very hard at times (via everything ranging from Secret Santa to local meetup subs, to niche interest subs, and more). I have friends online that I have only known online since the 1990s, so it’s not that I’m “un-befriendable”. Reddit allows people to form mobs, not true communities, which almost always have many subsets of friends and acquaintances, rather than a bunch of strangers who actually don’t care at all if one of their members disappears.
If your username is a Pink Floyd reference I’ll be your friend
Of course it is, and also in memoriam of…lots of people, I suppose. If you like “Wish You Were Here” you probably get it.
It depends very much on how you use reddit. E.g. there are no mental health communities here that really helped me through difficult times. There are so many specialized communities on reddit that helped me a lot, that won’t just move over here on Lemmy. I get that if you only looked at the general feed, you don’t miss out on much on lemmy. But I never used reddit like this and now I really feel like lemmy is (still) missing the best parts of reddit :/
Keep in mind you’re comparing a very mature platform with one that’s literally still in alpha.
True, but that doesn’t change the fact that if you need that kind of support right now, you’re dependent on Reddit.
And I think it’ll take a while for Lemmy to build the size of user base that makes those kinds of specialised communities viable, unfortunately. Although I very much hope it happens.
Granted – I think it’s the “(still)” remark that prompted mine.
Certainly a tough pill to swallow that to continue participating in those communities you either need to keep feeding the beast, or go wherever the majority of that community goes (which simply may not end up being Lemmy).
Yeah, it’s a really easy transition. Without watching the video, no users (and even moreso mods) are not powerless, and the fat lady absolutely has not sung yet.
Reddit is a lot of peoples only form of community, especially if it’s obscure interests. Without it your more or less trapped in your local area.
they aren’t powerless, they just leave.
