Reddit, like Digg before it, was a gathering place, where people could post or consume content, and interact with other users. It was much like a town square, where people can set up their soapbox and bark, or where a person could go and listen, interact, and enjoy.

Reddit is now like the Home Owners Association for that particular town square, and are actively trying to control the entire experience, by acting like they own the soapboxes, and as though the barkers are now obligated to ensure that content is HOA approved.

That kind of neighborhood holds no appeal for me.

Because apparently Lemmy was blowing up. I really support FOSS, but the only reason I don’t migrate right away is the lack of activity. And then Reddit just became unbearable all of a sudden, then there’s the surge of new Lemmy users. I’m finally happy to join.-

I left when Reddit started effectively taking over subreddits by forcing them to open or change their content to what Reddit thought it should be. I was planning on paying for Reddit premium so I could keep using it ad-free. I am sympathetic to Reddit’s desire to make a profit. But when they started effectively taking over subreddits it stopped being the Reddit I like and I’ll never return.

Well, the main thing is that they’re killing BaconReader. I’ve used BaconReader for about a decade now, it just isn’t the same without it.

And then when I came over here to try Lemmy out, I found it’s pretty nice here. Especially with all the protest infighting Reddit has been pretty toxic lately. Or always, I guess.

And there are third party apps allowed here!

Spez

Honestly, mostly solidarity.

Sure, the fact that my preferred Reddit app was going the way of the dodo and the fact that they weren’t even trying to negotiate in good faith were reasons, yeah, but at the end of the day, I was just gonna grit my teeth, patch the Reddit app with Revanced, and have that be my personal and insignificant F you.

Then I realized a bigger F you was to deprive them of content, future or present, (mine, specifically. As insignificant as it was) so I did.

And here I am

Greedy little pigs fuck u/spez what an enormous piece of shit

Rif is getting shut down. And most of the sensible people seems to be moving to kbin+lemmy. I just followed suit.

Put simply, I’m tired of being the product, and it’s obvious that Reddit wanted to implement more data harvesting and more advertising to their platform. Couple that with the outrageous cost to use their API, and it’s bye, bye Reddit.

I don’t want them making money out of the content I voluntarily and freely created. I was contributing in subs like C_programming to help newcomers. I have been thinking that all these posts I made will help the next AI - and Reddit (not me) will get paid for it.

So I mass edited each post and comment I made. They won’t get away with my data. My data belongs to me, not them.

I was a mod on Reddit so I was personally aware that for years Reddit’s mod tools have been totally inadequate for the job, that Reddit has been promising to give us something better, and that Reddit has failed to deliver. Honestly, it was even worse than just not delivering: we’d get new tools that didn’t solve the main problems, were only available on the iOS app, coming to Android eventually, and coming to the websites never. Third party API tools were the only thing that made modding vaguely functional, even on a small sub.

I’m also a supporter of accessibility in apps, which is also something Reddit has been promising for years and Reddit has failed to deliver. Again, third party API tools are the only thing that makes Reddit vaguely accessible right now.

Reddit’s API changes are not realistic to implement in a single month. This was made clear early on and Reddit has refused to budge. So at this point Reddit is knowingly upending an ecosystem that makes their site usable by groups of users with no first-party replacements ready. And given their history of failing to deliver these very tools, I have no confidence that they will ever do so.

And THEN the Spez AMA happened. I was hoping he’d listen to the community, engage with our concerns, or at the very least actually do an AMA. Instead he got caught lying, he got caught astroturfing, and he inadvertently made it clear that the real issue was that he was butthurt over these third party apps being better at business than Reddit was. Oh, and later we found out the Reddit CEO really admired Elon Musk’s handling of Twitter, a platform I left for all the reasons Spez seems to like it.

Even if none of these issues affected me personally (which they do), Reddit has made it clear that I just can’t trust them to run a fair and functional platform. They do not take their obligations to their users, mods, and business partners seriously. If they don’t like the way the game is going, they’ll change the rules without warning. They will promise features they will not deliver even when those features are essential to their site working for the users who keep it alive.

I don’t want to help Reddit build what Reddit wants to make anymore.

The CEO is a total scumbag and Apollo closing down.

Deleted my account today. Their website is unusable on desktop or mobile. Their android app is also terrible. Infinity for android was really nice to use and made using Reddit a pleasant experience.

But then I’m get drawn in to looking at the Popular/Trending stream and it was doing my head in. Third party apps couldn’t filter this to a country specific stream so it was only US content that I am not interested in. Honestly it seems like a shit show over there and I don’t need to be bombarded with such negativity especially when it’s not relevant to me. And switching to use the Reddit app was not going to happen.

I tried Lemmy out at the start of the blackouts and have found it a much more pleasant place to be. I can self host it too, which is a bonus.

I haven’t missed it and it’ll just be one of those places I once went.

Apollo going away was the catalyst for me. I will never use Reddit’s garbage website or first-party app.

Plus Lemmy gave me an excuse to host another neat service and still waste the same time I did on Reddit.

• Significant increase in non-human/bot accounts makes it difficult to know whether you’re actually talking to a real person anymore.

• I was not personally affected by API changes and do not sympathize with for-profit 3rd party developers, however reddit’s withdrawal of support for communities like Transcribers of Reddit is mean-spirited and marginalizes our friends and neighbours who want to enjoy social media like everyone else.

• Nothing good ever happens for an existing userbase when an organization/product joins the zombie death-march of publicly-traded assets. Capitalism will inevitably ruin everything it encounters, and reddit will not be spared from this outcome.