Ex Redditors of Lemmy what made you come on over? What happened at Reddit that you made the switch?

The API changes. I use Sync, and not being able to use Sync made Reddit more or less unusable for me on my phone. I also fundamentally disagreed with the direction Reddit was going. So, Lemmy it was, and it's great. And now there's Sync for Lemmy, which is even better!

They murdered Apollo.

Shutting down 3rd-party apps

API changes killed the App I used.

API changes. I hate ads.

Reddit is (no longer) Fun.
Like others, the API change was the final straw. I used Reddit is Fun (RIF) for years, even paid for the full version, because both the official Reddit app and the mobile web interface were terrible. I was also using the old web interface with the Reddit Enhancement Suite, and that went on "maintenance mode". Overall, Reddit just reached a point that the enshitification was getting to be too much for me to stomach. So, here I am.

The API-copalypse last year.

API changes / forcing 3rd party apps to shut down.

I'd been dissatisfied with Reddit for a while due to things like hive mind mentality and jokes repeated ad nauseum. I always enjoyed more when people were just posting their honest opinions or analysis of current events from a perspective that I don't have. There wasn't really anywhere else to go as an active "forum based" aggregator, so when the ground swell of people leaving due to the API fiasco came along and enough of a crowd started setting up shop on a different platform I jumped at the opportunity to ditch that place.

Glad to be done with it.

I really don't like Reddit's attitude as a corporation. The sense of entitlement from a user driven content aggregator is insane.

My app of choice stopped working.

They killed the apps.

I felt like Reddit had been in decline for a long time. Then there was the API change and the debacle with the third party apps and I realised it was run by someone with no respect for the users, whose first instinct when something doesn't go according to plan is to lie and blame someone else. I didn't like that much, so here I am.

Because fuck Spez. Lying, greedy asshat.

Like a lot of others I left when spez decided to fuck everyone using the API and kneecapped Apollo.

When Reddit killed the use of its API for third party clients

I left with the 3rd party app ban, Reddit's quality had been dropping steadily for a while at that point and now I couldn't even use an app that worked.

The official Reddit app stopped working for me altogether early last year, with comment sections taking upwards of a minute to load.

I still use Reddit for specific gaming communities that I check from time to time, since they don't exist here on Lemmy.

They’ve been dicks with the API.

Also, Reddit is flooded with coomer level maniacs who are desperately looking for any kind of discussion. To the point they misread shit intentionally just to start some shit.

Aaaaaand I got banned from r/gaming for calling someone out when he tried to justify pedophilia. Mods must be professional SSB players.

I'd been fed up with reddit for a while, but the API bullshit was the final straw for me: As soon as discovered the fediverse I was sold.

Connect is a great mobile app btw.

The killing of the API, and the disgusting behavior of Reddit suspending users like me calling out the violence by Trump.

Apparently, Reddit admins LOVE violence and Trump.

As everyone said, the API change was a big deal. But for me, the cover-up was worse than the crime. I was a 13 year user (came over on the Digg boat) with over 100K comment karma. Reddit's reaction, and Spez's "landed gentry" comments, were so insulting I just couldn't support the site.

I thought they may possibly change in response to the boycott. But when Reddit started replacing mods with unqualified scabs, that meant the site content itself was definitely going to go downhill. It also confirmed that it was no longer a site that valued its users (who, as many have said, were providing the very thing that made the site valuable for free, purely in exchange for not being treated poorly).

At that point, why remain? Niche communities are the only reason I ever check back in. And like others, I'm seeing Reddit devolve into karma-whoring discussions that are just a battle of one-line snarky jokes, a huge amount of bot content, and reposts as a rule, no longer exception.

Conversely, there are people on Lemmy who actually want to read, think and actually respond. Pretty cool. I'm good with this trade.

I like the idea of decentralized social media. Having a single for-profit company moderating all content feels sleazy.

The beauty of the fediverse is that there's independent competition. If you don't like how a certain space is being run, you can choose another or create your own. It's ironically very "free-market capitalistic", in contrast to the political leanings of the user-base. Lol

Got sick of being sold to, when they got rid of third party apps I bailed.

The end of third party apps was the end of being able to tolerate the reddit experience.

The killing of Apollo (and all others) really rubbed me the wrong way, and I refuse to support companies moving in the direction of forcing ads in front of people.

I was ready to switch for a long time. When everyone else left, lemmy got large enough to sustain conversation.

The reasoning behind the API changes, the CEO's entitlement, the ever-more-annoying interface changes (I hate the "More Posts You May Like", the algorithm is pathetically shitty).

I refuse to install apps to navigate websites. If your site is decent, it should work in a browser. If not, I'll just go elsewhere.

I didn’t feel like I was creating enough shareholder value to justify my existence there.

API changes

They killed the standalone apps. The desktop version redesign was/is crap. And the official mobile experience is less pleasant than having the clap.

I switched over when I read an interview with the CEO — I think with The Verge — and figured it was over. It was obvious he was juicing numbers to go public and there was no point investing time on a platform that would only get worse for users.

The amount of obvious bot posts and comments just essentially copy pasting the same basic shit all over the place got exhausting.

Everyone else was doing it. I just wanted to be popular.

Killing third party apps. Fuck that. I didn’t even use a third party app, but that just showed me, clear as day, that they’re not concerned with their users, just money. They benefitted from third party apps, then just stuck a big middle finger to their developers and users.

I exclusively browse on mobile and their app sucks. The API changes were the last straw, but I was slowly on the way out the door anyway. The bigger an online community gets, the more it will resemble your average online community. The average online community is a toxic mess. Reddit is so big, even the niche little weirdo run subreddits weren't the same anymore. It looked like reddit but felt like Facebook.

API changes, I use to use Infinity for Reddit and it was good. Then they killed it effectively.

So I moved to Eternity for Lemmy until support dropped. Now I'm on Voyager.

Good apps design keeps me using a platform and I like the slower pace of Lemmy. I still use reddit for time to time especially for smaller communities. But do my part here.

I came over because spez is a greedy little pig boy

Reddit API + going public

The third party switch. Plus I have found lemmy to be quite refreshing. On Reddit all I did was lurk. But now I actually comment and participate. Because it feels like I'm talking to real people.

Losing RIF. But after more than a decade on the site, most posts felt like something I had read before.

I like that Lemmy is independent and Im not providing free content for a giant corporation

I got permabanned for telling someone to crawl back in their hole and apparently that's a euphemism for telling someone to kill themselves?

Meanwhile the person I was replying to was talking about how she saw female genital mutilation as abhorrent but all her sons were circumcised for "visual reasons" (she thought uncut penises looked gross).

So yeah, I noped tf outta there and have been here ever since.

It's an upgrade in most ways but lemmy seems pretty 50/50 on how they treat poor people and technology.

We all have essentially the same answer.

How did a non-ex-redditor get here?

Reddit is Fun no longer worked, that was my initial reason for leaving. Then I started to see that reddit was becoming more of a corporate thing that regulated what we could see and couldn't see. I know it was like that before but now it just seems to be more...sanitized in a way if that makes sense.

The API changes were the last straw; but it had been heavily destroyed by astroturfing for years before the API restrictions finally just pushed me over the edge.

Technically, the fediverse would be even easier to astroturf. Luckily we’re early enough that astroturfing is foolish on Lemmy.

I find Lemmy much more ethical. It truly is by the community, for the community.

On reddit, a select few are getting rich by the content YOU create. Seems a bit weird to me. You create content, they get to buy a new house/yacht. No thank you.

the june 2023 api protests

Two years ago, I noticed the comment section was getting worse.

Someone would post a thoughtful post, and the top comments were jokes. Thats not my problem. But when I clicked on the commenter, I noticed a pattern. All their comments were a single sentence joke for like a year. I'd do it a hundred more times and would continue seeing it for the top comments.

Bots or not, it didn't feel like comments meant anything anymore. Redditors weren't sharing thoughts or talking to each other. It just felt like they wanted upvotes and validation. That sucks for conversation.

Unlike most, I survived the API garbage because I primarily used the desktop site.

But the subsequent response and then the removal of the "don't sell my personal info" option was clearly spez saying the quiet part out loud. Asshole doesn't deserve to get richer off of my effort.

I wasn't enjoying myself there. The API fiasco made me aware of lemmy and I switched over.

The main cause for why I wanted to leave reddit was the "hustle" for getting as many upvotes as possible. It just felt like the content was not genuine, but merely manufactured for clicks, meaning that you wouldn't really get proper or meaningful conversations with other people. What triggered my switch to lemmy was reddit's api changes and the censorship moderators and spez did.

Here, I can have an actually meaningful conversation without the toxicity and childishness of redditors on reddit. One thing I miss though is leaving the huge bank of information that accumulated on that platform from decades of people sharing information.

RIP Apollo

I might be one of the few that was already on their way out. I had been getting sick of Reddit It wasn't the same thing it was when I first joined in ~2011ish. Back then, content was more scrutinized and users were kinder. As Reddit became mainstream, the content slowly changed to reflect that. It started to be more like an anonymous Facebook. I remember it sticking out especially after the Game Stop incident on WallStreetBets.

A few months before the API fiasco, I was banned from a sub because they misunderstood a comment I made as violating their rules. Because I had been banned from another sub recently (I think I had joined a China one then commented in an anarchist one for the lulz), I was suspended from Reddit entirely for a week. I didn't realize that I was doing it, but I used several usernames depending on what content I wanted to focus on. I commented using another username and was permabanned from Reddit entirely for trying to bypass the temp suspension. The specifics might be slightly different since I'm going from memory.

From then on, I would lurk in my favorite subs sporadicall using Reddit is Fun. Once the API fiasco kicked off a few months later, there was a push for Reddit alternatives, which gave me the opportunity to find and join Lemmy. I've been here ever since.

I loved using Reddit Is Fun, and I couldn't stand the amount of bots on Reddit in recent years

1. They killed 3rd party apps, and I'm not going to use their shit app or the shitty layout on the web version.

2. Their admin staff is full of Nazis.

...catastrophically hostile UI + overrun with bots...

Fuckers killed rif is fun and I was gone, once they took the api away you could see the entire project it was already well enshittified. Had an account of almost 20 years too.

Content there is artificial. Getting banned for providing uncomfortable historical fact in the "wrong" sub, perma banned.

At some point, makes you wonder who is filtering these discussions.

line This, RIF dying, and the general apathy people had to Steve bald face lying to everyone and banking on people just forgetting the whole thing.

Everyone cheered when the jannies got booted for "abusing their power" only to be replaced by someone less capable but more willing to toe the line for the company

API stuff and the general response to the community feedback and blackout. I used Apollo and wasn’t interested in switching to the ad-riddled official reddit app. Tried Kbin first and eventually found myself on lemmy. Liking it here.

It was a progression of things. Closed source, ads, Spez, terrible content feed filled with reposts and the same botted comments, and finally the end of API and 3rd party apps.

Now I'm on a better platform helping to build out my smaller communities.

API changes I learned about them in a really good infographic.

The demise of third party apps made me look for a Reddit alternative. I had been using Apollo for years, and it was so much better than the official app. I had been using Reddit for more than a decade when they made the API changes.

The official reddit app is trash. The’ve injected more advertisements, and now they’re even injecting ads into comment sections. it’s the very definition of enshittification.

This is all only stuff that’s visible on the surface, too. Under the hood, there’s definitely bots manipulating the conversation and posts that get upvoted and downvoted.

It’s still fine for smaller communities that are more niche, but that doesn’t change that Reddit has a monopoly over online forums and we really need alternatives. The fediverse seems like it’s able to do that, though it still needs to grow and diversify a bit more.

Lost Bacon Reader app, Redit's app is a shit show. I use Boost for Lemmy and it's got its problems but it's better than Reddit's hot pile of garbage. I used reddit mostly to read the news and make snarky comments and I can do that here so...bye reddit.