It's totally replaced reddit for me. Every community I'm interested is smaller than I'm used to, but much more positive. It's cool even seeing a lot of the same names occasionally as I navigate around the site.
I hope it keeps this level of quality as it grows.
I've been trying out the other fediverse platforms, based on how cool Lemmy is, and they all pale in comparison. It really is a neat little thing we've got going on.
It's only good because of all the hard work being put in by the moderators. Unfortunately, behind the scenes, Lemmy sucks and is severely lacking in moderation tools to deal with spammers, trolls and sick people who post illegal content.
See this post for instance, I feel pretty bad for the mods who have to deal with such stuff: https://beehaw.org/post/7943139
I’ve commented more here in this short time than my 10 years on reddit. I feel heard and I feel supported. Most people are civil and respectful and I really appreciate it. Thank you all.
Lemmy has been helping me lots. Been feeling so isolated, this is the first social online platform I've been able to participate in years. Talking to actual humans. Being able to help other humans.
It does feel more like the old alien place before it became mainstream. I'd bet there are a lot of those old users that felt disenfranchised by the low quality bot voted stuff that moved to the various servers here.
Unlike places like Tildes which essentially has been trying to recreate the alien experience, lemmy provides a new layer as well with the fediverse.
When I parted ways with reddit, when the API scandal happened, it was very timely. A lot of content from reddit was toxic for me. All the negative news, about environment, about how people are treated at their job, about how shitty companies are nowadays. Not to mention the rampant cynicism...
I left all that behind, and it really helped me get the high ground (hey Anakin) against my mental health problems. I was dangerously flirting with a burnout. This break was very beneficial.
When I saw that Sync for lemmy was available, I tried it. The facts that there are much less trolls here, much less cynicism (and also the fact that I'm now medicated) really help, and I feel now I can be among communities that aren't too toxic for me.