What's changed about Lemmy over the past year for you?

Started to participate in discussion more and pleasantly surprised actual conversations happen and the comment section is not flooded with generic bot shit within minutes.

In my view, Lemmy ecospace became a lot more dark. People are snarkier, less prone to engage in polite conversation and divergent opinions get hounded.

I also sense an increased tendency for doom and gloom. Nihilism is on the rise, as well.

Given that this website has experienced the Reddit migration (I am one of those migrants), it has definitely started to feel a bit like Reddit, but it still differs in a lot of ways. There's less bots, actually engaging conversations, actual content. To me, this website continues to capture the vibe of the early Web2 days of the internet in a way that Reddit clearly moved away from, definitely so that its executives can make more of them monies. It feels a bit nostalgic in a way, and that's what I like about this website.

Lemmy is my only social media interaction these days, the content has improved, and the communities feel more distinct than they did a year ago. That could just be me getting up to speed though.

It was a nice surprise finding out that the left wing instances on here are actually pretty chill, way more so than on Reddit these days.

A lot more comments like reddit that are the quick (very tired) zingers. I was happy to get away from that but I'm sort of thinking of putting lemmy down if it gets worse.

I don't need your "this." Or "broken arms" or "that's insulting to trash" etc.

It's beyond tired. But it gets up voted and can dominate the comments section. I appreciate threads like this one that promote actual discussion.

It’s actually had content for me now

It's become clear that Lemmy is not about to take off. For most users, it's probably a fine Reddit clone, but it's not about to replace the big R.

I'm sure that will change in 2025. 🧌

Lemmy is teaching me things by accident.

Most recently; I've started learning media literacy and now I can see all the same manufactured consent and narrative shaping that exists in legacy media and social media like Facebook and reddit; but in .world and lemmee too

Starting to see different people reposting stuff on similar communities, which reminds me a lot of that other site. Not a huge fan.

I've also started noticing people downvoting instead of engaging when they disagree with something as well, which is frustrating.

Lemmy has become my main social media outlet. For better or worse, Lemmy's just my kind of place. I'm off of all mainstream social media except LinkedIn, which I barely use, but keep around for work related reasons.

I do still peruse Reddit, mainly for TV shows and niche subjects I can't find here. But I haven't logged in or posted since the first major exodus over the API pricing, and have no plans of returning.

I do post on Mastodon from time to time, but the format is just too geared towards short form content, and ultimately just isn't my cup of tea.

So yeah. I'm generally happy to be here with you all shooting the shit about politics, Linux, etc. Long live Lemmy!

All of the "a vote for Kamala is a vote for genocide" spammers mysteriously disappeared

Edit: my point is that they seem awfully quiet about Trump

Election spam which filled the front page is mostly gone.

My participation has dropped a lot compared to when I only just joined. There is only so much us centric doomer content I can stomach, and Lemmy is so extremely political that it is impossible to just browse cat memes and have a good time. So I spend less time here I suppose.

More content and more comments. I basically only use mastodon and lemmy for my memes nowadays and as general social media.

With the end of the US election, there has been a bit of an ideological demographic shift, but more of a strong wind than a foundational upset.

Well, I'm here now. So there's that.

You're welcome. /s

I feel like there's less Canadian content. After the Reddit API Exodus, there was a fair bit, but that dropped off.

I see a lot less but muh Media Bias/Fact Check now than I did a year ago.

The cell phone apps are a lot better nowadays. They look a lot better.

I've been posting more fedi content instead of just the popular links.

Not enough jeans. :(

Real answer: there's been an uptick in the amount of content lately, which is great. I've also unfortunately noticed an uptick in belligerent comments, which often detracts from the conversations taking place.

It seems more active now. Which has been great!

I got banned from the Canada community and according to the mod log, it was for homophobia and bigotry.

That really rubs me the wrong way because I’ve never ever posted anything like that. I’ve been the subject of homophobic and bigotry based bullying my whole life and the only comment I posted on that topic there was an account of my first hand experience of being catfished on Grindr and then outed as bi on the towns facebook page and subjected to ridicule and harassment.

It's become much more moderated and controlled. I think reddit is actually less controlled. I'm seeing conversations about Swedish immigration that would never be allowed on Lemmy.

On the other hand, I saw that Luigi was not allowed to be mentioned in Reddit now in some subreddit.. So... Lol.

People here have gotten progressively meaner and I am seeing more and more AI slop. Also the quality of memes have fallen off a fucking cliff in all meme communities.

Lemmy has a bit more active users which is great. However, I have also noticed that Lemmy has gotten similar things as Reddit these days. Different opinions are not welcome, quick/ angry comments (politic community though)

However, Lemmy now has a decent app(s) such as Voyager. I also love that Lemmy does not restrict/ block users from using swear words (at least the instance I’m on does not).

Though in all honesty, I mostly use an RSS-feed such as Reeder and InoReader.

Getting a bit busier these days

• Less buggy
• Instance blocking

Just got banned from !linuxsucks, got a feeling that's nothing uncommon though, power tripping mod situation

Tremondous change!!! A year ago I didn't know about it and now I do!

For me, Lemmy was a place where I mostly found like-minded people. Even if we don't always agree (and we shouldn't) I have had some genuine feedback to the thoughts that haunt me or tickle me. Nevertheless, I was surprised at the interinstance drama which I mostly ignore. And I think that the base probability of transphobia is higher than the sidebar rules would implicate. I am always surprised when I see naive and uninformed takes.

Although I do have found a place to share such thoughts with less harassment and backlash than Reddit, there is some unearned harassment and hating here as well, eg there are some consistent downvoters, to the effect I have a single downvote to anything I post.

Although I think that here in Lemmy I enjoy a higher probability of getting thoughtful responses and well-intended humor to what I post, I feel that a number of people I have interacted with me were highly prejudiced I was a troll or a bad faith actor.

This lack of trust to other users is one of the greatest achievements of fascists and spooks, and they have successfully used it with freedom movements everywhere.

I was also surprised at how conservative the privacy community is. Compared to the amount of radical content posted on every other topic, I find myself among those who think that c/Privacy actively discourages newcomers from developing advanced privacy and anonymity skills.

The privacy thing and some aspects of the Democrats situation pre- and post- election make me think that there is some "manufacturing of consensus" bad faith actors among us. This can lead to disbanding of any project, so we need a solid mindset, in which we assume good faith, but have exact methods for handling disagreement and genuine questions, but also look out for bad faith actors and take steps to build healthy online communities for anarchist and communist free and private software enthusiasts.

Afterthoughts

• The sitewide rules ask us to assume good faith, be civil, and discuss thoughtfully. As it happens, we fail to adhere, and I am to blame as well. I am quite uncivil to people I disagree, but it is often forgiven because a lot of other people are cheering. This makes us a stupid crowd by the way.
• As a Disclaimer, I switched sides wrt to Democrats. Although I had chosen not to post anything pre-election, I was like "Quit this nonsense and vote Democrats already". I was radicalized after the election, and now think that Democrats are lobbying grifters and can stuff it.

The visible buildup and collapse of anti-democrat propaganda pre- and post-election. Then blaming the democrats for trump’s win. The shift to pushing intergenerational conflict shortly after and blaming specific generations for trump’s win. Now blaming the democrats for everything the Republicans do.

Pretty much a steady undercurrent of individuals attempting to blame democrats for everything.

That wasn’t a Lemmy problem before. Sure, we had issues with grad or ml, but there really wasn’t such a uniform front pushing such monochromatic propaganda.

That, and I think some of the edge has come off of Lemmy as a techie/linux platform. It’s still there, but I think there’s a much better variety of discussions now.