Hadnāt realized how reliant upon Reddit Iād become for news and interesting things until after it turned to shit and I quit it. Iāve rediscovered RSS for ex., using reader apps to scan sources directly and read without all the noiseāthat actually came from someoneās recommendation here in the comments. Iāve found several new sites with deep, knowledgeable articles and discussions, like https://theconversation.com/us (free! No ads! Also discovered through the comments here), and my engagement with articles and their sources has gone WAY up. Iāve stopped reading garbage comment sections, too, and Iām just feeling better mentally as a result, disengaging from the endless, low effort memes/jokes and the mean, toxic comments*. Anyone else?
(Thanks again, adminsāreally enjoying and appreciating how Beehaw is run!)
Honestly? No. I like Beehaw. But itās less convenient, with less content. I would rather stop using Reddit, but ultimately Iām just doing the same stuff here that I was there. Then again, I saw little toxicity in the subreddits I was in. Also, adult content is far less accesible.
Again though, Iām pretty happy with Beehaw/Lemmy. Iām sure they will only improve with time.
Same here. The lack of content is noticeable and it sucks that I have to participate instead of lurking. š
Iāve noticed Iām spending more time looking at content that I actually want to engage with.
Iāve also been on a huge FOSS hyper-fixation for the past week after replacing reddit with Lemmy. Iāve stopped using Youtube in favour of an open-source front end (Piped), I finally ditched Windows as my main OS and set up EndeavourOS, found an open-source Spotify front-end for desktop (psst) as well as an alternative for mobile (ViMusic).
If anyone has any other open-source software to recommend, hit me up!
For email, Thunderbird has done a complete re-write, and itās excellent: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/download/beta/
Iād recommend Joplin for notes!
I love it when Iām already using something open source without even knowing itās open source! Joplin is a great recommendation, Iāve always struggled finding note taking apps that strike a good balance between power and convenience.
If youāre on Android, take a look at f-droid. Kind of like Google Play Store, but for FOSS.
Ive been using Unraid (not FOSS), and there are a Ton of FOSS containers that I play around with all the time. I have one for budgeting, hosting a website, updating Dynamic DNS (website), and a whole bunch of others.
Ummmā¦
I too have (now) found the new front end! Woot woot!
And now I need to check out ViMusicā¦
You bad person who has taken more of my time! Thanks š
Antennapod for podcasts!
AntennaPod - my favorite app for podcasts.
Oh definitely, looking back I did a lot of doom scrolling and I didnāt realize how much it was affecting me. So happy to be off or Reddit
Yeah so did I. Somehow I got a kick / dopamin rush when reading /r/all and all the negative posts there. Glad to be gone!
Yes, Reddit was another corporate tool to make us addicted to.
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We need webrings brought back
Please sign my guestbook
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Ta-da! https://fediring.net/
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There are a lot of people who agree with you! Here is a list of 64 modern webrings if you like to peek at random personal homepages or niche projects: https://sadgrl.online/cyberspace/webrings
Ha, thereās a Tilde webring. Thatās like a jet powered Wright Brothers glider.
What I liked about Reddit was the balance of content and community. Thereās nothing on the Internet that hits the same balance for me. Lemmy feels like the early days of Reddit, in that way itās refreshing. But I miss being able to read through dozens of comments.
Not sure if 2011 counts as early days or Reddit, but yeah this feels like that. Iām glad that Iām spending less time scrolling, and more time reading books, articles, and comics. But I do miss the endless stream of content, and putting āsite:reddit.comā in my Google searches.
Same herd, however as there are less comments I feel more interested into writing comments, instead of reading.
This might sound weird, but bare with me!
I save funny stuff, goofy things, and positive content in a folder for my son to browse through, which keeps him from looking for content himself in parts of the internet unknown. He loves it, and I had been able to keep the folder updated with a good amount of new images daily, thanks to RĆddit.
However, lately that has changed. Posts deemed as āwholesomeā and āmade me smileā now increasingly have the edge of a dystopian nightmare (ālook at this father reuniting with his son who he thought was dead amidst this war-torn country! Awwww! Wholesome!ā and āthis teacher was surprised when his students gave him something that his paycheck should have been able to adequately provide but he is not actually paid enough to afford it! Awww! Made me smile!ā). Iāll find animals doing something ācuteā, only to realize that behavior is caused by bad or abusive care.
Now I struggle to find things that are actually funny or nice without having a sexist edge, a horrifying implication, sexual undertones, or some kind of underlying dark tone.
I am finding less content here, but the content I am coming across seems to be much more genuine! Iāve actually saved quite a bit more things than Iāve seen on RĆddit within the past year.
Iāve been doing so many things for kbin, it has literally reignited my passion to code. Iām having a blast
Oooh, what have you been working on?
Iāve been working on a browser extension that makes easier the navigation between communities from different instances by adding an icon to the start of a community name or link.
So for example if you have [email protected] or https://lemmy.ml/c/technology clicking the icon will take you to https://beehaw.org/c/[email protected]. Itās a small thing but very useful for us kbin users, however it works with lemmy as well.Also Iām working on a bot for kbin, specially made for subreddit mods that want to get content from their subreddits into a magazine, to help a little with the lack on content.
Thatās cool, good luck!
Would love to hear about what kinds of things youāve been doing!
Check my response to Lionir above (or below?) :)
I am absolutely loving it. Truly does feel like the old days in a good way. Where communities were made of good people and chatted about whatever random stuff they were interested in.
I agree. At first, I felt bereft that I couldnāt discuss xyz niche topic. Now, Iād rather find friendly people in whatever topic area.
Well, Iām enjoying the Internet now that Iām here on Beehaw. I stopped actively browsing Reddit years ago, only ever using it for web searches and the sidebar/wikis for niche topics. The vibes were bad. Normal subs had too many chuds and lefty subs had too many tankies, and comments felt insincere and sarcastic. So my social media usage has increased a little, but I like it here. Good project yāall are running.
Normal subs had too many chuds and lefty subs had too many tankies
Yep. I was initially attracted to the users that were present from 2014-2017. Over the years I noticed that the communities I had frequented, both leftist and tech subs, had hollowed out and become shells of their former selves. I spent a year and a half wondering where the users I liked had migrated to and searching for them. Search engines are increasingly useless these days as everything retreats behind walled gardens and SEO gentrification runs wild. I had been a Mastodon user for years and I recently noticed at the time that they implemented the ability to follow hashtags, so I tried that out and started building a feed. To my surprise, I found them at last. In hindsight, it makes sense. The Fediverse are FOSS platforms that are decentralized. Mastodon in particular also opts you out of search engine indexing by default. But yeah, feels nice to be reconnected with the demographics I liked.
Whatās a tankie?
Left wing person who defends authoritarian regimes.
The term comes from when the Soviet Union rolled tanks into Budapest in 1956 to crush the Hungarian revolution, which aimed to end bureaucratic despotism and place power with the workers. Many Western communists were horrified by the slaughter, but some supported what happened & continued to back the USSR.
Today ātankiesā tends to refer to people who support China & Russia, and sometimes even North Korea & Iran, often because they take the view that anti-Western == good, ignoring that these are highly oppressive, exploitative regimes which have nothing in common with typical left wing values.
Some are just naĆÆve about the reality of these governments, others just think of it as an āenemy of my enemyā utility against neoliberalism & Western imperialism, but some seem attracted by the idea of being authoritarian themselves or believe that a left wing future can only be achieved & maintained through authoritarianism.
Online, it is probable that some tankies are working for China or Russia and that others are working for Western organisations seeking to disrupt & discredit left wing movements. Others have just been persuaded by tankie arguments.
As a caveat: sometimes ātankieā is used to describe left wingers who arenāt like those described above, but who prefer the idea of imposing socialist reforms through force with a vanguard party at the helm, over achieving reform through anarchist organising without hierarchical enforcement.
I could always add āRedditā to a Google search and get information from real people. With the rise of bot sites/articles, this was my way of getting answers online.
Lemmy is great for learning new or interesting things, and Iām glad itās here. I just am not sure how to get answers from real people anymore
I really hope Lemmy becomes searchable. Thatās an amazing draw from Reddit. Other than Quora, I havenāt seen it yet.
Man, Iām enjoying life since I got off Reddit, which was when they first announced the API changes. Deleted my account there and then. Same goes with Twitter.
Turns out all these places just churn dumb online drama that is so inaccessible to the general public, that I ended up being a bit withdrawn because I had all this online drama in my head and I couldnāt really talk to folks about it.
Now Iām ironically much more sociable that Iāve moved over to the fediverse. Outside of the reddit drama, conversations have been much more human. And even with the drama, Iāve learned to stop caring about such things - everything is in change, it will be okay. Companies donāt matter - people do.
Honestly? It feels a bit mid for me. I keep reflexively opening the app, and thereās still a lot of smaller communities I peek at. I try to keep time-burning scrolling here, but it doesnāt feel the same.
I feel like if your someone who enjoys smaller corners of reddit, it might feel odd until you find a place on here. Because there is a higher chance what you enjoy isnāt on here yet, or it might not have enough traffic yet.
I was reflexively opening Reddit too. I combated that by putting a link to kbin.social where I had my RIF app on my phone. So the reflex lands me here now.
Definitely in a better overall mood without the doom scrolling. Also, havenāt had to see a single He Gets Us ad which is very nice.
OMG! For that reason alone Lemmy is better.
Iām really enjoying it honestly - I didnāt realize how many great forums were still out there.
Iām waiting for my data request to go through, then I might delete my account. Although there isnāt much of a point if they are restoring commentsā¦
You might want to keep your account so you can go back and delete your data as they restore it. I nuked all of mine, but every day maybe three or four things show back up again. Itās very strange. Almost like a rolling backup being restored.
This is gonna sound dumb but I love how much slower it is. I use to refresh R/politics sorting by controversial just to lurk and like get angry. I donāt know why. But since switching to Kbin I havenāt wanted to do that. Even the serverag has been kind of nice, I just click something and it takesonger so I might read a page or two of my book then check back.
Itās a dopamine hit. Thatās why you did it. Iām finding myself reading whole news articles instead of the first paragraph and then two pages of other peopleās comments about it, so thatās probably good for my overall mental health.
