Sound Off: How many 10+ year redditors have left the site?
I was just browsing a thread on c/nfl looking for new mods. There were multiple 12+ year Redditors there offering to help.
Got me wondering. There are 14,000 of us in this community. How many of us are ten year plus users who have just had enough?
Edit: I didn't expect this post to be as poignant as it became. There are so many of you... I can't reply to everyone. I'm an 11 year user and have modded something like 150 subs over the years. I'm really sad too, but I'm finding that lemmy has most of the content I'm looking for, just needs more comments.
The API was a big blow, but removing awards on past posts and deleting coin balances is really dumb.
I would imagine the 10+ demographic has the highest rates of attrition. Those people will have witnessed most of the transition from niche to lowest common denominator. Everyone knows the adage that 100k is the subreddit limit after which the community breaks down. It would happen here too. The discourse here is uncannily like the 2009 Reddit I remember. People are polite and well informed. I hope the localised and open nature of the service keeps it that way.
Prediction: Reddit will become a cesspit of advertising and data harvesting, a la Facebook. It's most of the way there already.
16yrs
My account was older than my kid. It feels like some weird breakup. At times I miss it but I feel better for moving on. Lemmy feels like early reddit did so I'm hopeful that the community will continue to grow.
14 years with an account. A year or so of lurking before that.
Sites come and go.
I like telling stories of the olden days of the internet. Like being user #132 on mp3.com and having chats with people like Darude (before sandstorm) and Dido (before Eminem). It was an amazing place. Now it isn't.
Reddit will follow.
As they all do
Edit: I also had the comment of the day on Reddit once.
It had 500 upvotes.
I was also a beta tester for duckduckgo. Not the app, the site/engine. When everyone else was putting him down, I believed.
Joined in 2011. Left with the API announcement and haven’t been back since.
Honestly, it’s been really nice. Dialogue here is more mature/friendly. Reminds me of original Reddit. I’m also a lot less angry scrolling the front page here.
I was 2006 adopter when Paul Graham dropped a link to it on his website. I was there before the original programming subdomain Reddit and even before they supported picture thumbnails. I've seen its wild mutations over the years. Bacon, narwhal, Mr Splashypants, Colbert name dropping, the original video IAMAs, the jailbait fiasco, spacedicks, random celebrity users, the redesign from hell, etc etc.
I left.
It was a good site for a long time but after being on Lemmy for a while I can see a clear difference in experience and now I realize Reddit has been bad for a while. Terrible discourse, lowest common denominator posts, and falling into the trap of continuous engagement just to get the next hit of dopamine. Honestly, spez ruining the site has been good for me personally.
I'm proud of our rejection of a commercial online experience. This is the thoughtful community I want to be a part of. This feels like the Internet of the late 90s in terms of authenticity. With its revival with the Fediverse I'm hopeful that these types of communities will forever be part of our digital experience.
I joined Reddit 13 years ago when Digg made their site unusable. I joined Lemmy 1 month ago when Reddit made their site unusable (on mobile). History repeats itself...
here! deleted my account right after I read the thread from Christian Selig how his answers where twisted beyond recognition by that greedy dipshit spez!
I have no idea why people still hang on to this platform or even want to support it by being mods. I mean the reddit admins are pissing on them without even giving them the courtesy of calling it rain.
My account was 14 years old before I left for Lemmy. Seen a lot of stuff come and go on reddit. Lots of changes over the years and very rarely did I like them but stayed cause there was no real valid alternative. Finally heard about Lemmy during API changes and decided to pull the plug on reddit.
Reddit had been going downhill for nearly 10 years now, to be honest
In with the Digg exodus, out when I learned my favorite 3rd party app was shutting down(Sync, though I'm excited for the Lemmy version!). It's disappointing to learn Reddit's leadership views communities as their property, and their disdain for volunteer moderators and 3rd party apps.
11 years for me, mostly lurking. Happy to move away as it has declined heavily in the last half decade. Lemmy is such a breath of fresh air! I would love to see a continued mass exodus.
15 years. I haven't deleted my account yet but I haven't logged in
since API day. I have a redirect in place to go through a libreddit
proxy in case I end up on the site through a web search or something.
I am pretty commited to never contribute to the site again and I am
planning to delete my account at some point. I want to make sure that
I can reliably delete my full comment history before I do that and I
haven't bothered researching that yet. I am hoping that there will be
a way to do it through a GDPR or CCPA request at some point rather
than me having to do the work. (yeah I know there are tools but it's
still an effort)
Reddit had been my greatest online addiction by far. It's kinda nice
that they made it so easy to kick it. A bit like finding an unexpected
out from a bad relationship. Good luck with the rest of your life
Reddit!
I was very proud of "my" sub over there (sole active mod and most consistent poster). 11K+ subscribers and personally acknowledged by the author of a recent book on the subject of our sub.
Something died in me just before and during the blackout. I haven't posted anything over there since, and of the 11K subscribers, it's possible NONE of them followed my migration to the Fediverse where I set up an equivalent "official" sublemmy.
Once you know what you know (at least for some of us), it's just not the same participating in that space any longer.
I keep an eye on the place out of respect to...something. (I feel like I cleaned the place up nicely, and really raised the level of discourse.)
I guess I was naive in the extreme to think that at least a couple of hundred of the faithful would follow me over here? I don't do it for the numbers, but there is something gratifying watching your community grow.
At this writing, the new sub has double-digit followers! ;-P
Just about 10 years on Reddit. My visits to Reddit dropped by 99.9%; still do a few check-ins with support communities I've used. Here on Lemmy, actively contributing and minor role as mod in a couple of communities. Building a new home in the stars.
I haven't deleted my account just yet but I joined reddit 12 years ago this month, once RIF went under om the 1st I stopped visiting the site altogether. I have friends that still regularly use the site, mainly through old.reddit whom I've told about Lemmy but just aren't quite ready to switch over and that's their choice, due to the amount of content still on the site I can't necessarily blame them, but I just can't in good conscience give reddit the traffic now that they've gone full twitter in their corporate decision making.
For about 6 years but I shall share a story cause why not. I don't remember the exact details of how it unraveled.
So for a lot of time I had an unverified account, one that wasn't linked to any email. I just browsed as usual. Then one day my account got 'locked' and I had to verify it through a mail to unlock it. Now, I think I went ahead and tried linking it to my mail (or it might even be that I tried linking it from the very beginning but never got a confirmation mail), but I wouldn't get any mail.
I tried regaining access for a while but I soon made a second account to be able to interact with the content.
Now I believe some time had passed and I remembered about my first account, got determined to unlock it. I even contacted support about it.
It was at that time that I noticed what went wrong. I had a typo in the mail I had provided, just one letter. That is why I never got any mail, but there still was a problem: there was no option to edit and correct the mail I had given them. I was devastated, there was no way to get that confirmation mail at this point.. unless? What if I created a new email account, one with the typo, so I could receive that mail? I did just that. Created a new google mail account for the sole purpose of getting that mail. I did it, got the mail, unblocked my account, changed the linked mail and deleted the typo-mail account.
I finally got my original account back. I continued however to use the second one, it was more up to date with my interests at the time, but I was happy I managed to solve the issue - no thanks to support.
11 years. Haven't been back since Sync shut down. I'm really enjoying Lemmy, but I do miss the specific question Google search with site:Reddit added to get some real help with tech problems.
12 years. Was thinking about leaving when they announce the api death blow. Actually decided to leave when i saw how reddit admins blatently lied about the apollo dev situation.
Awards? Never saw those on my 2015 version of baconreader app. Couldn't care less.
I'm not totally out, there's some gaming subreddits which are directly visited by the devs for feedback unfortunately. There's certain mangas I read and shows I watch too. But other than that, everything else is Lemmy.
I know that sounds really unimpressive, but it's actually a significant reduction. I'll only go for very specific reasons, providing dev feedback or discussing a new chapter/episode. That's a few times a week at best for not much time at all. I don't bother regularly browsing the subs for interesting content anymore.
A substantial part of my activity was commenting on politics and world news, and I've completely cut that out. "General discussion" like that is all on Lemmy now, and it's easily the majority. If I'm wasting time at work, it's probably on Lemmy now.
11 year reddit account holder. Lemmy is so much better. Yeah, there isn't a post for every passing thought, but people are generally more kind and that matters to me.
11 years. And, honestly I'm kinda grateful. It was time, regardless of the drama, and an unhealthy amount of my screen-existence was being eaten up by it. There seemed to be a slow, insidious change that I was probably sheltered from by keeping to old-reddit, but even then, the whole spez-API-drama wasn't so much of a shock, but more the final nail in the coffin that reddit is, with no doubt, now a full on corporate for-profit website just like any of the other social media giants, and will continue to act more and more like them. I'll admit I didn't delete my account, just the app, and I still check back in every few days to peek in to a few more niche subreddits that there just isn't any replacement for elsewhere (yet), but spending my time elsewhere has been refreshing.
11 years here. I was very aware the quality of content there had gone down the drain before the API stuff, so when that happened and Lemmy presented itself as a good alternative I left for good!
I started using reddit around the whole Digg debacle. What's that been? 13 years? Something like that. I preferred Sync and since that's gone, I didn't feel like being strong armed into using their dog shit app. So... Here I am.
10 years last July almost 400k karma. I'd like to say I left for all sorts of noble reasons to do with awards or API, but mostly I just left because Lemmy is a nicer space to hang out in and reminds me of my early days on the internet with BBSs and the like. On Reddit as an older woman we are constantly made aware it's not a space where we are really wanted, though there are a lot more of us on there in our own little niches than I think a lot of younger male users realise. So I'm here hoping Lemmy will continue to feel more open to everyone, and if it doesn't hell I'll start a server for us old farts.
17 year user. (I originally joined when Aaron Swartz became a co-founder, because I figured his idealism would keep reddit from becoming the kind of place it is now.)
Over a dozen years on Reddit. Earlier this year, when looking through & deleting my old posts, I saw one saying how if Reddit ever did anything crazy to it's users, I'd leave, just as quickly as I'd done with Digg, G+, FB. So I did without even reading any further. Present self could not just ignore a message from Past self.
I had to check how old my account is, but 10 years confirmed. I'll check the local subreddit for my hometown occasionally just because there isn't a community for it here, but otherwise I've completely left the site.
I honestly don't miss Reddit as much as I'd thought. The communities here provide about as much content (higher quality even, imo) as I'd like, but I also feel like I've gotten so much more free time from sitting on my phone and scrolling endlessly. I'd like to see some of the apps catch up, but otherwise this is the alternative that fits my needs best now, and even if lemmy/kbin fails, I don't see myself returning to Reddit.
I left as soon as RIF went offline for my account. Mid-tier user with reasonable posts volume. Been on reddit since the big Digg migration. Now I'm here.
I miss a few things about it... the constantly refreshing front page, the indepth sub-reddits on smaller topics, and my post history. But I haven't gone back. Nor am I likely to unless management changes or they change their tone, neither of which is likely. Oh well, out with the old, in with the new.
I was planning on leaving soon, but Reddit did it for me today. Permanently suspended my 15+ year old account over a comment where I was trying to help people not spam an almost dead sub with irrelevant content. I suppose it was time.
I'm an almost 17 year Redditor, same username as here. I was in so early that I actually have emails that I sent to Alexis Ohannion and Steven Huffman asking questions about how their Postgres setup worked -- and they both replied! But I've moved on. I haven't used Reddit since June 30, 2023, the day Apollo died.
Was closing in on 14 years in Sept. nuked my account. F em. Hell I even paid for Premium despite using Apollo because I wanted to pay my share. How they treated users and admins let alone app developers was beyond the pale, I couldn't support it by staying.
16 years? I stopped participating on large subreddits about a decade or so ago when the highest upvoted comment I made received near 1000 upvotes. It was the most non-useful non-helpful throwaway comment ever. I realized at that point how stupid reddit was and only participated in small subreddits for a short time but gave up commenting all together as it was worthless. Left when RIF stopped working.
I migrated from Digg to Reddit in Dec 2009. I've gone through several accounts since then. I've deleted the most recent accounts and have tried to delete the older ones - although Reddit won't let me delete one account for some reason (delete keeps failing). I joined the Aussie Zone Lemmy instance and love it here. One thing I think redditfugees need to remember is that Lemmy instances are not ad supported, so WE NEED TO FINANCIALLY SUPPORT OUR HOME INSTANCES!
Stopped using reddit on mobile (Apollo orphan), now only use Memmy.
At desktop, a put Lemmy as favourite page besides the Reddit icon, so my muscle memory adapt without problem. I review the All-frontpage (top-6h) here and just specific subs there. I hope these 3-4 subs start growing here, so I stop going to reddit. It will happen, eventually.
I nuked my history but the account is still active. I'll probably delete it soon. May 2012 inception date. I'm surprised how easy it has been to stop using it after all this time. Admittedly, I haven't used Lemmy nearly as much as I would reddit, but that is a good thing for me.
I created my account during high school, now I am 25.
To be honest, I am grateful for the journey. I found Reddit when I needed it, I was spending too much time on 9gag and wanted to find something more productive to waste my time on. Reddit was, and still is, more than that.
TwoXChromosomes and gonewildstories are two subs that literally redefined my person.
I haven't deleted my account, nor do I plan to. But, I haven't used Reddit since my birthday on June 12th. I have been into the idea of the fediverse long before I first read about it, and I am here for the long run.
I originally joined Reddit in 2006, and became active full time after the Digg migration. My account was legally able to drive. I began using RIF somewhere during that time period, not sure exactly when, but probably over a decade ago at least.
It had been eons since I enjoyed interacting on Reddit as much as I am currently enjoying interacting with all of you on Lemmy. This has been a breath of fresh air, and I won't ever look back given the wholly unethical behavior of Steve Huffman as well as the decimation of third party applications due to the API changes. I joined Reddit when it was in its infancy, and I am happy to be here during the opening era of Lemmy.
I want to see this project become something great, and I intend to do my best to be an active member of this community so that it can thrive. I was never one for posting content on Reddit for some reason, but that is something I would like to change after migrating over here. I think there is useful insight I can provide to niche communities that relate to my work and personal interests, and I will try to do a better job of submitting content to further the goals of those communities when I have the time.
Edit - Since I see some people adding this
Mobile - Connect
Desktop - Alexandrite
I think 7 years? I browsed reddit for a while before that reading up on my interests but eventually I created an account. Spent a LOT of time on subs for people who were abused as children. Therapy was used against me as part of the abuse. I am triggered by therapists now -.-" so these online self help spaces were a major part of my journey to understand and start recovery. It became a cornerstone to help me become a person.
Eventually several of these subs had a lot of internal drama. Back then I felt fealty to these communities and tried super hard to fix it. No avail. In a way I did my reorienting and mourning my lost community back then. I cut back on reddit use like 80% already going from many hours a day to maybe a few times a week? I'd still engage if something caught my attention. Especially in the refugee subs about childhood abuse that sprung up.
The recent protests brought that down to "only if I need some specific information". Maybe twice a month? I don't engage at all anymore. I also didn't feel like talking to a brick wall again to attempt to fix an online place. The rhethoric and even some methods between spez and some mods I tangled with is similar enough. I just left this time around. Let my actions speak. I can't bring my self to delete my comments tho.
I still miss a place where people intuitively get what I've been through because they have similar stories. And I'd like to pass it forward some more. I haven't found anything similar on the fediverse yet. But I'm in a place where I don't need it much anymore. It's still just sad that a handful of humans can destroy communities like this. It had such a big impact on my life.
Same username on reddit. Just over 10 years myself on that account plus another 2 or 3 with a prior account. Really enjoying Lemmy and like everyone has said already, it honestly does feel like reddit from 10 years ago.
I had stopped using reddit much at all but I’m on Lemmy nearly every day like I used to be with reddit years ago.
Other question: how active were you? I used to write about 30 comments A DAY. I easily see that Lemmy is wayy more active than Reddit and this makes using Lemmy way more fun even when the content isn't here yet.
Came before digg as a lurker then left when unbearable and did it again now. I also found a bunch of new discord and communities to replace reddit. I didnt complain, just packed up my shit and left. Sucks for my professional outlets on there but meh, plenty of user groups that aren't trying to monetize my contributions and own my thoughts.
Since Reddit's APIcalypse the content of that site has gone to the drain. It is very clear that power users are no longer posting quality content. I am much more amused by Lemmy than Reddit nowadays, though it's true that it has that new car smell and the communities will keep growing and reforming from the Reddit ashes.
I don't think Reddit will disappear, but it's not the same site it was two months ago, that's a fact.
I kept my account and still (rarely) interact with some niche subs. The bulk of my social activity is here now, and if these niche topics were represented on the Fediverse, I'd gladly move on.
So I guess, to Reddit, I don't look like I'm truly gone since my account is still active somewhat. But my level of engagement has dramatically fallen.
It’s freeing in a way, reddit had become so user-hostile, and I only used it because of the beautiful third party apps out there.
It’s astonishing just how slow, ugly, inconvenient, and buggy they have been making the UI over time.
I migrated there after digg 4.0. I still have a reddit account but all of my old comments have been changed to direct people to Lemmy. As far as my influence? Probably not much. While I had several hundred thousand post karma, that was all news related so I was not exactly a content creator. I did comment a decent amount though.
Joined in 2011, used it pretty much everyday for 12 years. Probably an average of 3+ hours per day, though I'd constantly find myself closing the app or website down just to open it back up 5 minutes later. Since the app closed down and I don't really use my desktop anymore I've just stopped using it. I will still Google questions from reddit occasionally if I can't find good answers elsewhere, but in the past 2 months I've maybe visited the site 10 times, and only for specific questions, never to browse the front page. I'd say it's been good for me overall and, I've cut down from like 3-4 hours a day on reddit to maybe an hour a day between here and lemmy.
I hoped to replace reddit with reading and while it hasn't been completely successful I have been getting like 3 hours of reading per week, which is a lot better than the like 30 minutes a week (maybe) I used to get. I also feel my attention span has gotten better. With less stuff to see I tend to actually read the majority/all of an article instead of just the headline or skimming the first few paragraphs.
11 year old account. When BaconReader went, so did I. Logged out during the blackout and won't be back.
I like the vibe better here anyway, but it would be nice if my two favorite niche subs would come with.
There are Lemmy communities for both, but they're not very active (I participate in both here, it's just quiet)
11+ years here, all on mobile (Reddit Pics was my first app.)
Apollo WAS Reddit for me. I loathe the Reddit app and refuse to use it. Would happily have paid a monthly fee or whatever. I spent unhealthy amounts of time on Reddit.
Not been back since Apollo shut down. This is my home now.
How many of us are ten year plus users who have just had enough?
I just use both now, honestly. I don't really use the big subreddits because the users and quality of conversation feel like they're actively making me dumber... but there are smaller niche communities that don't really have a viable non-reddit alternative yet, and I'm not willing to let one greedy man force me to give up on a part of my life that I really enjoy.
15 years with the account and lurked since 2005, basically from the beginning. Sad to see it turned into a complete shitshow. But the quality of the content, especially in the bigger subreddits has been declining long before that. It started going downhill with the popularity around 2015-2017 with the influx of new users. The discourse got a lot worse and briganded(?) and I lost the charm that it had in the early days. I am never using the site ever again out of principle. I got over Usenet and IRC, Reddit will also be eventually replaced.
I don't know how long I was on Reddit but it was for quite a while before the Digg exodus happened, so it might be 17 years? I had settled on RIF as my front end and was quite upset at the loss of the third party clients. It was apparent that Reddit was decaying for years, but being on the third party apps and knowing how to curate your subreddits helped a lot. I've been back over there a few times on old.* but it's not the same. Us old-timers are not the audience they want these days and frankly, I don't want to be the audience they want so good riddance.
I was on Reddit for 13 years! It still trips me out that Reddit was such a constant to me for so long. I learned SO much there over the years, and while I do still miss a few communities, I also know that leaving was the wise choice.
I took a peek over there the other day and the comment sections being dominated by tired puns that add nothing to the conversation and all the bots are worse than ever. I'm much happier not being there anymore, but it's definitely bittersweet!
11.5 year old account (same username). Reddit has been shit for years but there was never a real alternative. I tried so hard to make it good: I unsubbed from all of the defaults, curated my feed, used Apollo to block r/all, even blocked a bunch of keywords and chronic resposters. But it was no use, the quality of commentary was on a steady decline (UnDeRrAtEd CoMmEnT), and the arrogance of the average Redditor is staggering given how unoriginal and lazy they actually are (I'm not excluding myself from that comment). Frankly the ban on third party apps was just the straw that broke the camel's back, but really it was a forgone conclusion that I left. Maybe it's just because I've gotten older. I've checked it a few times since "leaving" - it's still shit, and going back makes me realise how bad it actually was.
I refuse to delete my account because I'd rather they (and anyone else) see that my account was purposely abandoned because of their actions.
Lemmy is doing much better, but honestly it's probably because it's empty. It will likely go the same way in years to come, which I welcome because this place deserves the success. I'll enjoy it while I like it... Ironically I tried to post this comment but got wiped by a long outage.
11.5 years here, and was using Narwhal to access on mobile.
Whilst Narwhal seems to have worked out a deal with Reddit to keep going, albeit having to charge in the near future, after all the bad blood caused by everything going on and the uncertainty of whether or not some apps would continue I’ve had enough.
As many have said, the community here seems tight-knit and feels like they really care about things which isn’t something I’ve seen on Reddit for a long time.
I left reddit when I couldn't read it more on baconreader that was my favorite app, now I only visit it on web browser because there are still communities that I use a lot while working like r/cisco and r/fortinet, I really hope those communities move here soon
Created my account in Oct. 2011 after a long time of just lurking. Leaving reddit feels weird, sad but also right, like a breakup that was long overdue.
Been on reddit since ~2010, and paid Premium without interruption ever since they had it. I stopped paying Premium and logged out (haven't deleted my account tbh, but logging out made it annoying enough to interact with the site that it worked for me 😆).
And I found out: Less social media in my life is good. I browse Lemmy some, Tildes some, Firefish/Mastodon some, but honestly, far far less than I used to, and that's cool. Cheers to spez fixing my social media addiction! 🥂
I haven't left completely, as there a a few subreddits that are important for me for either work or hobbies, but I only browse those now and don't go to the front page or out of specific purpose driven communities that don't have active equivalents on Lemmy. My time on reddit is down to a fraction of what it was prior to June, and I hope I can drop it altogether at some point as more communities grow here.
13 year user. Reddit communities helped me get through some tough times. I haven't visited in ages, but R/stopdrinking is one of the reasons I'm able to cosplay as a functional human. Many hobbies and passions were found and expanded there. I mod a small subreddit. I didn't delete my account, but it went from visiting multiple times a day to now about once a week.
TBH it makes me pretty sad, and feels like a 'small death' of something I cared about more than I fully realized. I'm still mourning it in some ways, but am also excited about the 'old internet' feel of Lemmy and the fediverse and being part of that ride.
12 years this month. Left with the 3rd party apps. Might have stayed for some niche communities, but just happened to get suspended while nuking my comment history, appealed, and got permabanned as a response... so Reddit made the final choice for me.
12 years. The amount of knowledge and experience shared in a conversational style was invaluable, but I cannot keep using a service that is hostile to users like me/us.
I started using Reddit in 2007ish or thereabout. I'm done. I am sick of the drama there, the direction of the platform, and the people are nicer here to boot.
Blew it all away on the last day the API for using a bot to do so still worked. https://www.reddit.com/user/Reygle
Profile's only still "active" is to watch a few places, but I'm never contributing again and I refuse to install the official app and only load the site in Firefox with an ad blocker on mobile.
I'm definitely around 10 years. I can't say for sure though as I lurked for the first 3 or 4. I haven't been to reddit since the final day. I logged out of my account on the final day, and as soon as my brother texted that RIF no longer works I uninstalled it. Haven't been back since. Lemmy was originally.... not disappointing exactly, but not "as good" as reddit, but it's quickly improved. I like it a lot. It feels like reddit, if reddit was part of the old internet.
Not totally sure off the top of my head but I guess I was on Reddit for about 13 years, give or take. I moderated some communities for many years as well.
I'm done now.
I have not found replacements for most of my Reddit communities — not the ones I actually cared about. It's a crying shame that online communities keep getting fractured by shitty corporate behavior (see Twitter). That is the main reason I will not get involved with another proprietary platform. Why should I invest my time and effort into building a community that will eventually be ripped to shreds by profiteers?
I don't know if Lemmy is "the one" but I feel like the principles of the fediverse have legs. The internet is going to have some growing pains in the coming years, and it's going to take a long time for anything like Lemmy to reach critical mass. I mean, even Reddit was still kind of niche when you compare it to, say, Twitter or Facebook. My grandma's on Twitter and Facebook, while Reddit even to this day is too technical for "the masses".
Honestly, it took me longer than it should have. I should have ditched Reddit years ago. But I'm here for it now. Fuck Musk, fuck Spez, and fuck the advertising-supported corporate hellscape of the modern internet in general.
Of course, many of these problems will come to the fediverse as well. Instances do indeed cost money to run. Too much for an intrepid webmaster to pay out of their own pocket just for fun in the long-term. Lemmy might just be a stepping stone.
About 15 years, various accounts. I left June 30. I have to browse some subreddits simply because their content is so niche, but I do so anonymously, without an active account. Wishing it was easier for some of those communities to migrate and hoping that in time they will.
Nearly 12 year account on reddit here. Haven't deleted it yet, but I've stopped browsing reddit for a month now and replaced it with Lemmy/kbin/Mastodon. Don't see myself ever going back.
This is better. Everyone reminisces about reddit before reddit got huge. Today, reddit is acting as a filter to attract people who want a more social media, gamified experience. That's a good thing for the Lemmy community.
14 years. The reddit protest was a great way to exit an unhealthy relationship with a site that was devouring way too much of my time. But now lemmy is slowly starting to draw me in more and more...
16 years on Reddit here but I was never a big user. In its early days it was a less toxic version of Digg but then Reddit itself eventually became Digg.
I wish these sites would use a more Slashdot-like moderation system. Not everyone deserves an equal vote especially with all the bots running around. Or Ars-like if you absolutely can't live without the pure democratic system.
I was a 14-year user and haven't logged in since before the blackout. I'm glad I got to be around to witness some of the old classics but so be it. I hope lemmy can become a repository of comparable knowledge in time.
12 years. I was part of the Digg migration. I used to love Digg. Then a bunch of corporate asshole decided to run Digg into the ground and a new found love for Reddit slowly bloomed out of that. I am still hoping to find that love for Lemmy. It's not quite there yet, but it is only a matter of time as I really appreciate the good vibes here.
I think I'm about to hit the 15 year mark there. Still visit from time to time and probably will until the niche communities I like there are all replicated there but I'm already habituated to clicking Lemmy rather than Reddit when I'm bored.
I won't miss it, it has already been a shell of its former self for years. The community is still fine but always getting more mainstream. The UI is horrendous though, especially on a desktop browser with all the mouseovers always getting in your way to show you some useless profile pic of a user or sub. Won't miss that for a second.
11 years. I commented a lot and had a decent trickle of reasonably successful posts over that time.
I got banned just before all this happened because I made an anti-tankie post in an unrelated sub, then gamingcirclejerk auto-banned me with the message "beep boop gamer detected!", whereupon I replied, "What the fuck? Do you have literally any explanation for this?" and then I was banned for "harrassment".
Just basically a sitewide policy being abused by authoritarian assholes. They abuse their mod powers to harrass users they don't like to provoke a reaction, and the second you say a naughty word they go running to the admins to kick you off the site completely.
I then didn't make another account until I needed to to ask for support on one of the niche communities. I noticed in that time that my mental health improved enormously. This place is a lot nicer and I hope it can catch enough refugees to get critical mass and displace reddit. I'm sure it'll change as it grows but I'm really excited to see how different the culture will be as that happens.
Only a 7-year old account here but I almost exclusively used Apollo.
After seeing how Spez (and company) treated Christian and the moderators (which do their work for free), I decided to never give that site any traffic anymore.
Am very happy I found Lemmy!
I've been on Reddit for 10 years and now I use Reddit very rarely (only when I feel like a community on Reddit is the only place for me to get info about a specific thing). Now I frequent Lemmy (and Kbin) instead for news, discussions and memes.
13 year club. I only hopped on one time since the blackout when I got a notification on my Joey client about them discontinuing gold. Just went around and awarded all mine to old comments. The dev of Joey said it was shutdown so I was surprised it worked still.
Props to y'all, I have no clue when I started. I had one account, then I lost it because I forgot about it and made another one year or two later. And then another one cuz I wanted it to be linked to my user name in one of my games.
All I remember was that I quit that game after 5+ years of playing, and I had account 1-2 years prior. And that quitting date was somewhere in 2019, so that's like 2014ish or so, I guess I might have been a Redditor for almost 10+/- years.
But yeah, since the blackout. I've been browsing Lemmy and Mastodon whenever Lemmy goes down. No regret, I've been enjoying the new experience and it got me to browse a bit less than usual due to less content overall but still it's positive.
10 years here, haven't modded anything and was mostly active in a few relatively niche subreddits, so, unfortunately, currently Lemmy can't fill the void quitting Reddit left (yet), but still not looking back.
Not giving the corporate fucks at Reddit any more free content. If you're living off the community, don't shit on the community.
Yo. Wasn't ever terribly active, but the reaction to the recent protest, both in CEO/admin response and some comments, made me realize the site wasn't what it was when I first joined and that I don't mesh with it anymore. I'll miss the active niche subs I followed, but starting fresh with an alternative like here has been great.
At 8 years young I am way short of the long term Reddit membership criteria, but don't think that is really important, rather what matters are the reasons creating Reddit refugees and how they transition.
Personally I am transitioning away from Reddit as organisational goals are, in my view, trampling the community foundation of Reddit.
My personal transition to the Fediverse is not friction-less, and there are new community norms and tools to be aware of. In my case I have reverted to RSS to monitor key Reddit subreddits, where the fediverse does not yet have the critical informational mass, have started posting to the fediverse, and already learned new stuff such as there being different tools and expectations when it comes to things such as cross-posting.
Like others have said I encourage patience when it comes to Reddit refugees such as myself, encouraging rather than denigrating our ignorance when it comet to getting to grips with the fediverse, and all of its differences and tools. We will all be stronger for that in the long run!
I’m one of those c/nfl mods and 12+ redditors that has moved on. I know Reddit probably has some life in it still, but the quality of the communities is going to go down. Decentralization serves users best.
12 years but honestly, I am glad the kerfuffle led me to Lemmy as well as other places I didn't know about.
It seems there are many excellent alternatives who take the culture if their place seriously, which reddit never did.
I get much more of a coffee shop discussion feel here.
I moved from Digg to reddit about 15 years ago, before the mass Digg exodus. For the last 5 years I was a paid reddit subscriber, mostly just because it was my most visited site and I wanted to support it.
Immediately after the API announcements, I cancelled my subscription and deleted all my posts. I also deleted most of my comments, and edited some to say I've moved to Lemmy. I planned to do that with all of them but I got bored.
There are some niche subreddits I still visit directly because I haven't found comparable communities, but I barely use the site at all anymore. I'm enjoying Lemmy and have also dipped back into RSS feeds for the first time in about a decade.
Unless something drastically changes, I will never post or comment there again. It's only a matter of time before I ditch it completely.
I'd used Reddit in some fashion since about 2012. Jumped ship once I realized Lemmy was gaining steam and Spez wasn't going to budge. I'm sad, no doubt, but I think it's because Reddit was easy. Been lurking on Lemmy more lately just from lack of time, but I'm glad to see that things are still rolling along! I think the communities here are full of folks trying to make something amazing. Happy to contribute!
I'm at 12 years. I haven't fully quit Reddit, per se, particularly as there are official support communities there that are nowhere else. But I'm trying to minimize my use and shift toward something, hopefully this, that better represents the open and decentralized approach I want to see. One company dictating exactly how I access my data is a problem for me.
13 years and used to have multiple Reddit tabs open. It was a rough few days when the API boycott happened, but between that and losing Apollo, I realized that I was spending way too much time there, and I'm ok not being there.
Apparently I have been there about 12 years. Don't go anymore and pause when google takes me there. Though I am not creating content so if I look I am mostly just using bandwidth.
16 years. No RIF equates to no Reddit for the most part for me. Haven't really 'left' formally or permanently, but spend more time here day to day now, its almost the same pattern for how Digg just kind of evaporated from use off over a few weeks as I used Reddit more and more daily.
Yup. Can't remember the exact date because I deleted those accounts, but from a glance at emails it was no later than 2010.
I now waste my time here, and occasionally look at a subreddit as a logged-out user for certain informational threads (eg. the pinned driver discussion thread atop /r/NVIDIA, or the pinned release discussion thread atop /r/UnRAID).
Hopefully in time, more of this discussion will migrate away from Reddit. I deleted my phone apps and my browser bookmark, so I no longer autopilot my way there.
I was there for 14 years with 5 accounts totaling over 1 million karma across them all. Never really cared about karma, it just added up over time. Happy to be here! I left Digg back in the day, too
11 years ago I switched to Reddit from Fark. Before that I switched to Fark from Slashdot (mid 5 digit user ID).
I haven't quit Reddit completely, but I've drastically reduced my usage and will likely continue to reduce further as Lemmy and/or other options grow.
Basically the same as I did with previous sites I frequented. I occasionally check Fark and Slashdot, but I'm far from a frequent reader and rarely contribute any further.
It may take time, and obviously won't be as fast as the death of Digg, but spez has likely effectively killed Reddit. It just doesn't know it yet.
I've been there for 10+ years. I'm gone now. Haven't opened Reddit to browse it since Baconreader stopped working. Every now and then I am directed there for answers to my questions, but that's the only thing I use it for now. Lemmy doesn't fully replace it, but maybe it was time to let that braindead browsing addiction die off anyway.
I'm not off Reddit entirely, but I'm trying to transition here for what I can. It looks like most of the communities I'm in are here too, they're just a lot quieter. So I'm looking to post more.
I did a purge every few years and started a new account to prevent too much personal information in one place, but it was well over 10 years across all of the accounts.
11 years here, nuked my account from low orbit once sync stopped working. Shit is dumb, but I survived Digg, Slashdot, and all that shit. Love what I'm seeing on Lemmy.
12 years (Dec 2010), 113000 comment karma, Reddit premium (still 10 months of that remaining apparently).
Cancelled my premium subscription, and I rarely visit the site anymore (usually just to gawk at the lack of any content). I was a large contributor to tech support and networking subs including /r/techsupport and /r/homenetworking. Avid user of old.reddit.com and RES.
Needless to say, I'm sad that we needed to find a new home, though, I get it. I'm not mad at anyone specific about it, beyond /u/spez. And I'm firmly invested in to Lemmy.
12 years. Haven't browsed Reddit since the blackout. Still end up there sometimes from search results, but I no longer participate. Thinking about hosting my own Lemmy instance.
Would've been 10 years in August. Steady Boost user since I went to Android 5 years ago. Been giving it my best effort with the official app since the API nightmare. I gave up today and uninstalled Reddit; this is the first post I read on Lemmy and my first comment. Here's hoping the melancholy will soon make way for renewed hopefulness for the future of the internet.
12 years for my primary account, 11 years for my "other" one. Like many at the time, came over during the Digg meltdown. Just before the API went to paid, used a tool to delete my 15,000+ posts/comments. Deleted both accounts in early July. Used Teddit a bit to still follow one or two subreddits, but now that has stopped working. Unless it pops up in a search, I doubt I will ever visit again. RIP.
14 years primary account, 11 years alt. Mod in several >1 million communities.
Deleted everything, replaced my comments (>15k total) and posts (>500, including announcements on subs moderated) with a message stating my reasons, and then deleted both accounts. Plus 4 alts I sparsely used, between 3-8 years old.
Well over 10 years. Mostly comments rather than posts. Dropped out at the end of June and haven't been back. So far Lemmy and Mastodon have filled the gap.
Yeah. I got tired of posting and a message saying "you cant post that for sake of our community" across almost every single subreddit. If I see that shit on lemmy I'll make sure to block the entire server that has lemmys doing that.
Its one thing to can some bots. Its another to have game devs as subreddit mods block negative sentiment for example, or an overzealous mod push their views and just delete comments.
Its not like I'm out there posting some insane content, either. I tried posting a 15 second video of a funny bug of a dude stuck spinning around to crab rave and I couldn't even post that to the diablo 4 games subreddit.
I joined in 2011 and left as soon as Spez got caught trying to accuse Christian Selig of blackmail. I didn't want to help someone so clearly divorced from any reasonable standard of ethics make money
I'm not completely off reddit yet (reduced interaction but still disentangling from it, it'll probably take a little while yet to be completely gone), but I made the account I have there now in August 2008, just shy of 15 years ago. I lurked for a good while before making that account though. (edit: > 150K comment karma, most participation on low volume subs)
I was part of the great Digg migration. I won't say that I've sworn off Reddit completely, but I will say that I start here on Lemmy. The volume of content on Reddit is still so huge compared to Lemmy that it is likely to take a lot longer than the mass switch that I was sort of hoping for away from Reddit.
I starting using Reddit in 2010 or so when I was going through health issues and was looking for information. I became very active on Reddit over the years, occasionally helping to mod a couple of communities. I am not a hugely "online" person, but I loved Reddit as a source of information and advice from actual real people. Particularly for those of us living with chronic health conditions, Reddit in particular was hugely important.
But I don't use Reddit anymore. The whole API fiasco was the last straw for me, and I also just didn't see it remaining a vibrant place full of valuable information. So I deleted my accounts and left. Haven't been back since.
About 8 years or so. It was the only social media platform I wasted time with, and I left as soon as Boost stopped working (can't wait for Boost for Lemmy!)
I haven't had any real urge to go back (aside from technical advice a couple times), and I've been happy playing around on Lemmy since then.
I was over the 11 year mark when I left on June 30, feeling abused and offended, never to return. Not gonna lie, I am still mourning the loss of some communities. Lemmy has helped a lot, though!
10 years. Quit the moment Bacon Reader lost API comms, did a data request and nuked my account. I've made a few accounts on Lemmy and Mastodon, set up an RSS feed - its a big change, but wonderful. Still want to sort out the Kbin piece, is it just an instance with only browser front-end?
Rolling up on my 10th year (September). There are some subs where I haven't been able to find an equivalent community anywhere else, so I have an RSS feed pulling in posts from those places, but Lemmy and Tildes are covering the bulk of it for me.
10 years checking in. Deleted the account after API changes. It had been on decline for a long time when advertisers and astroturfers started gaming the content.
The niche subs were not much affected and kept me around - the passion and quality and expertise were refreshingly genuine.
15 years, reddit gold charter member, Secret Santa, all that stuff. And longer than 15 really, if you count the browsing I did before I made my account (I remember before subreddits were even a thing, when reddit was literally just a front page).
Still visit on desktop sometimes because unfortunately some people will probably never leave and there are communities that are useful to me that haven't migrated. Same with with Twitter, which is frustrating to no end because they spend half of their time complaining about the site but never actually fucking leave.
My mobile usage is completely gone though. I used RIF for over a decade, I'm not using anything else.
I jumped ship when the protests began. Catering to shareholders will move where the buck stops and so far the whole thing has been horribly mismanaged.
17 years. I was never very active in commenting or posting, but quite addicted to reading and voting. But every good thing comes to an end, and I've known for some time that something this useful and interesting would eventually draw the attention of greedy minds (which happened awhile ago) and that they would eventually try to limit access to increase their profits (which just happened). So now it's time to move on. I'm doing this gradually, but it will happen.
Been there for ~11 years. And tbh I did not join lemmy out of prostest (I actually use the reddit app) but because reddit had gotton so boring I was ready and waiting for a good alternative. Browsing reddit was like groundhog day, same content over and over and over . . .
17+ years for me. November would be 18. Since the exodus, Reddit looks like a shadow of itself, but that could be that I only see the frontpage now. What a shame.
Over 17 years, my cake day is December 2005. I deleted all my posts and comments and came to Lemmy. I haven’t deleted the account yet simply because I still pop in to read stuff occasionally, but I’m done posting over there.
Almost 12 years for me. Used Baconreader then Sync. Supported the protests in June, and bailed in July when they cut API access. Lemmy gives me what I need in an online community, without the aggression and toxicity that took over Reddit. I feel like I have gained back time to study/ read etc that I used to spend doom-scrolling.
13 years here. Search results only but even that is increasingly useless with so many folks deleting ALL their historical activity. Loving the fediverse!
i’m just over 10 years, i haven’t really used it since apollo shut down. i’ll browse a couple of subreddits from my pc every once in a while but haven’t made any posts or comments
Mostly lurked since 2009, but always had an account so I could vote. Started commenting and posting more over time, to the point it was too much, having pointless internet arguments as a substitute for doomscrolling. So when I got the first notification about the API changes in RiF, decided it was time to cut the cord. I'd already mostly come around to the conclusion that I'd been wasting my time there, but I had a notion that it was somehow OK because the place I'd chosen to waste it was somehow different and better in comparison to other social media. It wasn't that I wanted to get on a boycott bandwagon. But the API decision, the thinly veiled intent of their ridiculous pricing, and their steadfastness in making no subsequent attempt to mitigate the changes whatsoever truly was the tipping point where I could no longer do the mental gymnastics required to con myself into wasting more time there.
16 years and one month on my main. Now onto my third lemmy server. Hope things settle here as it has a little bit of that early days of the Internet magic.
I made my first account in 2008 and was a regular, originally using Alien Blue on iOS and then RIF when I migrated to Android. I haven't been back since RIF lost access. Fuck SPEZ and RIP 3rd party apps.
450k comment karma; I check twice a day and it looks like it's gone down hill. Shits just crypto spam and UFO bullshit now. What's the deal with the giant hard on for UFOs? If Trump didn't blab the second he found out then that should be proof enough for everyone.
I've been a redditor for as long as I can remember, decided I had enough mid June. Sad to see what has become of the site. Lemmy has its quirks but it is a far better community.
Pity there are members here that still treat this place like it's reddit. Sensitive, hungry for validation, treating new posters like they ain't shit.. aye bro?
2009 was my primary account, I was a mod on some default subs and basically just dealt with spammers but it made me hate the site. I took a break and came back with disposable accounts, just used smaller hobby subs mostly.
My last reddit victory was spreading awareness of a toxic powermod's spam network and behavior on the site, someone who single-handedly controlled 20+ subs, dozens of alts, and is the type to send pics of dead bodies to people among other abhorrent behaviors. This led to their reputation being effectively ruined, and then later the admins ended up banning all their primary accounts and they lost all their main subs. They created more anonymous smaller subs and posted a screed against the "attack" on them, to which I gloated in the comments, effectively having that account reported for abuse and permanently suspended, to which I don't feel like appealing.
I lost my preferred third party app and had already been more involved on my favorite sub's discords. So while I still browse some meme subs I haven't really commented or interacted sincerely for quite a while.
I was introduced to Reddit 11 years ago in university. Daily user since. It felt like a real loss but not one I could talk to my usual support folks about. Even on Lemmy no one seems to want to acknowledge that this is a big shift for some of us and that we might still be kinda processing it.
Glad to be here. But yeh, it’s a shift after that much time.
I'm around 11 years and a few hundred thousand karma. At this point I use reddit on desktop for a couple of specific communities that haven't made it over here.
All my mobile / time killing stuff has moved to lemmy.
It mostly just annoys the crap out of me, honestly. Glad to be in a cool new place but goddammit reddit, you didn't have to do this crap.
I think i have the 13-year badge. I visit maybe a few times a week when there's nothing left to doomscroll on Lemmy. I was never really a huge contributor, in posts or comments, but now I'm purely a lurker and I spend maybe 15 or 30 minutes in a single sitting on the site instead of a few hours cumulatively throughout a given day.
With that said, the overall quality of content and discussion had been going downhill for years at this point, I just didn't have anywhere else to go that provided the same dopamine hit. Lemmy doesn't do it quite as well, but once the Reddit API controversy kicked up and a ton of people started actually using Lemmy, that helped give me a good reason to spend time with it since there was activity. I'm honestly not sure if Lemmy is the future but I'm willing to stay if it's a road to the future... and I'm willing to try out new platforms and communities before I find something that I feel fits me as well as Reddit did for so long.
I kind of miss 2010-2013ish era Reddit (minus the bacon/narwahls stuff which kind of felt forced to me), but hoping something like that comes along would probably be along the same lines as wishing I could get the same near magical feel and interaction out of IRC as I did in the mid to late 90s/early 2000s. These are one-and-done things. The next thing that elicits that kind of homey feeling will probably be something entirely new and not a clone of the OG thing.
what was reddit, can someone describe it.. was that like napster or something.. but yeah, i had a 10 year account or something.. now they couldn't pay me to post to their site..
Sadly I still have to visit reddit for various things. Mostly just for niche questions I have for Google that are best answered on Reddit. Which is a lot.
I don't really want to think about it being that long, considering how quickly I up and left as soon as RiF was supposed to shut down. Not relying on Reddit for Google results is practically impossible for me.