Lemmy is the only decent alternative I’ve seen, besides the other ActivityPub federators. There was literally nothing else besides Mastadon (I had heard of this before and considered it) and kbin (only know about this since I joined lemmy.) Lemmy had the right combination of features, and a cuter name, so it won the most of us (I believe that’s a big part of the reason.)

Every other alternative to the big social media is too niche, and often dominated by a particular world view or specific community grievance. Lemmy picked up a broad sample of users that reddit just suddenly and indiscriminately cut off without a moment for second thoughts. We’re not a monoculture the only thing we have in common is we used alternative apps for reddit and we were too stubborn to move to the official app. That gives us a lot of diversity in the community and an edge on passionate eccentricity.

This made me spit lmao

It’s me! I’m one of the new joiners! I’ve been enjoying the content and discussion here in the last day since I created my profile here. I have noticed a bit of lag and issues with things loading. I know there was a software update and obviously a sudden influx of new users. As frustrating as it was to have to move apps and communitie and despite the obvious growing pains, I have been happy to find a new community that is friendly and vibrant as this one!

This seems like the first thing with enough critical mass to get going, what with reddit and twitter sulimultaneously imploding faster than a poorly constructed submersible craft. It’s not driven by political outrage so much as the old platforms making themselves unusable and forcing healthy users off their platforms.

Incoming user from reddit! My app got shut down. I was salty about it so I decided that I was going to find an alternative, rather than use the official app, and I found lemmy! I like the community vibe so far. I’m still figuring out how different communities and instances work together with federating. I was always more of a lurker on reddit, but I might try to become a more active commenter (for community engagement!)