I still lurk hard on Reddit, but either use a LibReddit redirect extension on both my Desktop and Phone, or I just use Stealth to keep track of Communities on my phone. I just don't post anymore.
This is mainly for research into niche topics or to see if a technical question I have has been asked on Reddit before, which oftentimes it has. I just try to not give Spez a record of my traffic, hence the alternative front ends (as well as using a VPN and blocking JS).
I come to Lemmy to Read/Debate Politics, talk Linux, Privacy, or the Fediverse, as well as occasionally get advice on a topic or two. One TV show I like has a consistent poster in their community, which I'm extremely grateful for.
Another poster here pointed out that the decentralized nature of Lemmy works against it for discover ability, which I generally agree with. I can't type in "question Google should be able to answer but not anymore? lemmy" into duckduckgo lite and get any kind of result like I would if I replaced "lemmy" with "reddit". I'd love that, but it's just not possible right now. So I still lurk via libreddit and stealth.
I hate the idea that most people have on lemmy that every interaction has to be a positive experience and full of sunshine and rainbows and butterflies. I like to argue.
I've seen some really good arguments here, with both sides being respectful and explaining their perspective and concluding that they understand each other but just don't agree. It's pretty refreshing. If you don't like that kind of thing you're just stupid and wrong.
Made me have a healthier relationship with social media, my smartphone usage, and overall thinking. I almost exclusively used RiF and curated it enough that I could readily get lost in it for hours in threads and/or following drama.
I knew what I liked about reddit was the mods, the 3rd party apps, and the communities, and the company behind the website was the least appealing ineffectual part of the experience. They were slow in every sense of the word and consistently made out-of-touch decisions.
Lemmy was a great transition point for me. At first I was trying to treat it as a clone. Instead, I found a place (and the fediverse in general) where there wasn't a mass amount of resources spent to keeping me engaged - it's just content of the day, no strings attached.
I found a space that was indifferent to the amount of time I spent on it, passionate communities that were more responsive and literate, and just felt more respected as a person.
No more reddit on my phone to doomscroll. I do still check it occasionally on desktop, for some niche subreddits, but not really beyond that.
Only negative is that I added Instagram reels to my doomscrolling routine. I feel like reels are more brainrot than reddit was...
Should definitely work on getting insta out of my routine!
Other than that no major changes from Lemmy i think.
I was ready for a fediverse reddit since i had been on mastodon since 2019. The threads here just work better for me than the microblogging style. I used mastodon sometimes and reddit every day. Now i use lemmy every day, mastodon sometimes, and reddit only when i absolutely must.
I contribute far more now. I already have more posts on Lemmy in nine months than I did in all of the 10-ish years I was on Reddit. My rate of commenting is about the same.
I've also changed the way I get my news; I went retro and use RSS feeds now. I do fear there's a risk of over-curation with a minimum of sources leading to narrow viewpoints. Even Reddit's news bubble was more expansive than what I've got coming in. But my feeds and Lemmy's bubble are what I've got for now.
Less niche content from the subs that I couldn’t find an equivalent for here. Also less random bullshit from all the reposted recycled memes that were often somehow just perpetually in my face. It would be nice if there were more people here on Lemmy commenting to link over to relevant related communities (sublemmys??) to a post that they think others would like. Sometimes that’s a good way to find more subs. Don’t really see that happening round these parts.
TL;DR Wasting less time on interwebs
I had been looking for an out from Reddit for years. I like commenting and responding to comments, or simply enjoying thoughtful comments. I'm there for the commenters rather than the posts, the social part of sharing news. especially the commenters providing context or a new way to think about things.
Trying to enjoy Reddit the way I like became a game whack-a-mole of removing communities that were too large and filled with copy paste jokes.
I dunno if I'm a weird kind of redditor but i know am a stubborn one, and as reddit changed i bounced harder and harder off of it.
Coincidentally i was a month into a sanity sabbatical from Reddit when my friends told me about the api fiasco. Somehow i stumbled in here, and while i thought it world be a tough transition and that i would struggle to ban reddit it wasnt.
Long story short, I wouldn't say i changed at all. Reddit changed, and i found a home better than it ever was.
I want to actively build community and engage with people here; to make this place home. That's how it changed me. I'm not a lurker or passive. It has made positive improvements to my reading and cooking, along with bending my language more positively. I've also further grown in my appreciation of diversity.
As far as fermentation, I don't even recall what prompted me now. I mostly watch the All feed so I catch what most of Lemmy is doing. It may have been... in fact... I think it was something I was discussing with my offline AI. That is not a valid primary reference source, but searching online helped. That lead to asking questions here, and resulted in more confidence.
On my Beehaw account and their food community I asked about how people cook rice back when I was developing my recipe and working on ways of altering cooked grain texture. Someone there mentioned making a sauce for topping fried rice using spicy mayo and teriyaki sauces. That one was a game changer for me and really pushed me into playing with sauces. That got me thinking about fermented sauces because adding Worcestershire sauce to that spicy mayo/teriyaki blend makes it even better. This is what I am exploring now. I want to play with unique flavors by wild exploration.
That is just how my intuitively driven mind works. I attribute inspiration to a root fork in my thinking, but I don't really "follow" anything. I haven't cooked something with a recipe and measuring in 10 years or more. It is the motivation to explore an new space, and just enough reinforcing motivation to help me take action that I value. I didn't expect a place this small to have many people experienced in fermentation, but I was pleasantly surprised. In other words, my investment into engaging paid off even in a relatively small niche subject.
That was the key for me. To take one of my favorite communities ("bande dessinée," i.e. Euro comics) and create a version on Lemmy eight months ago. It's taken a load of work (usually daily), and sometimes I get really discouraged, but overall it locked me in to the FV.
Also, you might have to burn me at the stake for saying this-- I still visit Reddit because of the far more prolific content, and do have worries & reservations about the tankie founders of Lemmy. But so far, so good. The more the FV grows, the more I'll have no problem leaving Reddit behind.