Dunno if I count but I read an article about Fediverse tech in like idk 2020, which lead me to mastodon and lemmy. I created an account on kbin but rarely used it except curiosity before API shit hit the fan.
Not banning one of my accounts. "Incidentally", the one that I used for moderation. That screams "we don't want you here unless you're working for us, for free" from a distance.
As a secondary reason: the ban message about "multiple, repeated violations of the content policy". It was one violation dammit. (I told a Nazi to kill himself.)
That was years ago. In the meantime I hopped from alternative to alternative. While still using Reddit mostly for trolling. Eventually the APIcalypse happened and there was enough content in Lemmy to make me forget about Reddit, instead of lurking once a week (like I typically did years ago).
I got banned for apparently promoting Nazi's. That was the first ban. Then I got my second ban for the same post for encouraging violence by citing someone who said Nazi's need to be put down.
I left due to the abusive, lying mods over at /r/steamdeck, I got permanantly banned (reported me for harassing over and over even though I wasn't) simply for criticizing them. Eleven years, gone. But.. I wasn't even upset. Reddit is a dead site full of karma bots and abusive mods. The admins didn't even check me out, they just killed my account.
The API changes were the last straw; but it had been heavily destroyed by astroturfing for years before the API restrictions finally just pushed me over the edge.
Technically, the fediverse would be even easier to astroturf. Luckily we’re early enough that astroturfing is foolish on Lemmy.
Maybe. I feel that Reddit cares little about bots and astroturfing. It drives up the engagement numbers. Independent server operators care more, but have fewer resources. Time will tell.
This seems to be the case so far. I hope it scales. Lemmy servers actually have an incentive to eliminate those things - they drive up server costs and could lead to defederation. Plus, they are usually running a server for the sake of enjoying giving people a place to socialize.
Ever tried getting an obvious bot/spam account banned from Meta? Good luck! Those accounts are generating ad impressions, so who cares if they're fake? Meta could invest the profits generated in 2 minutes and fix the problem for good, but their incentive is to keep the problem just below the threshold that people leave the platform.
I was one of several mods of a niche hobby sub. All of us were modding mostly from mobile phone 3rd party apps. Killing the API seriously hurt our ability to moderate the sub.
The hobby is historically male-dominated but had a nice, inclusive vibe going where most people understood a penis was not required equipment for this hobby. The API changes also coincided with a wave of incel gun-nuts. We couldn't stay on top of it. Every time we logged on, another nut telling women inappropriate things and ruining constructive conversation on actual questions about the hobby.
At one point I enjoyed modding, I rarely had to ban anyone, it was mostly just chiming in to clarify something or helping a poster ask questions in a better way or pointing them to resources they may have overlooked or otherwise trying to encourage positive engagement. Logging on to a wave of racist, sexist asshats was not what I signed up for.
It no longer brought me joy, so I Marie Kondo'd it right out the window.
Going to preface by saying I still use Reddit occasionally alongside Lemmy AND Tildes sometimes as well. I just like talking to people with similar interests.
Most of us came over to Lemmy (in my case, originally kbin) because of the 3rd party app shutdown and API apocalypse. I still use Reddit since it has a lot more communities I'm interested in so I wouldn't be an ex-redditor per say. I'm not nearly as active as I used to before 3rd party apps got shut down.
I was always indifferent towards Reddit as a platform since I mostly just felt connected to the communities there. I only use more niche subreddits related to my interests and was never active on any with over 400k besides from askreddit, so I avoided most of the stereotypical bad things about Reddit's community and the whole "Reddit is becoming like Facebook" stuff. If Lemmy gained these communities I love, I'd stop using Reddit completely.
The community and content matters to me a lot more with link aggregator type platforms, the software less so than it does with microblogging platforms like Twitter and such. Spez sucks for what he did but I really don't care enough to criticize the dude one year after the Reddit migration and the failure of the blackout. I like Reddit's sheer amount of content available and don't care for the software/anything paid on there, and I like the technology behind Lemmy but the community offerings less so.
They made things worse and invalidated everyone else's hard work before demanding to be paid for that while they live on the content we produce. Yeah get fucked. It don't work that way.