The third party switch. Plus I have found lemmy to be quite refreshing. On Reddit all I did was lurk. But now I actually comment and participate. Because it feels like I'm talking to real people.
It was a client that let you browse Reddit on your phone, in a much nicer and more organised way than anything provided by Reddit itself.
All was fine until Reddit decided to monetise their API that Apollo - and many other apps - used. Now it would cost the app developer tens of thousands a month to maintain the connection, which is not something that they could sustain.
So for me, the day that Boost for Reddit stopped working, I stopped using Reddit.
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.
I might be one of the few that was already on their way out. I had been getting sick of Reddit It wasn't the same thing it was when I first joined in ~2011ish. Back then, content was more scrutinized and users were kinder. As Reddit became mainstream, the content slowly changed to reflect that. It started to be more like an anonymous Facebook. I remember it sticking out especially after the Game Stop incident on WallStreetBets.
A few months before the API fiasco, I was banned from a sub because they misunderstood a comment I made as violating their rules. Because I had been banned from another sub recently (I think I had joined a China one then commented in an anarchist one for the lulz), I was suspended from Reddit entirely for a week. I didn't realize that I was doing it, but I used several usernames depending on what content I wanted to focus on. I commented using another username and was permabanned from Reddit entirely for trying to bypass the temp suspension. The specifics might be slightly different since I'm going from memory.
From then on, I would lurk in my favorite subs sporadicall using Reddit is Fun. Once the API fiasco kicked off a few months later, there was a push for Reddit alternatives, which gave me the opportunity to find and join Lemmy. I've been here ever since.
I'm very much in the same boat, also joined around 2011. I didn't leave because of the API changes, I left because the website was degrading substantially as a byproduct of its userbase.
Lemmy contains so much of what made reddit special in the early days. It was primarily tech-proficient people who cultivated a strong community, held each other accountable, and valued science and evidence.
As more users came to reddit, the initial community diluted. Certain subreddits were still special and worth checking out, but the greater whole was too massive for its own good. Plus, I suspect a huge number of new users were teenagers and children, and their comments and maturity reflected that.
I knew it was basically over once I saw comments on subreddits that regularly made the front page with extremely obvious bigotry and racism. Incescent bashing of women. Comments that reflected the vile nature of the shit comments you'd see on Instagram. This was becoming all too common and was not being moderated. The remaining comments felt like washed out circle jerking or a complete lack of critical thinking.
The IPO was the nail in the coffin. No good could possibly come from that for the users of the site. Haven't been there for over a year and have zero regrets.
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.
Yeah the mods are there to ensure that conversion does not get derailed.
I have seen same "prompt" reposted on the same sub, until they can get their desired discussion and prior posts removed when convo exhibits any critical thinking.
Lost Bacon Reader app, Redit's app is a shit show. I use Boost for Lemmy and it's got its problems but it's better than Reddit's hot pile of garbage. I used reddit mostly to read the news and make snarky comments and I can do that here so...bye reddit.
I don't know if it's the snarkiest but my favorite is "So, would it would be safe to say Donald Trump loves Pecker?" Not because it's particularly witty or anything but because I am just a 13 year old dude stuck in a 54 year old body lol
I got permabanned for telling someone to crawl back in their hole and apparently that's a euphemism for telling someone to kill themselves?
Meanwhile the person I was replying to was talking about how she saw female genital mutilation as abhorrent but all her sons were circumcised for "visual reasons" (she thought uncut penises looked gross).
So yeah, I noped tf outta there and have been here ever since.
It's an upgrade in most ways but lemmy seems pretty 50/50 on how they treat poor people and technology.
I got permabanned for talking about piracy in /r/movie and then accidently commenting there later on a separate account. This was just months before they killed 3rd party apps so it was very easy to leave.
It underlines fundamental leadership problems within their communities. Good moderators don’t tend to align with corporate interests — preferring a sterile and saccharine approach to discourse breeds shitty mods and shitty users.
Independent and authentic is everything Reddit is not.