I used reddit on a mobile browser. At some point they completely blocked that and made it app-only on mobile, and I started looking for an exit. When the API bullshit happened shortly after I found one and took it
It was a result of the 3rd party app collapse that triggered the migration of reasonable people out of reddit. I was the mod of r/mapporncirclejerk and saw my mod queue explode with the most hateful shit that went unchecked by other commenters.
Then my friend told me about where everyone went, glad to see all of you!
While the "recent troubles" put energy to my leaving, I have always been uncomfortable with Reddit, Twitter, Discord, Stack Overflow, Quora and Fandom, as corporate-owned repositories who work by, in one way or other, profiting off of freely contributed work.
It used to be that if someone wanted to help people with freely-given information, they'd offer it in a forum, on Usenet, or on a website they started and hosted themselves, or if it fit in there, put it on Wikipedia. Now, people add it to a freaking pile that corporations monetize. Don't just hand them value! Put it somewhere that won't beg you to install an app, or beg you to "upgrade" to "Nitro," or force you to watch intrusive ads, or force people to create an account to see it, or track you! Your volunteer labor should not be a profit center!
Forums and websites have always used content to market things (think DAU or visitors to sell more expensive banner ads at the top of a post).
I agree that forum hosts were (mostly) random people that wanted to do something for their community, but monetization didn't kill the friendly Internet, consolidation did.
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.
I'd been flirting on and off with Lemmy for a year or so, not using it seriously (different username) but then u/spez deciding to sell user data to LLM's coupled with the general air of permanent aggro in just about every sub led me to finally ditch it. I've had to go back a couple of times and every time I did I regretted it. It's become Twitter level users intertwined with bot armies all flinging shit at each other.
The official app was obnoxious, so I used a better 3rd party one. Then, they borked it. And then when I tried to just use the website it was obnoxious too. And then when I tried to use the old.website, It sucked specifically for my phone.
I don't want to deal with that, so I hopped aboard the bandwagon that was going on at the time, and its all been... pretty okay, actually.
Everyone cheered when the jannies got booted for "abusing their power" only to be replaced by someone less capable but more willing to toe the line for the company
They virtually blocked me from posting because I deleted my main account. Not out of protest but only because karma is meant to make you 'feel' like you're important and keep you enagaged. I would just rather not let reddit have access to all my thoughts for years and years in a easy to access public account. So I purge accounts all the time, easy come, easy go.
It usually is fine but the next account I made would get a lot of harassment for being new and typical commentary I had no problem posting on my high Karma account would get me banned from certain communities. Which is fine but it wouldn't stop me from purging that account too. They eventually flagged me for "ban evasion" and my posts were blocked the second I'd make an account.
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.