The desktop web interface seems pretty similar to old reddit/rif so I haven't had that much difficulty with browsing. The fact that I'll be losing my niche subs is the hardest part of moving entirely to Lemmy though.

I don't have much to say, but here's a reply anyway! Hope it seems a little less quiet in here.

Absolutely agree. I first tried Lemmy on my phone and found it really difficult to like. As soon as I logged on from my iPad it all “just worked”. Hopefully some of the apps under development will solve that problem.

Bare bones and information dense are things I like about it, honestly; crammed with popups about cookies and privacy policies and newsletters and adverts is the nominal experience.

I'm not a tech savvy person and I had no problem to adapt to this platform. It's very similar to Reddit and after 15 minutes playing around I also understood how everything works out. Even the federation concept is pretty easy.

does anyone have any good alternatives to Youtube on the Fediverse?

Peertube would be the most popular. It works the same that there isn't one server/instance that hosts all the videos. A popular one is tilvids.com but there are others

honestly, its best if you continue forgetting about it.

Someone just reminded me of Slashdot yesterday and my account is still active, and the posts are still pretty good. Why did I ever leave?

I can’t help but feel like it lacks some level of transparency to how it works?

I agree, which is actually kinda funny since it's open source. The documentation helps some, but it's a LOT of reading to do, and it still leaves a new user like me with questions- and I'm a software developer, with more technical knowledge than most. I have a feeling that someone without that technical background would find this VERY confusing to understand at a fundamental level.

The big question that I still have, that should be readily apparent but isn't: if I subscribe to a community that's hosted on another instance, can I still post/like/comment there? I just tested it- you can. I notice now that the guide says:

Lemmy will then fetch the community from its original instance, and allow you to interact with it.

I think they could make it a lot clearer for a casual user if they reworded the "following communities" section to name it something like "joining communities," and re-worded the first paragraph to something like this:

After logging in to your new account, its time to follow communities that you are interested in. For this you can click on the communities link at the top of the page (on mobile, you need to click the menu icon on the top right first). You will see a list of communities which can be filtered by subscribed, local or all. Local communities are those which are hosted on the same site where you are signed in, while all also contains federated communities from other instances. You can also find more communities by going to the Lemmy Community Browser. You can join communities from any instance, regardless of which instance you created your account in, and once you've joined you can like, comment, and post in those communities.

Having to write a cover letter explaining why I'm a good fit for the instance.

It's not a difficult ask, but it's going to turn a vast majority of potential users away from the service.

I understand the need for it, but a typical user is going to be confused by:

• Having to "sell" yourselves to some unknown individual, or group of individuals
• Choosing an "instance", when most users have never heard of such a thing, and don't understand how a federated system operates
• For the above: Understanding different instances and which one allows cross-instance posting
• Simplicity. None of this is "simple" in terms of making a new account for a social media platform. This is unlike any mainstream platform out there.

Again, I understand the need for all this. But your average user, which Lemmy desperately needs more of if it wants to become the safe haven for Reddit refugees, is going to be incredibly frustrated and dissuaded by the whole process.

That's what I love about Fedi in general. The algorithms are either fully gone, or are almost entirely working in favor of the users rather than against them.

This has not been my experience so far.

F5

One of the things I love about Lemmy is that I'm literally over here in a different instance. I can willingly see other content but I also have this local group I can be close with. It brings me back to the old Internet with the benefits and reach of the new Internet.

Mlem if you have iOS or Lemmur on Android. There’s many more too (just off the top of my head)

Jerboa for Android

Just came to Lemmy with the wave from sync :p

Surprised at how similar Jerboa looked when I first opened it, but yeah~ going to try and join some communities and hopefully jump ship from reddit completely^^

Or kbin (the one I'm on 😁)

Would love this!

sign up on my instance was very easy! https://sh.itjust.works

Lemmy is easier to get set up for us folks who aren’t as technical as we used to be. The biggest hurdle for me is for social networks like Twitter or IG where I know people irl who won’t be moving to mastodon probably ever. On Reddit I never made a single friend during the almost 15 years I had an active account.

Always harder to take a privacy forward approach but the more people adopt it, hopefully all the more who see and also come over.

Beehaw was super easy. It was literally just your typical sign up process for any website. For me the biggest hurdle initially was just understanding how all of this works, and how they all fit together.

That might be for the better. The more people that get on these things tends to lower the bar and open these communities up to more bad actors.

I'm new here, too. How do I switch instances from the mobile app?

Another round of thanks for your work on jerboa!

I see your commit history goes back to Jan 2022, if you had to rewrite what would you want to do differently?

(I don't have any specific plans here, but I'm completely new to this space and interested in anything you've learned the hard way.)

e: hold on you're the og lemmy dev, you ain't got time for this. I thought it was just the app, whoops, ignore me pls

Currently using jerboa right now!! Thanks for your work!

Awesome, I'm dropping that google play store link nonstop over the last day or so. Good luck to you in the coming days!

Your app is going to explode!

Oh shit, you're how I'm even here right now this easily! Props man.

Thanks for Jerboa! It's way faster than https://lemmy.ml for me

Someone actually downvoted you to "test" that. The reddit mentality is already starting. Lol

This right here. Infinity is/was my go-to. Fingers crossed!

Amen

That would be a amezing! I do really hope some of the third party apps consider moving to Lemmy

It's going to be tough for some communities. Some of the Lemmy devs are literally avowed Communists and that is bound to cause friction.

the only shrinking issue I have is, when there are images in the comments - then it flickers all the time

Same here, scrolling is fine for me (Pixel 6 Pro in case it matters).

Right now I'm just using the web interface on mobile - selfhosted though so I got to change the theme to dark.

It's more about how there doesn't seem to be any scrolling inertia like I'm use to with other apps. When I scroll real fast, it should continue scrolling for a few seconds instead of immediately stopping.

RedReader is a fantastic app. I hope the dev works it out.

Seconding Mlem! I’m still getting used to how this app works, but I like it so far!

I've had little to complain about with using the Firefox android app to browse Lemmy instances.

I would like to start using Jerboa, I haven't noticed any performance issues but I find I like the browser UI a bit better.

I know Jerboa is in heavy development right now. My god do I feel bad for the dev, Dessalines, with the huge influx of users. But I'm sure I'll switch to using the app more as the updates role out.

The problem is that even though you and me are ok with not having an app, most people need an app 🤷

(⁠・⁠_⁠・⁠;⁠) the one of the normal people of course.

I saw admin here say 'not on this instance' because it was too difficult to moderate.

Reddit gonna be Digged

Its fitting for Reddit to give multiple hugs of death as it ends brings back fond memories of crushed servers

I don't really know how this system works but if I'm on one instance looking at stuff on another does that help at all? Is stuff cached to help spread out the load?

And my favourite, relay for reddit. Sad sad day.

I imagine they are all going to shutdown on that date.

NNTP -> Slashdot & Fark -> Reddit -> Lemmy.

Everything old is new again.

I can still hear the UH OH!

*Digg and reddit

There's an 'anal' community, but there seems to be no content 😅.

The problem is no one wants the liability of potentially illegal porn being hosted on their server, so instances are banning it. Which, who can blame them? I do enjoy the NSFW freedom though, and I hope a better solutions is found

Can this matter of time hurry up?

Most subs hosted their content to external sites anyway from what I saw due to how terrible reddit's video player was.

I think this is where tildes.net is being smart with text only, saves massive on server costs and also is safer to run for the owners with less moderation needed due to no chance of any illegal porn being uploaded

[Removed by Reddit]

I suggested to PornHub that they should host their own lemmy instance for porn. It's stuck in limbo though awaiting mod approval.

Edit: I'm curious, I see I've gotten two downvotes, can someone who downvoted provide a reason why? Just anti-porn sentiment? Do you not want porn on lemmy? Don't like the company PornHub? Think it's a stupid idea for some reason? I'm serious, I'd like to know why you seem to disagree with the suggestion that PornHub should host a lemmy instance explicitly to post porn on. It's entirely possible I'm missing something here.

No OC. Bummer, but I guess they're probably just covering themselves for liability

I'm opening up my server to about 100 users. My server seemed a bit overkill for one account so I figured may as well help a little. We'll see what usage looks like and maybe I can add more people without it starting to get expensive.

I just use the email metaphor and it usually gives people a rough idea how it works. It seems more complicated than it is.

What are some good communities there that you'd recommend?

It was my third account and so far it's held up to its name.

Yeah, I'm already doing Thanos snap on mine. Gonna miss reddit.

So, hoping there is no API policy change in Andromeda?

Thank you!

Yeah. What’s the name? So I can avoid it?

https://github.com/buresdv/Mlem

It's iOS only. If you're looking for Android, search the playstore or F-Droid for Jerboa

Could someone explain kbin for me? Is it like a different instance the way lemmy.ml or beehaw is? Or is it a different thing altogether?

Correct, they interoperate. Though in my humble opinion kbin has a lot of features I hope Lemmy gets to soon.

May all alternatives win 🙌

Yeah, I've been a software engineer for years and I too had to have a sit down to 'figure it all out' with mastodon. Though Lemmy seems far more my style, so hopefully this gets some power behind it.