I'm 32, I remember using the internet before google was a thing, discovering flashy websites, hanging out on all kinds of internet forums and chatrooms, ebaums world, MySpace, new grounds... I rember when YouTube was just starting off and it was exploding with all kinds of content.
I joined Facebook in 2005, I remember when it was the talk of the town, it used to actually kind of be decent, all the content was from actual real world peers.
I remember when pages became a thing, and you could like certain topics, and then eventually it unfolded into something enterely different, I remember when it became New Facebook, and there became a chatbar. And then eventually it became a cespool of garbage.
I remember when reddit was at it's prime, I discovered it in 2011, I spent hours scrolling and engaging in discussion. The content was always new and original, every day on Reddit my mind got blown by something, this is before all the algorithms, and when upvotes and down votes actually dictated where your post would be jn the feed. You could litterally refresh your page and watch your vote counts.
Since then I've watched it change, I could always tell something felt off about it over the past few years.
Everytime I would google something on the net on my phone and click a Reddit link, I would be prompted to install the app. I tried it and it was shit. Once upon a time I could just open Reddit is Fun through the browser. Reddit made it impossible to do that.
Since discovering this place a few weeks ago now, I have been hit with a familiar feeling, and that is I am actually enjoying my time here as much as I did on Reddit in the early 2010s.
The communities are more grounded, there is no bot activity, my big long posts aren't deleted after posting them due to shitty rules.
I like how it feels free, and everyone agrees to just follow the rules of the community and if the post isn't quite fitting, people can vote on that, as it should be.
Thank you all for restoring something that was once great, I really thought there was no chance in hell people would get away from those platforms. I always told people we need a new website, a new Reddit, and I guess this is it.
On Reddit I always felt like a raindrop in an ocean. I'm just one of way too many, and very little of what I wrote was ever seen or engaged with. That was discouraging at times, especially when I put plenty of thought or research into my reply, only for it to have no engagement while typical low-effort replies like "this!" Or "I'm a simple person I see x I updoot" always rise to the top. It was starting to feel like all the other social media I've quit over the years, and I was originally there because it felt like a forum, not social media. I'm on kbin now and I'm getting the feeling I got from posting on forums like Playstation Underground when I was younger. I even recognize user avatars across different threads and magazines/communities, which definitely reminds me of forums of old. Who knows what it will become but the federated nature of it means it can feel as big or small as I want it to, which is what is keeping me invested.
This is exactly how I felt on reddit! With Kbin I feel more at "home", with reddit I felt distant, the same with most other social media platforms. I feel like me and others feel less stressed when contributing to a discussion here compared to how I felt on reddit.
It feels calmer here now that I think about it. I think being part of the huge swarm and trying to stand out and made things feel pretty hectic at times.
Agreed. kbin has been thoroughly enjoyable so far, to the point that I kinda hope it remains a small, niche thing. I loved forums and smaller communities when I was younger in the early-mid 2000's, and this really is the first time I've been able to capture that feeling again since. I'm glad reddit is run by an egomaniacal dickhead, because without him, I'd never have gone looking for something better. It feels like people are slowly, but surely becoming tired of the 'corporate centralized internet', and are looking to branch out to smaller, but more meaningful free communities.
I'm actually excited for the first time in almost 10 years.
I've been thinking of going complete 2003 and going back to flip phones. I'm just tired of the greed over wanting me to see ads. I fucking can't stand ads and go out of my way to avoid them, including monthly memberships like YouTube red. Reddit was trying to force me to use their app so they can collect more data to show me ads.
imo, simplifying your digital life is completely worth it. I personally have no social media outside of this site, have ads blocked on all my devices, use Brave as my browser (it has its issues, but for the most part, it does what I need it to), use GrapheneOS instead of Android, use ProtonMail instead of Gmail, and access YouTube through a NewPipe fork that integrates SponsorBlock, use Signal as my messenger (or SMS otherwise.) This generally has kept me from doomscrolling and wasting my mental energy throughout the day, and now that I no longer have a reddit account, I'm even better off than I was before.
At some point I realized that life with so many modern conveniences and centralized power just made me unhappy. I absolutely believe there's merit to the idea that not everything needs to be made as easy and accessible as possible. Humans need time away from the internet, and they need some kind of challenge, even if it's as simple as needing to use SMS instead of Facebook Messenger, or have an algorithm shove what it THINKS you want to see in your face 24/7.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Basically, I agree with you haha
I just did the same thing with youtube, switched to piped and now I purely engage through the subscription feed. Fuck the algorithms, I decide what I want to watch!