Warning: This is a rant.
I don't really know how to describe it but the content isn't quite where reddit had been for me. Also the comments are kind of weird at times, like they type of person here doesn't quite seem as 'normal' as what I'm used to from reddit.
There's a lot more open source and privacy focused people and conversations. A lot of people seem to hate on big tech and big companies in a sort of toxic-ish feeling way to me (not to say the other relationship isn't toxic.. just saying). Random conversations go into: "omg your privacy is lost cause you used a Google service." Then we have the 'if we don't defederate with Meta the world ends' conversations. I personally would like to see what Meta does in the fediverse.. maybe it will make it more normalized..idk. Then the: "if your app isn't open source its awful and terrible for the world" people.
Like that stuff is all fine, but it just isn't quite my cup of tea.
These things remind me of that one person in my comp sci classes in college who I just couldn't stand talking to. He would try to make you feel like an idiot by trying to sound all self righteous and smart. (Honestly he would fail and would generally look like a dingus).
The bulk of the content that gets comments seem to be mostly meme atm. At least on all (7/10 of the current top for me are memes). I like my memes, but would like some more breadth/depth.
Like I hope Lemmy continues to grow and hope it gets better, but it leaves me missing reddit at the moment.
In a perfect world I wish reddit corp wasn't such assholes and this whole thing didn't happen the way it did.
I'm completely skipping the UI and stuff not being as familiar and the various outages/bugs/etc since that's to be expected with something at this stage.
Please don't hate me :) Just sharing my unpopular opinion. Though I genuinely wonder if others feel the same way.
/Rant
Before I start my reply, please keep in mind that the following is not intended to be targeted at you.
It's easy to get wrapped up in what you see on your main feed, but there are a few things that I would like you (and more people) to keep in mind.
The fediverse has been it's own thing for years before reddit did it's thing last month. Some of these users might have never been reddit people, and I think that should be ok. Those people shouldn't have to push for reddit 2.0, because this was already great to them. This is/was their "reddit". For some of them, this has always been the place to go to discuss tech stuff. Imagine having a community that you love for years, only to have a sudden burst of people show up and demand that you change almost everything. Your interface, your security processes, and even your own content. I am not one of those long time users, but I can understand why this would be frustrating for them.
As to why some of us are so against mass social media. For me, it's not even that I'm against other people using it. You do you. It is frustrating though, to feel like you can never escape it. When you finally find a "safe" media, it suddenly has mass media trying to get in, along with people wanting that space to become more like said mass-media. You start to wonder why you can't have one place that stays mass media free. Just one.
(I'm not saying you do this, but I see it all the time.) We also have people who complain about the lack of content variety, only for them to suddenly switch and say that it's not even worth trying to create a community around it. If everyone who loves a certain topic has the mindset to never even try, that topic will never become a fleshed out community. I appreciate when people do post the stuff that they want to see, so I'll happily accept those complaints. Thank you for not doing that.
Like many others have said, this is a long way from being fully completed. I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty cool to be able to experience the start of something potentially huge. The fediverse is also growing beyond just reddit refugees and Meta. Some governments are even creating their own networks now. I am eager to see how this will play out in the long run. I hope you find more of the content you are seeking soon, and I hope that you experience fewer angry comments. Thank you for giving your thoughts.