One day, I was about to install RedReader through F-droid. For some reason I searched for “Reddit” in the search bar instead of “RedReader” and saw Voyager, Jerboa and some other Lemmy clients there.

I got curious and installed “Eternity for Lemmy”. I browsed around, then decided to created my first account on lemmy.ml. Instantly fell in love with how nice most people were, how quickly I got answers and replies and the closely-knit feeling of a small community where it’s not surprising to see the same user in many different places.

I found Lemmy and decentralized social media by sheer luck.

I know most of you came here after the reddit API changes to spite the corporate site, but I wonder if there are other stories.

P.S. I find it sort of weird how lemmy.ml censors the word for “female dog”. Cmon, that’s such a tame and common insult! Can’t even quote Jesse Pinkman properly.

  • Pacrat173@lemmy.ml
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    25 days ago

    When the Reddit API thing was going down I was looking for a place to jump ship before Apollo went down and Lemmy was one of the options. I found Voyager and later I joined other parts of the Fediverse

  • CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml
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    25 days ago

    EMPRESS moved here after getting banned from Reddit, so I moved. She got banned from ml shortly afterwards; but i stuck with here since i liked the concept.

  • Microw@lemm.ee
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    25 days ago

    In the wake of the Reddit API changes, I decided to jump off that ship. Saw Lemmy mentioned but a lot of posts were painting it negatively, due to federation things and tankies. I was on Squabbles (lol) as my Reddit replacement platform for a few months before that disintegrated and then finally arrived at Lemmy.

    • Che Banana@beehaw.org
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      25 days ago

      I was weening myself off the reddit news cycle and then Baconit got killed by the API and that had been my only venue for using reddit soooooo I started looking for alternatives and already had Fdroid installed…one thing led to another

    • GingaNinga@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      same, Apollo was my favourite/most used app and that was it for me when they banned those apps. I found voyager/lemmy and never looked back. I bet Lemmy’s population exploded after all the reddit refugees showed up.

    • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org
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      25 days ago

      I moved to Lemmy during the Reddit API stuff

      Saw Lemmy mentioned but a lot of posts were painting it negatively, due to federation things and tankies.

      The tankie stuff was what made me try lemmy out and stay.
      Thought that it’d be an actually leftist community, if it was facing such terms.
      And it was indeed one. And is quite good.

      I got know about the Dessalines audiobook channel too and that’s nice too.

  • TheWolfOfSouthEnd@lemmygrad.ml
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    25 days ago

    When Elmo bought Twitter I moved to Mastodon, when Reddit got rid of third party apps and the API changes I asked on Mastodon if there’s is a Fediverse Reddit, not really expecting a yes.

    The one thing that does my head in about Lemmy is how USA centric it is.

  • 🐋 Color 🍁 ♀@lemm.ee
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    25 days ago

    Earlier this year, I decided to engage with social media, so I searched for lists of social media websites and signed up on the ones I could find. Lemmy was on one of the lists and also happens to be one of the websites I enjoy the most! 😃

  • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    The great Reddit migration when 3rd party devs realized how much Reddit would charge them to use Reddit’s API in order to serve information to their apps. RiF was my shit.

    I love Lemmy now though. Its federated nature, while abnormal and at times not the easiest to explain, has me hopeful for the cyberspace future that isn’t fully dictated by corporations. Using Fdroid, getting over the hump from Chrome to Firefox, and now the prospects of switching entire OSs from Windows to Linux are within my visibility now, when before I was comfortable in my corporate bubble.

    Think the next thing I need to start taking strides on after Linux is privacy. I still keep my passwords locked under OneDrive Vault and a password protected OneNote. Should probably dump that and move over to keypass or some other password manager. I just don’t want to have to pay for a service right now on a recurring basis unless I choose to to support the devs.

    • WarmRegards@sh.itjust.works
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      25 days ago

      re: password managers, I can recommend BitWarden. Open source and free for personal use. Can donate for a couple enhanced features. Also have the option of self-hosting.

      • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        How’s Proton Pass? Seems like I can’t download BitWarden from Fdroid, although I imagine there’s an .apk somewhere online

        • WarmRegards@sh.itjust.works
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          24 days ago

          Haven’t tried Proton Pass, so can’t speak to it. As for BW, you can get it from FDroid, but have to add their repository. It’s on their Download page.

  • ptc075@lemmy.zip
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    24 days ago

    I was banned from Reddit for the crime of using a different computer to login. Fun fact - there’s no appeal for that one. So I decided I had enough of that particular shit show, did some Googling for something similar to the older Reddit from years ago.

  • pixelscript@lemm.ee
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    25 days ago

    +1 for Reddit API exodus.

    Lemmy was sold to me as a Reddit replacement. And it is, superficially. I knew it wasn’t going to be drop-in going in. But the longer I use it the more I think it’s not really quite like Reddit, and never will be. And that’s fine. Lemmy is its own character and I like it for what it is.

    I still use Reddit. Lemmy doesn’t scratch all the itches for me. But only old.reddit on the desktop and on mobile with a UI de-shittifying extension. I’m amazed they still offer it at all. Once that’s cut off, something I’ve been bracing myself for for years, I’ll consider the UX enshittification to have fully completed and I’ll truly bail. I simply refuse to use their gentrified UI. And I’m tired as it is having to slap on compatibility layers just to keep their less terrible alternative on life support; I’m not going to do the same thing to make their mainstream UI somewhat more palatable.

    • Delphia@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      I’m just as critical of Lemmy as I was of Reddit.

      Lemmy is a very left leaning echo chamber and a lot of people dont want to hear counterpoints to their soap-box rantings.

      I do love Lemmy, but theres a decent percentage of fucking whackadoodles on here too. Also I’m not installing Linux, stop asking.

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        24 days ago

        The only thing we all have in common politically is that we don’t think social media should be controlled by a handful of gigantic manipulative corporations.

  • RandomVideos@programming.dev
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    24 days ago

    I found out about lemmy from the announcement for boost for lemmy(i had been using boost for reddit for about a week since then)

  • fediverselurker@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Reddit has become too political, with inconsistent censoring. Also didn’t love the bullshit with the API costs. Seemed like a power move to push small devs out