Don't know if it fits here, but after the blackout I came across this comment (the picture is a fragment of the original comment) unfortunately I forgot where I took it from.
If anyone knows, please let me know so I can credit them properly. For accessibilty purposes, here is a transcript:
I'm angry that some of you are just fine with losing this place - this place that is my home on the internet, This place that I and my fellow mods have been fellow members FOR YEARS, right along side of you.
I'm angry. And I'm angry some of you aren't. That you're fine with this place becoming the festering flaming garbage dump that is every other social media platform.
But no one deserves for me to take that anger out on them. But please reflect on why we've fought to KEEP being here for you and for ourselves when this place changes overnight. Because it's about to. And I likely won't be here to watch it because it'll break my heart
End transcript of photo.
I saved this because it struck a chord in me, after I randomly found out about the protests and trying to salvage what I could.
The confusion turned into a low panic, which turned into grief and anger. Reddit used to be a little niche hobby hole for me to delve into from time to time. Those subreddits were there for me during some of the worst times of my life, and now, all that information would just be gone. I tried to save as much as I could, which wasn't much. Ironically, this was the time when I stumbled upon some of even more niche subreddits, that I knew would take too much time to try and archive.
Archives that would live the same way the dusty screenshots live in my phone, unused in years. But I couldn't just let them go. As I spent a few weeks gathering up what I could, not beliving myself that I was grieving a weird form of social media, I started noticing the lack of geniune community. It felt so empty, and that made it easier for me to move on.
The whole reason I felt at home on Reddit left and came here. And on Lemmy, I could feel at home once again, and I never looked back.
Meh, it is their money (the venture capitalists), so what do I care how they waste it? And it can do a service for us all - it can keep the Reddi-Trolls from migrating here, by offering playtime funsies over there, for a fee ofc.
As for the rest, "we" will forget. It seems that the original migrators from the likes of Digg, Tumblr, MySpace, etc. forgot their origin stories as they moved onto Reddit, and likewise some will forget after a decade or whatever here (if this place even makes it that long). But also, those who are paying attention may never fall into that trap again - this community is not a monolithic entity and both will be true in the days ahead. It will be interesting to watch what happens:-).
But I think you hit the nail on the head there: builders will always build, and for those who see the truth, we don't even want to live inside a walled garden, especially now that we have that fresh example of what happens to those who do.
Beautifully written.