this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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In theory as far as I can see Lemmy is heading for Reddit 2.0, which is way worse.

In my eyes, currently:

  • Mods are abusing their powers, as usual.
  • Lemmy. World is acting more like a company by day.
  • Some instances block VPN and Tor.
  • Federation is kinda of not that perfect right now.
  • I guarantee that not a single instance will defend their users privacy.

So.. That bring me to my question, Why would anyone who can use Reddit, use Lemmy instead?

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[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 2 points 13 minutes ago* (last edited 12 minutes ago)

Privacy, do you realize you ate posting publicly? Don't associate your email to your lemmy user and never post any bit of info that can link to your real self if you want privacy.

There is not much expectation of privacy when you act public I am afraid. At least Lemmy, choosing your instance wisely, will protect your anonymity which is as much as privacy you can expect when going public.

Sorry man, but there can be no expectations of privacy when you choose to be public. At most, you can aim for being anonymous. Create e private non federated Lemmy instance if you want privacy in your Lemmy posts, the federation concept itself cannot guarantee you privacy.

I am all for privacy... Just do not expect it when being public myself in my posts and actions.

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 1 points 6 minutes ago

Move away from LW if you don't like them. There are lots of Lemmy instances with different rules, find one that suits you or self host yours like I do.

Try doing that with reddit now.

Also, mods are mods, its not a Lemmy or reddit thing, but power tripping is just human. Go to 4chan or similar for anarchy unregulated forums, not to Lemmy or reddit.

As for privacy, I already replied separately.

God I'm getting sick of the repetitive posts saying the same thing. I'm a human being. I run an instance. I am personally liable for whatever crap my users post. Damn right I'm not going to allow Tor or vpns, and my instance will absolutely take down something if it could land me in trouble. I'm not going to have the feds bust down my door because someone wants to make a bonkers statement.

That's the joy of federation. Anyone can go and spin up their own instance. There are cloud providers that have a single click option to set one up for you. Go forth OP, be the privacy focused VPN tor instance. You take the personal responsibility on yourself and then come back here and post about it.

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 5 points 3 hours ago

Reddit might still have more content, but it's been overwhelmed by noise. Lemmy might have less, but I don't have to sift to find it.

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 3 points 4 hours ago

The userbase. I don't care much for anything else on your list, I think things as they are aren't perfect but I'm ok with it as is. Reddit is the same or worse. But the userbase is different. Less trolls, more tech savvy people, more FOSS. Overall better answers, except on certain niche areas.

Also it's less invasive visually and mentally. Reddit is riddled with ads and links to other posts very much like YouTube has suggested videos on the side. I don't need this information overload. Annoying. I used to be able to control it using Boost for reddit but hey, guess what.

And if I really need to go to Reddit, I do. Nothing stops me from lurking if I want. Occasionally I use it, I think over the last 2 years I've posted like five times on Reddit.

I like being able to choose what I want when I want it.

[–] MerrySkeptic@sh.itjust.works 21 points 7 hours ago

No ads and no extortion of third party apps is a big plus

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 17 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

mods are abusing their powers

Seems like most of the mod actions taken about you are about off topic posts: https://sopuli.xyz/modlog?userId=16440635

LW

How so?

VPN and tor

Some instances do, and you can choose to use them instead. That's the main pro of federation.

Federation is kinda of not that perfect right now

What issues do you face?

Users privacy

It's a public forum, so privacy has a limit. However, you can delete your account and posts. Also, Lemmy apps have much less permissions than the Reddit one.

[–] Tea@programming.dev -5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Seems like most of the mod actions taken about you are about off topic

Did you dive in the removals to understand them? They were Tech news posted in the tech community and removed as off topic. Some of them are even posted by other users using different sources.

How so?

Are you seriously asking?

Some instances do, and you can choose to use them instead. That's the main pro of federation.

What happens when most instances choose to implement this?

What issues do you face?

Try to use any small instance and try to find communities outside Lemmy. World.

It's a public forum, so privacy has a limit.

So, it's accepted in your eyes to have a limited privacy here?

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 16 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Did you dive in the removals to understand them? They were Tech news posted in the tech community and removed as off topic. Some of them are even posted by other users using different sources.

Was it on !technogy@lemmy.world? Feel free to document the actions on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com . Alternatively, you can use !technology@lemmy.zip

Are you seriously asking?

Yes. LW still doesn't have ads or AI deals with Google, which Reddit does.

What happens when most instances choose to implement this?

A few instances like lemmy.dbzer0.com are pro-VPNs. Others are pro-Tor. Still, having the option is better than Reddit where you just can't use VPNs and can't use another instance.

Try to use any small instance and try to find communities outside Lemmy. World.

I'm currently on a smaller instance and interact with all LW communities just fine. Still, if you want some non-LW communities

So, it’s accepted in your eyes to have a limited privacy here?

Reddit comments are archived in real time by websites like https://www.reveddit.com/ , that's just due to the nature of a public forum. How would you expect things to work?

[–] hamid@vegantheoryclub.org 5 points 6 hours ago

I think your premise is flawed tbh and lemmy is still beta. Every lemmy server has the potential to be its own community. I don't actually care much about the federation, vegantheoryclub.org is its own thing with its own users we're small but we have a matrix chat and a discord too. With the new version we're probably going to turn off the votes. Hexbear existed longer as a stand alone site than it did with federation and has one of the most active communities. So really big picture is that lemmy is the software that can bring back the distributed forums of all and federation is just a side benefit.

Who cares about mods and mod powers, seriously. If you don't like a community, launch your own server and pay it forward you can run it however you want and attract your own users.

[–] fakeplastic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 7 hours ago

Lemmy has flaws, but Reddit is a fucking cesspool.

There's not going to be a replacement for what Reddit used to be. The world is shittier now, that's just gone. The right way to think of it is that the replacement for Reddit is a combination of Lemmy (or another preferred option) and being less online, being less attached to any one site.

Lenmy offers me the freedom to get mad at many different people running instances and not just one godforsaken company running roughshod over everything communities had created over years.

I'm not mad at anyone though because I don't share your views at all. I'm a happy Lemmy user.

And what is Lemmy dot world acting like at night?

[–] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 5 points 7 hours ago

It's not a corporate owned shithole. There are several other reasons, but that alone should be sufficient.

[–] libra00@lemmy.world 6 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Reddit admins started getting quite a bit more fashy banning people for even just upvoting certain stuff. I got caught up in that and hit with a bullshit temp ban, then before it got lifted on appeal I got hit with a total bullshit perma ban. It was also lifted on appeal, but by that point I was fed up and went looking for alternatives. I still use reddit a tiny bit, mostly posting questions on subs there when there isn't a community here or there is but it has like 12 members and hasn't seen a post in 3 months or whatever.

[–] Tea@programming.dev 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

In theory any Lemmy Admin can ban you based on upvoting/ Downvoting any post, as Admins and Mods on Lemmy can see your upvotes and downvotes.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 9 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

A Lemmy admin banning you only prevents you from interacting with communities on their instance.

Only the admins of your home instance can completely ban your account.

Power tripping admins get usually reported on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com

[–] Tea@programming.dev 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Power tripping admins get usually reported on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com

And then what? You are treating the symptom not the disease. If we don't have a direct built-in solution, then a single community to talk about power tripping mods won't matter.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 hours ago

And then people leave the community managed by the power tripping mods for another one: https://lemmy.cafe/post/12094663?scrollToComments=true

That wouldn't be possible on Reddit, those kind of posts would get removed

The content is completely different. Here it feels more thought out.

[–] giorovv@feddit.it 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I am quite new here, I didn't have reddit, I come from fb. I choose Lemmy because it is not own by a fucking schizophrenic billionarie (I mean shittenberg, I don't know who owns reddit, but it is USA and, not to offend anyone, but I am very fed of USA in general) and this for me is enough. I think the issue with our data is mainly what companies do with it (of course the privacy principle itself too matters), and the issue with centralization is that here I am free to say to an admin or a mod to go fuck himself, if I ever feel doing so. And change my instance. This is something unimaginable in the classic socials. You pointed out a list of reasons but actually didn't elaborate any of them, and I am curious. Please elaborate.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 hours ago

Welcome to Lemmy, here are a few pointers to help you settle in

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I used to be on .world also but left partially because of the points you've made and switching to .ml has been MUCH better for me.

I've been moving from one social media platform to another, since the time of icq & bbs, every time it enshitifies and it's clear that happens once it becomes centralized enough and w significant financial backing.

.world and .ee are the closest things to that, that exists on the lemmyverse and I hope that they don't go down the same path.

[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

.world and .ee are the closest things to that

I wouldn't put them in the same basket, LW is 3 times bigger than Lemm.ee : https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

There's good content to be found on Reddit, but most of Reddit is not good content. It's like wading through a chest-high river of sewage to smell a rose.

And Lemmy's not trying to sell me something every 30 seconds.

I think you make GREAT points. I came here from Reddit, realized that it's becoming reddit, but not as popular.

Now I am on reddit as much as I am on here. And way more productive information on Reddit since it's so much better.

I just don't see Lemmy growing very much, because it's become a smaller Reddit. Especially .world. That instance is fucking toxic and full of tattletale babies that will legit follow you around if you disagree with them. lol