I see a lot of posts on fediverse trashing reddit, Twitter, spez, musk and so on, and rightfully so. But like it or not, the mass majority of users on the internet still use these sites, and some of us still want to interact with the friends and communities we are a part of on those sites. And there’s nothing wrong with that either.
Personally, I want fediverse to grow, and I post on kbin and mastodon constantly, and try to grow the communities on them. But I still pop over to reddit for r/splatoon, r/casualconveration, and my hometown sub, because either the communities haven’t grown enough here yet for constant fresh content, or the content is different enough between both to justify me checking in.
I get many are here as a protest against reddit, Twitter, or where ever else you came from, and that’s valid. But there are many of us who are simply casual users who want to include fediverse into their drives of other social media, and that’s totally fine too.
I’m here to replace my reddit use. I’ve had to do subreddit cullings in the past just for my sanity. I’m really enjoying everything here. The novelty/hype is still in effect for me, but I still don’t see myself going back to reddit when that wears off.
That being said, the amount of knowledge that everyone has compiled and REFINED on reddit will not, and possibly cannot be, simply be ported to another place. The amount of bullshit I’ve cut through by having the ability to find a niche subreddit devoted to some arcane shit I need help with is invaluable.
I’m not too worried about the niche communities disappearing. I’m bummed that it’s harder to find them. When the retro-games tracker UndergroundGamer went down, the community never left. Sure, we had to flee to some refugee forum page, but a new tracker was setup. The community rebuilt/returned. The files have already been downloaded.
Imma pour one out for the many subreddits that will inevitably be ehnshittified. Maybe the fediverse will be a more resilient place for different communities to organize themselves. Fingers fucking crossed.