Before Netflix, there was Blockbuster.
Before YouTube, there was Metacafe and janky websites hosting Flash or Quicktime Player.
Before Spotify, there was PeopleSound and iTunes gift cards.
Before Discord, there was IRC and AOL Chatrooms.
Before Facebook, there was MySpace and Friendster.
Before iPhone, I had an LG Dare and Palm Pre. Good god!
Before Reddit, there was Digg, Slashdot and Fark.

Something better always comes along. Especially if that "better" is tied to a streamlined, easy to use, easy to learn UI.

Reddit would've never gotten as big as it did without third party support. Not just apps like Apollo, RIF and Narwhal - but tools like Imgur and RES.

Lemmy and "The Federation" (I'm not quite yet sold calling it the Fediverse...) has a lot of potential to be that "better than Reddit" online space. Nobody owns all of it, so there's safeguards against the things that we're blacked out.

And it's partially why its a fixer-upper.

We, the community, are going to need to make Lemmy the space we want it to be. That means competition between instances and servers, that means user generated tools and content. I read the RIF developer is working on a Tildes app for iOS and Android. Mlem iOS app is in early Beta, but are working hard to have a stable release for 6/30. Jerboa's out on Android already and folks seems to like it so far.

Give it time. We're all new. And whether it's here or somewhere else - we always land on our feet. Maybe the only thing we have in common with u/spez : there's nowhere to fail but up.

mlem is planning a stable iOS release by 6/30, and using Apollo for inspiration. You won’t need to wait long.

You want to kill germs? Use mouthwash. There’s pretty much nothing beneficial about smoking cigarettes.

Even when you take the health considerations out of account, you will reek. I assure you, nobody wants to spend time around a partner that emits a nauseating scent. It’s a bad habit in every sense of the term.

Yes - nicotine can be a quick stress reliever. That’s about al it’s good for.

I understand that you need something to help you get through the days, but there are tons of other things that you could do.

Heck, even switching to vaping will improve your health outcomes considerably. And you won’t smell.

I don’t know why you’re fighting your girlfriend on this, it seems like she’s genuinely concerned and you’re being so stubborn as to look online to justify your addiction. Yes, you are addicted. You smoke more than a pack a week and refuse to quit or offer a compromising alternative. If I was her, I’d leave you.

They’ll be back here again in 2-ish weeks when Apollo and RIF are done.

And when mlem and other apps start rolling out for Lemmy, we’ll start seeing shifts. Apps that have proper accessibility, a clean UI, lack advertising and don’t eat data. And they give you the same Reddit experience without Reddit’s predatory business strategy.

When the blackouts stop, a lot of users will be able to search for Reddit alternatives and will find Lemmy… through Reddit.

I mod a sub with 65K users or so, I plan to go dark indefinitely. Also considering Read-Only with a sticky redirecting here. I know I’m not the only mod.

The Digg > Reddit migration wasn’t overnight. It was fast, though.

Wikipedia is the 7th most visited website in the world, more popular than Amazon, TikTok, even PornHub. It's not funded by advertisers or other bullshit - rather through reader donations.

With that said, Wikipedia is still centralized content whereas Lemmy isn't. Meaning there's fewer expenses and pressure on any one instance or server to succeed. And if one instance or server doesn't succeed, your access to the Federation is far from over.

Here is a list of Apps coming to Lemmy:

https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/71764

Plenty for iOS to chose from, Christian’s legacy continues. Memmy and Mlem both feel pretty close to Apollo - and are both directly inspired by it.

These apps are in early beta. They have constant updates (daily for Memmy and weekly for Mlem), so you can kind of see them being built in real time. If you’re patient with the developers, you’ll get that Apollo experience very soon. It’s like 80% of the way there.

Liftoff is pretty cool too, though it’s a different design approach.

(I’m using Memmy now, actually.)

Spez started the site to make money. This was always true - a completely typical reason to start a company. When there was no community in the early days - he made fake accounts, and fake conversations to generate traffic to attract attention. So Spez is someone that’s always used dishonesty to get what he wants.

Aaron joined the site because he saw it’s potential as a tool for civic engagement and political awareness. He left when he saw what Reddit was becoming… or really - what it always had been: a tool to extract wealth from its unknowing volunteers.

Aaron and Spez weren’t friends. They were business partners for a very short period of time. To the best of my knowledge, that’s all there is to it.

I speculate that Aaron would feel unfazed by what Reddit looks like today… because it’s expected. The founders are people that make the Forbes 30 Under 30, marry world famous pro athletes, and are worth tens of millions of dollars. They’re divorced from reality.

I would hope that open and decentralized online spaces like Lemmy reflect the sort of values & ideas Aaron spent his life advocating for.

My city’s subreddit is/was a prime source of local politics, infrastructure projects, restaurant openings and closures, activity recommendations, and even making friends. I also loved popping in to give tourism advice and steer people to the best of what the region has to offer. I got a lot of value out of it.

While there is a city community here, there is no engagement or any posts really. So this is why l’ll probably be using both Reddy and Lemmy for a while.

Lemmy also isn’t super diverse… yet. I think this is going to be an advantage for Reddit for a long time.

That is, Lemmy is an early emerging technology - and users are disproportionately young middle class white men interested in tinkering with unfinished tech. To be clear, that’s not the criticism. That’s me (except maybe not young anymore)!

It does, however, mean communities will steer towards Technology and Gaming… and less Relationship_Advice or AITA or something. Less human interest stuff.

The mobile apps will be key to building this place into a better Reddit. And that’s if the developers can make a streamlined, simple experience that doesn’t overwhelm new users with jargon like “instances” or “servers”. Just sign in, quickly find a community and join a conversation.

The day I get to read something like, “Hi Lemmy, I’m a 75 year old Venetian gondolier. Ask me anything!” would be the mile marker for a dead Reddit.

Commenting from the Memmy App beta for iOS.

Still early days, but it’s doing the basics quite well. They and Mlem are hoping for a 6/30 App Store release, so interesting times ahead.

YouTube is a bit of a different animal.

YouTube allows creators to monetize content - so there's a sense of shared success. Channels from Tom Scott or Captain Disillusion are amazing, because their production in part relies on that revenue model.

YouTube also understands that without paying for popular content, you won't get the consistent cavalcade of medium content from people that want to earn a living or notoriety through YouTube. And that include anything from videos of cats falling over, blogs about life in remote places, DIY home improvement or niche guitar technique lessons.

Meanwhile on Reddit, if a user gets thousands of upvotes and a million page views for a short story they wrote exclusively for the platform, Reddit won't pay them a cent. The very thought is laughable.

The other thing to consider is that the technology just doesn't exist for there to be a viable 'federated' YouTube. YouTube has 800 million videos - many in HD and many are hours long. That's a big ask in terms of storage and maintenance - even several thousand videos.

Video compression has a long way to go before that changes. For now, it makes sense for leave that storage to the companies with resources.

Text, however... well, all of Wikipedia can fit on around 20 gigs - 60 million odd articles. And for the record, that can pretty much fit on an iPod from 2002.

I do wish that YouTube wasn't a monopoly. Twitch is the only thing that's close, and it has it's own special lane for live streaming. Back in the old days, there was some competition - including Google Video. But that went away when Google bought YouTube. I guess there's Vimeo, but they've got a very different approach.

I mean, the Justice Department is suing Google for monopolizing ad tech - and I think we could see antitrust laws used in the next few years to breakup YouTube. Maybe the successor companies would federate - like when Bell was broken up into what became Verizon and ATT - who now directly compete for customers.

Reddit will survive. But without some if it’s most active users, and without proper mod tools - what’s left will be a wasteland.

No mod wants to open a janky app riddled with ads to delete spam. Which means that Reddit will get more ads, more phishing, more OnlyFans bots, more instances of hate speech and abusive content. All the while, the app will be continuously redesigned so you click on those ads rather than seek information and engage in communities.

Effectively, Reddit will turn into Facebook. That’s the business model they’ve been trying to emulate and that’s what they think is going to generate them money.

It might work and become profitable. And if so, then hey - Spez technically did his job. But at the cost of the world’s great community platform, it’s so damn short sighted.

Reddit is a space where you can learn languages, learn about other cultures, learn how to fix things around the house, share personal music, share art, share stories, make friends, find love, find housing, find recipes, find a fetish, sell stuff, buy stuff, become a celebrity, make a great travel itinerary, find health and fitness resources, adopt a pet, etc.

Pretty soon, all it’ll be good for is validating your racist uncle - all so a few Silicon Valley execs could afford yet another golden toilet.

Yeah, the front page was a little intimidating and it took a little time for my to get the account confirmation email. But otherwise, this space feels and acts very similar to old.reddit and some customization (like night mode) ... which is a good thing!

Ah yeah, I saw Mandalorian. It was pretty fun to watch, but I didn’t find it super compelling beyond the visuals - especially compared to Andor.

Of course, Futurama is one of my favorites! Haven’t heard of Final Space, I’ll put it on my list - thanks!!

It would've made the users happy, but ultimately Apollo is not profitable for Reddit. It would need to be retooled and redesigned to extract data and push advertisers. as a free version...

Of course, Reddit could sell it as a "$2/mo Premium Reddit Experience" app that keeps what it is. And I'm sure there's a ton of folks that'll pay the benefit of that, particularly mods and power users.

Apollo's paid subscriber base is 50K. Assuming they maintain that, it's $1.2M/year revenue. The question is.. is that worth it to a billion dollar company? To maintain and support all that?

My gut would say 'yes'. Although goodwill is unquantifiable, keeping the community of volunteers placated is an investment in Reddit's longterm health. Same reason the Mafia bought turkeys for uninvolved neighborhood families on Thanksgiving - so they'd look the other way when shady happenings go down.

But Reddit doesn't want to spend money on turkeys. So we'll see how well that works out for them. I'm not optimistic.

Forgive my comment for being a bit... crass.

Lemmy & the Federation are emerging technologies.

Early tech adopters are never "average people", they are disproportionately geeky 18-to-35 year old middle-class white males with spare time to tinker around. Or basically... me.

It's less likely they are ethnic, religious and sexual minorities, disabled individuals, elderly, women and/or other disadvantaged groups. So Lemmy is at a demographic disadvantage right now.

It took a very, very long time for the "average person" to accept Reddit as an accessible & safe online platform for anyone that doesn't fit the 'early adopter' archetype. Heck, I still know folks that think of Reddit as a sort-of 'radical' space where Hackers cosplayers use tech-jargon to communicate all day. And it wasn't that long ago where this was more true than lies.

In any case, there's a reason why Lemmy's most popular communities are things like Technology, Gaming, Linux, Piracy. There's waaaaay less human-interest stuff. Way less stuff that appeals broadly.

An example:
Do you know how many subscribers there are in /c/relationship_advice right now ? There are four. There are zero posts.
Meanwhile, r/relationship_advice has over 9 million. And it's pretty close to 1:1 ratio for men and women contributors.

Over on Reddit, I help mod a regional community of 65K subscribers. It's a casual place with casual people. People hop in asking for tourism advice, recommendations for school districts, questions about traffic or local quirks, etc. These people aren't always tech-literate.

So the thing that prevents me from moving my community off Reddit is... they're not ready for it yet. I suspect a lot of mods feel the same.

In the meantime - we can focus on making Lemmy into the best space it can be for when those users are ready. We have meaningful dialogue, we respect our differences, we keep the place clear of ads & spam, and clear of bigotry.

Once there are high quality, extremely simple apps that allow everyday users to browse Lemmy without having to explain any advanced tech jargon, I'm hopeful the Federation will take off. The demographics here will shift, and with that - communities will be more eager to move over. We might see things like "Hi Lemmy, I'm an old Korean War survivor. AMA!" instead of "Plex is giving me an unsupported codec notification, did I download the wrong DLLs?".

Hope that rambling made sense.

Great video, always a fan of Rossman (even if there's a few times where I disagree with him).

Blackout absolutely needs to be indefinite and I'm glad to see massive communities like r/funny, r/aww, r/science, r/music still going strong with r/gaming and r/pics set to private.

We have about two weeks until the 3rd Party App kill date. Meanwhile, numbers in Lemmy have been booming, indie developers are actively working on apps - all great news.

Personally, I'm not quite ready to delete my Reddit Account and leave some of the niche communities I grew to love. I suspect that after the blackouts, I'll be using both Lemmy & my old.reddit (with adblock) until there's enough migration of users.

It's wild to me when fans of the show disregard the first season. To me, that season is pretty much perfect. Three arcs - a detective story, a motley crew, a political thriller - pay off feels so great when it all comes together at the end. Season 2 was such a drastic change in pacing, concept and 'feel' that I didn't want to keep watching. I felt a little betrayed that Miller wasn't actually the main character.

Besides Amos, I don't really care about the Roci crew. I had to wait until Ashford came along in Season 3 for a new favorite character.

All in all - Avasarala, Bobby and Drummer carried the series for me.

Indeed. Prior to 2010 - it was a roll of the dice. If insurance wasn't provided through your work, you had to be lucky enough to live in a State with decent laws preventing some of these predatory insurance practices. Back then, the uninsured rate was close to 19%. Almost 1 in 5 Americans.

Today, that rate is 8.4%. Which hails the victory of the ACA because "91.6% of Americans have insurance" sounds nice. And compared to where we were 13 years ago, it is nice.

In reality, we have 28 million uninsured people, many of whom are children. There's a long way to go.

While I'm personally satisfied with my level of coverage and standard of care, I don't understand how we can comfortably accept a society that bankrupts our most vulnerable residents for being sick. I'm baffled how this wasn't already solved or mostly resolved in my lifetime. Or at least seeing more states take on the Hawaii or Massachusetts health care models.

I just subscribed to my local city of /c/Boston - but there are no posts yet. I just really want a space where I can talk about local current events, news, business openings and closures, infrastructure projects, etc.

I also liked going into other city's subs to see what's going on before travelling. In Reddit, they were always great spaces for restaurant recommendations, helpful tips and tricks, tourist traps to avoid, etc.

I'm seeing how things play out.

I certainly like Lemmy and I could very well use both for a while. I'm mostly worried my favorite subs (especially my local City sub) won't migrate or be an active enough group here. Time will tell. I want to follow the community, not the platform.