So , years later, has any true alternative risen?

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Some-Journalist2879@reddit

Huh so you want full tutorials for all features upfront from the web? I can do that. Noted fren. Wait till you see what I’ve created… 👽

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Some-Journalist2879@reddit

I am coming. I am inevitable. I will replace half of Silicon Valley.

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I don’t think so but I have been working on a text-only Reddit alternative called nooki.me for a few months now. I am thinking about doing a soft launch to gather some feedback and early traction, it’s already live at https://nooki.me if any of you are interested

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Electronic-Phone1732@reddit

Lemmy isn't that hard when you try it.

Go to lemmy.ca, and make an account.

If you see a post by someone with a username like @/username@some.website it means they're from a different lemmy site, but their posts are shared with your lemmy site.

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IlIIllIIIlllIlIlI@reddit

Lemmy is just so terrible sometimes. you get into mild disagreement and then suddenly you're banned from 20 communities and 3 instances and they spam you with their alt accounts, and they've deleted every comment you left in those communities.

It feels like where all the extra turbo reddit dorks ended up after the black out.

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

This was not my experience at all, maybe you need to find a better corner of lemmy

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btaf45@reddit

I got banned from lemmy.world sitewide after thousands of posts/comments for merely agreeing with a policy of a mainstream Democrat on the politics sub. Gavin Newsom's policy on trans athletes. The overton window there is not even big enough to allow all Dems to express opinions. A Bernie progressive like me who occasionally expresses a mainstream Dem opinion is too rightwing for lemmy.world

https://lemmy.world/post/34679047/18907918

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

Well, you should have chosen another instsnce.

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btaf45@reddit

Yes but how was I supposed to know lemmy.world was one of lemmy's worst sites when I fled to lemmy in the reddit exodus? As a Bernie progressive it took me a long time to figure out how tightly censored their discussions were. But's it also because I largely ditched lemmy.world news and politics early on and went to usa@midwest.social which is a much better place.

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

Didn't you say that they literally had it written in their description, no?

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btaf45@reddit

The mod snuck it into the sidebar without announcing it to anybody when he decided he didn't want to be called out for censoring people whose opinions he disagreed with and not being able to follow his own rules.

I've never seen any sub on reddit that is run so badly as on lemmy.world where the politics mod admits he won't bother following any of his own rules if he doesn't like your mainstream opinion.

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AcidiclyBasic@reddit

Same, it's been kind of a breath of fresh air.

Like oh yeah, this is what it's like to have an interesting discussion about something. Glad I can just state the obvious without worrying I might be stepping on a landmine.

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btaf45@reddit

And there's no nuance in the political discussion. You disagree with something a democrat says one time and it's OKAY MAGA GET FUCKED TRUMPTARD despite the fact that I have dozens of other very obviously liberal comments

I've had this same exact problem in lemmy.world. Their discussions are so tightly controlled that even a Bernie progressive like me who occasionally expresses a mainstream Dem opinion is too rightwing. Agreeing with one of Gavin Newsom's opinions got me banned from the whole site.

But lemmy.world and lemmy.ml are the problems, not lemmy as a whole. usa@midwest.social is the best place to discuss news and politics stuff.

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AcidiclyBasic@reddit

It really does become pretty intuitive after a day or so. I've never tried piefed, so no idea if it's even easier to use.

I started on lem.ee then when it closed I was able to create a new account after sh.itjust.works and import all the communities I had already joined to the new instance.

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Electronic-Phone1732@reddit

I was in the same boat, had an account on lemm.ee, migrated to lemmy.dbzer0.com.

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

i have an account in lemmy world, does that work as well ? it's been years since i tried it

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Electronic-Phone1732@reddit

Yeah! it does.

If you want to know the difference, it's like email. On gmail you can send emails to people on outlook, on lemmy, you can post to communities on other lemmy sites, like that.

different servers are like different email hosts.

The best way to understand this is to use it :)

good luck!

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Die4Ever@reddit

Yes that will work

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

What's the difference basically

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Die4Ever@reddit

The difference between Lemmy and lemmy.world?

Lemmy is the software platform, it's like saying "email" or "BitTorrent".

Lemmy.world is your instance/server/gateway/access point whatever you wanna call it. The servers link together anyways, so your choice of server is mostly just choosing an admin team.

You're good. Go enjoy Lemmy.world

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

I meant diff btween .ca and .world

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

The difference in speed depends on your location. Another difference is the health of the instance (how often it's up) and the instances that they block. Truthsocial, for example, is banned by most popular instances.

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Die4Ever@reddit

There can be a difference in speed. Lemmy.ca is hosted in Canada. They also have a different administration team, but most moderation is done at the community level not the instance level, so it doesn't make a big difference.

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

You can also follow communities from Piefed using Lemmy!

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DragonfruitOk2029@reddit

working on it brother

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hydroflame7@reddit

I’m building one right now since I don’t think there is a good alternative ATM. But tbh it’s extremely tough

Users don’t want to join unless there are already users (content) on the platform. Cold start problem.
Reddit’s history/content like you’ve mentioned - basically the same issue with X/Bluesky - even the users who hate X go back to it because there are just more users and content
Google’s favoritism towards Reddit since they’re partners, Reddit organically rank for most keywords since it’s in Google’s own interest on AI data training
Money: Reddit earns half a billion a quarter and have a lot more resources/motivation than alternatives to throw at stuff.

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

Is it going to be federated?

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hydroflame7@reddit

It's not. I think Lemmy already does a great job as a federated alternative. I'm creating an alternative that I'd personally use - I'm a huge fan of reddit, I just think there are certain things it could do/be better at. The site is already live at https://www.oddsrabbit.com if you want to check it out, and I'm hoping to get the app out within the next 2 weeks.

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jcb2023az@reddit

It's federated ?

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hydroflame7@reddit

Nope. I think there are enough federated alternatives already. Leaning into a different approach.

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

Looks nice . How many users do you expect to have , any projections?

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hydroflame7@reddit

Ty! Tbh, a bit hard to say - it’s early but at the same time, I’m just a single person and I don’t have a huge budget for marketing haha.

Having said that, I do think the release of the app will help and I’ve also been hearing great feedback from initial users (ty everyone!). The big hurdle after the app’s release will be to get a stable initial community on the platform, and if that works, I can see it doing well and being a proper alternative to Reddit 🙂

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

what about money and sustainability

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hydroflame7@reddit

Yea, personally this is where I think most other alternatives messed up and fell short.

I don’t like ads like everyone else but I think it’s a necessity to sustain a platform - especially if it were to grow (the costs scale up too high).

Ads can be turned off though by the community - my idea is that they’ll mainly be for creators and brands that want to build their community on the platform - ex. A streamer wanting a home for their community. Revenue is shared back with them and their community through swag, giveaways, etc. A portion of revenue will also be donated to community-nominated charities.

When I was thinking this through, this is the win-win-win situation that - Helps the platform sustain itself and grow - Support creators who create the content - Give back to the users (and the world) that makes up the communities

It’s a tough balance for sustainability and ideal user-experience.

I still think through the vision for oddsrabbit everyday though lol, and nothing is set is stone. Happy to hear yours (and anyone else’s) thoughts/feedback on this.

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hydroflame7@reddit

Yea, personally this is where I think most other alternatives messed up and fell short.

I don’t like ads like everyone else but I think it’s a necessity to sustain a platform - especially if it were to grow (the costs scale up too high).

Ads can be turned off though by the community - my idea is that they’ll mainly be for creators and brands that want to build their community on the platform - ex. A streamer wanting a home for their community. Revenue is shared back with them and their community through swag, giveaways, etc. A portion of revenue will also be donated to community-nominated charities.

When I was thinking this through, this is the win-win-win situation that - Helps the platform sustain itself and grow - Support creators who create the content - Give back to the users (and the world) that makes up the communities

It’s a tough balance for sustainability and ideal user-experience.

I still think through the vision for oddsrabbit everyday though lol, and nothing is set is stone. Happy to hear yours (and anyone else’s) thoughts/feedback on this.

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panickedthumb@reddit

I really like your design philosophy. Look forward to seeing more. But yes, you’re right about the difficulty

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hydroflame7@reddit

I really appreciate it, and thank you for taking the time to take a look. I prob spent more time obsessing about the UI/UX than I should’ve - the initial onboarding animation (Be… Kind, etc.) took me about a whole day haha.

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LateToLaunch_@reddit

Just signed up, seems pretty great and well put together

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hydroflame7@reddit

Thank you! That’s great to hear since I’ve spent a lot of hours on it haha. Thanks again for giving it a try and creating a community on it

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TraumaJeans@reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1ipzjkb/let_me_pitch_an_idea/

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

Is this legal?

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TraumaJeans@reddit

I don't think this exists yet, but depending on implementation it could be legal. Definitely legal with the client side integration like that youtube plugin that pulls reddit comments for the current video

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hydroflame7@reddit

Haha, actually I had the same thought - I don’t think Reddit would like it very much if their data is used elsewhere (especially to build a competitor). I think it could be legal though depending on the implementation, but it’d probably have to be like a standalone plugin.

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TraumaJeans@reddit

What is lacking is unity, everyone is trying to make their own thing and it gets fragmented. We need to sit together and create something as a community, open source style

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hydroflame7@reddit

Super interesting, thanks for the suggestions! I'll have to find some quiet time tomorrow to think this through haha

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Tai9ch@reddit

Nope, because network effect. That won't change until everyone moves to something new.

Lemmy's probably the best current option, but federation innately doesn't work.

And attempts to build a new centralized system won't solve the problem. The same incentives will apply if it gets popular enough to take over the network effect.

The best option would be building something actually decentralized - either p2p or like nostr - but that'd never get approved on any mobile app store.

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

Why doesn't federation work?

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chesterriley@reddit

The best option would be building something actually decentralized - either p2p or like nostr - but that'd never get approved on any mobile app store.

Usenet. It already exists.

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Tai9ch@reddit

Usenet is effectively federated and it doesn't deal with any of the issues that would be relevant to a modern social discussion system.

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chesterriley@reddit

What issues?

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Tai9ch@reddit

Identity, spam, moderation, existing on a modern network that blocks every port but 443.

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chesterriley@reddit

Huh? Identity works exactly the same as on Fediverse. You pick a site and register a user name. How could that possibly be an "issue"?

There is moderation on Usenet which also solves the spam problem.

Absolutely none of these things are "problems" or "issues". Usenet software is actually far more advanced then Lemmy because it automatically merges all decentralized communities into one large one. That means Usenet has the advantages of a decentralized network combined with the advantages of a centralized network.

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laffnlemming@reddit

Why doesn't federation work? I haven't studied it or looked at lemmy.

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TheresACrossroad@reddit

Following the search, brother lol. I haven't found anything. I want something without an upvote/downvote system and with extremely loose moderation. Unfortunately I'm only really aware of 4chan and various other chans as alternatives that meet these conditions. I tried Lemmy once, I think I had to request access via signing up with a user/pass and....seemingly never got access and subsequently couldn't log in with those credentials. Too confusing, too much trouble for something i just want to log into and browse. Seems for now we're subject to the various moderators and reddiquette standards on this site.

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

Try again, maybe you get it this time

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AcidiclyBasic@reddit

Lemmy is so much better than current Reddit.

Takes a min to get used to but narrative control free conversations with other humans are worth it.

Pick an instance: https://lemmyverse.net/

Sometimes niche communities aren't visible yet when you search for them on your instance but you can always search here: https://lemmyverse.net/communities

You can join any community from any instance.

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firebreathingbunny@reddit

Lemmy is the closest thing to a workable alternative, but most instances double down on Reddit's worst aspects.

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

can you give me more details on that ? what's twice as worse there ?

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firebreathingbunny@reddit

Leftist admins, leftist mods, leftist userbase, all the same tactics of ideological moderation and voting and brigading.

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

Damn for real? What gives ?

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Die4Ever@reddit

It just depends on which server you use. Lemmy.world is good, lemmygrad.ml is bad just don't use them.

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

See I'm still confused . I thought all instances point to the same thing, so why does it matter ?

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chesterriley@reddit

I thought all instances point to the same thing, so why does it matter ?

It really doesn't. You can subscribe to any communities from any site. But it is still an inconvenience to relocates, so it is best to avoid lemmy.ml and lemmy.world since they are both ban happy and will freely censor anything they don't like.

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Acrobatic-Monitor516@reddit (OP)

Okay so what do you advise on using then

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chesterriley@reddit

sh.itjust.works.com

midwest.social

lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Die4Ever@reddit

For the most part yes, but each instance has their own administration/moderation team

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chesterriley@reddit

Lemmy.world is good,

Lemmy.world is one of the worst when it comes to censorship. It is tightly locked down. usa@midwest.social is a far better place to use. So far I've never had any comment nor any submission censored there.

I literally got banned from lemmy.world sitewide after thousands of posts/comments for merely agreeing with a policy of a mainstream Democrat on the politics sub. The overton window there is not even big enough to allow all Dems to express opinions. A Bernie progressive like me who occasionally expresses a mainstream Dem opinion is literally too rightwing for lemmy.world.

https://lemmy.world/post/34679047/18907918

The mod openly admits that he freely censors anything he does not like. From the sidebar to politics.

[some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.]

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firebreathingbunny@reddit

The primary developer of Lemmy is a literal communist. Network effects follow.

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Die4Ever@reddit

The biggest instances don't have any relation to the developers

If that still bothers you then use PieFed or Mbin

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Skavau@reddit

/u/firebreathingbunny is an actual holocaust denier so nowhere outside of the extremes will be palatable to him, regardless of Lemmy.

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sourceenginelover@reddit

always when you hear about "leftists this", "communists that", they're telling on themselves

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Skavau@reddit

This doesn't matter since lemmy.ml isn't remotely the largest instance, and the other major communist instances (lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net) are heavily defederated by most of the servers.

The wider culture of the Fediverse is liberal-social-democrat, not communist. You know nothing about it. But I know that's not your true problem at all.

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AnonomousWolf@reddit

PieFed has everything.

It's only got ~50k users though, which isn't little but niche communities are lacking anyway check it out

https://piefed.social

You can use the Voyager app for it on mobile

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

Okay, 50k users, but it is federated and you can see and posts from Lemmy and there are more than 200k users there. Its basically just a different UI

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rimu@reddit

There are a lot of differences between Lemmy and PieFed - https://join.piefed.social/features/

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Embarrassed_Fan7405@reddit

Good point, they are not the same

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ZwVJHSPiMiaiAAvtAbKq@reddit

Okay, 50k users, but it is federated and you can see and posts from Lemmy and there are more than 200k users there.

Lemmy as 45k monthly active users. source

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ElectronicStock3590@reddit

One of the reasons that you can search for stuff via site:reddit.com blah blah blah is because of the critical mass. It certainly wasn’t like that back when I first started on reddit in 2007.

It’s not a feature, so it can’t exactly be requested. If no one on the site has ever talked about Baghdad Batteries, there cannot be something to find via search. Just by definition.

I have been using Lemmy for a few months and I think it could be great if more people come to it. The federation aspect is a bit weird and takes getting used to, but using the Voyager app is enjoyable enough and it’s not bad at all.

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MrJingleJangle@reddit

This is it. There must be many alternatives, and someone proclaims they will build one almost weekly, but what makes Reddit usable is it’s user base.

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dialectical_idealism@reddit

mobile apps are for people who hate privacy

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dandylover1@reddit

I agree. But I also do almost everything on my computer. I use Reddit For Blind, but that is because it's easier to use than the main site. However, in most cases, if there is a website for something, I don't understand the need for an alternative, especially when it looks and behaves exactly like the website itself!

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