I have fully transitioned to using Lemmy and Mastodon right when third party apps weren’t allowed on Spez’s place anymore, so I don’t know how it is over there anymore.
What do you use? Are you still switching between the two, essentially dualbooting?
What other social media do you use? How do you feel about Fediverse social media platforms in general?
(I’m sorry if I’m the 100th person to ask this on here…)
In an ever-evolving digital landscape, I am thrilled to immerse myself in the liberating experience of using decentralized platforms like Mastodon, Lemmy, and Pixelfed. Freed from the constraints of centralized social media, I have embarked on a transformative journey. Recognizing the excessive time once consumed by my phone—nearly ten hours a day—I have successfully halved this to around five hours daily, allowing for a healthier balance, with a slight indulgence during weekends.
My commitment to this shift is further evidenced by my conscious decision over the past two years to bid farewell to major platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr. More recently, I have cut ties with Instagram, Facebook, BlueSky, Reddit, and even Snapchat.
In an effort to further champion these alternative platforms and their communities, I am proud to contribute by donating to Mastodon. This initiative not only represents a personal commitment but also an investment in the growth and resilience of decentralized social networks, encouraging more people to explore the boundless opportunities they offer.
This sounds like an apology video written by an AI and thus I am not sure if you’re being sarcastic.
I’m a blog writer, and sometimes I take things a bit too seriously. I am not being sarcastic, nor am I using AI. 😅
Thank you for using clear language with proper spelling and grammar. It is a rare thing to see these days.
I have two modes:
- Grammatically correct
- Tired and Gen Z
Nice blog bro
Thanks ☺️
Had a Facebook account I completely ignored (set it up for my first girlfriend and we exclusively used Yahoo Messenger) then turned into a music dump, then deleted. I honestly never saw the point of Facebook, not with apps like WhatsApp or even standard SMS evolving as they have, even back then (talking about the 2010s).
Had an Instagram account for about 3 months - surprisingly decent source of grotesque/morbid art! Again, saw no point in this, and Reddit felt superior in all ways.
Mainlined Reddit for a good couple of years, mostly during the Pandemic. By the time I got into it, one could feel its bulk, so to speak. Sure 99.7% of Reddit were the users, but even so, it felt as though subreddit quirks and in-jokes had ossiffied into tennets by that point. Loved it, but it felt constraining here and there.
Switched to Lemmy a couple of months after deleting my Reddit account when shit went down, and it’s all I’ve been using and plan on using. Unless one counts news aggregators as social platforms.
I love this scroungy, spit-and-duct tape feel of the fediverse, to be very honest. Feels like the days when we used to group chat on local network sharing apps, like it’s just the neighbourhood kids around. And it seems to not be dissipating even with the huge increase in users, which is a good sign. Plus the obvious lack of curation other than baseline moderation and/or personal grudges is always nice!
I see it the exact same way!
The way that the fediverse is split up like this, with many instance working with different rulesets really does make it feel like some neighbourhood people coming together to chat.
I especially like the way how, why you chose an instance, you can either stay within the bounds of your own local group, or interact with all the people by switching over to the “subscribed” tab (at least this is the case here on blahaj zone).
Yes, that’s my favourite aspect about it, the interactivity between the various instances and how distinctly unique each instance seems to have become in terms of ethos. It’s wonderful to see so many different ‘tribes’ and be able to interact with all of them!
newsboat is a gem.
Definitely Instagram.
While Lemmy is slowly making a dent in my reddit participation, it doesn’t do much for other things. I’m involved in IRL politics, food, and the clubbing scene, all stuff that is almost completely absent on the fediverse, especially the American-dominated side of it.
Lemmy is the only one I’ll log onto and the only one I have as an app.
Sometimes though, I’ll miss a super specific community from the place spez ruined, and scroll through it in DuckDuckGo browser.
Anything that has an intransparent, engagement driving, ad laden algorithm that determines what you do and don’t see is thoroughly unappealing to me. At least now that I’m a little more tech savvy and anti-corporate.
I guess I do technically have a Facebook account still because I don’t remember the password of either that account or the associated email address. I used that for local flea market and food sharing groups up until maybe 6 years ago.
Anything that has an intransparent, engagement driving, ad laden algorithm that determines what you do and don’t see is thoroughly unappealing to me. At least now that I’m a little more tech savvy and anti-corporate.
Hear hear. Under the guise of Engagement, corporations have weaponized algorithms to maximize the time you spend on their platforms, and it’s absolutely been a race to the bottom, prioritizing Outrage above all else. Hard pass, thanks.
Corporate goals don’t align with that of users like they used to.
Ironically, I like when I eventually scroll to the end of the Lemmy posts and my app tells me “you have reached the bottom”.
It feels super weird having used Lemmy for a while, and to then come back to something like Youtube, which does have it’s proprietary algorithm thingy. So weird seeing content I didn’t explicitely agree to seeing.
Facebook appears to be a common ground for many replies on this post, which I find very interesting.
Ikr? I have to use YouTube a specific way. I’ll go to a channel and go to the tab that just lists the videos chronologically. I’ll go back there if I want a second video. The only way I find new creators I enjoy watching is through recommendation/someone sending a link to a group chat. Shame really, I bet there’s plenty of content out there that I’d enjoy, but I can’t handle the algorithm.
I think the Facebook thing is because it was more or less the first social media that pretty much everyone was on. Everything before was a little more niche. But back in, like, 2010, it felt like you were missing out if you weren’t on FB. At least that’s my experience/guess (I’m 27 and in middle Europe).
I think Facebook had an advantage in originally being targeted at college kids (I think you even needed a school ID to make an account originally) before becoming open to everyone. This meant that the userbase was a little older than that of most social media at the time and it worked as a way to stay in touch with people after you graduated. Then, when they opened it up, it became a way to stay in touch with family as well, which got the parents onboard with something that they had just considered a fad before, like MySpace.
I was never much of a social media guy, especially after moonlighting one summer as a social media marketer on Twitter and Instagram (really, really kills it for ya), but I was a redditor for a while.
I swapped over to Lemmy exclusively during the API fees, but to be fair I was already getting frustrated by the service. The karma farming was just too much, so many stupid reposts of the same stupid made up wholesome stories and crap. I think I only miss r/comics and r/idiotsincars, the later requiring a critical mass of people to actually be worthwhile.
I use Lemmy and Mastodon about equally. I find I like Lemmy for discussions, while Mastodon is good for news just because there are a lot more users overall, and you can follow different news feeds on it.
For me its startet for some years ago with Mastodon,then I grew into the fediverse (I didn’t know anything about it) and now I use loops.video (stil its made for doomscroling) mastodon, Lemmy and pixelfed. Loops I think I’m to old to use that much, (to fast for me) but else I’m really happy with the social media. I haven’t been on a mainstream SOME for 3 years.
Mostly on Lemmy. I’m on Mastadon too. I don’t know if YouTube counts but I’m on there as well and is the only corporate social media I use consistently.
I find myself using Instagram more but only following a handful of creators, I don’t post or check on my feed. I deleted my Twitter and LinkedIn but can’t get myself to delete my Meta accounts because of the people that I have contact with on there. I hardly contact ppl but the sentimentally of the connections is something
Try Pixelfed for a good Insta alternative. It’s open source, supports self hosting, and federates with ActivityPub.
Yeah, pretty much. This and Discord really. Signal for P2P messaging.
Lemmy is the only thing i post to occasionally. On Reddit and Instagram i just lurk
Lemmy after reddit banned me. I’ve been getting into Bluesky, too. Sometimes Mastodon. I’m open to other suggestions, too.
Imgur if you want memes, cats, and politics, but keep in mind that they’re not much better than reddit. No 3rd party apps, and the official app has ads & sells your data to Facebook. You can block it by using the DDG app and enabling App Tracking Protection, however. Also setting your phone’s DNS server to dns.adguard-dns.com. You should be doing those two things anyway, regardless of what apps you do or don’t use.
Lemmy is my primary I lurk nowadays, I only visit reddit through google sometimes. I also use Discord with most of my friend groups, I need to use Facebook Messenger occasionally because of some friends and family. For entertainment, Youtube and Twitch only (I do have premium for yt though… I know it’s not nice)
It is, I don’t go on Reddit anymore, it’s insanely toxic. I’ve gotten all I could’ve gotten from there anyway. I only use Lemmy nowadays.
