I don’t understand people who say they can’t figure out Lemmy or KBin

metic@lemmy.world to Reddit Migration@kbin.social – 63 points –

Does federation have a bit of a learning curve? No doubt.

Is Lemmy buggy as heck? Absolutely.

But I don’t think that really justifies a lot of the comments I’m seeing in Reddit alternatives threads that it’s hard to figure out. The front page feed and sort options are very similar to Reddit. Searching for same-instance communities is not too difficult. Posting, commenting, and voting are all quite intuitive. What’s the problem?

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I don’t think that really justifies a lot of the comments I’m seeing in Reddit alternatives threads that it’s hard to figure out.

Haven't been back there and didn't read the comments...

But I think I can understand to a degree:

  • Too many choices: Picking an instance can be confusing for folks that are used to only having to remember 1 name. I personally think this is a bit like people trying Linux for the first time and getting confused by all the choices available. Basically, it's what some people call "analysis paralysis" but add to that the fact that you'll get 12 different recommendations from every 10 people you all (e.g. there's no clear consensus on the "best" one bc "best" means something different to each person). I think one list I saw on GitHub literally had over 200 instances... For non-techies, I could see that being a bit confusing
  • UI differences: some things like making a post on kbin are a bit different (IMO not bad but still different enough that I could see some folks getting confused). Doing searches on lemmy for specific topics (not finding communities but searching for something in a community) is done from a different area on lemmy than on Reddit and IMO is kind of a pain in the ass currently. And on kbin, frankly, I'm not even sure we have that feature at all.
  • Missing features: haven't tried mobile apps (which could again be another point of confusion) but for desktop at least, AFAIK we don't have anything similar to reddit's Saved feature. There's no analog to multireddits. And we don't have anything comparable to RES yet. All valid certifications in my opinion. And someone used to any or all of those, might spend a lot of time looking bc they just don't know if it's hidden or does not exist. So, yeah, I could see so confusion there too.

I think there are a lot of advantages they're probably missing too. I like that kbin/lemmy we can choose whatever fucking avatar we want instead of being limited to customizing our snoz or wtf Reddit calls their mascot thing. I saw one guy mentioning how there's no karma bullshit to deal with for new accounts and absolutely agree with that sentiment.

tealdeer; meh, I like the fediverse and it's not hard for me but I'm not shitting on people who don't get it. If they want help, would probably help but not going to push it on people either. It is what it is and that's good enough for me

I like that kbin/lemmy we can choose whatever fucking avatar we want instead of being limited to customizing our snoz or wtf Reddit calls their mascot thing.

"Snoo". It's a space alien.