How would you react if Reddit joined the fediverse?

CraigOhMyEggo@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 127 points –

Similar to the time Soviet Russia wanted to join the anti-Soviet alliance which was trying to pretend wasn't made to plot against the soviets.

86

So I'd get reddit content without having to deal with reddit's nonsense layout and terrible app? That sounds kinda nice actually.

Which makes me think they won't do that, at least until they realize their current plan won't work out in the long run. So far they've been going in the opposite direction by locking down everything:

  • killing off third party apps
  • making it difficult to access on old Reddit or mobile web
  • only letting search engines index the site if they pay
  • talk of paywalling subreddits

I mean you're already getting Reddit content, Lemmy is basically just Reddit reposted.

Not when you block that reposting bot. Every once in a while I'll see something that's a screenshot from reddit, but that's fine. We can get content from all over. Reddit used to get 9gag screenshots and commenters would throw up in their mouths a little over that.

I'm not talking about a bot. Just scroll around and then go to Reddit for a while. Same exact content.

That's just the Internet now. Every site has content pulled from other sites and their share of local content. Then it gets reposted with more compression artifacts each cycle until it degrades and returns to the earth.

Agreed. Which makes it weird that so many people on here seem somewhat upset with the idea that I'm putting that out. Though I absolutely think Lemmy gets way way more than it gives.

I'd look at it this way: a lot of people on Lemmy came from Reddit, but people's reasons for leaving are different.

Some left Reddit for what it was, but still want what it has. Namely, they want the content and community, but they want to access it on their own terms, so they try to recreate it on Lemmy. If Reddit hadn't fucked with their app access, they'd still be on Reddit.

Others want to actively avoid making Lemmy into Reddit 2.0, seeing it as a failed model, and so they try to prevent the spread of "Reddit-isms" in their instances. It's a gatekeeping measure to prevent the spread of normies, thereby keeping their communities small, niche, and nerdy.

I'm honestly surprised there are a number of people in here who would push back against the idea of having federated access to Reddit content when this very community is unapologetically a Lemmy analog of Askreddit.

Sometimes i see something on reddit that ive seem already here. Very little is OC

Lemmy.world is Reddit 2, most other instances are actually pretty unique.

All the downvotes but literally every post here I see is on Reddit hours or days beforehand.

A) It's not literally every post

B) Stop using reddit. Problem solved.

A) literally means figuratively. Go grab a dictionary and check yourself.

B) Was I complaining about Reddit? If anything, I'm complaining about the fact that Lemmy is much smaller and often delayed in getting me news about current events

If you can't miss hours in the 24 hours social media cycle, you should probably cut back your exposure my dude.

You're on Lemmy.world, lol. It was designed to be a FOSS clone of Reddit.

It's because people don't understand that Lemmy.World specifically serves as a Reddit replacement, but other communities don't serve this purpose.

It demonstrates the misunderstanding that Lemmy.World is Lemmy.

I meaaaan, while I did join Lemmy because I was sick of reddit the company's greedy decisions, I do miss the amount of users and content it has/generates. If reddit joining the fediverse meant they couldn't dictate what app I use to view their posts, I probably would enjoy being able to browse their content again.

You can kinda already do that, apps like rdx, Stealth, and Geddit pull reddit content without using the API. You can't vote/comment, but you can still follow communities that have worthwhile content.

OK, I'll get stoned for saying this, but I'd welcome it if done properly.

It's a large user base, lots of niche communities.

The more complicated part would be moderation, as that's already a problem now. Also, resources may be a problem.

None of its supposed assets make up for the corporate overlords who run it and promote or permit all sorts of terrible things

Lemmy.world already exists unfortunately

I do miss some of the subreddits though

I came to Lemmy because I disliked what Steve Huffman did to reddit.

I’d be completely fine with the users being here. I do miss the whole active community for every niche little thing part. If if federates that’d be neat.

It won’t, since greedy Steve Huffman can’t sell the fediverse to Google while screwing 3rd party devs and users that make it what it is. But I’d welcome it.

I miss the reddit I loved. Life is not the same anymore. I can't just google for anything reddit and find sources. The community was on a level never seen before or after. I too welcome all the people who made it great. Bots and ads and ads and ad bots can have their wasteland.

As long as it didn't pollute the fedi timeline with ads, AI slop and partnered posts, that'd be OK to me... (If someone worrying about our posts/comments being used by AIs, it's already happening even for those instances that does not federate with Threads; Proofs? Once I searched for my own username and I got surprised on how my fediverse posts are spread all across the results through federated instances that I never heard about, so if my fedi content shows on Google, it's certainly being fed to some AI datasets)

people just dont understand how public the fediverse is.

It is radically public. It's designed to broadcast your content to hundreds of other peoples' computers running all manner of different software which might then rebroadcast it to yet more. The whole architecture is oriented toward spreading things far and wide, and what tools exist to restrict the audience or retract content already shared are little more than polite suggestions.

That's not a flaw, but people using it should understand how it works so they don't run into surprises.

lemmy.world is already federated

Came to say this. Its basically indistinguishable except the numbers are smaller. Its why I stopped using my .ml account too because they spread. They are in your house now

Wdym, reddit already joined fediverse, it's called lemmy.world.

Hey! As a person who used to use reddit but got tired of how terrible it was then moved to the first Lemmy instance I could find, I... Agree? I'm not really sure.

I'd be very down to be able to subscribe to a couple select subs back there.

But I'd also be a bit disappointed because several Reddit communities have fediverse versions that are just nicer to be in, and I'm not so sure they'd survive if people could just go interact with the reddit equivalents via federation.

It would be the death of this side of the federated internet. The amount of content it would generate once federated would crush existing servers. You would have to defederate or face near instant storage shortages. The federated que would take years to sync.

Anyway, it wouldn't happen because they would need to transmit real vote counts instead of fuzzy vote counts. You would be able to see how every single person on reddit voted. Which would simply expose the vote manipulation going on there.

It would instantly de-fed from all the cool people, all the shitty leminitors probably would be reabsorbed back into fed-Reddit and those Reddit clone lemmy comms would die.

it wont happen, that would basically be broadcasting reddit content to servers whose intention is to offer it up the public for free (no ads).

if we cant utilize their api without paying through the nose, there is zero chance theyll let activitypub do it for free.

They can do what they want, but if they want my contribution, they play by our rules.

Free, public API to support 3rd party readers. None of this paid API extortion, ads, super upvote monetization nonsense. AI generated stupid discussion communities I will block on sight.

More vibrant and active niche communities I will be happy to receive but I do like things as they stand too.

Would be among the first to suggest a reddit-defederation pact to be honest.

Kinda like how peeps on Mastodon/Misskey/etc. have their anti-threads pact.

Reddit federation would not happen before Steve Huffman's exit from the company, and given that he is solely responsible for the changes that made Reddit unusable to many, I'd actually encourage federation given that after that happened, Reddit would become just another instance with no API control or ability to affect the goings on of any other part of the ecosystem of apps, servers, communities or even the Lemmy codebase.

Reddit would become just another instance with no API control

Being that large of an instance gives a lot of api control all by itself. Theoretically Chrome is just another browser and member of WHATWG. in practice, if they implement something it immediately becomes a de facto standard. Reddit would be the same.

I wouldn't bet on Huffman's exit doing anything of consequence either. Reddit is now under the control of investors who want a return. One way or another, monetisation of users will increase.

I would get banned from their instance for saying I approve of people physically fighting Nazis. It would be nice to have more people to fill out niche communities though.

I'll be honest, I'd be happy. I know Reddit as a whole sucks, but there are individual communities that still hold value. I miss active communities for niche crafts, I miss fandoms, and I miss actual life-changing shit like trans DIY, especially for countries outside the US.

I mainly stopped using Reddit because they killed third-party apps. If I could access Reddit from here, that'd be a pretty sweet deal for me.

I agree, as much as I hate Reddit's leadership and a lot of the toxicity of the hivemind, it will be a long time before anything reaches the level of niche communities it has with a critical mass of users and I miss some of them.

Sometimes you just want to geek out about something small with the 40 people across the planet that actually care about it.

Cool. Biggest reason I quit reddit was I hate was them enforcing their dumb layout. While there exists other reasons like powermods, If I can visit it through mastodon or lemmy; why not really?

I'd start consuming content that originates on Reddit again, for one thing.

Everyone would likely defederate from them, much in the same way that you all rushed to close the shutters upon Threads.

I also don't ever see this happening, unless Spez fucks up with Reddit so badly that it sparks a mass user exodus, much in the same way that Digg v4 sank any hopes of Kevin Rose remaining a successful tech entrepreneur.

I feel like the difference with Threads is Meta is owned by a much larger threat that can’t be trusted not to use Embrace Extend Extinguish in some evil genius way that ends up working.

Reddit’s owned by some dummy that did a lot of damage to his own platform but isn’t known to be smart enough or have the resources to threaten the fediverse.

I haven't heard of that name in a long time.

I'd use it again from my home instance. It would be a show of good faith that they're letting people integrate with their API again, even if that API is just the standard activity pub one.

This would be a horrible thing because, even if we get more communities here, reddit now would have the vast majority of the fediverse in their hands. It would only be a matter of time before reddit would pull a microsoft to try and extinguish it.

That's the same as asking how we would feel if Facebook decided to join the fediverse. The way instances reacted to that, would be the way they'd react to reddit, or twitter, or any of the enshitified tech giants.

It wouldn't bother me. I wouldn't subscribe to any subreddits though.

Federating with Reddit completely idiotic for any Lemmy instance.

They will only gain limited traffic, and their userbase will be swamped by Redditors.

There is zero incentive for Lemmy admins to do this, and huge incentives not to do this.

Lemmy userbase is already at least 90% former redditors...

You're looking for Lemmy.world, and the answer is that it swallows up the larger part of the main federated instances, and becomes one of the worst instances.

I don't think they would do that unless Lemmy continues to grow to a point where it challenges Reddit. Then it becomes a technical issue. I don't think they can do that. It was one thing for threads to do it, being designed with that in mind from day 1, but it's completely different for Reddit to do it. There are so many features that just wouldn't make the jump, and so much content that would need to be reworked.

If they were going to do it, it would most likely be a clean break where you just can't access old Reddit content on Lemmy, but all their new stuff would be accessible.

I also just don't see them giving away their content like that after cracking down on the API how they did.

Sure Reddit and Lemmy are different technical stacks, but neither is doing anything particularly unique or complicated.

If Reddit wanted to federate it could. It would take some work but it would be an achievable task in a reasonable amount of time.

Perhaps scaling or stability issues. I'm not sure the Fediverse is ready to handle the number of actions a site like Reddit handles. Then again I'm not super well versed on that part of the Lemmy software, so maybe it would be fine.

The best I've got is, it's complicated. I left reddit very purposely to avoid a lot of the corp side BS and the results of that on the user base. The number of bots and bought/paid accounts alone is enough of a reason not to go back. It's been getting pretty steadily worse for the last decade at least and while I think the fediverse is kind of toxic, I know for a fact from first hand experience that reddit is more so by a large margin. I want Lemmy to have more users and more communities. I miss reddit for the sheer number of niche communities that haven't moved over. I don't have time to start and moderate a community myself. But I don't want reddit here. I welcome users who want to follow the rules. I don't welcome wholesale reddit occupation of this space.

Long as none of them were given mod powers, nbd

If they do, I surely wouldn't trust Spez to be acting in good faith. I would expect them to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish the fediverse

I wouldn't want it myself because I think Reddit is super shitty now, but if their instance could be blocked I suppose it wouldn't matter.

That said I don't think they will. They'll remain in their walled garden until they're as obsolete as AOL became.

I'm here mostly because the implementation is superior. If Reddit was accessible directly from here, it'd be a total win-win imho.

It would also be a lose-lose for them, as it would open up their data to free-of-charge use via API without any benefit -- so it's not going to happen.

I got banned from r/gaming for shit talking pedos. I don’t want these people here.

It cannot because of copyright constraints. It sells it's data to others.

But look, if Reddit did, at least people could use third party and free apps.

The amount of bots, spam and other problematic content would be overwhelming for admins to moderate, most instances would just defederate on day 0.

I would love it because there are subreddits I use a lot on reddit that don't have an active equivalent on lemmy at all.

The only community I cared about on refit was r/Korea because I was a new migrant here. But I got banned for posting a link to my own website where I uploaded this video https://tube.jeena.net/w/aBpFLKq3x2r9R3aSrBtece which I myself recorded. They said I should have uploaded it to YouTube instead and was banned for ever.

Now I try to build up !korea@lemmy.funami.tech and it's not going great, basically only lurkers there :D but that's OK. I'm still so but hurt about being banned that I don't want them here anyway.

Was it an IP ban?

No just a posting ban on my username. But I'm not an asshole to circumvent it, if they block me then they don't want me there and then they don't deserve me contributing there.

Reddit clearly spends like $6 per year on feature engineering so this would require around one millennia to implement.

It would give me new respect for reddit’s leadership, given the tight grip they have on their content at the moment.