On leaving Reddit for greener pastures

It’s been a few years since I’ve used Reddit myself, but through Louis Rossmann’s videos I’ve been following the current drama a bit.
I must say, I’m not the least bit sad or surprised about Reddit’s current situation. Quite the contrary: I’m happy about it. The site has been a shit show at least since they introduced the new Reddit. It became a sluggish, JavaScript ridden mess that I wanted to avoid using at all costs, and so I did.

Now that Reddit’s changes to their API pricing are through, moderators of various subreddits have started protesting by locking their subreddits. Reddit’s response was to play this down, saying it’s “noise” and it will pass like every other incidence’s response from the user base before, and that all will continue as planned. A few days after this, they forcefully unlocked the subreddits that were protesting.

To be frank, this is as far as I want to follow this. It’s a shit show, which is very much on brand for Reddit.
The reason I’m writing this is not that this is happening, it’s what the considered alternatives are. You’d hope that the users learned their lesson and would avoid trusting companies with a platform to speak and with their data, but no. It’s been getting worse, because the alternative that seems to be sprouting from this is… Discord.

How the FUCK does anyone go from Reddit, a link aggregator and forum, to Discord, a private chat platform. Not only is Discord owned by a company, just like Reddit is, and it’s not the slightest bit open source or user owned in any way¹, it also has nothing, and I absolutely mean NOTHING to do with a forum.
The recent trend of open source projects building their communities on Discord has been bad enough for accessibility and searchability of information, but Reddit users trying to shove their forum into Discord is another nightmare completely.

I think at this point in my blogging journey my readers are aware that I despise Discord with a passion and wish a quick and painful death upon it and other platforms like it that do or will exist in the future. Possibly seeing it grow pisses me off to such a degree that I felt like contributing to the noise that is the Reddit drama. But what makes my blood boil even more is the user’s apparent incapability of learning from their mistake and choosing a platform that benefits them and doesn’t use them as a way to gain more money², not a company and its shareholders.

If you are a user of Reddit and want to follow the community, recommend truly open alternatives, like Lemmy, to the community. Be at the forefront of the possible move to a better platform and avoid making the same mistakes as before at all costs. Moving to yet another platform where the user isn’t in control of their data, particularly Discord, is a mistake, and this decision will bite Reddit users in their asses again in the future.

Lastly, if you, dear reader, keep using Reddit for no good reason, you should really turn to yourself and ask yourself if you want to support the way that this company is treating you and others. Is this really, truly something you want to voice your opinion for, or do you want to see others and yourself some place better in the future? If you want your community to thrive you should leave Reddit at once, and find refuge in greener pastures. Your community isn’t bound to a platform, and this is the best time to move on.

Don’t blindly follow the majority in their decisions on what platform to migrate to. Form your own opinion on this matter by researching the alternatives and make a change for the better. Voice your opinion for a free, community owned platform that can thrive far into the future. That is my plea to you as a supporter for a free and open internet.