It finally happened: many Reddit 3rd party apps have officially shut down. With it comes an influx of users looking for a new place.
With the influx come new points of view, new kinds of users with different expectations. This change is already visible, with obvious trolls and attention seekers throwing out bait. What if there is more to it however?
Browsing casually I noticed more and more kbin posts critical of its development, its functioning, and the speed at which @ernest is able to implement updates.
I find it odd that, while denouncing kbin for its current flaws in deployment (despite being clearly stated to be in alpha) the owner of that instance proceeds to praise Lemmy and wave away concerns regarding its devs who
(Lemmy devs) are willing to create a product that makes the entire internet better, and share it with everyone, for free, regardless of your beliefs.
despite having proven that their politics do affect their product.
"Just defederate" in my opinion also is not an argument. It's closing your eyes to a problem propagated by those who benefit from influence from the shadows - on both sides of the political spectrum.
Hence my mention of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) and Tribalism.
Pushing users towards a preferred platform (in this case, Lemmy) by seeding threadiverse posts with statements such as
- kbin isn't ready
- kbin won't have the same engagement as Lemmy
- the single kbin dev @ernest doesn't have enough time/skill
- it will never be as good as Reddit
will just lead to Reddit 2.0 painted in red and yellow. As kbin users, we should combat this kind of behavior.
We're all here for a better threadiverse, and a singular means of interacting will not be beneficial to its growth. The reason we're here is because we want a Reddit-like environment, not a single 'frontpage of the internet'. Tribalism in the threadiverse will get us nowhere fast.
Perhaps it was unintentional that kbin was not federating properly with Lemmy instances. What I am afraid of is, knowing the track record of Lemmy devs, it follows a scary trajectory, reminiscent of a few tried and true tactics Reddit and others have used before.
I'd like to state that I am not unbiased. I am helping out with Artemis, a kbin app currently in development.
I do not want to support or make use of Lemmy for many reasons. However, I could not care less if someone is from a Lemmy instance, or if I interact with them in that same space. If I see Lemmy.ml/Lemmygrad.ml behind their name, I will be cautious of their intentions however.
Let's hope we, not as 'rexxiters', 'kbinauts' or 'lemmings', but as fediverse users can actually create a product that makes the entire internet better, and share it with everyone, for free, regardless of our beliefs.
@SnowboardBum @kjr
I am presuming @PabloDiscobar means that in general, online spaces gravitate towards American-focused content posted by Americans, for Americans, moderated by Americans. The web is a different place when you're about 6 hours ahead of the main content generators. Other kinds of views and experiences get posed, but get washed away the moment the East Coast wakes up.
An example is Reddit's 'WorldNews' sub mainly focusing on American issues. As a Dutch person, I would not consider some Texan individual's issues with city council world news.
I gotta say, as an American on kbin, I'm actually really enjoying waking up and seeing the majority of the posts on the front page be in German. It's a nice reminder we're not the center of the universe and there's a whole rest of the world out there, lol.
I liked it for a day or two, but then it started interrupting the material I wanted to read. Nothing adversarial, just a practicality problem. So, now I block those magazines with a hardy salute and, "Best of luck, you crazy kids!"
I hope things are going well for them, but there's nothing I can add to a picture of some person I don't recognize, on a mystery topic I can't read, in response to comments I can't read.