After 6-7 years on reddit via Boost. It really was a big part of my life and it all falling apart really bothers me. Especially since it helped me mentally so much on so many levels.
Also I'm having a really hard time dealing with all the alternatives. I'm trying to get used to kbin but while I know it's still the early stages of the product, as a UX Designer, it just doesn't feel good to use at all at this stage. And it's still a big question mark if the communities and niches I enjoyed on reddit will even grow or thrive on any of the alternatives. Which again really sucks.
But despite the disruption it's caused, fuck reddit and fuck spez. No going back.
Fingers crossed that the alternatives grow and thrive.
User experience is an extremely important part of on going growth. I feel like even with the migration under the circumstances, the onboarding and learning curve for new users is very difficult on kbin or lemmy vs reddit or other mainstream socials.
This may seem trivial to motivated users to go through the setup and learning required but for further migration and adoption the UX definitely needs significant improvement. I haven't seen or heard much being said on this subject regarding the fediverse in a serious way.
Products that are already simple to understand and use, spend time refining and reducing friction for growth and retention. I know these products are in their early stages but while the fediverse has its pros, I am concerned that the rate of improvement of UX for the fediverse will be very slow. But I am hopeful that people will keep pushing to make it better.