There are exceptions to all of the points below, but generally:

What do you like better here than on Reddit?

Everyone is here trying to build something better. The developers are actually prioritizing transparency and user choice when making the software. Since the instances aren’t after profit, there’s no financial conflict of interest. It’s actually possible for instance admins to prioritize user experience and a healthy community instead of making a profit.

I love seeing all the different organizational structures emerging; some instances are nonprofits, some are co-ops, some are benevolent dictatorships. I think in the long run this will produce a fairer and more representative online platform.

Also my interactions feel human. If I get 5 upvotes on Lemmy or 5 likes on Pixelfed, it feels like I connected with 5 real people. On Reddit, I just can’t tell anymore.

What do you miss from Reddit?

Activity in niche communities, but that’s changing slowly.

Also, as a mod, we could still use better moderation tooling.

Do you feel the culture here is genuinely different, or does it eventually drift the same way?

I think over time it will become more like Reddit. As the user base grows, the average will shift closer to what Reddit is like. Also, at the end of the day, a number of the issues are because of how groups of humans interact and not the platform itself.

However, the reason I’m here instead of the many other Reddit alternatives is because of federation. I believe that as long as we maintain a healthy balance in the fediverse (and not let one entity control too much), we can avoid the enshitification while centralized social media becomes unbearable for more and more people.

1. I like that it’s FOSS, and that there are a lot more leftists here.

2. Some niche communities, that’s about it.

3. Yep, there’s a lot more Linux and FOSS content, as well as a lot of communists and anarchists (though Lemmy.world blocks the communist instances from you, so that should be harder to notice).

I’ve been here since the API drama, but many have been here for a lot longer.

• signal to noise ratio

It feels a bit like how Reddit was prior to the digg exodus when overnight pun & lyric threads, ascii art and terminally shit one word responses appeared.

There is the awareness to the benefit of building slowly will bring, rather than having a an uncontrolled mass exodus, that risks little to no integration to the current curated culture.

• Transparency

You can see who the mods are and a mod log and currently, people are giving time to grow the communities rather than welding power.

• Quality content

It’s not the same stories getting posted by karma farmers or by bots. It’s more curated.

• Interactions

They’re more conversational than adversarial

• Very politically left
• Very FOSS oriented
• Sometimes kind of a circlejerk

What do you like better here than on Reddit?

You won’t get banned for speaking your mind, even if that includes talking shit to bad actors who argue in bad faith. Reddit effectively protects and cultivates bad actors acting in bad faith. They can spread their misinformation. When you point out that they are dipshits and why, complete with sources, you get banned while they continue to spread their misinformation.

Threads also stay active longer on Lemmy. If you’re a few hours late to a Reddit post, too late. No one will see or interact with your comment. On Lemmy a thread can stay active for a few days.

What do you miss from Reddit?

The more nuanced subs. That’s literally it. Lemmy doesn’t have a lot of the subs I had on Reddit…yet. Mostly art subs dedicated to very specific forms of art. There’s nothing else to miss. Reddit is quickly becoming a cesspool that is losing what worth it once had.

Do you feel the culture here is genuinely different

Yes. There are notably less dipshit conservatives on here than on Reddit. I don’t care if that makes me sound like a partisan asshole. I am partisan when it comes to modern American conservatives. They are shitstain fascists and I don’t want them to be anywhere near me. I don’t view them as good people and I’ve never met one that argued in good faith. I respect and desire alternate viewpoints, but I don’t respect or desire conservative viewpoints, because they’re always in bad faith, if not outright racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or xenophobic. To give you an idea, Lemmy users ran the conservatives out of the actual conservative sub and it’s effectively used for mocking conservatives now. So yeah, Lemmy isn’t a big fan of shitstain conservatives. Which means on an average day, I’m reading a lot less filth than I was on Reddit.

What do you like better here than on Reddit?

The interfaces are better, and being able to integrate with mastodon is interesting.

What do you miss from Reddit?

The size of the communities, really. On Reddit, a lot of the subs have grown big enough that they can maintain themselves, whereas here, they’re pretty much dead without input. A few of the more interesting counterpart communities that I would frequent a tonne on Reddit are dead now, and if you’re just one user, it does feel like spam to try and contribute to it constantly.

It’s really only a limit subset of communities that seem very active at all, and they are generally news or politics based.

Do you feel the culture here is genuinely different, or does it eventually drift the same way?

Bit of both. The culture in the larger communities would drift the way of Reddit just by volume, but the smaller ones are a bit more unique, and not always in a good way. Because Lemmy is a bit more tech-focused, I find a lot of the main medium-sized communities tend to have similar abrasiveness you see a bit in tech, though it can depend on both community and server.

• Much higher quality interactions
• Lot less random bot posts or subs that are 99% bots/trash stories
• Not enough content to always keep me engaged when I am looking to mindlessly read some things
• Many communities are mostly dead. Even if you want to revive them, no mods makes that difficult
• culture is completely different

More chill here

decentralization and the lack of reddit admins

pretty much every subreddit i was in

it skews a bit more tech literate but it’s mostly the same besides that

• Cozy
• Authentic
• Lately, it feels like everything on Reddit is treated like a joke, and you see an endless string of puns and snarky comments. I like that you can have a serious discussion about a topic on Lemmy without it unraveling unlike Reddit.

Good day! I’m here for around ~2 months.

• Something that I like better here, is the higher average level of thought put in the comments. Fewer dismissive one-liners, fever thoughts that seem to start and end within a single second. That does not go for all communities, but I’ve received some great help when I posted some questions, and posts where I shared info got valuable comments too. Reddit can also be good for this - but sometimes not exactly on par to the quality level.

• Another plus, and that’s obvious, Lemmy is a free platform where you know you won’t be cut away, or have to tolerate a bad UI with animations and opening treasure chests because the for-profit core of the business thinks it’ll sell well. (The legal goal of any Reddit emloyee is to maximize company’s profits. Not satisfy user’s needs. Only in the places where these two coincide you get something.)

• I miss certain specific communities.

• Also the feel of it sometimes: 9x% of all communities here are unofficial of course. And migrating your community here might be scary, of course, because the total number of Redditors is magnitudes higher (these redditors are not all in YOUR community, but the lizard brain is nevertheless afraid of such commitments).

• A bit of both, different and the same. I think the people and their motivations are a lil bit different, and you can feel it. But it’s still also people. Having their jobs, doing things for fun or out of boredom, etc etc. So also the same in a way.

Perhaps a wrapping thought. For my posts and comments personally, I’ve felt that communities here are larger than what I thought they would be based on numbers. You do get responses and help even in smaller communities. Maybe it’s a phenomena that for a smaller group, the noise levels are lower, so more people can survive the noise and continue reading besides “best of the month” filters. So they would go on and respond to something that would otherwise be filtered out as overwhelming.
Dunno.
Onboard and tell us how it feels later ;-)

What do you like better here than on Reddit?

It’s simple and doesn’t try to overwhelm you with pointless features just to pander to Techbros. Not only it is open-source and can be self-hosted, but it also part of the Fediverse. I originally heard about it when someone was talking about it on my Mastodon feed so I check it out and have a love/hate relationship with it.

What do you miss from Reddit?

Really niche subreddit on there to be honest. And while yes, I can “be the change that [I] want to see”, it takes lot of effort to:

• Posting regularly on that community (Lemmy’s version of subreddit just a FYI)
• Trying to promote it and having a thick skin that not everyone would but maybe there’s few that might be interested to giving it a try

But otherwise, I might try throw my hat to the ring and give it a try again at some point. But to be honest, I’m not too sure I would be the best moderator but who knows. Never say never.

Do you feel the culture here is genuinely different, or does it eventually drift the same way?

Yes. I find Lemmy has massive FOSS/DIY-Tech culture embedded which I find FOSS community just in general to be very hit and miss. Great for if you wanting to find FOSS project and support related to whatever Open-Source Software you are using. The major downside that is does feel like at times, a echo chamber of the same opinion and also the lack of nuances which can be frustrating. If you mention anything that isn’t FOSS or something that is very mainstreamed that most normies (and I hate using that word) likes, just expect some bitchy comments about it in the comments selection.

And also expect a lot of dry-humour and sarcasm just in general.

It’s great I come here to argue with people until I am forced to assign myself homework. Reddit just bans you over and over unless you are 100% chungus at all times.

Something that’s a little different compared to other social media platforms (and isn’t on your list of thought/questions) is being able to judge books by their covers.

Since you can choose which is your home instance is based on the rules, moderation, and general vibe, the instance someone is from can tell you A LOT about them. There are some users who just mute all users from certain instances, because of this.

If you’re on Lemmy.world (which is based on the Netherlands, but everyone just assumes is from the USA), you likely won’t be muted because of your home instance since it’s basically the default.