The humor is way more redditty on lemmy. Which I realize sounds nonsensical, but a huge portion of lemmy users are former reddit users who both think reddit humor is funny and have like 10 years of reddit humor memes to draw on. The “early” (2012ish) reddit I’m remembering had less of that and a lot more of what current users would consider cringe, like f7u12 comics. And a lot more general weird nerd awkwardness… like the frozen soap post.

There's no jailbait, no upskirts, no fatpeoplehate, so Lemmy is still better

No, Reddit 10 years ago was the kind of place where people who knew things would correct people who didn't.

Pretty much all social media today, including Lemmy, are now places where people who don't know things correct people who do.

not really. earliest days of reddit didnt even have subreddits.

lemmy cant be reddit 10 years ago, because the internet has changed in that time too

No. Not even slightly. Fifteen years ago reddit was still far bigger and more active than the fediverse.
Here there's barely any content today, back then I was regularly getting 30+ pages deep into reddit when I couldnt sleep most nights, and I wasn't even close to the end of that days content.

No. I'd say the whole internet felt different 10+ years ago. Including this, what people are on here and how they behave. And I'd day the average intellect is different. But that could also be me growing up.

I feel like Lemmy has WAY more crazy political views, like extreme leftist and BoTh SiDeS people. That’s probably more of a symptom of Russian propoganda across the wider Internet that wasn’t as prevalent 10+ years ago.

Not really, it's way more decentralized than reddit.

I wonder how the shift from Reddit to Lemmy compares to the shift from Digg to Reddit.

I am a much different person today than I was when I started at reddit so many years ago, so that might have something to do with my assessment, but --

Federated social media today is like what reddit was maybe eight years ago. Fills a hole, bearable, occasionally really good, but still a lot of shitposting and propaganda. Ten, twelve and more years ago, reddit was a really good place. As above, maybe it's because I was younger then, maybe it's because the world has changed so very much in the meantime. I'm sure those play into it, but in any event, it was better then than the fediverse of today, content-wise.

I’ve been on Reddit for 16 years and I’d say yes it’s very similar. Like Reddit back then it was very tech focused and quite liberal.

I do think people are a bit more vicious online these days than they used to be and a bit more polarised.

From a content perspective there used to be more blog content than tech news content, but it’s fairly similar. What I like about Lemmy is it’s far less commercial and the conversation is more genuine.

However I don’t think Lemmy will become Reddit in 15 years, I think it may languish in eternal obscurity and I’m actually okay with that.

Reddit exploded when Digg crumbled and the same could happen with Reddit crumbling but idk, there seems to be some stickiness to Internet websites these days.

No, absolutely not. Lemmy is held together by "it's not Reddit" while Reddit was "here's this cool stuff!"

Close…but no.

Reddit was good for some fresh content, but a decade ago it was still a lot of bots and karma whoring taking over, reposts, and people falling over themselves to be the first to make the flippant quips that got all the upvotes on any topic. Reddit still did have all the nsfw/nsfl subs then, so there was still a little Wild West left in it.

That said, Reddit very much still had a community feel to it a decade ago. IMO that’s completely gone in all but the niche subs that are there specifically for the community. You don’t get to have conversations there much anymore. It’s usually someone deriding you pretty quickly when they disagree, and the downvote button is the first thing hit.

Lemmy is IMO still trying to settle on what it actually is. I think it’s better than Reddit was a decade ago because people are more inclined to converse than quip (though that very much does happen) but the low hanging fruit comment doesn’t always get the most upvotes, which is really nice. I enjoy that the fediverse is a group of connected communities rather than a bunch of communities all under one roof like Reddit - but I guess that’s the point, isn’t it?

Way smaller.

Never will be what Reddit was or is, because it's based on federation and defederation.

Lemmy's far smaller than Reddit was 10 or even 15 years ago.

There are some good foundations in place, but there's a loonnnggg way to go before we're seeing platform maturity.

Pretty much. At least Lemmy is a lot more like Reddit was when I started on Reddit (~2015), than Reddit is now.

No, it's better.

Kinda got the same small in crowd vibe as old 2012 reddit, but less big and more jaded.

It's big enough to binge for a few hours but you do run out and got to wait, I was in withdraw for a little. Mods, mods never change.

It's probably better than old Reddit.

Just keep in mind you're participating in a federation of communities controlled by the many. Although Lemmy.world is probably the largest by far.

No but hopefully it is something better than Reddit has ever been. It’s awesome watching the community grow and cater to more niche interests.