My first inbox message on Reddit came after I made a supportive comment in response to a post on an abuse survivors subreddit and that message was so vile that I spent the whole 12 years not opening my inbox/replies page except maybe 3 or 4 times. I read posts in communities I liked and essentially shouted my comments out into the void, then ducked out to read the next comment/post.

Reddit had some great communities, but it also had lots of horrible communities that attracted all kinds of awful people to the site who goaded each other on. Subreddits were only ever as good as their individual moderation and policies since the site as a whole preferred promoting free speech over civility. I appreciate that my Lemmy server has a serious anti hate stance and a policy to defederate from servers that allow hate to flourish. I've been cautiously keeping up with my notifications here and actually reading my replies. I know trolls can still find ways to slip through the cracks sometimes, but it's nice to know they aren't actively courted and supported over here.