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.
Give it time to settle down. Mastodon vs. Pleroma vs. Misskey, and recently Akkoma vs. Calckey, etc etc etc. all of this stuff isn't really new. Use this. No use that.
Just use what you like. I prefer /kbin. Likely will always. If someone judges me for using a software they don't, then I probably didn't want to talk to them anyway.
Also keep in mind that /kbin was in very, very slow development for a very long time before a lot of things all happened at once. Very much a passion project. Like this is someone building a shed in their garage for their garden except somehow now suddenly 50 thousand people are in your garden and they all want in.
akkoma vs calckey?
have i missed anything?
Oh I mean like... I do see posts saying hey if you used X instead of Y you could do Z. And I have been seeing them ever since I joined years ago. That's just how these things go. Sorry, didn't mean to imply some kind of drama and then disappoint you like that.
I use that exact metaphor. I picture ernest hammering the final board for the days work. He hoists the hammer onto his shoulder, wipes his brow, and see a sea of people running at him from a block away. A bunch are carrying signs that say, "We can't wait to live in ernest's palace," while others say, "We're good with just a roof. No big hurry. We'll make it work."