When I first migrated from Digg I was astounded by how in a thread on some obscure topic you would find super informed nerds and enthusiasts who could wax poetic on the topic at hand. I learned so much! As the internet matured, and Reddit as well, those interactions seemed to become more rare and argument began to drive the conversation. Statements would be made and a slew of randos would plunge the depths of the interwebz to contradict, one up, or expand on that statement. I have to admit I learned a lot from this as well and did my fair share of educating myself and others. I was hoping to find that impassioned community of yesteryear where the topics were the inspiration, not the karma farming and argument. My experience to this point is that that is happening here because many of us have migrated and need/want to build these communities to the ideals asked about in this post! I am excited about the federated platform and the FOSS mentality and think it will draw those people I mentioned formerly.

All of these, pretty much like the pre-2015 Reddit.

It's been mentioned, but product recommendations from real consumers that weren't listicles of Amazon affiliate links primed for SEO.

Be able to expand more about the web and networks from here. I did that on Reddit as a jump off point.

Megathreads about exactly which entry in a video game series is the slightly better one to get into

1. Shitposting and nonsense
2. Linux and other tech news/info
3. News and commentary from normal people

I liked the positivity of the community for the most part. Reddit, to my mind, was the only largely non toxic form of social media and that will be hard to replace though I’m liking Lemmy so far.

I always liked getting into micro communities and hearing how they talked about their worlds. That might include life in obscure (relative to me) places around the world, getting into the weeds of various occupations I’ll never work in or learning about the fine details of hobbies I’ll never have. Real people having good faith conversations about highly specific things relevant to them.

A superficially meaningful escape from reality that doesn’t involve drinking to excess ~~___~~