Well, reddit had chat and we weren't allowed to have it because they decided they didn't want to create an AP for 3rd parties to use.

I wouldn't presume Lemmy will lock features to its own app or site in an effort to monetize them or keep their users in their own apps.

I expect that ljdawson will bring in the features of the Lemmy site over to the app as he sees fit. And that we'll have a pretty complete experience.

Sync for Reddit also has avatars. I had my weird little snoo character, but I have seen plenty of people's uploaded avatars. I imagine it's a setting you had disabled.

Lemmy got avatars? You mean those profile pictures?

Sync for Reddit included them, they were just off by default.

I downvoted this post. One thing that made Reddit better than other social networks was that it focused on content and not on users. The mere fact that Reddit is called a social network now instead of a link aggregation platform is IMHO the result of adding more and more personalization features.

On other networks the look of a user or their public image is always front and center and is almost more important than the content.

Hacker news is in its own way the better reddit (again: IMHO) as the only thing that distinguishes users is their username. So we always have to engage with a users content.

I hope lemmy will not go the way that Reddit did in adding all these personalization features. They didn't make Reddit better, they simply increased the dopamine hits that people get. Reddit didn't improve because engaging with it was becoming more satisfying in the psycho-chemical department. It just became more profitable in the ad-revenue department.

Lemmy doesn't need to be optimized for ad-revenue. It can be optimized for thoughtful, civil discussions instead.