I don't think people know. Reddit 2023 is nothing at all like Lemmy. One could be considered a household name for regular users of the Internet, the other a return to something more like FidoNet.

I come from the BBS days of the early 1980's and even social media radio before that. It has always bothered me that subreddis have mostly have no identity to the moderators and that moderation is often behind the scenes.

I guess it's like "corporate experience" that people expect this day in society... that you can walk into a generic franchise chain bar and grill and not really care who the owner/operator and bouncers are of your hangout. Anyone can start a topic/ conversation and there is just some anonymous janitorial crew who is supposed to clean up the overflowing mess if (non-venue) spam or hate messages enter into the space.

The mechanisms of who pays for the venue and the moderators also was a topic most people never bothered to think about. Like it was some taxpayer-funded city park and perhaps the admin police might spot check if anyone was causing a tragedy in that there commons. But reality is that it was a profit-seeking venue charging a cover charge in the form of selling copies of your contribution and changing the tone of your meeting space by controlling the jukebox that visitors hear in terms of advertising messages inserted into the conversation space.

Lemmy seems small, owner/operator focused, and you get a sense that each instance is like some small bar and grill where you can come and meet some strangers or friends to discuss some topics under house rules. Your tips help pay for the hosting and the jukebox isn't piped in memes from advertisers.

I remember when Reddit had known owners with known ideals, but that was a very long ago. One owner even committed suicide over his society ideals about sharing information, Ultimately I feel like a lack of participation by the moderators and owners alike made people thoughtless as to their own role in building a human community and people often felt like they were fighting machines and code.

sorry if this meanders off topic, but lately I've had some long-time friends ask me 'what is Reddit" since it is in the news lately, and I find it hard to explain what Reddit used to be (before new Reddit and the addition of images/video) vs. the corporate-like entity we know today that our contributions and participation helped empower over the past 17 years.

/ramble from a disturbed mind.

I hear you man. I went from active contributor to mostly lurking on Reddit, and it wasn't even a conscious choice. Gradually, everything became very mechanistic. I knew what the top few comments would be before going to the comments. The churn became cyclic in nature.

After just a few days here, it was actually a little disconcerting how antagonistic and hostile people there are in the comments section. That's just how people communicate, on a hair-trigger from flamewar.

I recognize your username, I saw what you wrote about SQL scaling. Can you imagine recognizing a username in a major subreddit in the reddit of today?

The dichotomy between the big communities which people subscribe to from all over Lemmy and the small meta/announcement/server issue communities for each individual instance is gonna be interesting to see develop as the userbase increases. Kinda like the difference between seeing people from your street everyday, then many more less familiar people in the city center.