I think we're at the point that we need to stop thinking of things as "ex-redditors" and now as "kbinauts". While it's true that many people have come here from reddit, it's not "people from reddit", it's "people on kbin".

One thing I've noticed about the fediverse is that different instances have different 'feels' to them, and I think kbin is uniquely positioned to emphasize this a bit, since kbin differentiates itself almost ironically as "not a lemmy instance". It pops up in so many threads of lemmy users discussing things, and then the random "oh this is a kbin thing".

In sharing communities, it's common to have a "for kbin users" link.

I see quite a few lemmy users differentiating themselves "as lemmy" as well. It's an interesting phenomenon.

ultimately I think you're right though. the sooner a proper culture can take root, and a particular "way of doing things" is cemented, the more likely it is that kbin will stick around.

All Reddit had to do was STFU and wait for a month or two. Lack of any reaction or results is probably the most demotivating thing in all human experience. Go forward with the plan, say nothing, give no interviews, send no messages, do nothing to the mods or the subreddits, and within just a couple weeks, the users would get bored and force the place to return to normal. Either through pressuring their mods or just starting new subreddits with the same theme as the closed ones. The effect on the front page and the common lurker would be minimal and transient.

Instead, Spez has to go around slinging shit from his diaper at literally every opportunity, taking more and more extreme actions, hiding behind a fake mod name, saying super salty things to everyone, etc. He's basically the only person continuing to add fuel to this dumpster fire. It's literally just him. If he got sick or hit by a bus or something and had to shut up for even just a week while he was recovering, Reddit would lose interest in the whole thing, because without a visible enemy to fight, the users would turn their frustrations on each other. But he's clearly suffering from some deep psychic wound that keeps him from being able to shut his pie hole.

The software is open source. No one owns it.

Different instances are run by different people of varying political backgrounds.

Mastodon leans left mostly. Pleroma leans right mostly. Lemmy leans left and even has or had hard coded censorship baked into their software. Misskey is Japanese language mostly, or populated by weebs of all flavors.

Your experience will definitely depend on who’s running the server but the overall integrated platform can’t be shut down by any one person or group. You can always change servers or platforms and reconnect with people.