I recently made the jump from Reddit for the same immediate reasons as everyone else. But, to be honest, if it was just the Reddit API cost changes I wouldn’t be looking to jump ship. I would just weather the protest and stay off Reddit for a few days. Heck I’d probably be fine paying a few bucks a month if it helped my favorite Reddit app (Joey) stay up and running.
No, the real reason I am taking this opportunity to completely switch platforms is because for a couple years now Reddit has been unbearably swamped by bots. Bot comments are common and bot up/downvotes are so rampant that it’s becoming impossible to judge the genuine community interest in any post or comment. It’s just Reddit (and maybe some other nefarious interests) manufacturing trends and pushing the content of their choice.
So, what does Lemmy do differently? Is there anything in Lemmy code or rules that is designed to prevent this from happening here?
Arguably, some of the platforms I mentioned have even more of an interest on preventing bots. If I want to place ads on your website, but you can’t tell me if out of 100 impressions 10 are bots or 90 are bots… I’m not wasting my money, or at the very least, I’ll expect rates significantly lower than other competitors.
I don’t know. Wouldn’t their motivation be to know exactly how many bots there are (so they could disclose the number if/when asked) but continue to let them proliferate?