I’ve never understood how or why this is an issue.
Shortly after Spez’s petulant AMA, I ran across a link for Lemmy. org. It looked interesting, so I followed it. I poked around a bit, and it still looked interesting, so I picked an instance and created an account. I played with it a bit, then I went back and found a different instance that looked interesting and created an account there too. And I just kept reading and posting, just like I’d done on Reddit (and half a dozen different sites before that). Some instances came and went and I lost some accounts and created others and eventually settled into a few that I like best, and just read and posted and didn’t leave. The end.
But it seems that every time I turn around, someone’s going on about the hardships of moving to a different site and all the difficulties to be overcome and yadda yadda yadda, and I just don’t get it. At all.
I think it depends on how you use those different sites
I transitioned from Reddit to Lemmy pretty seamlessly like you did. Around the time it became clear they weren’t backing down on the API thing and other bullshit, I looked up some reddit alternatives, chose Lemmy, and kept right on doing what I was doing on Reddit.
On the other hand, I’m having a bit of a hard time ditching Facebook.
The difference is I know the people I’m friends with on Facebook, I have actual relationships with them, I’m there to interact with those specific people. Leaving Facebook without finding a decent alternative and getting those people to switch with me (which probably means they’d also have to convince their other friends to switch too) means losing contact with those people.
On Reddit and now Lemmy, I’m basically here to read articles and have conversations with strangers about those articles. I don’t really form lasting relationships here, I don’t recognize usernames outside of maybe 2 or 3 big names. If they weren’t full of the worst kinds of idiots, trolls, bots, and scammers I could pretty much get what I’m looking for from the comment section on a news site.
Some people do build those kinds of relationships here though, they come to Reddit or Lemmy, at least in part, to interact with specific users and communities that they have some sort of connection to, and when you have connections like that, it gets pretty hard to leave that platform. Unless all of your friends leave at the same time and go to the same platform, you need to either lose some friends, split your time between the two platforms (neither of which may be as good as what you had because not everyone is there) or you have to find some other way of staying in touch and keeping the friendship going (which is often much easier said than done)
Most people’s relationship with any given corporate / algorithm driven social media platform is akin to a drug addict.
Start viewing people who can’t imagine quitting cold turkey as drug addicts, and it makes a lot more sense.
This is what happens when corpos have oodles and oodles from data on how to drive ‘engagement’… and then they do that, via algorithmic content feeds and dark patterns and other kinds of manipulation.
These people are addicted to convenience, to the dopamine hits, to the rage bait, to their validating echo chambers.
They don’t care that it makes them stupid, misinformed, angry, takes all their time, ruins their attention span, makes them feel like ugly failures amidst a sea of beautiful, rich influencers.
If you can’t stop ‘voluntarily’ doing something that’s bad for you without a giant fuss, without needing a guided intervention, you’re an addict.
I’ve been trying for weeks to get friends to move to Signal. They don’t have to delete WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to use Signal. Some of these people have got degrees in various computer disciplines and still won’t even give it a try. I don’t understand the reluctance to try new software either. If their job or uni asks them to use a piece of software they’ll try it no bother but if a friend asks it’s impossible. It’s so strange.
Their life would be easier if you didn’t use Signal, simple as.
I don’t agree with it, but that’s the reason.
There’s an xkcd about this: https://xkcd.com/1810/
As the only Android user in a social group of iPhone users I felt this way too much.
You can forward yourself iMessages from a mac via bluebubbles
So just buy a mac. Got it.
