People say it feels like old reddit and it does to a degree, but in other ways it feels better!
People are so interested in finding alternatives to the systems that we hate, and actually are passionate about supporting those things and developing them into useable and enjoyable platforms.
People are interested in spreading the word about the importance of unions and the climate crisis. Idk if those posts just get squashed on reddit, but I’ve seen SO much more talk of workers rights and informing others about them.
It just gives me hope about the future for once. Like things are happening that are different, and I know that we can’t be silenced here. This is a platform by the people, for the people, and that can’t ever be fully taken away.
This might be a weird take because I only thought about it after reading your comment, which I am really curious to hear others opinions on as well. On Reddit, I can usually guess the 3 top level comments, and for any others that I don’t - the comment came from a repost bot detecting bot that reposts the previous top level. The number of comments is higher, but sorting by new or controversial is a test of patience and morbid curiosity, so who actually sees these thousands of posts? I’m not saying what Lemmy has is better by any stretch, but it’s novel for the time being and a good break from all the stuff I’ve been complaining about for years now.
I do get FOMO from not having all that information on r/all immediately within reach, but Lemmy has really helped me curb my reddit addiction in a good way. I don’t think this really answered your question at all, but I think I am getting closer to understanding others that look past it. I was a digg refugee as well, so maybe I’m just getting used to the idea of starting over.
While I agree with your position of current reddit comments, the OP was comparing to old reddit. I feel like it’s only been true in the past 5-8 years of reddit. And while that’s not what I’m looking for, the low amount of engagement here is a bit too low where I start considering just getting like a news aggregator app. I’d prefer something with SOME discussion as that was part of the value of reddit for me.