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How can I leave Reddit?
I tried finding other alternatives to reddit, which is what got me here. I still love the content of the subs that I followed and am not wanting to really step away. I'd like to as a matter of my own principles... but I still want it. So much knowledge has been amassed on that platform.
Do you guys still mess with reddit regularly? If not, how?
I found that logging out was enough to overcome the inertia for me.
It takes long enough to log back in that I usually come back around to remembering why I left reddit in the first place.
Also, if you browse /all and /popular you'll see the barren wasteland of bots and ads that the site has become, also helps remind me why I'm not going back.
Agreed. Logging out cut my usage by probably 50%.
The new algo for r/popular is bringing all the trash to the surface. It was bad before, but wow it's a cesspool of crappy and largely inauthentic content. If I read another AITA where the OP donated a kidney to their abusive/controlling friend but didn't also buy them a get well soon card so they're mad about it...
I'm probably just gonna stick to the city/local subs.
I'm also watching local subs and a few more as long as they maintain good content. As is, I no longer check it on my phone and might drop by the desktop site every so often but that's about it. I've migrated to nextdoor to at least see what people are saying for local stuff and discord for a bunch of gaming communities but I haven't found a perfect replacement for reddit and twitter. I love Tildes for what it is but I'm still seeking other pools of knowlege or in some cases, just pretty pictures of weather or cute puppy stuff.
Squabbles is good for memes and cute animal pictures
Squabbles really does satisfy most of my Reddit like content desires. Conversation is still pretty weak but there's only so much to say about the 15th cat picture you scroll past that day.
I think Lemmy is the current closest site to Reddit, with Squabbles acting as sort of a mix of Reddit and Twitter.
So why use r/popular? Or r/all?
For niche interests/locations Reddit still works fine.
Because interesting stuff did pop to r/all from time to time. Basically it's the place look at after I've checked out the niche subs I'm interested in atm.
Because I'd have to use the app or website, which are just, so awful. RIF still works but you can't log in, so you can't control your feed, and like some others have mentioned,
Holy cow there are so many bots.
I had no idea it got that bad. Every day there's some moronic but engaging bot askreddit question at the top of the feed with a bunch of bot responses.
Fyi for the moment the website's OK when used as old.reddit.com with the excellent RES browser plugin, although there's doubt over how long old.reddit.com will survive spez's monetization push.
The RedReader android app also works pretty well as it was exempted from the API charges on the basis of supporting people with visual handicaps, but RiF was a lot nicer.
But I'm moving on and only using reddit minimally now
I guess I just use reddit differently
I deleted my account too. I can't log back in even if I wanted to.
Yep had a 17 year old account, deleted all my comments/posts and then deleted my account. Delete the app. Now the site is so insufferable to use I don't even miss it.
My god, seventeen years? How would you describe Reddit's general descent into madness over time?
Not op but, I was a Reddit user for 15 years. It was always madness if you knew where to look. I once stumbled upon r/cutedeadgirls. It was accurate, cute being subjective I reckon.
Edit. I didn’t hang around long but I saw that there was a lot of content. So that was worrisome.
So many subs I visited that way. Top 3 of previous year, top 3 of all time, and... I'm out.
It was such a slow and steady process that you really didn't even notice it until the monetization efforts became intrusive and gimmicky.
For the longest time, it was just Reddit Gold. As soon as they watered down Gold and added all the rest of the rewards, it was pretty obvious what they were doing.
I'm still miffed that they made Reddit Silver an official thing, but I was kinda hoping that it would lead to a sort of award treadmill, starting with a reddit bronze and ending up with "reddit pocket lint" or something.
I was an 11-year account, so I didn't get to experience much of the site before the digg migration.
However, as someone who was (I'd say) smack in the middle of reddit's demographic, the noticeable decline for me started in '14 with the /r/fatpeoplehate thing, the fappening thing & the US midterm elections — the '14 midterms are where I really noticed the bots and ad accounts taking hold.
The mainstream subreddits never really recovered IMO. The traffic around J-Law's nudes made everyone sit up and notice how big the site had become. From late '14 and onward, it got impossible to tell how much of the hate speech was real, how much of it was just driven by bots for clicks; the blatant spam accounts got too dense to cut through, especially once the '16 presidential campaign was going.
The experience of reddit since then has been totally subtractive on the admins' side, with the site's quality and trustworthiness degrading to the point that my 3rd party app was really the only thing keeping me hanging on. It seems like I've been relying on RES + 3rd parties to make the site usable for the better part of nine years. With Sync gone, so am I.
Pro tip: if you’re not ready to delete your account you can change your password to a random string of characters without writing it down. Then log out. You can always recover your account through email. But it’ll be way more of a hassle.
I can't delete my account because that's what I did when I created it. You need to verify your password to delete the account and I don't know what it is. I've been autologged in for years, lol and I honestly cba to reset my password and then delete the account..
I didn't delete my account. Instead I used a tool to delete every submission or comment I ever contributed to the site, and then I left one final comment that was basically "Fuck you /u/spez!".
This has basically worked for me. Unfortunately I cannot completely divorce myself from Reddit as there are communities there I need to be a part of, but going to the home page and seeing how terrible the contents are keeps me from scrolling through them. Inside my account I have also unsubscribed from all the "popcorn" subreddits that have some surface-level interest but don't actually have very deep content. That prevents me from idly scrolling through things.
i’m curious what subs you need to be a part of. I can’t think of a single thing online i MUST be a part of.
Specific support groups that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else. Mental health is important.
In fact I would argue that Mental health can be just as important as physical health and if you found good support groups that help you do not abandon them. I, for one, will certainly not judge you for caring for yourself.
City/location-based communities. Helps to have an aggregated view of what's happening in the city before I head out that's more civilized than Nextdoor or to vet a random meetup on Eventbrite.
Plenty of big enough English-language social networks will revolve around the majority of US posters and US culture and I can't really relate to any of that.
This is also what I did with Facebook, hard at first but managed to overcome it.
I did the opposite. I stayed logged in but instead unsubscribed from everything but the modcoord sub to just check in on the train wreck once in a while. I would now have to go out of my way to search all the subs I want to look at which for me was enough to keep me off Reddit. I also only use old.reddit and only on my phone so the user experience is garbage compared up RIF which is what I used for I think 8-9 years.
Once RIF stopped working for me, I had maybe a day or two of constantly checking my phone to habitually try to click on where the RIF icon used to be on my phone's home screen. I then replaced the empty RIF icon spot with a Chrome website link button that goes to Tildes. I don't really miss Reddit anymore.
What do you like to see on Reddit that keeps you coming back? You don't have to stop using Reddit if you don't want to.
I did the same as you and just didn't go back again. The next day after deleting RIF I was free of it. I don't miss it and don't care about the subs I still enjoyed anymore. And this was after 15 years too. Finally just had enough.
Same, I had used Reddit for 11 years.
The person who made the RIF app is working on a Tildes app. I'm so excited!
This resonates perfectly with me, its still sometimes get me withbthe habitually attempts to open the now gone RIF app. Glad we have this alternate community of like minded individuals and the old style of Reddit content.
It still does actually work. But not logged in. I actually go there to check a few of the niche subs I was a part of. But I'm no longer logged in. It's still a much better experience than the web or the app.
It's only a matter of time until Reddit kills it off though. Right now it's just running in zombie mode as talklittle has removed it from the playstore and walked away. Reddit could it directly by nuking it's api key or indirectly with a slight tweak to the API. Regardless, they won't let it continue indefinitely. The only reason it's not dead is likely because the engineering team was given no warning of Spez's tantrum either, so they're having to actually develop the ways of cutting off access.
Yeah eventually, as all things that are great online go! But for now it's there. When I go back I look at how negative and snarky the comments have gotten. It's quite sad. It was such a wonderful place
Same with Apollo for me. I’m using Mastodon, Lemmy (which is basically Reddit already anyways), Tildes now, with 1 or several third party clients each in addition to the “official” sites, and have zero desire to use the official Reddit app.
(I still remember it somewhat from before using Apollo, and can only imagine the constant distraction everywhere/bad UI&UX/poorly functioning media player/battery stealing has gotten worse since then)
On Desktop, there’s still old.reddit.com (… yet) but since I’m logged out, I don’t really feel the need to go trough “my” home feed, checking for new submissions all the time.
All in all, the switch away from Reddit, given my previous usage/screen times, went far more smoothly and easier than I would’ve expected beforehand.
I replaced my RIF icon with an E-Reader app at the same location on my home screen. Now I end up reading a page or two from a book instead, and I couldn't be happier.
What keeps me coming back?
Very few subs really now that I think about it. Other than that, looking for answers to how to complete a diy or troubleshoot something that I am working on.
An extreme example, but it's on purpose, so bear with me please:
Let's say you find a restaurant in your area, and the food there is really really good. Super delicious, you can't have enough. After a while though, you learn the owner is an unapologetic racist that regularly beats his wife and kids. It doesn't change the (delicious) taste of the food, but do you continue going there and buying all the dishes you are now used to and you love? Or do you decide that your principles are more important, and go eat somewhere else?
It's an oversimplification, but I think it's what it boils down to - YOU have to decide what you want to prioritize, your principles or the pleasure you get from the content. I am not attaching any judgment to that decision by the way (much easier to do for an internet forum than for a wife-beating restaurant owner). It is your decision, and yours alone.
And if you decide you do want to leave but find it difficult, just try to dig deeper and find the REAL reason why. If you love a particular sub, as yourself WHY (preferably multiple times, as you peel the layers off). Let's say you really like a sub posting pictures of puppies. Why? Is it because it makes you warm and fuzzy inside? Or because of the friendly community? Or it reminds you of the pup you had as a kid? Regardless of the answer, try to think if you can find THAT elsewhere - is there anything else that gives you warm and fuzzy feeling? Another friendly community? Other place that reminds you of Sparky? That might help deal with the addiction to reddit if you feel it's too strong to quit cold turkey.
Im dying XD. This answer made it worse lmfaoo.
Instead of me questioning how I can let go of a site, you got me questioning whether or not I could forgo a favorite restaurant if the owner is a monster. Short answer.... I DONT KNOW!
You got me questioning myself on a way deeper level and I can't stop laughing at how shitty I might be because honestly.... Im probably still gonna eat there.
Maybe I'd just tell myself that he might beat her harder if his business is failing and that I am doing a good thing by remaining a patron.
You know, I love this answer because this literally happened to me. I grew up in New Jersey, the diner capital of the US, and in college, I frequented a certain diner at literally all hours, it was the closest one that was open at ungodly hours and I have very fond memories visiting it as a poor college student. I moved to Boston for a couple of years for work, and while I was there I found out that one of the managers was transphobic to the point where they followed a patron into the bathroom and berated them with slurs or something of the sort. I've since moved back to my hometown and I havent been back, partially because there's a lot of different places to eat already but mostly because I don't feel comfortable direcly supporting that type of behavior.
I kinda feel the same for reddit now. If I end up on the page from a Google search, even, I end up feeling more icky than anything end end up closing the site faster than usual. I'm not saying I'm a saint or anything but yeah.
A couple recent topics you might be interested in
I'm extremely new here but happy to have a place where it looks like normal conversations can happen. There are still some highly niche subreddits that, as you say, really have no other analog elsewhere, so I still check them out occasionally.
But, since the death of RiF, I have had virtually no mobile consumption of the site which has resoundingly limited how much exposure I have to the site.
I'm thinking about going back for a couple of subs, but if we all do that they won't move to another place
It’s all about what you value. If you value the principles that drive you away from it more than the value you find from the information and entertainment then it’s easy.
How can you change what you value?
For me it was just spending enough time away that I began to notice how much happier and productive I was in my personal life.
The site is toxic, the culture is toxic, the fundemental way in which it constantly seeks your attention is toxic. Once you're outside of it for a while you realize that none of it is as critical as you have grown to believe.
I go on there occasionally on a browser, logged out. It's the best way to get updates on things I love, and until it stops being that, I'll use it in this way
I'll second this. I keep coming back for the Silph Road, Epic Seven, and... uh... 4Chan (there's also r/barefoot, but that place moves super slowly, and even when something is posted, it's almost always some personal experience). I kinda wonder about Political Compass Memes. Nothing else is really left for me there.
The how is about making it easier NOT to go back:
delete the (defunct) apps from mobile
log out and don't log in
don't use browser extensions
don't use ad block
delete bookmarks so you have to manually type sub names
for content that is still worthwhile there:
straight to the source: don't follow links, bookmark the destination and browse there
read don't comment
branch out and look for new hobbies or new interests, or other older niche forums for same hobbies.
rekindle an older hobbies and spent at least one hour each day on it first before browsing online
eschew cat subs and scroll-to-look subs and drama subs : read more nutritious things. I've probably read more in the last month than my entire last year thanks to this approach.
Boost is actually still working for me, apparently mods get to use 3rd party apps and i was a mod of a sub with 1 subscriber which i deleted a few years ago
Oh I see. Nah no thanks
I still look at old.reddit about once a day when I’m at my pc. But since Apollo stopped working I haven’t posted, commented, or upvoted anything. I also deleted all my comments and posts right before the API change. So I’m totally worthless to reddit now.
My visits are getting farther apart though, even the niche subreddits are worse now and the popular ones are a total mess.
Fundamentally, you'll have to think about why you go to Reddit. What is it actually providing to you?
If it's just sort of a timewastey, make the good brain chemicals come out-type thing, you might want to evaluate if using it is fundamentally improving, or worsening your life. I'm checking out kbin & lemmy right now, but I'm concerned that they're falling into the same types of content & discussion patterns that make Reddit harmful, even without the Reddit Inc. decisions factoring in.
If it's as a resource of knowledge, it remains useful, and often still the top way to get actual organic results out of Google Search.
As an online community, well, to be honest I never felt I was really a part of that, any more than I'm part of the "email" community. It was such a pseudoanonymous experience, in such a huge site, that I never felt much of a connection there, and over the past few years it feels like everyone became far more adversarial, and that the point of the site was to battle each others' hot takes. The Hive Mind has evolved a very shrill and combative voice, and if you step away for a week or more, it becomes even more apparent.
There's a discussion about that right now:
https://kbin.social/m/reddit@lemmy.ml/t/223390/Lemmy-is-being-filled-with-ragebait-and-doombait-from-new
Even though you may not find one site that replaces Reddit, you might find multiple ones. For example, I play piano, so forum.pianoworld.com fills that part. Tildes reminds me a lot of r/truereddit. Etc.
I deleted the bookmarks I had, and I also deleted the RIF app off my phone. I also deliberately stayed away from the site for a few weeks without any exception. I replaced reddit time before putting my phone on its charger with e-reader time.
Now, if a browser search for information on something takes me to reddit now, so be it, but after a few admittedly rough days of muscle memory trying to take me there, the impulse went away. I think Having the willpower to remove the ease of access is key. (edit) It sounds like you do want to get away from it despite wanting to keep it (which I get, /edit), so you have to disrupt your ingrained habits. It might be as easy as removing the muscle memory.
and to echo others, seeing the current 'default' reddit experience vs a curated experience through an app was a pretty stark reminder of just how crappy it had really become.
Nope, I haven't logged into reddit since I moved to this site, and I don't plan to again.
Using reddit for info doesn't require actually engaging with the site and the adblock stays on as always.
I’m still on fucking reddit and kinda hate my cowardice. But it’s the large niche communities (“niches” with like millions of subscribers, lol) and mostly their coverage of news content related to a specific topic.
There was a post, recently, about what people miss about the old internet and forums were mentioned prominently. The day Reddit disables “old.reddit”, (when I’ll have to leave because I honestly can’t do nu-reddit) my contingency plan is to look for oldschool forums that follow these interests and try to decentralize my web-presence a bit. All this information and community building being concentrated under a single URL is what got us into this mess. I should search more. The internet is larger than ever. Even if they are a “small” part of today’s social-media-dominated web, there must be reasonably large forums and whatnot that cover my interests.
Why don't you start this right now?
Also, do you have a RSS reader app? I'm using Inoreader and it took me very little time to follow feeds I like (I actually stopped subscribing to newsletters via email and started following then via the RSS app). That gives me all the news in all the general subjects I need. But I hear you on the niche hobbies and interests. They're harder to find - that's why you should start looking now.
Good luck finding them. Your niche needs to be old and to have been popular in the Web1 era for it to even have had a forum, and you're lucky if it's still active.
You can try to create one. But that takes work on the long-term, and good luck moving people from other platforms to your forum.
I don't mean to be pessimistic, I intensely miss forums ; I grew up on Pokémon forums and fansites and having populated forums for my interests would solve many of my needs. But I doubt it's feasible.
I just deleted my account. Once the account is gone its less alluring. I still go to reddit when I need niche answers, but the lack of account stops me from scrolling.
Is it all-or-nothing?
Deleting the (now non-functioning) app stopped my habitual scrolling. I can't stand Reddit in a mobile browser, much less the official app. So as far as my phone is concerned, it no longer exists. If I'm in bed, or on the couch, or out and about, there is no Reddit.
It's different on a desktop. Purposefully, I'll check some discussions on r/judaism, have a chuckle on r/simpsonshitposting. I was introduced to Crokinole for the first time last night. Get home, let's take a look at the subreddit, what do people talk about, absorb some conversation about equipment and techniques. In, out, tab closed.
That's replacing hours of unfocused browsing, down to maybe 20 minutes a week.
I did feel at first like I was "relapsing", or had failed at disengaging entirely. But then I realised that was unproductive thinking, and what I had done was establish workable boundaries.
Whether or not that resonates with how it did fit into your life, and how it potentially could to some extent, or not at all, is up to you.
To be fair, I am glad they removed third party reddit client apps. Using the official client makes it easier not to lose that much time on reddit. They should had made the move sooner.
I treat it like quora or GameFAQs. If I have a question and Reddit has the answer, I'll read it. But I've already deleted my account, so it's just a repository of information for me, nothing more.
I found that deciding to cut reddit out of my habits was surprisingly easy. I've rebuilt my Rss feeds, and I'm honestly in a better position than before. The only thing I haven't been able to replace is r/manga. I have no idea how to discover new good manga amongst all the actual trash.
I feel like I've mentioned this to you but if it was another poster:
https://squabbles.io/s/Manga
https://kbin.social/m/manga
I still am on reddit for one gaming subreddit but I refuse to go on it except for when I'm on my desktop. I admit it sucked for a while but if you keep at it, you'll get used to it.
Also, I recommend a combo of Tildes and Squabbles. Tildes for more serious conversation and Squabbles for the more lighthearted stuff and memes plus some serious conversation.
I've begrudgingly accepted that there are a few subreddits I can't replicate elsewhere so I made a couple of multireddits with just those and changed the reddit bookmark on my computer to take me to my favorite one directly in old reddit. It's specific content and really helped me get rid of my mindless scrolling habit (I avoid the main page like the plague). Having no app for it on my phone forced me cut back dramatically. I ended up putting the kindle app in RiF's old spot so when I reflexively go to it I sometimes end up reading instead. In general, I'm making an effort to engage in my hobbies whenever I'm bored instead of doing something just to kill time
Unlike a surprisingly large number of people I never used r/all or r/popular so my feed was and is always just subs I subscribed to. I never understood why anyone would use those catchall subs anyway.
After a few weeks I'm back on Redditmon a daily basis and it's fine. I miss the third party app I used to use but the official app is ok.
For me it's about no longer contributing, and no longer idle browsing. I don't just go to the main page or a subreddit just out of some sense of boredom or looking for something to read, any more. I'm not going to deprive myself of information, so I'll still go there as a result of a google search result or to get specific information I'm seeking, but I will no longer provide the site value in terms of votes, posts, comments/replies, or idle, purposeless readership.
I haven't been using reddit on mobile since they removed
.compact, and I already redirect the front page and /r/all to tildes with a browser extension to keep me from doomscrolling when bored.Since the API change, I've logged out and haven't logged back in. I'm still visiting a couple of niche subreddits for information, but am not longer participating (and have always used adblock).
But as several people have stated, its really up to you how much you want to (not) use reddit.
I added the old Reddit link for my local subreddit to an rss app and if I see something I want to know more about I’ll follow the link or read the comments but it made me realize even that community only has something interesting to me a few times a week.
I blocked Reddit using the hosts file on my main machine. My mobile and work laptop are unchanged. Just this small difference has been enough to reduce my Reddit consumption about 90%. I still find myself checking out niche subs every 1-2 days when I’m on the toilet or if tildes runs dry. But on the whole I don't miss it.
Admittedly, finally remembering my tildes username probably helped a lot
I initially stayed using teddit.net, but recently see it constantly returning 429, perhaps number of users increased, reddit reduced limits or both.
I think what others are suggesting about not logging in is a solid advice. I noticed that if I don't comment, I have less reasons to come back.
I also use tildes.net, kbin.social and beehaw.org (especially the first two, it's mostly because lemmy in the last one sorts posts promoting older ones), my initial impression was that they're want many users, but frankly this seem to be changing to me every day. Either people are still switching en masse or I am now better at finding active communities.
I deleted my account a while ago but was still going over there occasionally for the cycling subreddit. The problem was I'd end up poking around on r/all and would always end up upset between the rage bait and general toxicity of the users. So I just set up a website blocking extension - "Block Site" on Firefox. I blocked old.reddit.com and www.reddit.com and have them redirect to Tildes. That way I'm instantly given an alternative and there's no block screen to get upset with and disable.
It’s just a matter of time IMO.
Reddit was my primary social media platform, and like my others used 3rd party apps to access it.
With the recent changes I still use Reddit for the content but find the main app frustrating to use, riddled with ads, desperate recommendations for random subreddits, and it is obvious that several large subreddits are merely a shell of its former self.
Obviously I am here but also on Mastodon and Discord. I find myself spending less time on Reddit and I intentionally do not post comments and or posts; not that I was a prolific/popular user by any means but if there isn’t enough user created content, Reddit or any social media is dead in the water.
I don’t think you have to delete your membership right away but use other social media apps; enough users are leaving and will continue to do so where it’s just a matter of time before I/you no longer feel the need to log in because the user base just isn’t there anymore.
I think that instead of seeking other alternatives to Reddit (of which tildes is definitely the best because it doesn't just accept all of Reddit's ideas as the correct ones) it can be worth going outside.
For example you could pick up a new sport (or return to an old one) or arrange to go to the pub with some friends. Real-world connections remain really important and even if you're not feeling super sociable it is perhaps worth setting a target of maybe ~2 social events per week.
There are also some great communities on Discord.
Go outside? In THIS weather? /joke
On a serious note, I have no idea how Discord ends up being an alternative to Reddit. Every single Discord I've been in (aside from small friend groups) ends up being the same experience: A million active people all posting at the same time on all the channels. So the first thing I need to do is to go through and mute all the channels and disable all the notifications (at least they let you hide channels now. that was due a LONG time) and then go through and un-mute the few that I'll realistically care about (which in my case just ends up being announcements and maybe support channels)
Of course, all these Discord guilds are their own communities which means all of them have their own #gaming and #memes and a few hundred #generals that are subtly different, and good luck trying to decipher the million injokes and smaller friend groups and rivalries and conventions that have already taken shape.
This may be jarring coming from someone who is born in 2003, but am I just too old to understand how it's all supposed to work? Did it come to that point already?
Basically you find 3 or 4 Discord communities that run at your speed. Within those communities there's a handful of people who hang out in those ginormous, overactive communities. Those people share a curated subset of good memes from the big discords in your favored communities' pages.
It's basically the same way forums worked in a time before Reddit killed them all. You have things propagate through virality where there is overlap between community users instead of through a curation algorithm.
I went cold turkey and haven't looked back. I used PowerDeleteSuite to nuke my comments then unsubscribed from all subs except like 5. For me, this makes it much less enticing. I went poking around on old.reddit today just to check out ThePlace and see what it looks like but that's it. I have, unfortunately, replaced scrolling reddit with scrolling IG but I don't get the same enjoyment so I don't scroll as much. I still wonder what I'll do for live updates during big news stories but I'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I felt super disconnected from the world at first, but now it's just nice. The world is a mentally stressful place and it's good for me to not be so in it.
I'm curious as to what people do to find IG enjoyable. The actual content I find is usually good, but the feed is like 80% ads to the point where I actually find it tiring to scroll through them.
It didn't used to be, but at some point I started following people I didn't know (a couple of comedians, professional photographers, and illustrators/comic book artists) and suddenly the algorithm must have decided I'm a different type of person who is more prone to spending money because it was like an ad spigot turned on the very next day.
Once that happened I basically stopped looking at the news feed and just go to the stories from the handful of people I know and then leave the app. Even the stories flow is absolutely lousy with ads, but it has stuff from people I know on it.
I love to play with the algorithm!
I mindlessly scroll Reels and use the three dots in the bottom right to ignore and block accounts with content I'm not interested in. Just recently I finally got all the mom advice out of my feed. Yay!
Saving videos will bump that videos theme higher in your algorithm. Liking and commenting too. Scroll fast by anything you're not super interested in, that will help get it out of your feed too. Block any and all spam account you come across.
I'm probably the only weirdo that gets enjoyment out of playing with the algorithm and trying to customize your feed, but I love it. I can get most of the BS out and only see what I want. Then play with it again when the subjects get too niche or not interesting anymore.
If you want to burn the bridge to ensure you can't return, troll until you get banned. If that doesn't stop you, keep burning the new accounts until they give you the Chuck treatment. If you find yourself using a VPN after that, there is no hope.
You leave reddit the same way you leave any addiction.
One step, one hour, one day at a time.
Sooner or later, you realize it's not a requirement for your life.
It doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach. Right before the subs all started their boycott, I started only visiting my curated list. I slowly started unsubscribing the meme groups and then the slow groups.
Now I just check Squared Circle maybe once a week to catch up on anything I might have missed but that is down from 2-3 times a week. I'm sure in the next week or so I'll probably just stop going all together.
I'd delete my account if I could but I made a random password that I can't retype in the conformation box, lol.
I still use it for a few niche and sports-related subs, but it's almost entirely through a web browser on my desktop. I use a search shortcut in Chrome with the trigger character 'r' so if I want to quickly check out a specific subreddit I'll just hit CTRL+L to focus the address bar, hit the 'r' and spacebar keys to trigger the custom search then type whatever sub I'm looking for. It might sound complex, but it's a huge time-saver to get to my time-waster more quickly.
I deleted relay even though the developer decided to carry on as I was just sick of Reddit. I found that I was far less inclined to use Reddit through a browser athough being perfectly honest the main thing that helped me move away from Reddit was actually reddit. The place is so toxic I just couldn't be arsed torturing myself by reading through subs there anymore.
I've been on there for about ten years and used to be heavily active in several different communities over the years. Unfortunately I've seen practically every sub I was interested in be taken over by the same toxic bullshit and group think as the subs would get more popular. The last couple of subs I used to follow a lot were r/synths and we the music makers. Both subs are taken over by gear snobs and people more interested in showing pics of expensive gear rather than playing music . Any one with differing opinions or want to actually have a discussion are downvoted to hell. The final straw for me was going on to Reddit alternatives. It's no different from any other sub now. Post anything against Lemmy and you get attacked. There was a poster who made a big deal about someone posting about squabbles which saw the mods deleting a bunch of posts about squabbles,which were completely in the minority as they were seen as spam. On the other hand the dozens of posts about Lemmy a day are fine. It's just a shit show there.
I'm still logged in on my browser because Google search results bring me to reddit and some subs are classified as nsfw (for example cannabis related).
In terms of casual browsing I'm using libreddit instance as a PWA (installed web app). I subscribe to a handful of unique communities or threads which is a small fraction of before. It makes my time there anonymous, ad-free, read-only and slightly cumbersome.
Libreddit instances are now often broken due to unauthorized API call limits which simply tell me to check in again on the next day... or never.
This friction makes leaving reddit, or at least cutting down use significantly, much easier.
Sync for Lemmy is almost ready for release and it has a working PWA client as Voyager which is a spiritual successor of Apollo. It gets some time choosing and learning about instances but you will get it on time, I recommend starting with m.lemmy.world
Now I only use Reddit on desktop with few niche subreddits, it helped me a lot getting away of the toxicity of Reddit.
Yeah Tildes needs to open the doors wider and let more people in so that this place can grow more.
The limitations of people registering onto Tildes is not so great.
Hey there, you're not the only one to feel that way, but here's a comment explaining the value of the invite system.
Tildes is open to growth, but is more focused on quality, which tends to require a bit of restraint when it comes to the speed of growth.
Additionally, the bar for acquiring an invite is not extremely high, it just takes a small amount of purposeful action by 1) emailing the admin, 2) asking for one from users in /r/redditalternatives, or 3) asking for one in /r/tildes when the invite threads are open. Any one of these methods grants an invite to someone within hours or days (except maybe /r/redditalternatives if someone doesn't give you one in time and your comment gets lost.) Ultimately, if you want an invite and take 2 minutes to ask for one, you'll likely get one. So the invite system mostly just filters out people who are not super interested in the concept of Tildes in the first place (in my opinion.)
I like how the invite system promotes integration with the culture of the community rather than letting an avalanche of redditors quickly dillute it away, especially the kind that loudly proclaims there are no viable alternatives to reddit. It does however sadden me that the way things currently work is incompatible with certainly high value communities moving here, such as /r/askhistorians .
I'm on the same page with you there. I've had similar feelings about places like /r/menslib, to the point where I got some negative reactions to my comments here about that (I was saying that I hope ~life.men might be similar to /r/menslib.) Ultimately I have taken the feedback I received, which was essentially to let Tildes be Tildes rather than pushing for it to be something else.
But I also think that (for your example and mine,) there is plenty of opportunity for Tildes to be a good place for those topics/concepts if we let it evolve naturally. Though, on Tildes they would be just that - topics, not necessarily "communities." As of now, Tildes in its entirety is the community, rather than sub groups. It's just different, but I like it here.
Make sure to request your data from reddit before quitting if your in the EU, I requested mine a month ago and no sign of it so I put in a gdpr complaint against em.
I am slowly moving away from reddit. I go out of my way to come here first. I'm slowly finding my way through the fediverse and other alternatives. I've started bookmarking things that may help. Shoutout to zoroa for the summary links to previous discussions.
Part of the challenge of moving away from reddit is the "workflow" in other places is different and likewise individual workflows (and I'm lazy). We're all ingenious fools and it's hard to find that one other person that used reddit like I did and has put together the "guide to using not-reddit like CriticalBear used reddit".