I see a lot of comments pointing out bugs and saying something along the lines like “they need to fix this ASAP, otherwise… something something”.
As a software developer myself (not in the fediverse), I can tell you one thing:
Keep in mind that all of this literally escalated pretty quickly, and no one was prepared for that. What started out as a hobby project of some enthausiasts, quickly turned into a high demand over the course of a few days.
Having hundreds of enthusiasts use a software is different than having thousends of “average” people using it. 100 users won’t detect many bugs, and if they do, they’re more tolerant since they know it’s all volunteering. But thousands of users will detect even more bugs that no one bothered to deal before.
Once the userbase grows and the demands are clear enough, this should be tackled, eventually.
So yeah, hang in there.
I’ve been on this part of the fediverse for years (via lotide rather than lemmy or kbin, but I’ve been here), and kbin itself is incredibly new. I’d never heard of it more than about 3 months ago, and I’m constantly on the watch for new stuff because I always believed this part of the fediverse had huge potential.
Honestly, considering how new it is, kbin is shockingly good. Go back and look at reddit 3 months into development!
Hopefully my experience can help some people see the bright side of going off Reddit.
To me, Reddit has been a great platform in almost every possible way - except meaningful engagement. At some point, I realized that any somewhat big subreddit that I frequented for news and discussions of topic I’m interested in is plagued by dead-end threads: karma farms through reposts, lame jokes and similarly low-effort content that’s breeds equally low-effort comments, and things that don’t provoke any sort of discussion in general.
Joining the protest made me go to difference places, especially forums big and small, where the only real way to engage with the community was to actually reply to what they said. I quickly realized that Reddit has long turned into another brainless scroller akin to Instagram or Twitter, which all may have their place, but that’s just not what I joined Reddit for back in the day.
Now that I’ve basically kicked the Reddit habit, I’m finally enjoying the Internet again - it’s not the same as it was in the 00s, and it will never be, but it’s much, much better than going to a single website, owned by a single company, for nearly everything I want to do online.
Today, I finally have a proper choice for the first time in years. A lot of that choice consists of the fediverse, with different scopes and goals, but some is just basic and mainstream places I’d forgotten because of the convenience that Reddit seemed to bring.
Today, I’m finally having actual conversations with people in the communities I choose to interact with, rather than just reading through the witty chains of comments.
I know that Reddit means different things to different people, but to me, it has lost its meaning long ago, and it’s only with the protest that I managed to kick the habit of going there for basically nothing. As surprising as it is, the whole thing lead me to enjoy my online life much more, and actually engage with the topics on the old, deeper level of fun, rather than just being exposed to an absurd amount of things, each pretty shallow and uninspired.
Absolutely agree. I’ve not only created a Kbin account, I also now have a Tildes account, and I’m actually using my Mastodon and Substack accounts. I’m lurking some old sites I hadn’t really visited in over a decade (Metafilter, Fark). Im also checking out other forums and microblogs. I’m having real conversations and finding meaningful links (as opposed to reposted TikToks and memes). It really feels like the Internet i used to love.
To add: we are not paying (for) anything, we are not the product, all the costs are covered by volunteers. So if a server is a bit wonky or slow, remember that you’re not entitled to anything.
And as you said, the software needed to go from 20 to 100 in a blink of an eye. Where they thought they would have time to handle everything gently and in due course needed to be done much faster.
Furthermore, most developers also run an instance (which suddenly needs to be scaled and troubleshot), need to answer questions, moderate, handle PR’s on github and solve bugs. All while also having a family and other acticities to attend to.Thanks for that, it’s true, I need to remember especially about that last point. Later, I will write a few words about what was happening behind the scenes during these days. I wasn’t there alone. Not anymore ;)
kbin is much older; it was a side project. Recently, I took it more seriously :)
