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Comment by nyanpasu64 | Hacker News Reader

I've largely left Reddit since they backstabbed third-party apps and frontends, and seized subreddits and banned moderators protesting their decision. Checking https://subredditstats.com, many subreddits (ranging from smaller ones like CRTgaming, to larger ones like funny) have had comment volume drop off by 75-90% in July 2023 with no sign of recovering. So assuming Reddit isn't throttling/blocking subredditstats from viewing comments (and making itself look bad), I'd say people are leaving Reddit, but unfortunately I'm not sure if any of the community-run alternatives are as popular as Reddit is now (or was before the user exodus).

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I was planning to ditch it originally, but with a huge chunk of power mods gone I've actually found there to be a noticeable improvement in discussion quality within the subreddits I care about. It's nothing amazing, but it's the return of a casual feel I had been missing for some time. This has made me hesitant to check out lemmy, since I presume that's where they have retreated too. Think I will probably stay until they finally kill old.reddit.com.

It's a conflicting feeling since I'm still pretty bummed out by the api changes, but also recognize that much of the power mods capabilities were fueled by it.

> I'm not sure if any of the community-run alternatives are as popular as Reddit is now (or was before the user exodus).

This is the key for Reddit - there are no good alternatives.

Specifically for entertainment. That subreddit about the book series you're reading, the show you're watching, the video game you play, and the sports team you cheer for is hard to replace.

Reddit and twitter imploded at the same time interest rates skyrocketed and vc money dried up so there was nowhere to run

There's Lemmy. Some of the Reddit third-party apps have converted to Lemmy apps - Sync for Lemmy and Boost for Lemmy notably. Sync was my to-go Reddit app, so I'm happy to see it resurrected.

lemmy.world is the instance I chose, and I'm having a fine time there. Things could be a bit more livelier, and I'm sure it'll happen with time.

I'm one of those left that also deleted their years long accounts, and if I have to visit Reddit for something (as in, via search results), it's with an adblocker on.

I think reddit is also inflating user numbers a lot. People that have been there longer mostly notice the drop in engagement. Could be that there are new subs that have distinct user bases that are buzzing along. But the perception of less content is more or less universal for users I know with few to no exceptions.

This was a process that already started before the policy changes around API access though.

Keep in mind that some reddit mods have said thar site has incorrect numbers since June. I don't know how they get their stats but the api throttling may have affected the data. That assumption may be to the contrary.

>, I'd say people are leaving Reddit, but unfortunately I'm not sure if any of the community-run alternatives are as popular as Reddit is now (or was before the user exodus).

Well, I'm here on HN :). There is no perfect community driven alternative, but between HN, Tildes, and various Discords I get most of what I wanted. Also keeping an eye in the long term on certain forming sites.

But there are a few niche subjects I use reddit for so it hasn't been a complete migration. Once I find any community talking about mobile gaming scene I should be fully set.

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