Five years here. Not sure if that qualifies as ‘the very beginning’, but it’s a while. I never used Reddit as a conventional user, always disliked the voting system and always used throwaway accounts. My accounts always had positive comment karma, I wasn’t a troll, but inevitably, my opinions collisioned with the mainstream’s. Reddit is mostly American idiosyncracy. They like their mobs with forks. If someone posted a video of something looking a bit bad, they are fast in condemning it and feeling themselves better people instantly. Reddit was about roasting everybody else, point fingers and be judgmental, enter the mob.

If you kept your cool about something, as I used to, you could end up being accused of being a protector or defender or collaborator of Nazis, paedophiles, patriarchy, molesters, etc. The voting system would let it be clear you were not appreciated in the community. A lot of people, sometimes even me, deleted their messages, their opinions, just because they were harshly judged. I don’t think auto-censorship is a good thing at all.

At some point, I would stop commenting. The mob ideology, the collective “we are better” attitude would be too much to bear, so I deleted the account, and after some detox time I’d go back with a new throwaway. After the API debacle, I just picked up my old Lemmy account. Same things happen here, but to a lesser extent. Also, I deactivate the voting visualization and try to be loyal with my point of view. If I comment, I try to do it only if I can keep a durable conversation. I don’t need to like to strangers on the internet, their morals are not mine, I don’t need the anxiety of good or bad karma.

Lemmy has changed a bit. When there were just a couple of instances, things were pretty much the same in each. Now, instances seem to have attached ideologies. That’s why I also hide user name’s instances, so I can treat everyone the same, no matter where they come. These instance wars are pretty lame and disheartening, but so much better than Reddit.