cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/73406944
It all started when my main Reddit account was banned—simply because I posted a comment criticizing the banning of a subreddit—resulting in the immediate loss of an account I’d held for about 4 years, with 102k karma. I appealed, but I received no response—not even a reason for my ban, nor any notification that I had been banned in the first place. I’ve filed appeals repeatedly over the past few months, but today, I’m finally giving up. Fuck Spez and his pathetic, whore of a family. When I submitted my appeals, there wasn’t even any indication that they had gone through; I was just left in total silence, unable to do a thing. I started using an existing alt account for basic tasks, but today, that account was banned too—all because I recommended the non-profit, open-source "VPN Gate" project to someone who was complaining about the mandatory KYC (age verification) requirements being imposed in my country. The only reason I was still using Reddit was out of habit, and I’ve decided it’s time to change some of my habits. Ultimately, this is the inevitable fate of every centralized corporation—without exception. There’s no guarantee that some complete moron won’t end up in charge of any of them. I wish more people realized this. If four years of my effort are being sold off to AI data companies, and everything can be permanently wiped out overnight without a word of warning, then that is, quite simply, data theft. Once again, fuck you, Spez—you absolute piece of shit. If you had even an ounce of courage or integrity, you wouldn’t have imposed those damn API restrictions in 2023 and ruined Reddit. I truly regret the four years I spent here, but it’s better to cut my losses now. Goodbye, you son of a bitch Spez, and your puppet, Reddit...
Similar thing happened to me. It was a near 20 year old account. Somehow it got hacked and banned. for my history I felt a sense of loss because I realized I wanted to be able to look back and see my old posts and comments. I appealed with no answer, it's like appealing into the void.
I still had the addiction to seeing content and reading comments, seeing something always new. But I slowly started coming around to fediverse. Not all at once, I created a new reddit account just to see the content. It pissed me off they gated the content to people logged in, pissed me off they keep trying to push you to use the app, but I eventually gave in because of my content addiction to seeing that new dopamine drip feed.
The final straw was when I started noticing a more hostile commenting environment. I would comment something innocuous, but then I would get people arguing with me on fairly un controversial comments. I would notice they would be accounts with private histories less than a year old. Some would have only fans- like ads in their profile.
I also noticed a vast uptick in rightwing trolling and right leaning comments. These accounts all seemed suspect. Reddit had always been a left wing space. I really think a lot of the money being funneled into these midterms is being used for troll farms and bot farms to astroturf narratives on social media platforms. That was the last straw. I was arguing with people who were probably bots on reddit, giving reddit the engagement they want and I had enough.
It really is an addiction, I had to cut it off but I still try to pull up reddit sometimes when i'm bored. But I think fediverse is really going to be the future and we have to keep getting people to gradually come here.