Horror author from New England. Principal engineer. Active HWA, Codex member.
Co-founder, Rocky Linux and the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation.
Personal: https://semioticstandard.com
I want Lemmy to succeed, I want to be optimistic about it as an alternative to Reddit, but OP is correct, and we need to be honest about this very simple fact:
The Reddit we knew and loved is gone, and that’s a sad, tragic thing, and there likely won’t be a 1:1 replacement for a long time, if ever.
It’s okay to admit to ourselves that this whole situation sucks, because it absolutely does. That doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy Lemmy and other federated things like it, and it doesn’t mean that federation doesn’t have advantages over Reddit, but let’s be honest: most of us were happy at Reddit, using our favorite 3rd party app (like Apollo), and we wouldn’t be here if the admins weren’t happy to kill what we once loved.
All we can do is try to make the best of it.
I like that Lemmy and Masto don’t have those fucking algorithms. It’s a relief.
IMO it’s fine to just make a post about it in one of the larger communities that seems appropriate. Now is exactly the time for us to promote one another! And Lemmy doesn’t have an algorithm, so you’re going to have to do some leg work to get the word out. I think people will be appreciative and understanding of that, I would be.