Navigate to a website (for example, “lemmy.world”) and register an account.
Search for communities to follow based on your specific interests.
Check back later and watch posts appear in your home feed from the communities you follow.
Bonus points for posting and commenting!
Different from Reddit:
It’s not a single website. You’re on “lemmy.world”, I’m on “fedia.io”. Each site houses its own users and content, but cross-site communication happens almost seamlessly. (For example, even though I’m logged into a different site, I can easily read and comment on your post.)
It’s not a single software. You’re looking at Lemmy, I’m looking at Mbin, and other people might be looking at Piefed or something else. Moreover, I understand there are also custom UIs and apps to create even more options. This doesn’t matter too much, but over time you might explore the different options and form a preference for the way some software works.
Under the hood, all of this happens thanks to a protocol called “ActivityPub”, which allows all of these servers and software to communicate with each other. You don’t need to care about this.
A good analogy for all this is email… If you have a gmail account and your friend has a protonmail account, your accounts and data will be stored on different servers, and your email inboxes will look different and have different features. BUT, because all email services use a shared communication protocol, you can still email your friend! This works exactly like that.
Bottom Line…
It can take a while to wrap your mind around this stuff, but the bottom line is that this is essentially infinite-reddit.
Don’t like the moderators of a certain community? Make a new community on whatever server you want!
Don’t like the admins of a certain server? Fire up a whole new server!
Don’t like the way Lemmy works or looks? Use an alternative GUI or give a server running Mbin or Piefed a try!
This is part of the “fediverse”, and it represents a new form of social media that puts the community in control, instead of corporations or billionaires.
Similar to Reddit:
Different from Reddit:
Bottom Line…
It can take a while to wrap your mind around this stuff, but the bottom line is that this is essentially infinite-reddit.
Don’t like the moderators of a certain community? Make a new community on whatever server you want!
Don’t like the admins of a certain server? Fire up a whole new server!
Don’t like the way Lemmy works or looks? Use an alternative GUI or give a server running Mbin or Piefed a try!
This is part of the “fediverse”, and it represents a new form of social media that puts the community in control, instead of corporations or billionaires.