i have been looking to exit reddit since like 2019, but nothing had really matured to be viable until fediverse in '23. then i was on Kbin for awhile but that imploded so I went to lemmy.

reddit subs were cool in the 2010s but starting getting weird after Trump was elected, and I suddenly a lot of my comments were being removed and banned, then I got my first sitewide ban in '20, but it was reversed and then every new account I had kept getting bans because my views were seen by extremists as intolerable. my site bans kept happening over inncuous comments on my city subreddit, which seemed to have a lot of very unhinged far-right and far-left posters, and my factual or contextual comments about things like housing policy, homeless regulations, criticisms of politicians, etc. were branded ‘hate speech’ buy one or both sides because they like their delusional hug boxes rather than acknowledging the limits of our political and social reality.

I also got into trouble a lot on book subreddits for talking about the books I read because they dealt with subject matter that is uncomfortable for american liberals who dominating the literary spaces.

I’ve also noticed a huge drop off in quality from all the subs I used to visit, my local sub is basically just tourists and people bitching about homeless people, restaurant fees, housing costs and how lonely/sad/friendless they are now. a couple of my hobby subs totally shut down, and a couple of the others just became bully pulpits for the mods political views and viral advertising. it sucks. I don’t have any temptation to return and participate in such captured and negative nonsense.