I’m just dumb and forget the world wide web is, well, world wide haha. I just live in my own little bubble sometimes but i’m trying to be better about not blindly assuming the folks i interact with on here and other places are from the US

Yeah and I apologize, I was talking in a very US specific context and I should have specified that (the hostel comment kind of muddled it as well). I haven’t tried airbnb abroad, and I’m glad it’s more reasonable over in Portugal and Norway at least so i’ll check it out if or when I decide to head that way. Just venting some general frustration using it in the US in my recent experiences.

AirBNB was great when it first started out. It was basically people renting out a room in their home for a night or two, for far cheaper costs than hotels and in areas where a hotel wasn’t as readily available. It was a good way for those folks to make some cash on the side and helped the traveler find convenient low cost housing for a couple nights

Unfortunately companies and people decided they could buy up properties and start a business selling out rooms, prices skyrocketed and it no longer became worth it. I just stick to hotels now (or hostels if I ever decide to backpack through Europe or something)

Their “vetting” process sucked too. I just asked for an invite and they gave one with no questions asked. I could easily just start spamming troll stuff and they would ban me but still. Quality moderation and an approval process can accomplish everything tildes wants to do without stifling its ability to add users and variety of discussion.

So when I was scoping out an alternative, there were five platforms I was looking at.

1. Lemmy
2. Kbin
3. Squabbles
4. Tildes
5. Raddle

I opted against places like tumblr since I was looking for a similar experience to reddit (didn’t mind some innovations, but places like mastodon or tumblr weren’t the right fit)

Squabbles was interesting but I did not care for the interface, especially on desktop. It’s a bit better on mobile but it’s basically the card interface on steroids and it’s not my preference. I like the flexibility in apps/ways you can consume Lemmy in comparison

Tildes is invite only and tightly controlled. If you aren’t interested in like the 4 topics of discussion they have there it’s just not that engaging.

Raddle is open source and not for profit which are pluses, but outside anarchist political communities and a few meme ones theres basically nothing else there. Also some of the theming for their forums on desktop are atrocious.

Kbin has some pluses in that in that it can interact with Lemmy and the fediverse. It even has some better integration with places like mastodon due to the microblogging tab. It’s still an option in my mind depending on how it and Lemmy evolve. But for now im on Lemmy and haven’t regretted it.

I think the big reason Lemmy grew though was exposure and circumstance. It’s very decentralized nature I think appealed to people who have experienced what guys like Musk and Spez have done to their social media sites lately and the idea that if an admin/owner here goes off the rails there’s some recourse available besides having to entirely leave the platform they’ve invested their time and energy to. Squabbles, tildes and raddle can’t really promise that by the fundamental fact they are closed platforms. So when the reddit drama popped up and after what people have dealt with in Facebook, tumbler, digg, Twitter, etc this place and the fediverse was pushed really hard as an alternative experience that sought to resolve this recurring problem.

I had the same experience. There’s basically like 4 active communities there (including the general talk one) and if you aren’t interested there’s really no content. I think the guy who made it just wanted his own little personal fiefdom that he could tightly control. Which is fine but I ended up coming here and have enjoyed it far more

“Only 4 of us moderating”

“Refuses to add mods meanwhile accepting 1000s of applications to join and building said community in a federated space where anyone outside their instance can participate”

Yep, definitely well planned out by those folks hahaha.

It takes some adjustment. I was gonna keep reddit but I ended up deleting it and all the apps. I’d love to say it was because of Lemmy but I think his whole saga showed me how addicted I was getting to the platform and that it was better to cut bait for good. I did the same with Twitter as well (or deactivated it, for some reason they don’t let you straight up delete it right away)

Between the rss feed I have set up, Lemmy, and my insta, discord and text groups I think I’m pretty satisfied. I get all my news and content with far less algorithm shenanigans, low effort spam and rage baiting.