Comment

Comment on lemm.ee is shutting down at the end of this month

Zenith@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

And how? I came here due to full reddit ban not cause I knew anything about the platform and wanted in, it I do like the platform and I’m glad I was “forced” to try it. Except I didn’t, and don’t, know what instances are, why they matter beyond “decentralization” and I just picked one at random because I didn’t realize your “instance” could just be removed… if an instance can be removed/shut down it doesn’t seem like any instance is actually a safe place to go since it’s not depended on me but whoever is running it? You can lose your account no matter what. Idk if this means I should try to figure this out, which is just make a new account I think? Or if this is a sign for me to give up my last social media outlet and just be done with reddit/reddit clones in general

source

Sort:hotnew top

JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I mean, yeah, any instance could be gone at any time. Anything can disappear at any time. Don’t overthink it. Just pick a new instance at random like you did before. Export and import settings. Leave a note on your profile where your new account is. Once lemm.ee is gone, your account’s info page will forever say where your new account is. This instance shutting down doesn’t mean your old comments and posts disappear. Sure, you won’t be able to directly respond to them, but they aren’t vanishing.

It sucks, and it’s an annoyance, but it’s hardly the end of the world.

Think about if this were a non-federated platform. You’d be shit out of luck. All your posts and comments would be gone forever. All of everyone’s content from your instance would just be lost to time when the server shits down. But with federation it gets copied to other instances. It will live on there. The only time it won’t be is if someone makes a new instance after lemm.ee is gone, they won’t be able to pull in old lemm.ee stuff.

source
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The best analogy is still E-mail. Me@Gmail.com can talk to you@outlook.com, which can talk to employee@random-company.com. Sometimes an email service shuts down - has anyone checked if yahoo still exists?

So in that case, you have to get a new mail and probably move your important stuff over. It sure sucks, but there is no good way around it, if you want to be able to choose between different services.

Imagine everyone using only gmail: what if Google decided you smell and they don’t want your business any more? What if Google decided to make every login cost $5? Or that you need to say “I love Coca Cola” to read your mail?

source
Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
reddit was doing multi-account bans retroactively which was pretty much very rare unheard of. basically any old accounts that participated in the sub years ago were instantly ban if any of your other accounts were subreddit banned.

source
faxed@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nothing is perfect and nothing is permanent.

If you are extremely motivated to have an account that can never be pulled out from under you, you must run your own instance.

In the fediverse, its plausible to do this and still be connected to others. There are.lots of single user instances. There were some small businesses opening where you could pay someone else to do the admin work for you if you are disinclined to that kind of geekery yourself.

source
Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
think of instances, like thier own reddit clones. one clone can die and you have to make a new acc with another, apparently this cas was lack of administration/modding, or money.

source
PirateFrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Unlike reddit, you can bring most of your account with you to a new instance (a different server. basically imagine each instance is its own mini-reddit, and all the mini-reddits can talk to each other).

If you go to your Account Settings page, you can export your account JSON file, which you can then import into a new instance so you can bring your subscriptions, blocks, and favorited comments/posts.

To help choose a new instance, check out this comment.

source
SparroHawc@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
An “instance” is a server that talks to all the other Lemmy servers, where your account info and login are stored. There’s a lot of benefits to decentralization - even if one instance goes down, like lemm.ee, it doesn’t really impact the whole of Lemmy too severely. The cost of running an instance isn’t super high, which means that if an instance is being annoying about advertising or something, you can ditch it with little cost to yourself and even run your own instance if you want. A single cabal of admins can’t ruin it like Reddit (cough cough Spez) and it can be easier to curate your own experience by choosing what instances you want to ignore completely.

Any given instance is not necessarily a safe harbor, but as long as Lemmy is around, there will probably be multiple instances to choose from. The only thing you really lose is your post history - and you can link to your old account info in your new account for continuity’s sake.

source
Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
See the other comment

source