cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19004972

Let’s be honest, the real reason Lemmy build most of its traffic is because of Reddit users. But the thing is, outside of the mass exodus in the west that too from the PC era… people discover and join Reddit not because it’s another social media like Facebook or Twitter that people need to reserve their usernames on like a brand or celebrity but because Google Search is kinda… actually absolute trash by SEO and machine learning crawlers.

Most of the world (I am from India btw, hello~) join or even discover reddit because they’re trying to search for actual solutions, recommendations, advice or even reviews by actual experienced people without having to go through another YouTuber which can stem from troubleshooting a router, finding an actual FOSS option or seeking immediate solutions to the recent CrowdStrike fiasco for example. After having to visit reddit every time whenever using a search engine including for education to career advice, I ended up directly signing up with reddit a decade ago.

Recently, Reddit even restricted its search results to Google only in a business partnership meaning those using Bing, DuckDuckGo to Ecosia or even SearchGPT wouldn’t be able to access Reddit answers anymore. Say, if someone searches for how to block ads on chrome as example - Solutions like uBlock Origin come into existence and continue to exist because of the combined community in Reddit that Lemmy is trying to preserve.

Unlike others, am not saying Lemmy would be dead but it would be pretty much like Discord-Telegram or Tumblr instead of wiping Reddit or correcting Facebook. Reddit is not something you discover from word-of-mouth or join from peer pressure unlike other social media which is even truer for Lemmy but because it actually helps and is useful to people.

Lemmy can’t be taking the path of 𝕏 (Alone Mask’s Twitter) but any of the good platforms were before the Enshittification with Facebook’s way~

  • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    73·
    2 months ago

    Interesting and well written (cross)post. If you hadn’t said you’re from India, I would have never guessed. The only spelling error I spotted is right at the end where you said Mask and not Musk.

    All good though, we’re (almost) all human around here. That’s one of the big reasons that more experienced and educated people are switching towards the fediverse…

    Fuck Spez

    • morrowind@lemmy.mlEnglish
      10·
      2 months ago

      I don’t know OP’s specific background but english is taught in most of the subcontinent and is the primary language for business and formal matters, so I wouldn’t expect any issues with it

      • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Honestly I haven’t studied foreign languages all that much, but I’ve heard the accents that come from a variety of regions and countries.

        The last time I got confused about anything spoken in English by an Indian man, I mistook ‘tiles’ as ‘towels’.

        I totally lost out on a tile installation job offer over that, because of a misunderstanding over what’s basically the pronunciation of a particular vowel.

        Like, in the back of my head, I’m wondering why this hotel owner is telling me he’s updating his towels, when really he said tiles. He was offering me a job…

        I didn’t find out until he got others to do all the work ☹️

        Vowels can be extremely important in communication…

        • idiomaddict@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          2 months ago

          I’m from Connecticut and once had a serious problem with a person my company insured from North Carolina. He was talking to me about what caused his accident and I kept hearing “tar” instead of “tire.” We were equally qualified as native speakers.

          If you’re concerned, you can listen to more Indian English, because familiarity should ease any understanding difficulties in the future.

          • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 months ago

            I had already spent years doing occasional side work with around a dozen if not more folks originally from India. Most, except the oldest of the elders spoke good if not excellent English. But there’s pretty much always gonna be at least a subtle accent, if not a heavy accent with secondary languages.

            I thought I understood the fella clearly, but it was both a combination of his accent plus the strange sentence structure context that threw me totally off.

            He said he was ‘updating his tiles’, but I misunderstood his vowels, so I heard ‘updating his towels’

            And why the hell would he use the word updating, he was literally having all the carpet removed in 44+ rooms and having tiles installed, not ‘updated’.

            So even the context clues didn’t add up, I never guessed he was talking about the tile work he had been planning for months.

            • idiomaddict@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              2 months ago

              Sometimes it’s a second (or fifth) language for Indian people, but it’s also a dialect which is just as valid as your dialect and it’s got the second most English speakers in the world. The accent may just be an accent, you definitely shouldn’t assume that it’s a sign someone will have incorrect English. It sounds like you’re not in practice, but that’s definitely how I read your comments

        • Microw@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          Well exposure to different accents can make you understand these kind of things.

    • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5·
      2 months ago

      The only spelling error I spotted is right at the end where you said Mask and not Musk

      Pretty sure “Alone Mask” is intentional. It seems to be common to misspell his name on purpose. I’ve seen “Elmo Husk”, “Leon Skum”, etc.

      • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Meh, true that. Hell, I dunno how to properly cross post on Lemmy, nor do I bother doing that anyways so whatever. 🤷‍♂️

    • MarkalAlvarez@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      Twitter has been turned into a dumpster fire and people are still using it because of convenience, the same applies to Reddit.

      I left Reddit not just because of the CEO but also because of the awful app they forced their users to use full of ads.

      • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        2 months ago

        Spez (or one of their admin monkeys) perma-banned me from Reddit after like 7 years, for of all stupid things, posting actual facts about Elon Musk and his Boring Company’s “Not A Flamethrower” contraption.

        Wasn’t any hate speech. Wasn’t misinformation, I even posted reference links. Wasn’t anything inappropriate or gory. Just straight up facts.

        That was not all that long before Elon bought Xhitter.

        Gotta love the irony huh? Fuck Spez and Musk.

    • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.ccEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      The only spelling error I spotted is right at the end where you said Mask and not Musk.

      It’s a wordplay. I personally call him Melon Husk.

    • Lemminary@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Maybe OP is fluent and I’ll give the benefit of the doubt but I’ve also seen many developers specifically from India use Grammarly or ChatGPT to correct their writing. Idk, it’s something to consider.

      • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Indeed, and understandable. Modern AI does tend to do fairly well these days, but obviously no system is ever going to be perfect.

        Not even our own ears are perfect. That’s why humans have the sense to ask questions sometimes, like “Hold up, I didn’t understand you, what did you just say?”

        And if you check my other comments, you’ll catch an interesting story of mine over the misunderstanding of a simple spoken vowel…