As to you saying Lemmy may be worse than Reddit and asking for mod changes, you can totally search for instances of Lemmy that you like or open one. If you can’t or don’t want to, you could check out Aether, the social network. Maybe Lemmy isn’t your thing and that’s alright.
As to learning about the world including about why Reddit got enshitified and how to fix enshitification, you’re not alone. I am very interested in this. I don’t think the solution is necessarily to extract data from enshitified organizations.
I think there are other ways to understand. For starters, I try to understand the science. I know about surveillance capitalism. I know about classical economics. I know about behavior design and how extractive corporations want to frighten us into engagement. And you will find that people here read the science too. That is why I am here. That is why I love this place. That is why I appreciate the people here so much.
It was a calm summer night. My brother, his girlfriend, and I were in the city, walking under the streetlight.
My brother had just bought a full-sensor camera that took amazing pictures at night. To try it out, we decided to walk around the city, talking and occasionally pointing at things to take pictures of.
As we were walking, there was a similar group walking in front of us. It was two guys and a gal. They were in their 20s or 30s.
At some point, the strangers did something unusual, something light-hearted. They giggled and moved to the curbside. They hunched over and playfully hid behind a car.
My brother saw this and immediately started to take pictures.
As we saw the scene, we realized who they were hiding from: an older couple that was walking toward us all (my group and the strange group).
My group realized what was going to happen: the strange (and giggly) group would surprise the couple.
My group slowed down a bit, and we just let the scene play out. Surely enough, when the couple was close enough, the giggly and hidden group jumped and surprised the couple.
The street suddenly got filled with laughter. Smiles. Kisses. Hugs. Eyes lovingly looking at each other. It was such a heart-warming sight.
It was obvious they loved each other and hadn’t seen each other for a long time. I don’t know for sure, but I think the hiding group was the children of the older couple. A part of me thinks this was the first time in half a decade that the whole family could be together.
As we walked past them, I told my brother that all of the strangers would probably like to look at the pictures.
He walked up to them, briefly interrupting their greeting. He lifted his camera and showed them a picture. They looked at the camera and huddled around it. They were very happy.
They asked if my brother could send the pictures, to which my brother accepted, of course. They exchanged contact details and thanked my brother.
We all wished each other a good night, and my group resumed our night walk through the city. I imagine the other group laughed a bit more and started catching up.
Today, years later, I am still awed at this experience. It gives me goosebumps and gets me teary-eyed. It was so lucky and beautiful.