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by dweymouth 1100 days ago
https://squabbles.io is the best alternative I've seen. The Fediverse is a cool idea in theory but I think at this point in time it's not ready for primetime. It's too complicated for casual users to figure out, plus federation invites drama all of its own - e.g. Beehaw, a major Lemmy instance, has defederated with lemmy.world
2 comments

Uh... I'm just went there and the first thing I see is "Welcome all sinners! This is a place to talk about your sins in a braggadocious way. Repent if you feel like you have to but no judgment shall be made here about the crazy shit you've done." What the hell? So, it is basically dropping me into the equivalent of one of Reddit's more trashier subreddits, but on the front page?
The homepage shows activity from basically the whole site, so kind of. With an account you get to choose which topics (i.e. subreddit equivalents) get included on /home.
The best part of reddit, for me, was that it focused primarily on the content, which had to be able to stand largely on its own. Usernames were attached to content, but they were secondary.

Other social media platforms are largely about the individual, the personality. The content, while present, seems to be secondary. Influencers run amok and are an advertisers wet dream.

Squabbles, self-admittedly [0], tries to combine these approaches.

When I look at their home page, as well as a few communities, the only thing that really stands out on each post is the "title bar" with someone's name and a follow link. There's no quick way to see what the content is about (unless it's an image), without actually diving into the meat of the content. I can't make a quick judgement call of whether I want to read the content or not, unless I base it on the person's name.

For some, that may be great. For me, it misses the mark and falls too far on the Twitter side of the hybrid approach.

If people find it a useful format, then I hope the site thrives. But I don't think it's the right fit for the niche that made reddit great.

[0] - https://squabbles.io/about