When I first found out it was an interesting concept that I was pretty neutral on but the more I engage/lurk with the community the more I enjoy it.
I generally don’t post/comment much on Reddit because I tend to be extremely sincere and that’s not always well received. Usually I don’t get much hate, but what I do get is a lot of non-interaction mixed with downvotes. And it’s just really discouraging when I’m just trying to share my thoughts.
But having no downvotes here is so nice because I’m not afraid that I’m going to get silenced into oblivion. Either people will actually engage with me (and maybe disagree, but in a meaningful way), or they’ll move on and not randomly share their disdain via downvoting.
It’s such a small change but makes a big difference. I bet a lot of people feel the same as me - it’s more comfortable to engage here.
My first inbox message on Reddit came after I made a supportive comment in response to a post on an abuse survivors subreddit and that message was so vile that I spent the whole 12 years not opening my inbox/replies page except maybe 3 or 4 times. I read posts in communities I liked and essentially shouted my comments out into the void, then ducked out to read the next comment/post.
Reddit had some great communities, but it also had lots of horrible communities that attracted all kinds of awful people to the site who goaded each other on. Subreddits were only ever as good as their individual moderation and policies since the site as a whole preferred promoting free speech over civility. I appreciate that my Lemmy server has a serious anti hate stance and a policy to defederate from servers that allow hate to flourish. I’ve been cautiously keeping up with my notifications here and actually reading my replies. I know trolls can still find ways to slip through the cracks sometimes, but it’s nice to know they aren’t actively courted and supported over here.