Used a script to overwrite old comments to finalize my switch to Lemmy, and got this message from one of the subreddit that i commented.
Yes my intention is to annoy and create awareness. After i delete my account, Reddit is not going to get to keep my pearls of wisdom, or shenanigans. I hope more people edit their old comments to something like [moved to Lemmy].
It’s not just corporate reddit though. Consider the time and effort invested in these communities. Obviously I left because I don’t want to support reddit (and because their non 3rd party interface is almost unusable), but there are mods of small communities that have put thousands of hours into building up these subs.
Ask Historians is a perfect example of a sub that gets punished by modified comments (and they have been highly supportive of protests). They are so heavily moderated that every comment is 100% on topic and each comment lost makes the hard work they put in less worthwhile. Now each person has a right to delete their own content, but it sucks to write a 3 page essay response with citations only to have the context be removed to spite reddit. The mods and contributors of the subs are suffering too, and at a time when maintaining the community is much harder.
It’s Huffmann’s fault for being a cunt. HE caused this. Could have worked it out with he devs and not lied. Blame him.
I agree completely, Reddit screwed up. Huffman is a petty tool and he’s running a lot of great communities.
My point is that it does hurt people who aren’t Reddit/Huffman. Mods and community members who have created and curated tons of content. It’s hundreds of hours of work to migrate that info, and not everyone will come with you if you do.
It was an easy choice for me because I’m not invested, but for those that have more at stake, moving platforms is a much bigger sacrifice.
The people who stayed aren’t necessarily wrong or bad, they could have good reasons and harder choices than shine of us here who lose very little, or maybe even some who lose a lot.