I’ve lurked on reddit for the past decade or so and just wanted to get an idea of how others like me have gotten to the point where they feel more comfortable joining the conversation. Thanks, all.

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
    91·
    13 hours ago

    Excellent question! I too lurked on the R-site for a decade and hardly ever contributed - maybe 100 comments in total. Twitter: same story, more or less. Zuckerbook: slightly more in its heyday, but still not much. And I was on the internet in the 90s so I’ve used all kinds of forums and even IRC. But for better or for worse I’ve probably posted more here in the last 18 months than on all other social media combined in the last 25 years.

    Some theories:

    • Less competition! Having less contributors on a forum is worse for or passive consumers (i.e. lurkers) but it’s better for the active participants. On a really busy forum, if you don’t post your topic at exactly the right time of day, or your comment within a few minutes of the topic dropping, then effectively it will be invisible. Completely demotivating. Here the pace is much more human.
    • No ads! This one is huge. I hate hate hate having to suffer ads. Here we’re free of them.
    • I like the interface! Seems a silly reason but it’s true. The guys who designed this thing did a surprisingly good job. The UX and design are both really good.