i agree with what you’re saying and i think we’re mostly on the same page here. i just felt it would be worth saying that, from my perspective, the point of the fediverse isn’t to compete with those websites but instead to be an alternative to them. it’s to offer a picture of what social media can be like without dark patterns, extreme surveillance, and constant enshittification. and there is a really comfort in that. it feels really nice to not have to worry about a website or app getting worse every time i use it.

i also feel like the people on here tend to behave more thoughtfully (in general) than people on reddit and other for profit social media websites. and it wouldn’t surprise me if that was in part due to the absence of dark patterns making lemmy feel more relaxed and less high stakes. there’s also a bit of a small town feeling on this website that i kind of like too.