You know when you needed an answer to something and wanted the opinion of the masses. You could search “[how to topic] reddit” or filter with “site:reddit.com”.
So what now? Could i still do “best table Lemmy” or “how to do this Lemmy”?
This was my favorite use of reddit where you could get a bunch of answers for different topics.
There are two distinct things I could want when searching for stuff on [Insert Search Engine Here]:
Niche “Expert” Opinion: If I am trying to figure out what maple syrup to buy, I am not going to go to someone’s advertised maple syrup blog with sponsored posts and a bajillion ads. I am going to go to r/maplesyrup. While they might all be snobby dudes with highly opinionated takes, I at least know it’s from people who care enough to be angry about maple syrup on reddit. And most of the time, they give good advice that will point me towards an informed purchase.
Troubleshooting: Reddit has great troubleshooting threads imo. If I threw my issue into the search engine, and I didnt get a Stack Overflow response, I could add reddit and someone will have at least asked a relevant question before. Sooooooo many of my issues have been assisted in the people asking questions on reddit.
Both of these things I think needs to be replicated elsewhere, especially the Niche “Experts”. I would love for my searches to end in “lemmy” or “kbin” or whatever ends up winning, as long as its a federated platform
The troubleshooting can be key, reddit sort of took out a lot of the old forums (or Facebook idk I just know they’re disused if existent).