I used BBS systems before Usenet. They were a labor of love. It is absolutely possible to maintain civility and constructive collaboration online, in fact it’s the natural order. I wish there were a better word than ‘enshittification’ to describe the corrosiveness and malice that corporate-controlled social media wrought, but seeing it go from what it once was to Twitter and Facebook was dismaying - shitty, even.

Lemmy is a really big deal. Not only is the threading format and aggregating similar to reddit, BBS and Usenet days, but it also captures the spirit of self-moderation, innovation and user-autonomy that allowed reddit to flourish. Reddit was built and held together by a great deal more than software and hardware. Lemmy has that and it’s non-commercial and scalable. It’s the best thing to happen to social media in a long time.