OpenStars

Yes, PieFed has a tiled view that iirc is default for some communities - see e.g. https://piefed.social/c/memes@lemmy.world?layout=masonry&sort=.

For Lemmy, no, unless an app does it.

I hope so too.:-)

OnePlus phones also used to be nearly as pure and lightweight as older Google phones, I mean from before Google started the enshittification. But they screwed up so hard, running off one of their co-founders (the tech guy, being ran off by the business/money guy), that most enthusiasts abandoned them. Also they switched from their OxygenOS to the crappy ColorOS used in cheap Huawei phones.

Afaik, nothing else has risen to fill the gap, and looking at the state of technology in the world today where every company chases after purely short-term profits to the exclusion of all else, I don't know that there ever will be.

At which point it boils down to iPhone, if it works for someone to use that, Samsung if people like that (I don't), or something small.

We should not be so confident about anything involving the USA moving forwards - after the recent election, EVERYTHING can now be different. Maybe. Possibly, but while I don't know what will happen, I also do not know what will not happen either, hence this is a time of great uncertainty.

I have thought about trying another iPhone, though if I did, I would want it not to be my only portable device. I simply cannot afford to be sent e.g. an email message or calendar invitation or some such and have it not come through or be displayed incorrectly purely b/c it came through via a Microsoft (or more rarely Google) account. So then on top of the >$1k price tag, I would need a laptop or Android that is still yet another ~$1k or at least hundreds more? (or depending on someone's workflow environment - e.g. if your work offers you a laptop, and you need that for a trip - then at least carry around a USB drive with you as well, to have available to use at a moment's notice). At that point though why not just get the Android and bypass the iPhone entirely, especially if that one device would meet all of your needs? iPhones are very pretty, with amazing glass touch & feel, and have nice functionality - again, so long as you remain entirely within their walled garden, though depending on my future job prospects, I may not be able to always function within those constraints.

And yes Google is ruining Android, according to many people from what I hear, though I am not fully up-to-date with it. I suppose my point there is that a downwards trend to go from an open-source environment moving towards a more closed one is still not comparable to iOS that is fully closed already. If Google is bad b/c it is making Android more like iOS, then how bad is Apple for having made iOS that way right from the start? Although I thought the actual case against Google was about its search engine, not Android, or there have been some other investigations along the lines of its Play Store, again not entirely about the actual "OS" (when such things as F-Droid can bypass their monopolistic store).

Most Apple fanboys, such as myself, tend to love Apple until it betrays/disappoints them and then abandon it in a huff of rage-quitting:-). I have taken a middling approach though and remained with Mac OSX b/c it is a fantastic product, but iOS is a different story imho. Either way their hardware and the software integration with that is top-notch, I agree with you there. It also is significantly more expensive for a similarly-specced Android device, especially for offering much less functionality - I suppose it is a more "premium" device, for those willing to and capable of working entirely within its tight limitations. I suppose my biggest beef is that I would no longer feel outright "proud" to own such a device (necessary for me to justify a higher price) as I would have in the past, and yet I cannot really say that about any modern mobile device anymore, unfortunately, with enshittification having touched every manufacturer so hard.

So I will vote with my wallet and find something that meets my needs when the time comes to replace my current one - possibly a non-flagship cheapie, or maybe a Fairphone if that would be good enough.

Google and Microsoft are not the only evil software corporations - Apple has become that as well. Fortunately desktops seem to have been made immune, while the iOS app continuous to lock everything down inside of its walled-garden philosophy. Apple makes it super difficult to send files to the device - e.g. if you wanted to transfer a file (like a PDF) from one machine to another using your device as a USB drive - and other things so that while yes, if every single thing that you want to do lies within this walled garden then you are fine, however if you want to set even one foot outside of it, you will quickly find the limitations unbearable. e.g. the experience using an Apple email account is amazing - you can start typing a message on your phone, then continue on your desktop, then continue again on your phone, back and forth as much as you like. But even just sending and receiving emails at all, or like working with calendar invitations, using a non-Apple email account provider, such as Google's Gmail or Microsoft's Outlook, it's absolutely abysmal. Every professional workplace I've ever been has given me a Microsoft email that is mandatory for me to check, so I don't have the option of simply not using Microsoft, and instead I find myself not using iPhones, as they do not meet my needs.

Android is not Google. Android is open source, and there are many implementations of it - Samsung is very popular, OnePlus used to be, and yes Google Pixels are just one example of Android but they are by far not the only ones. They are the most "pure Android" versions of the software though, without added vendor-specific stuff like both Samsung and OnePlus have entirely separate stores to purchase apps from in addition to the Play Store. It gets a bit more complicated when Google has used the "embrace and extend" philosophy to somewhat destroy Android from within by poisoning its development from the inside to make it work the way that they want to - but importantly, anyone at any time could create a fork and continue its development along different lines (which routinely happens! these are the "custom ROMs", like Lineage OS), so it still lies within the realm of open source software, as opposed to Apple's walled garden that is entirely closed, both in source and in terms of you not being allowed to do with your Apple hardware what you wish.

You might also like a Fairphone then. Or we may both end up hating it - I don't know enough about it to be able to guess, it's just that other than iPhone or a major Android provider like Samsung or Google or OnePlus, what else even is there, especially an option that is more purely open source?

I'm happy doing things this way though.

Ah, this is indeed the main thing:-).

Fwiw, it also helps to block people. I mean, that sounds obvious, but in a couple cases I started to notice how I may not need to block an entire community since I could get the same effect by blocking the user - plus also not see their posts in other communities as well. Or maybe I'm deluding myself and perhaps I later went on to block the entire community. Some really do just have so many trash articles that it's not worth getting upset about each one individually so much as simply moving onwards to better ones:-).

I use Vim everywhere I go - Linux, Mac, even Windows:-). It's just beautiful. And also a command-line window, and like you said, a browser.

Also MS Office bc unlike their OS, that one is fairly solid, and works well especially when collaborating with others, unlike open source offerings for so many years (I dunno the history either but apparently it's sordid, with "drama" and various forks being developed and abandoned, so sad).

PCs get expensive as well - especially if you use them for gaming. I don't, but if you do, then a $1-2k (USD) Mac is nothing in comparison to a $3-5k gaming machine, and the former offers a fantastic experience in return for that value, whereas before Linux improved (and probably more relevantly Steam did - again I am not fully aware of the history but I think that's what I've heard), a Windows machine was something that you mostly had to spend hours and hours trying to disable as much of the built-in OS as you could manage. No wonder people prefer Linux these days - if you are going to have to delve into such details regardless! But with Macs, all of that is entirely optional bc it's a great experience right out of the box.

I've given up on their phones though, bc iOS is really difficult. Then again these days so too are Android phones, and I don't know what to do about it all. An iPhone on a network with something like a Pie hole (I've never set one up before) could be a nice experience, maybe? But I just enjoy the experience of Android too much - except I won't pay the price for an expensive Pixel (I barely even use my camera!). I was thinking for my next phone to just buy any cheapie, or perhaps a Fairphone. I'm done chasing "good" phones though.

Mac is awesome!:-) Sorta. Apple has become "The Man" that it used to despise but... the product, I mean the desktop product, is still good. For now.

The GNU utilities are some of the most highly optimized on planet Earth. Actually they probably are the most highly optimized!:-D

Also, Mac OSX is POSIX compliant, making it more fully "Unix" than even Linux itself is - or at least, some flavors of Linux are allowed to not be POSIX compliant. templeOS is not POSIX compliant, and some parts of Arch (e.g. fish shell) are not either, reportedly.

Whenever I say that I enjoy using Mac OSX, the only pushback I tend to receive is that it typically runs on expensive hardware. However, it is unix with a pretty candy shell - e.g. that Preview program if f-ing amazing! and the Anti-aliasing everywhere, and the Spotlight search, and... it has much wow factor overall!:-P - and I think a good fraction of people who like Linux would enjoy using it, if it were free (which technically it is, the OS I mean, and that doesn't even get into Darwin...). The major caveat being Arch users, who want to customize every tiny thing to their heart's content. Which is fine - we don't all have to enjoy the same things:-).

I am fortunate enough that my workplace offers me a Mac OSX:-). Which I promptly use to ssh into a Linux ofc, but that one I do not have privileges on. And I don't do much rooting or OS replacing on my Android at home lately.

My point is that they all are "under God" (from templeOS perspective?). Except Windows ofc, which is under Satan:-P.

Yup, same. Though you'll still miss the extremely niche ones that way - e.g. I had an account on discuss.online and noticed the community !drpg@discuss.online mentioned in the sidebar featured area. To this day my post offered there remains the single one - even the creator didn't bother making one, probably just squatting the name.

And I noticed !tech_memes@lemmy.world by the creator making a post announcing having created it.

I think browsing by All is helpful but by the time you find good communities there they have already taken off enough to be noticed.

Which is why I really enjoyed browsing by New often - you get the bleeding edge stuff that perhaps few people will ever see or upvote:-). But you also get a LOT of e.g. anime posts that way too, as new communities for them kept popping up.:-P

Many people lead busy lives and don't use Arch btw (you know that funny saying here on Lemmy? well if not, you'll learn it soon - in fact you're hearing it now!:-P). They use what works best for them. We could improve our tools to entice them to want to come here, but we can hardly blame them (imho) if they don't want to yet, if Lemmy (or Mbin, PieFed, etc.) does not meet there needs (yet).

We are growing though. e.g. check out !loops@midwest.social, which I would guess probably has no counterpart on Reddit atm? (their internal video player sucked, and presumably still does since they seem so focused on profits rather than usability)

Unpopular opinion: it's okay to like Reddit, if that's how you feel. I don't - it's far too toxic overall, and that was affecting me to the point where I made the decision to leave it, regardless of the outcome of the protests (based in large measure on having read this article that further developed the thoughts that I was already starting to think: https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb ). And I don't like where it's going in the future - you may use it for awhile then be surprised when yet another horrendous decision by Huffman or the people behind him sends content creators fleeing to other platforms, again.

But if you have found a particular niche group there, and they are not willing to leave Reddit, then you go to where they are, right? Perhaps you can also help make moving here more welcoming by starting a similar community of your own here, even if you are the only one posting there for awhile. That said, we simply don't have the userbase here to handle e.g. most individual games (some fairly major exceptions such as Minecraft aside:-) or sports teams or some such, and you may want to enjoy interacting with more generalized content, possibly in addition to rather than fully replacing Reddit.

Conversations here tend to be better than there. Deeper, richer, and fuller. But to each their own - if Reddit meets your needs while Lemmy does not, then it sounds like you have your answer. But perhaps read my link above and think about what it means: Reddit is predatory, and you'd be willfully walking back into that, hoping against hope that the leopard would not eat your face off (spoiler alert: it will:-D).

Well, I hear that but at the same time the counterargument seems fairly strong. As I understand it (not being a mod of any communities here myself) apparently the mod tools suck pretty bad, especially across instance barriers. And in particular it is reportedly lacking standard filtering capabilities so that if Threads were ever federated with, the sheer VOLUME of content would quickly overwhelm the ability of the mods to keep up. Hence, if Threads were to join the Threadiverse, then Lemmy as it currently is now would have no chance but would cease to exist, almost instantly. And we would become an unmoderated playground.

I have no idea how Threads itself handles moderation, but at a guess, it wouldn't (fully?) apply if people with Threads accounts were to comment on posts in Lemmy communities?

So Threads really is a special circumstance, not at all like federating with hexbear or exploding heads etc.

Even so, the admins do seem to be listening to the feedback of the users, rather than forcing that choice upon everyone, yeah:-).