Introduction
I have a very unhealthy addiction to the internet. It probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the majority of my 20s were spent in front of Youtube and Reddit. Reddit drew me in with its engaging topics, its communities based around niche interests, and its ease of dropping in and adding your two cents, while gaining the instant approval or disapproval of users through the use of upvotes and downvotes.
I have tried to leave it behind several times. For misguided reasons in the Fall of 2014, and for the sake of my mental health during the height of the pandemic. But each time I tried to leave the site, I kept getting sucked back in. Usually I would be staring at my screen, wondering what to do with my time. I would check back on Reddit out of curiosity, see an interesting post, leave a comment, get an upvote or 50, and the dopamine hit would trigger my addiction all over again. Engagement was my drug and Reddit was my dealer. But after an abusive relationship that lasted almost 12 years, I decided to say goodbye for the last time (hopefully.)
During June of 2023, a large scale protest over Reddit’s API changes, followed by a large exodus of users occurred, and many flocked to alternatives all across the web. Many users ended up joining the Fediverse through the migration, and while most users would gather on the various instances of Lemmy, I ended up joining Kbin.
The Kbin Experience
Kbin was my first exposure to the Fediverse and how it works. Upon joining, I only had a vague idea of what Mastodon was, and no idea what Lemmy or the greater Fediverse were. But after awhile I learned that Kbin and Lemmy shared content with each other through federation, and that multiple instances of both platforms existed and acted as their own sites. I also learned that Kbin could also share content with Mastodon through the microblog feature attached to it.
I ended up joining both Kbin and Lemmy to get a feel for both sites. While I liked Lemmy for its similar look and feel to classic Reddit, I ultimately stuck with Kbin due to the user interface that was large, fresh, and attractive, the features that were built into Kbin that many Lemmy instances lacked, such as the ability to see downvotes and make memos, and for the unique community and user base that felt like its own thing separate from Lemmy. The ability to make posts and interact with Mastodon was a plus as well.
I did start to experience problems with Kbin right from the start though. When I first joined, Kbin was just starting to federate with Lemmy, and the joining of content between both sites was still incomplete. I would occasionally encounter glitches when trying to interact with the site. Sometimes when I tried to up or downvote a post, or add a reply, I would get an error message that would force me to refresh the page, and wouldn’t register my actions. When a spam bot was flooding comment sections with baby gibberish, I attempted to block it, only to be met with an error message every time I tried.
Despite the occasional errors though, I fell in love with the site, as well as the Fediverse as a whole. Kbin’s interface made it easy to recognize users with usernames and profile pictures being prominently displayed in their posts. This led to me getting to know some of the users, which was a stark contrast to the lonely and impersonal experience of Reddit. Because of the relatively small user base of Kbin and Lemmy, it was much easier for my posts to get exposure, and very soon I was getting recognized by other users as well. There definitely seems to be a lot more community on the Fediverse than I had every experienced on larger, more mainstream sites, and Kbin was my method of choice for experiencing it!
The Breaking Point
One day, I was attempting to post a meme when I ran into a 50x error shortly after. It booted me back to the homepage, and while the history on my profile said I had posted the meme, it appeared nowhere on the community’s page, and I couldn’t even interact with the post from my profile. I kept getting this error and this glitch every time I tried to post a new image or thread from then on. As of the time of creating this blog post (16/8/2023) I still get the error anytime I attempt to post anything outside of a comment.
I tried desperately to figure out what was going on. I tried changing settings hoping it was just a glitch with one of my presets. I tried remedies i found online only for nothing to work. I even tried pleading with the site admin for help with this issue. In the end I ended up creating another account on a different instance, because despite the issues I was having on Kbin, I wasn’t ready to completely give up on it.
Switching instances seemed to solve my posting problem, but it introduced a series of other problems of its own. This instance did not seem to work with downvoting, there were subtle differences in how information was displayed that made it harder to work with than the instance I left, and this instance still wasn’t fully federated with Lemmy or the other Kbin instances, which made some content completely invisible from this instance. I probably could switch instances yet again, but how many separate accounts on separate instances am I going to have to make before things just works, and how do I know things won’t just break again?
The Conclusion
Ultimately, I think the creator of Kbin, Ernest Wisniewski, has a compelling project that he should be proud of. It’s clear that the site is still in beta, and there are a lot of bugs to iron out before the site is ready for the big time. But despite the bugs and glitches I encountered, I’m still in it for the long run. It is still one of the most enjoyable and addictive platforms I have ever used, and is still my hub of choice for experiencing the Fediverse.
I think it is a testament to the site’s design that despite constantly testing my patience, I still want to use it, and will even jump through hoops just to get it to work. In a way, Kbin is the broken trampoline of the Fediverse. Its still a lot of fun to play on, just mind the jagged rusty bits sticking out of the edges.
TLDR: It’s broken, but It’s still a fun and enjoyable platform!
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