As a CS dude who uses Linux and is around way too many people who seem like they genuinely are in need of some therapy on a daily basis, this entirely checks out, tbh.

I’m now mildly worried for my own mental state

Up until the API debacle, that was my solution too. Now even that doesn’t work. It’s so bizarrely hard to look something up on the internet now.

Yeah, it just doesn’t really exist yet. I’m not sure a really well-moderated community for news content can exist yet on Lemmy, due to the culture that’s slowly springing up, but if it did it’d have to be on a dedicated instance, I expect - one with a very, very dedicated set of moderators with relatively strict rules regarding what is sufficiently-well-sourced content, and all other communities on the instance being held up to the same bar in their specific niches in order to encourage that kind of posting culture.

Honestly, I don’t think Reddit ever achieved a really good result either - the news subreddits were all dumpster fires to varying degrees - but Lemmy’s immaturity worsens the issue here, I think. It’s pretty appallingly obvious. I’d look elsewhere for news opinion aggregation, for the time being.

Same boat here, though a couple years later. It feels really weird to be so out of the loop with my “fellow” Gen Z siblings who were born in the late 00s.

Very much this. The atmosphere here doesn’t feel any different than it did back on reddit, for better or worse. I feel like there was a time when reddit was less pessimistic, but there’s been at least a little of that vibe for a long time.

… most of them, embarrassingly. I buy games when they’re on steep sale, but rarely actually gst to the end of them (Hollow Knight was the last one I completed, as I recall).

Well, that will set a lovely precedent for other “free” democracies… the people are angry at you? Just take their voice! What could go wrong…

… well, that’s going to be incredibly confusing.

I’ve always said go-DOH, personally.

Fwiw, Ultrakill is essentially a complete experience as-is. It is early access, but it’s the kind of early access where I’d have gladly paid even if it was only the current content.

For the most part it hasn’t been too confusing for me. I’m new to modern federated social media, but not new to the idea of federation due to experience with the IRC model. I really enjoy the idea of instances and having your own sort of smaller space while being able to contribute to larger spaces still… though there’s definitely still some user experience hurdles that need overcome on that front.