Is Tildes really ‘competing’? The invite-based signup obviously invites the most dedicated and ‘quality’ individuals, but I don’t see how that’s gonna help with critical mass.
As for Squabbles, I’m suspicious of yet another centralized platform. Honestly, I’m just sorta ‘done’ trusting wannabe billionaires.
Unlike that exodus, the Lemmigration isn’t for censorship and freedom of speech issues (inevitably drawing in the most toxic, bigoted and hateful section of Reddit to voat); it’s because of reduced accessibility and usability, alongside the visible contempt that Reddit’s administration has for their users (free content providers) and moderators (free content curators).
This means the people fleeing Reddit’s shores aren’t doing so because they want to recreate fatpeoplehate elsewhere; it’s because Reddit won’t let blind people moderate their own communities.
That’s how they collect the surplus they have right now. Without it, they could be in much direr straits if funding were to be suddenly cut off.