Like many others, when the reddit APIcalypse happened, I moved to the fediverse. Like many, I wasn’t sure what it really consisted of, how it worked, or what instance to move to. Eventually I decided to sign up with kbin.social. Ernest was welcoming, the instance was friendly with a nice mix of topics, the community was great, having access to both threadiverse and microblogs was great, and I loved it.
And then Ernest started having health issues and the instance became unstable. Eventually I moved to fedia/mbin, which I enjoy a lot, but I just haven’t quite felt that same sense of belonging - I don’t know, maybe the new job just kept me away a bit too much, or I’m getting old, or just been through too many changes. But I’ve kept kbin on my launch page, and sometimes I find myself a bit wistful for it.
I poked at the internet, and the kbin.social domain expires in a few days, on 10 September, which I suppose will be a formal end to the project. In memory of kbin, I’d like thank Ernest: wherever you are, I hope you are well and enjoying your life. Thank you for the concepts behind and your work on kbin; I love the bridging of the microblogs and threadiverse. And thank you for making the transition to the fediverse less confusing to this old redditor. I wish you the best in life, and thank you again.
Same! I was one of the early migrants just before the mass migration, having seen the writing on the wall and having already joined Mastodon. It was a great time initially, a bit of “you’re new? okay, I’ve figured a few things out, try this”. We caught Ernest by surprise because he was only making a proof of concept to offer an alternative to Lemmy. And then we showed up in droves. But he did his best, and while it was bumpy, it was still an overall great experience, much like the early days of Reddit, pre-Digg.
I still like the kbin-style instances over Lemmy, but yeah, it’s not quite the same any more. That said, still preferable to Reddit these days.
Thank you, Ernest. Hope you’re recovering wherever you are.