This is not an attempt to convert Lemmy users, nor is it a slight on Lemmy. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why Lemmy works better for some, and I love the fact that we not only have multiple choices, but multiple choices that allow us to interact with each other regardless! It’s amazing. Lemmy is great, no shade.
With that said…
Why YSK: I see a lot of users posting frequent questions about Lemmy that are currently answered by kbin.
For example:
- The ability to block a whole domain, or subscribe to one
- The ability to subscribe to individual users
- A built-in search tool to find communities all over fedi (kbin, Lemmy, Mastodon groups, etc.) with an indication of how active they are
- Mitigation for the “tracking pixel” issue
I find that almost every day, I see Lemmy users asking about features and I think, “well, kbin does that.” I think it would be worthwhile for more users to check into both platforms and decide which might be best for them.
It’s obviously not a competition, but this kind of reminds me of back in the day when you had to choose between Betamax or VHS. One seemed superior (kBin)–but “everyone” was adopting VHS (Lemmy).
If by “everyone” you mean “porn,” then yeah, I guess. VHS won for the same reason that DVD won and now streaming won:
Porn access is cheaper because of it.
Incorrect. It’s a common misconception that porn was the leading factor that doomed Beta to lose the format wars. In reality, Sony’s strict licensing of the beta technology, short recording times and higher cost doomed the system. A large part of the betamax development history is trying to lower its superior quality just to have the runtimes a standard vhs tape would have.
Ehhh. kbin’s quite feature-incomplete in its own right, it’s just a different set of features that are incomplete. I don’t think there’s anything about kbin that’s actually superior to lemmy, just… different. Meanwhile, Betamax had inarguably better video, and inarguably worse capacity.
Which features are missing from Kbin that are on Lemmy?
I lurked on both for about a week before going with Kbin so don’t really have experience of using Lemmy apps etc
Not being able to collapse comments is why I ended up on Lemmy instead of of Kbin
Off the top of my head:
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API’s a big one. Mobile app development for kbin is deeply hampered because of that.
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The ability to quickly filter your timeline by Local/Global, which is a big deal for regional or themed instances.
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A (more) easily accessible subscribed community/magazine list (slower/smaller communities are kind of totally smothered in kbin).
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PeerTube federation.
Meanwhile, the domain block touted by the OP is buried and kind of a pain to get to, and the search claim is… overstated (kbin search still only reaches other sites that the given kbin instance is subscribed to).
kbin has a nicer UI, IMO, and it’s fine. It’s perfectly fine. Lemmy is also perfectly fine. Neither is excellent, and that’s ok. Neither has reached version 1.0, either, and both are being developed by small teams (for some flexible definition of “team”).
Kinda. If you could watch VHS on a Betamax player and vice versa. The betamax player may have more features or do things a little differently but you can see the same stop on both players.
Kbin? Sounds like a Korean refuse recepticle. It’ll never catch on.
If you really want to know, Kbin comes from the polish word “karabin”, which was the original name of the project. Also the reason why communities are called “magazines”.
Ernest (the kbin developer) has addressed this more than once, and this take is untrue. kbin come from the Linux folder sbin.
See one of his comments on this here: https://kbin.social/m/fediverse/t/344/What-is-Kbin-Join-the-Fediverse#entry-comment-969
That’s super cool. How are magazines related to polish? I don’t get the link.
@Fantomas said
Kbin? Sounds like a Korean refuse recepticle. It’ll never catch on.
Is this supposed to be some kind of joke I’m too millennial to understand? Not only do I not get the joke, it also appears racist as fuck? Someone please help me understand.
I’ll give it a shot. Lemmy not having any search is a bit of a bummer.
There is https://search-lemmy.com/
me on kbin not knowing lemmy didn’t have these things… damn lol
Same, every time I see those posts thinking, “Kbin does that.”
Ernest is kinda the best, gotta say. Everyone should buy him a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kbin
Kbin was where I first signed up but they didn’t have an app (yet). I’m only on Lemmy because I can use it on my phone. I kinda like Kbin better.
It’s certainly nice to have an app, but I’ve been happy with to stay on kbin by having it permanently sit in a Firefox tab on my phone. Functions just fine for my purposes like that.
kbin is attractive to me…except an email address is required to register. I know that’s a common thing on a lot of sites, but it’s not info I want to provide, and setting up a burner email is kind of a nuisance.
