A strategy that has worked for me: very quickly browsing all new, just looking at community names. I barely look at the posts, just make a quick decision if it sounds interesting to me. I’ll check the sidebar and decide from there to subscribe or not. I’ve found dozens to follow and a bunch to block lol. It’s cleaning up my feed pretty nicely and my home page has a lot of content now.

It’s not a very informative article, it barely hints at why this is happening. Presumably Snapchat wants to shut it down, and rebuild it themselves?

Popular animated gifs hosting service gfycat.com is shutting down on September 1, 2023 and all hosted content will no longer be accessible at that point.

The service is one of many that is used by Internet users to upload and share animated gifs on the Internet. Founded more than eight years ago, Gfycat has risen to popularity and is widely used in some Internet communities.

The official website of the service informs users about the shutdown. There, the company writes: “The Gfycat service is being discontinued. Please save or delete your Gfycat content by visiting https://www.gfycat.com and logging in to your account. After September 1, 2023, all Gfycat content and data will be deleted from gfycat.com” Existing users have time until September 1, 2023 to save their uploaded animated gifs for safekeeping. On September 2, 2023, all data will be deleted from the company’s servers and will no longer be accessible.

Any image embedded on third-party sites will no longer display either and show an error instead. Uploaders may download their animated gifs from the service and upload it to another, and then change the embed codes of their posts to keep the images visible.

Gyfcat banned adult content in 2019 in the app and created a new service, called redgifs, for that. This service was later sold to another company.

The service was acquired last year by Snap, makers of Snapchat. Gfycat is not the only animated gif service that has been acquired recently. Meta, owner of Facebook, tried to acquire the popular service Giphy but was blocked to go forward by regulators. Meta had to sell Giphy at a $260 million loss to Shutterstock as a consequence.

Snap has not made an official announcement regarding the shutdown of Gfycat.

Here are some Gfycat alternatives

• Giphy – While now part of Shutterstock, Giphy remains available at the moment on the Internet.

• Imgur – One of the oldest standing sites that allows users to upload animated gifs and images.

• Kikliko – Animated Gifs with sounds support is what sets this site apart from many others.

• Tenor – Another site that allows users to upload animated gifs and embed them into third-party sites.

Now You: do you use another site for hosting animated gifs?”

Thank you, I just read your comment about how we grow as we grow, and it reflects my sentiments exactly. I really like the way you write, it has harmony. We can’t expect others to feel how we feel, and being full of rage won’t move us in the direction we want.

I understand where you’re coming from, and I’m glad you made the move to lemmy. I myself came from Reddit just a few days ago and I have no plans to return. I also understand being frustrated by people not wanting to leave Reddit, you are right that it limits the potential of communities on lemmy, and it sucks. I’m not saying people shouldn’t talk about how they wish more redditors would leave.

For me, I’m just sick of the vitriol and hate that is all over this thread. People seem genuinely furious at the notion that not everyone is willing to join their crusade. I’m not sure if you’re justifying the vitriol or just the sentiment that people really should leave Reddit. If justifying the vitriol, your comment kind of reminds me of formerly fat people saying “I lost weight because I was bullied for being overweight, therefore it is actually a good thing to keep bullying fat people. I’m actually doing this because I care about their health, they’ll feel so much better and be so much healthier when they lose the weight!” Some people respond well to being mocked and shit on, most don’t. It just isn’t helpful and for 99% of people it just fuels negative feelings rather than a drive for change.

Jesus, this is the energy I wish was left behind on Reddit. People staying on Reddit does not impact you in any way, why does it enrage you to this extent? Who gives a shit if they continue to subject themselves to ads and bring under the control of a corporation? They don’t care, why do you? It is a waste of your energy, and the sheer toxicity of calling them dumbfuck cowards, saying they’re as bad as spez, is just ridiculous and pathetic.

Maybe I should switch to a smaller lemmy, if this is the vibe redditors want to bring to lemmy.