I’m a nurse and reddit has a nursing subreddit I like to contribute to because they give good advice regarding my job, how to deal with arrogant doctors, bitchy coworkers… they know things a regular user in a generic channel couldn’t answer, because they don’t know the job.
I think asking in a channel like this for nursing advice doesn’t make much sense, because this is not a nursing specific channel.
Something similar happens to my workplace questions: there is an antiwork lemmy, but the one in reddit is much larger and they also have a work community, and so far I haven’t found anything like that on lemmy.
Another issue is size: For some problems, like violence in the hospital I need speedy advice and I get that faster when the communities are larger. Reddit is larger.
Simply replying ‘we don’t monetize’ while true and one reason why I turned to lemmy and don’t use reddit as much now, is not convincing enough for my particular case.
If you have not, diversify your social media like I do, without even needing to touch Facebook/Instagram/Messenger (unless you do). For example, no metadata is also metadata, the same way, every type of person and communication has a different meaning and purpose. This way, you do not need to reinvent the communication wheel and is effortless, since others are doing the work for you.
That’s occurred to me too! It seems we have independently discovered a fairly productive way to use social media.
I usually select exactly who I will be on a platform beforehand. Not to misrepresent anything, but just make sure the platform works for me (and others) instead of wasting everyone’s time.
Then on the major platforms I choose not to use, I create profiles with an incorrect set of associations, history, and interests. They’re going to end up with my data one way or another, so I may as well take control of the narrative and render it inert.