Reddit wants data, as personal and uniquely identifiable as possible, as collecting and selling that data is a core component of their business. To a significantly lesser degree they also want to minimize spam. VPNs reduce the amount of uniquely identifiable data they can collect (really just an IP address they/their customers can use to match your Reddit data to data from other sources. VPNs also reduce the efficacy of using IP blocks to stop spammers, but I really don’t think Reddit cares too strongly here unless the spam interrupts normal usage, as spam that looks human-like can be sold as user data.

This is insanely cool! I want more house plants now

I think it is fair to say that the hype surrounding last year’s Reddit exodus has come to an end. But, Lemmy existed for several years before then, and will continue to exist for the foreseeable future. It’s not going to grow infinitely, but there will likely be more waves in the future that see spikes of activity followed by declines, but each one will bring in new users that will build up the community slowly.

Lemmy is also part of the fediverse which does seem to be growing at a healthy rate, especially mastodon. It’s entirely possible that future software updates there will make Lemmy more visible to mastodon users and allow both communities higher levels of interaction.

It could with software ray tracing, but it doesn’t have any GPUs. The CPU cores aren’t especially fast either, they just have a lot of them.

Are 12+ hours of intense work realistic on those devices?

This is a bad take. Yes, “algorithm” is a vague term, but it’s incorrect to suggest that they’re easily cloned. These algorithms are what makes social media companies. Without them, they wouldn’t have the same kind of user engagement. It’s why, outside of the fediverse, social media companies try to hide or demote linear timelines. It’s why they pour most of the R&D money into the recommendation algorithms.

MacBooks right now in particular are so far ahead of everything else right now. Nothing comes close in terms of performance and battery life. Some laptops can do one or the other, but if it’s fast you can expect the battery life to be shit or vice versa.

And fwiw, most computer users still aren’t Adobe CC users.

Yeah it’s wild that the US government will fund private projects without getting the same bonds or shares that private investors would expect.