Madbrad200

Hexbear used to be federated with sh.itjust.works. if you defederate, the old posts still continue to exist, hence the communities also still continuing to show.

That seems extreme. There will always be another instance out there without ads, and ads can always be blocked, and not all ads employ tracking and privacy invasive measures.

because they also wanted a realistic direction, so it was about balancing the two and realism meant sacrificing some silliness despite it also being wanted.

Are you asking how to browse your own subscribed feed or how to subscribe to communities, because on either case it's the same as it is on the Reddit app?

Then subscribe to communities and curate your own feed. Reddits r/all feed has always been unbearable for me

This is a popular claim but dubious and probably not true https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/40275/do-elephants-see-humans-the-same-way-humans-see-puppies

Hey man you'd come off way better if you dropped the corporate speak and talk to us like a normal person.

You can filter communities yourself by blocking them. Or subscribe to communities and curate your own feed, just like you can do on Reddit.

I have a list of casual communities here https://lemmy.world/post/2216085 you can use as a starting point. Curating your own feed is the best way to browse Lemmy imo, but if that's too much, don't be afraid to block away.

I also ditched Sync recently. Shame, at least Boost is good. I don't really feel like the other apps quite match either...

tldr nothing.

Deezer is decent.

Yes, the apple theme was initially off-putting to be honest and I doubt most casual users take the time to check out the settings before looking elsewhere. First choice should always be (imo) the most familiar/comfortable for users.