I had almost exclusively used reddit through the Relay app since 2012 or something like that. Relay is still available actually, and I’d even be willing to pay for its subscription if most of the money went to the dev. I didn’t like the idea of reddit making money off of a negative change they forced on me, it was bad enough that they trampled on the goodwill and efforts of the community.
Also I had used reddit since 2010, when it was much smaller. Most of reddit had grown too large, leaving only niche communities at a size where I felt it was worth interacting. I still miss some of the cooler small communities (and occasionally check on them through the API bypassing apps Geddit or Stealth), but Lemmy is generally at a size that I’m much happier to interact with.
I’m usually interested in a VPN for privacy, using a VPN provided by Google feels like I’d have been less privacy.