When it first popped up I made an account and took a look. I liked the 'free speech' and 'all are welcome' sales pitch. But at the time it was mostly vacant, and I didn't really like the layout.
I've gone back a couple times to have a quick look, and it's getting ugly. Maybe I'm not setting up my account or preferences or something, but when I logged in and clicked on 'categories' then 'philosophy' and got a page full of images with memes and other empty content. When I clicked on 'science' I got a page filled with discussions about gender or climate change, and nothing else.
Did I accidentally put gab into voat-mode?
Also, it just doesn't have a community feel. More like being in the midst of a mob. There's no compartmentalization, it's all one big group rather than a union of smaller groups.
I don't get it.
What's the appeal, or what am I doing wrong?
Yeah, there's been a kerfluffle over on reddit because of the latest round of subreddit-banning. Caught the attention of voat-ers because some redditors listed voat as one of the possible alternatives. voat-ers proceeded to come to reddit and insult everyone (to put it lightly), then claim that if you're not doing the same then you're against free speech. Attempted to take them at their word for a day, and it was just exhausting and at the end there was nothing of value. Maybe I've re-learned the "don't feed the trolls" lesson?
Edit -- I did find, and am now exploring, phuks.co -- so far that seems like a win!