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Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

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Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#41

Post by seabird »

I would argue that reddit never was really that great. It has gotten worse (the really aggressive advertising and dogshit UI is fairly recent), but karma farming is as old as time, is pretty much fundamentally unavoidable with their current model, and is probably one of the biggest issues with discussion on the site. I avoided the site for years because of the tendency toward low quality high engagement posts, and I know plenty of people who felt the exact same way. I can't speak to what it was like around 2010, but when I started looking a few years after that it was a lot of what I described above.

The only true fix to this is either firm AND benevolent moderation (really only works for small stuff, like HN), or just ditching usernames and internet points altogether. 4chan was, for the most part, low quality discussion, but people at least had a reason behind their post that wasn't ego-flaming to save face on their pseudonymous internet account/getting internet points to feel like they had some clout.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#42

Post by parineum »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #35
TameAntelope wrote: post #13

You call it degradation, Reddit calls it "explosive growth". The UX redesign was hugely successful in attracting new users, users who could then be monetized. The "useless answers" are wildly popular responses because people generally prefer to meme, not solve problems. Your complaint essentially boils down to, "Why do people not behave how I want them to?" and that, my friend, is a question as old as time itself. Fr…

The UX redesign is also clearly part of a mobile-first strategy. The mobile site funnels users into the mobile app, and the desktop site clearly echos the mobile design principles. Mobile users fundamentally engage with the platform in different ways. For one, they form a different demographic segment than older users, and secondly the mobile app frames and filters content in uniquely mobile ways. High-signal content…

> Mobile users fundamentally engage with the platform in different ways. For one, they form a different demographic segment than older users, and secondly the mobile app frames and filters content in uniquely mobile ways. High-signal content is much more difficult to craft on a mobile device so more mobile use represents a greater proportion of content noise.

I'd argue the only thing that really matters about mobile users is they are online _way_ more often. Engagement can be higher on mobile because the access is mobile.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#43

Post by breck »

Do you have data to support your positions?

I think it's gotten better, not worse. Though the variance between subreddits is high, so if you're not subredditing well, ymmv.

My only complaint are their dark patterns pushing the mobile app.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#44

Post by Animats »

bombcar wrote: post #16
jyu wrote: post #9

The leaders, managers, engineers need to do something to justify their promotions. They are growing because the internet is centralizing. It's succeeding despite all the bad user decisions being made, but at some point it will catch up with them. Reminds me of Meg Whitman running ebay into the ground while collecting billions and eventually getting wrecked by Amazon. They're still around but a shell of their former r…

eBay, Amazon, and Etsy have all devolved to an alibaba outlet with some differentiation. It’s getting hard to find the things eBay was famous for (used goods) amongst all the buyitnow alibaba junk.

On Alibaba, you get pictures of the factory and business background info. On Amazon, you get nothing.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#45

Post by Sunspark »

rckclmbr wrote: post #23

I can think of a couple major points that have caused massive culture shifts on reddit (some might say for the worse). There have been other temporary shifts/events, but I think these ones were longer lasting * The "Digg invasion", when Digg 4.0 came out in 2013. This is when reddit turned into mostly memes. Before that, the frontpage was closer to slashdot, but much more open conversation around it. (of course there…

The downvoting thing is interesting.. I fairly often upvote comments with 0 if they haven't said anything bad or objectionable just to make things more fair.

The mods on subreddits are a problem too. There is no recourse. If they decide to ban you for any reason, that's the end of it, even if no rule has been broken. If you message modmail to ask for more information, they can just mute you from messaging modmail.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#46

Post by happythebob »

orangepurple wrote: post #14

Dead Internet Theory (DIT) TLDR: Large proportions of the supposedly human-produced content on the internet are actually generated by artificial intelligence networks in conjunction with paid secret media influencers in order to manufacture consumers for an increasing range of newly-normalised cultural products. https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?threads/dead-internet-...

I spend enough time on Reddit that I think the bots excuse is overblown. I think there's just that many stupid people now who are too busy to think or read at a meaningful level. Social media by default encourages reaction (upvotes and quick comments) as opposed to reflection. Conservatives have been doing a much better job of reaching younger people imo the past ten years, too

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#48

Post by parineum »

Domenic_S wrote: post #27
0xRusty wrote: post #17

In terms of the UI/UX use old.reddit.com - I honestly don't understand how anyone uses the new default version. Comments are hidden, there are ads and other threads content on the page. It's literally impossible to use. It's such a disaster I can't understand how it ever passed testing. The community itself when you get away from the big main subreddits isn't too bad. The best experience is had when you unsub from al…

> I honestly don't understand how anyone uses the new default version The day they kill old.reddit is the day I stop reading it.

There are alternate reddit sites that use their API to re-host the posts. Some (all) are even self-hostable.

If they get rid of old.reddit, I might quit just because of how hostile to the users I'd view that but I wouldn't quite because of the UI.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#49

Post by colinmhayes »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #35
TameAntelope wrote: post #13

You call it degradation, Reddit calls it "explosive growth". The UX redesign was hugely successful in attracting new users, users who could then be monetized. The "useless answers" are wildly popular responses because people generally prefer to meme, not solve problems. Your complaint essentially boils down to, "Why do people not behave how I want them to?" and that, my friend, is a question as old as time itself. Fr…

The UX redesign is also clearly part of a mobile-first strategy. The mobile site funnels users into the mobile app, and the desktop site clearly echos the mobile design principles. Mobile users fundamentally engage with the platform in different ways. For one, they form a different demographic segment than older users, and secondly the mobile app frames and filters content in uniquely mobile ways. High-signal content…

More importantly, it's very difficult to block ads on a mobile app. Reddit's problem is that the vast majority of their "power users" use adblockers and therefore provide zero revenue. Mobile also makes it much easier to doom scroll for hours a day, key to facebook's success.

As far as I can tell reddit's website provides minimal income and is just an ad for their app.

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