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Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#81

Post by xhrpost »

I find searching reddit for niche things to be at least useful enough to point me in the right direction on some topics. But wow, discussion, even the small subs can be pretty toxic. It's sad as I'd love to have better discussion around various topics but every post feels like I'm walking on egg shells.

My theory is just that if anyone can join, and everything is anonymous and there is no barrier to entry [1], quality of communication will just be low. Makes me think about how some Ham Radio enthusiasts want to keep Morse Code as a requirement to get a license even though it's not really needed, it simply acts as a good filter for keeping less prudent people out of the eco-system. For web boards, maybe September will never end [2].

Hope this all isn't too cynical and please speak up if it sounds so.

[1] I realize HN is easy to join but is often seen as having far superior discussion than Reddit. I think there's just something about heavily technical article titles and topics that make it a bigger lift to want to jump in with trivial but aggressive arguing. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#84

Post by haunter »

>mostly useless answers (most replies to posts are either poorly sarcastic or not replying to the actual point)

You are in the wrong subs

I agree though that default /r/all subs are overly politicized and most of them are utter thrash

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#85

Post by _abox »

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…

> 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.

Not to mention it brings even a powerful machine to its knees..

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#87

Post by tedivm »

zhynn wrote: post #53
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…

It amuses me every time I do it, but my two most common browser prefixes when I want a break are: old (resolves to old.reddit.com) new (resolves to news.ycombinator.com) It makes me chuckle.

I had never noticed this and it's absolutely hilarious. I always wondered why they went with "old" as the descriptor there, but now I'm glad they did.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#88

Post by hyperbovine »

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…

I must be using Reddit differently than the typical user. It's almost hilarious how much worse the new UX is compared to browsing the exact same content on old.reddit.com. Like, I literally cannot believe that serious money, time, and effort were invested in designing this product, though presumably that is true. The same applies particularly to their video player, it is just amazingly bad compared to similar offerings from other large social media sites.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#89

Post by SoftTalker »

blueblob wrote: post #61
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…

There are ads in the old version too. They show up as sponsored posts though I don't know if they are as egregious because I also use old. The only thing that I feel I miss out on in using old.reddit.com is the predictions. The /r/muaythai has a predictions tournament that's pretty fun but there's no way to get notifications that there are new predictions to be made with the old interface (as far as I know).

Use an ad blocker. I use ublock origin and don't see any ads on old.reddit.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Reddit?

#90

Post by peterkos »

rockbruno wrote: post #6

There was a thread the other day about how every community is bound to lose its identity once it gets big enough, and it likely can be applied to this. Once Reddit caught the attention of the advertising world to the point where people with high karma were being asked to sell their accounts, the entire platform devolved into people reposting each other's content to farm karma. In the last couple of months people have…

The reposts are what made me the most frustrated. I got really tired of seeing the same stuff keep cropping up literally every two or three days
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