Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?

I realize that asking this probably makes me sound like an asshole, but bear with me for a second. When I joined Reddit, circa 2012, it had its shared of misinformed, poorly researched comments/posts like every other internet community, but as long as you stuck to niche subreddits it was mostly downvoted and contained.

As the years pass and I pick up new niche interests, my instinct is to turn to Reddit to find like minded individuals, but more and more increasingly I find that misinformed and poorly researched content is becoming the default and taking over the more quality content.

Is this everyone else's experience with Reddit lately as well or I'm just becoming more of an asshole as I age? Genuinely curious what others think.

Reddit is bigger, and most communities get fall off as they get bigger. The solution is to find smaller subreddits, and to contribute the content you want to see.

I think so, yes. Even in niche subreddits (arch linux, say) if you ask a question, you'll only get stock answers, as if the other person had done a quick web search, picked the top result from google, and pasted it in.

Doesn't help that the recent redesign explicitly encourages that.

Yes, I think so in the sense that it peaked several years ago. For awhile it was getting smarter because so many niche communities were being created and good information was being shared freely, which attracted more expertise. More companies were also interested in using subreddits as their community software or support forum which endorsed sections of it for specialized knowledge. Those trends have peaked and companies are more likely to set up a Discord and create nice documentation as static sites have become easier to generate and GitHub mindshare has grown.