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Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

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Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#81

Post by slg »

narrator wrote: post #45
exelius wrote: post #15

Reddit works because it’s anonymous, information-dense and relatively ad-free. Change any one of those three and the user base will abandon you. It’s been Reddit’s dilemma since the beginning: you can’t monetize a toxic user base that has total freedom. Sure you can try to drive away the toxic users, but it turns out that those toxic users are also pretty influential in non-toxic aspects. I’m still skeptical of Reddi…

I think the focus on the toxic user base is an artifact of the idea of one-dimensionally categorizing people based on their political ideology. That is such a hot button right now that it completely overshadows all other contributions to society in most forums. Reddit, by allowing some bad behavior and anonymity diffuses that ever present political aspect of modern life.

The kind of toxic people we are talking about on Reddit are not toxic for their politics. Racism, bigotry, and misogyny are not political topics. It isn't like tax policy or any other topic that can be debated. There is one clear side that is wrong.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#82

Post by white-flame »

mwfunk wrote: post #48
GAPAT wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sure you can try to drive away the toxic users, but it turns out that those toxic users are also pretty influential in non-toxic aspects Almost as if toxicity of a person is an integral part of their nature and politically correct spaces are detrimental to the discourse.

Toxicity is detrimental by definition, so not sure what you're getting at.

Detriment is wholly subjective here. When it comes to politics or social issues, people have different views on how society "should be", and those differences are offensive and considered toxic to the other side. In that sense, everybody is toxic and the label is meaningless and unactionable.

Obviously, most people hold beliefs of some form, and those beliefs will clash with others. Bandying around "toxic" as an absolute in those situations is narrow-minded and prejudiced. Reasonable people with contributions in one neutral area and one controversial area are lumped with this same label as trolls, doxers, and inciters of violence.

Specificity of labels is very important, especially when they are tied to consequences.

Where "toxic" can certainly be used is in relation to a certain goal, like reasonable level-headed discussion, or subscription to a certain worldview; instead of as absolute. Even actions like deliberate trolling aren't considered toxic on sites like 4chan, because that's part of their accepted and promoted culture.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#83

Post by domakidis »

HiroshiSan wrote: post #44
exelius wrote: post #15

Reddit works because it’s anonymous, information-dense and relatively ad-free. Change any one of those three and the user base will abandon you. It’s been Reddit’s dilemma since the beginning: you can’t monetize a toxic user base that has total freedom. Sure you can try to drive away the toxic users, but it turns out that those toxic users are also pretty influential in non-toxic aspects. I’m still skeptical of Reddi…

Not true anymore. You need an email just to sign up now.

At the time I'm posting this message, email is still not required. Just click 'Next' with an empty email value to skip that step during registration.

That's dark patterns 101, but technically it's not required.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#84

Post by djsumdog »

gitgacutils wrote: post #29
exelius wrote: post #15

Reddit works because it’s anonymous, information-dense and relatively ad-free. Change any one of those three and the user base will abandon you. It’s been Reddit’s dilemma since the beginning: you can’t monetize a toxic user base that has total freedom. Sure you can try to drive away the toxic users, but it turns out that those toxic users are also pretty influential in non-toxic aspects. I’m still skeptical of Reddi…

> Reddit works because it’s anonymous, information-dense and relatively ad-free. Reddit is none of those now. It's not anonymous ( they track your identity and feed it to the government ). You may be "anonymous" to fellow users, but not anonymous to authorities. It isn't information dense. It's propaganda dense. Almost all the content there now is government, media, ngo, etc propaganda. As for ads, check out the vide…

> It's not anonymous ( they track your identity and feed it to the government )

Are you referring to the missing warrant canary? That's about the time I stopped using Reddit, but I doubt they're selling data to the government. They're probably ordered to give out data due to National Security Letters.

> The frontpage will be littered with ad-like submissions ( aka ads ).

/r/hailcorporate is kinda interesting in that they like to point this out. It's not necessarily advertisers pushing their stuff, but a mix of regular users who just embrace consumerism and corporatism + ad bots. It's sometimes impossible to tell the two apart.

> Actually reddit could and did monetize "toxic content". How do you think reddit has been around for nearly 13 years?

I think OP is talking about all the now banned subs: /r/jailbait (and all the other bait subs), /r/niggers, /r/fatpeoplehate, etc. etc.

> Also, reddit stopped being a community a long time ago

I don't use Reddit anymore, except for local subs sometimes. The combination of the warranty canary and the mass bannings made me fed up. But what pissed me off the most was the CEO that edited comments in the database, and then kept his job with an apology. You should have to step down after that.

I agree though. Reddit isn't a great service. I hope we see more smaller sites based around the concept; maybe more Lobster instances for niche communities.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#85

Post by [deleted] »

cm2012 wrote: post #67
jakewins wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same as how TV and Radio ratings are done - statistically significant sampling of the population via surveys: https://support.alexa.com/hc/en-us/articles/200449744-How-ar...

The global data panel is not surveys of a random population. It's data collected from people using Alexa toolbars. It's highly weighted towards desktop traffic and the kind of people who install toolbars.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#86

Post by hoffbrau99 »

to_bpr wrote: post #58

As a long, long time user of Reddit, it has been quite saddening to see its descent into the shallow, ultra-toxic husk of a corporate entity that it is today. I'm not surprised by its popularity; it's a headline-surfers paradise, one in which you get feel good points for displays of virtue or shitposting easily digested content in an era of unparalleled narcissism and shortened attention spans. All is not lost though…

I'd like a reddit-like site that is more exclusive, it filters out the non-serious users with a yearly subscription fee of say $100.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#88

Post by djsumdog »

jimmies wrote: post #21

I have recently created a software package and wanted a forum to have my users post "fun" stuff that is not strictly technical since it's sort of a hobby. I have decided that it is way too tedious to host my own forums, so I chose a middle ground that is to create a subreddit. It is working out pretty well. There are be several reasons that hosting a forum/fanclub on Reddit is better than on Facebook. Facebook mandat…

If you wanted to run one yourself, you could always setup a Lobsters instance.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#89

Post by hoffbrau99 »

beanboot wrote: post #13
chipperyman573 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The timing couldn't be better with the hollowing-out of Tumblr. What happened? I haven't heard about this.

Yeah I’d like to hear more about this “hollowing out.”

What's Tumblr?

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#90

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

cwperkins wrote: post #38
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say the majority vs the minority, what do you mean? edit: To Clarify, which groups are you labeling as such?

It means different things in different contexts. For instance in r/southafrica there is a majority of Afrikaaners on the subreddit despite being a minority (10%) of the country. Any anti-Afrikaaner content is quickly dismissed and downvoted. In r/TwoXChromosome engaging in any discussion on the wage gap as a function of anything other than sexism is met with downvotes. In any majority US subreddit conservative posts…

I speak as someone whose largely the sites demographic (20-35, liberal leaning male), so I'm looking at this from a place where I don't feel threatened or marginalized, so bear with me.

What's to stop other groups from starting more focused subreddits? I understand what you're saying /r/Politics has a clearly left lean to it, but /r/Conservative seems to be relatively healthy (from my occasional peek in).

Even something like The_Donald still survives, and I'd dare to say it's not the content, but its constant attempt at stunts and controversy that's causing the most ill will towards it. I know we've seen hate subreddit's deleted, but I feel that's largely understandable when the very goal of the subreddit is toxicity toward a particular group.

I guess the fun with this is that the biggest items on Reddit are going to be the ones that have the biggest population interested in them, but I don't know if it's necessarily hard to create a sub group, it just won't make it to the front page. I'm subbed to a ton of subreddits that meet that criteria.

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