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Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

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Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#371

Post by ajsnigrutin »

lock-free wrote: post #267
acwan93 wrote: post #259

I wonder if Reddit is hitting the same issue as Twitter did with regards to third-party apps. Like Twitter, Reddit has a robust API that allows for really full-featured apps to fetch/post content, which is great as a user, but horrible for monetization. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point third party Reddit clients end up getting neutered much like Twitter apps have become. Given that the mobile site is turning…

Reddit is also reliant on third party apps to get content and interaction since their own frontend and backend are terrible for everything but link and comment aggregation.

Holy fuck the new reddit is shitty.... If i just want to see the link, I click the link. If i scroll down on a post, i want to read the comments.... plural, as in many... not just one or two, and then a new, unrelated post, and having to click a button to show the rest of the comments... the only "thing" you have (commenting/discussions), you're destroying now.

Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#372

Post by Macha »

mkskm wrote: post #129
abhiminator wrote: post #3

On a side note, really hope reddit's engineering team doesn't kill off their 'old.reddit.com' domain though. That's probably the only thing keeping me from dumping reddit altogether (aside from their API-powered custom reddit apps made by indie devs for Android).

Wasn’t a bad redesign how Digg ultimately lost to Reddit?

Digg also touched the ranking algorithm and external submission rules at the same time, which ended up prioritising "partner" content over user content. This was much more controversial than the UI aspect of Digg's redesign.

Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#373

Post by kodah »

8organicbits wrote: post #348
ihuman wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is great as a user, but horrible for monetization That's Reddit's fault, though. They don't include ads when a user uses the API.

I wonder how advertisers would feel about their ad showing up in arbitrary unofficial applications. I'd guess ads sent via API to be shown on unofficial apps would be less desirable than ads on the official app (which has known behaviors that reddit can document). Maybe the price would be lower or they'd only pay per click? Do any other APIs include ads to be shown to the end user? It's an interesting idea!

At some point advertisers will need to accept they cannot have their cake and eat it too as we fly forward in technology progression.

Plus, most of these objections are based on moralism which is bogus and misused in the first place.

I could see companies putting ad data in an API and saying, "If this block shows up, you must show it in order to continue using this API for free; or pay." Seems fair to me.

Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#374

Post by Florin_Andrei »

geogra4 wrote: post #361
8bitben wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - if you take some time to really customize your subscriptions and interface options (read: ditch the new interface immediately for the classic one), reddit can be a very powerful 'dashboard for your interests' unlike most other sites. I guess the questions is if they can keep it that way and also monetize.

Yeah. The niche communities are really what keep me coming back. For example, r/fermentation is a fantastic community of people who make all different kinds of fermented foods and is a great place to go for advice or recipes. But the main subreddits? Useless

The niche subs are on the right-hand side of the bell curve's tail.

The main subs are in the thick middle of the curve.

Same problem as with literally everything else in life.

Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#375

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

encom wrote: post #364
SkyMarshal wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Niche subreddits are informative and useful. You just have to unsubscribe from all the default reddits and find the niche stuff that interests you. Then your reddit front page becomes one of the most useful media pages on the internet.

Yea, but those niche subreddits are getting rarer and rarer. There's some kind of goldilocks zone where subs are popular enough to be active with interesting content, but not popular enough to devolve into no-effort meme spam. Or possibly terrible moderation ruins the sub completely. Or the official Reddit fun-police shuts you down. I left that cess pool behind about a year ago, and I don't miss it.

Same here. Reddit wouldn't be so bad if they literally didn't shut down every subreddit just because the psychotically loud minority said so. Plus it boggles my mind why they would do that. You are actively telling your users to go elsewhere. That's literally money and engagement walking out the door. And a lot of it. Now it's just memes, "The republicans are evil again...!", and "My mother who sold me to an african prince now wants a portion of the money he has, AITA?" The whole karma concept is garbage. The purpose for that was curating content and moderation. Not a "agree/disagree" button. Obviously it gets abused but slashdot and HN do it way better. Nobody can see your vote counts on HN and slashdot allows for more ways to mod something so that we can know it's not just the downvote train saying the comment is dumb but because of various other reason.

Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#376

Post by throwawaysea »

vehemenz wrote: post #298
throwawaysea wrote: post #106

I used to love using Reddit after Digg's disastrous redesign many years ago, but it really has devolved in a number of key ways: 1. Site design. I can't help but think that the site redesign lends itself towards dark patterns, echo chambers, and the kind of "hot take" reactionary culture that makes most of social media so unhealthy. As a user, I am mad that Reddit uses so many annoying nudges to get me to use their m…

1. I agree that old.reddit.com is the only way to use Reddit. Let's hope it lasts. 2. They have made some high-profile mistakes, like banning /r/gendercritial. However, they are legally allowed to remove subreddits that they find don't align with their values (or their advertisers' values). 3. I don't think that routine opposition to extremism viewpoints is "leftist". The defining qualities of the post-Trump Republic…

I take some of your points and think you are right to call out that platforms that have a wide center but are hostile to extreme views are not echo chambers.

However, I think the qualities that you are saying define post-Trump Republicans are a caricature that is convenient to believe in but not fair. Trump's unexpectedly broad support has to do more with the fact that he's willing to stand up against a far-left influence that has been spiraling out of control and taking the near-left and center with it, all the while facing little critique or checks from other politicians. This is a deeper topic than I can articulate in a single HN comment, but my point is that the quick takes that portray Trump voters in such negative terms feel good to us but are not fair because people have deeper, and often legitimate reasons to support him despite all of his drawbacks.

I also think we should remember that progressive activists are only 8% of the country (https://hiddentribes.us/profiles/#progressive-activists) but they are forcing their views on everyone else, through aggressive/uncivil/authoritarian tactics and due to the physical location of influential media/tech companies. These mainstream platforms are marching to the tune of this 8% (an extreme) rather than the broad center in my opinion.

Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#377

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

drstewart wrote: post #313
jug wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed — don’t use the default subreddits. They’re cancer. But I’ve had a great time at the Formula1 subreddit and people are crazy at MechanicalKeyboards. I’m sure you’ll love a knitting group if you enjoy that. Go by your specific interests and really just say no to the generic or huge ones like funny, pics, askreddit etc.

The problem is that subreddit is very prone to heterogeneous opinions and groupthink, even among niche subreddits, mostly around what's appealing to mid-20 year old white US males. The discussion is often very shallow, mostly aimed at "advanced beginners" because that's what appeals to the widest audience and anything else doesn't get traction, unlike in a traditional forum. This is very obvious if you're into a tech…

I'm personally in the camp that the group think occurs more in mid 20 year old white women groups than it does in white males.

edit: I don't really get how my comment is any more sexist than saying it's only white men...

Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#378

Post by syshum »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #371
lock-free wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is also reliant on third party apps to get content and interaction since their own frontend and backend are terrible for everything but link and comment aggregation.

Holy fuck the new reddit is shitty.... If i just want to see the link, I click the link. If i scroll down on a post, i want to read the comments.... plural, as in many... not just one or two, and then a new, unrelated post, and having to click a button to show the rest of the comments... the only "thing" you have (commenting/discussions), you're destroying now.

old.reddit is the only reddit.

Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#379

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

robswc wrote: post #351
cblconfederate wrote: post #217

Reddit now feels like newsgroups after they were infested with spam. Little good content , hidden in corners under piles of spam. Instead of spam, they have politics though. It looks like a model on the verge of collapse.

I've mostly stopped using reddit because the quality has taken a nosedive. I love it when you could go there and see interesting things around the internet. It reminds me a bit like how HN is now, just more broad. Recently though its like every other damn post is about politics, its so tiring. I've mostly stopped using it after seeing back to back threads about how you're basically immoral and evil for pursuing a car…

Or saying anything remotely positive about a republican. Instant downvotes. Doesn't matter who, where, or what it's about. Republican did something to better his constituency? NO HE WAS JUST DOING IT FOR KICKBACKS! Reddit effectively has trained their users to only reinforce liberal ideals, otherwise face the downvote machine.

Re: Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms

#380

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

cblconfederate wrote: post #308
Kaze404 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics is fine. But in general Reddit has so little content actually worth anyone's time that it's crazy to me how people spend so much time on it. Not to mention YouTube channels that get millions of views where they just read AskReddit threads with the same jokes those people make literally every single thread.

> Politics is fine it really isn't. it's bottom-quality content, everyone can have an opinion about politics, it's too easy. Every subreddit > 100000 has a politics problem because people have now been conditioned to see politics everywhere. It takes effort to keep things topical. And then, even the politics subreddits themselves are completely confused, e.g. r/libertarian is a mostly socialist sub now.

I've been banned from a subreddit because I said Trump did some good things basically. Mod called me a nazi and silenced me after my appeal for 30 days.
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