Live data from Hacker News

The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

medium.com

121–130 of 519 posts

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#121

People complaining about Reddit remind me of that quote from Bjarne Stroustrup about computer languages: “There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.” A lot of people use Reddit. I've been on since nearly the beginning and seen it go through various phases. They started getting serious about moderation after Gamergate and they're still serious about it since they wa…

The smartest thing reddit has done was learn from Digg.

They've done a FUCKLOAD of dumb stuff. A truly phenomenal amount. Some of the issues stem from just growing and having your crowd change and EVERY marketing company out there working to control your content, but they have very impressively managed to make a baffling number of stupid decisions.

But, you can opt out. It's dumb that you need to, it's dumb that they don't understand what they have, and that they're making what's currently failing (yet another facebook), and yet there's still a large variety of ways to make it not totally fucking awful.

You can still just go to the subreddits you tolerate and ignore the rest, you can still browse in old mode, and you can block most of the ads and nonsense pretty trivially. It was very very smart of them to leave in that option, which while the most obvious fucking thing in the world to a person, is a near miracle for a company.

Not forcing the new design (and a couple of other anti user practices) is one of the best decisions they ever made, and if you've EVER worked in a company rolling out a redesign that's supposed to up engagement and revenue, you have got to understand just how fucking rare anything like that is.

I do wonder when it'll all go to shit finally, and I wonder what will take it's place (i've looked for the reddit of digg for reddit, and haven't seen much potential), but right now every day they don't force the redesign is a damn near miracle in a company of that size.

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel anyone has improved upon what Reddit is doing? Or have you only found satisfaction in specific communities on specific sites? Are there non traditional communities like Tildetown that you enjoy?

tiktok provides better “communities” with more organic content. it know it sounds weird but you can get into areas of tiktok very similar to a subreddit. the lack of centralization like public karma, mods, sticky posts, etc actually helps

TikTok recommendation algo is creepy but strange enough it's community is much more kinder and less angry than Reddit. If you give it a day or two train and get past the dancing videos its excellent (unless dancing videos are your thing of course).

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#123
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, xer right it's a cesspit of self-proclaimed wokensheep

Quoted post unavailable.

Oh stop being argumentative for the sake of it. You're presuming to know their gender - you don't. Therefore the correct pronoun in this instance is 'they'. Not everything is about wokeism.

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#124
post #18

As someone who was involved with many internet communities long before reddit, it sounds like the author is just experiencing the eternal September[0]. Pretty much since the day I found out about reddit in... 2008-ish?, everyone in the online communities I knew thought it was filled with awful pseudointellectual teenagers and college students, that the upvote/downvote system was horrible and encouraged people to post…

Reddit is hijacking content by requiring it to be hosted on it's own CDN... It's one of the main reasons why they put up walls. Many reddit users are actively involved in content and credit theft as well, but no one knows about how deep it runs. In a world where creators are going unviewed from IG to TikTok, there is literally an underground repost network that literally steals and reposts content to claim credit and…

You mean 9gag surely. I thought they were the ones that stole everyone else's content, or are we just having the same conversation that we were having 15 years ago.

Content theft on the internet is as old as the internet.

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#125
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is hijacking content by requiring it to be hosted on it's own CDN... It's one of the main reasons why they put up walls. Many reddit users are actively involved in content and credit theft as well, but no one knows about how deep it runs. In a world where creators are going unviewed from IG to TikTok, there is literally an underground repost network that literally steals and reposts content to claim credit and…

Reddit only bans links when the Reddit post is mockery/harassment of the original content/creator, as an anti-doxxing measure. Otherwise linking to source is common and encouraged.

There is no way to verify content that is hosted on reddit's CDN, anyone could make any claim about OC at any time. The only way IDs happen is in comments, and that comes long after the damage is already done. Reddit used to allow external links, but now only a few subs do it (None of the default subs allow external links) because it's common practice on the site. Regardless of linking to the OC, it's still hijacking views from the original creators and undermining content creators. Reddit does not pay original content creators for their views... If Reddit had to pay OC creators for views fairly, they'd likely not be as popular nor profitable as they are now.

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#126
post #68

I have a different take: The main problem with reddit is in how badly it's bungled its several different redesigns over the last few years, and how it's slowly ruined its users' experience in misguided attempts to drive mobile traffic to its app. Right now, here's the process for browsing a subreddit on mobile without the (ads and tracking loaded) reddit app: 1. Navigate to subreddit. Find out which of two (non-NSFW)…

> 4. Give up, and go to old.reddit.com, which is ugly and not designed for mobile, but at least works okay. I use i.reddit.com for this. (Thank goodness it still works.)

Oh wow, i.reddit.com. I had forgotten about that one.

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#127
post #64
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

If there is one thing about reddit, its that its not politically contiguous - different parts have different cultures.

Decent niche subreddits still exist, but there has been significant concentration of moderation power in a small clique [0]. And that doesn't include the widespread use of alts for mod accounts. Multiple times now I have seen good subreddits go to shit after a new mod gets parachuted in on the "advice" of reddit staff, and then threads suddenly start getting closed with "y'all can't behave" as the justification.

The number of subreddits I bother to check has dwindled down to 2-3, and when those are gone I will stop using the site entirely.

[0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchRedditDie/comments/gkkfg5/upda...

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#128
post #79
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woke refers to an ideology that, among other things, uses manipulative arguments, framing and emotional appeals to hide the fact that it is intellectual quicksand, serving people who want to morally elevate themselves without substance. Exactly like you just did.

Quoted post unavailable.

If your shirt is 90% one thing and 10% the other thing, I'm not sure the 90% is the stain.

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My critique of Reddit isn’t so much about moderation per se, as it is about one-sided moderation. The ban of anything that opposes “the message”. It started around 2015/16 and it was very clearly visible in all subs.

They have only banned extreme political ideologies with vaguely violent leanings, and have done so for both sides of the spectrum

Didn't they just ban tumblrinaction, which was just right-wingers making fun of tumblr users? It was a bit distasteful, sure, but violent and extremist? I don't think so

Re: The fall of Reddit: Why it’s quickly declining into chaos

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is hijacking content by requiring it to be hosted on it's own CDN... It's one of the main reasons why they put up walls. Many reddit users are actively involved in content and credit theft as well, but no one knows about how deep it runs. In a world where creators are going unviewed from IG to TikTok, there is literally an underground repost network that literally steals and reposts content to claim credit and…

You mean 9gag surely. I thought they were the ones that stole everyone else's content, or are we just having the same conversation that we were having 15 years ago. Content theft on the internet is as old as the internet.

It's not the same discussion. a lot more sites pay content creators now. There are many people that work hard on their content. Many sites are engaged in fostering hijacked content, and they quietly do nothing about it because it makes them a lot of untraceable money, a LOT more money than 9gag ever made off of stolen memes... Perhaps it should be called Content Laundering?

Reddit has even gone as far as to prohibit posting of OC by creators themselves by banning their posts and accounts when they post their own work, calling it "self promotion", while other accounts violate the rule with obvious immunity. They also ban subreddits after they are cultivated and curated too, many times for no good reason. I understand that spam needs to be controlled, but how moderation occurs on Reddit, it's totally not conducted in a normal nor reasonable manner at all.

Post reply on HN