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Fark redesign is now live (2007)

fark.com

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Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#91
post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

Twitter killed a lot of third party apps and it just grew and grew. I suspect there is a vocal minority complaining about these changes. Most sub’s are going dark for 2 days. Time will pass and Reddit will continue to have a highly active user base.

Any source that it is growing?

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#92
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and when you try to rein in expenses to show less ads, the community begins to propose $10M buyouts and every refrain from reasonable optimizations of their API calls.

This references the Apollo client discussion and is wrong on many levels. 1. They are not "reining in" expenses, they are purposely pricing out 3rd-party clients (which probably has the goal to show more ads, not less) 2. The $10M buyout comments was a reasonable comment countering the statement that reddit loses $20M each year by users using Apollo. A comment which was a half-joke, as the audio recording shows clear…

> 2. The $10M buyout comments was a reasonable comment countering the statement that reddit loses $20M each year by users using Apollo. A comment which was a half-joke, as the audio recording shows clearly. In that case, buying Appolo for $10M would have been a steal and Reddit would have jumped on it. They didn't, their prior statement was probably a lie.

If something loses me 20M$ per year and I have an option to buy it for 10M$ or kill it for 0$, I would choose the latter without much thinking. And that seems to be exactly what Reddit is doing.

And that is something that any client using a third-party platform should expect that will happen eventually.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#93
post #50
post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand that its over. This week is critical to save your personal narrative. No matter what really happened; always tell people you are the person who invented the like button at facebook, not the one who decided to band porn on tumblr.

If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, ignore every carping user and stay laser-focused on that IPO.

Being well-liked and poor is waaay worse than being rich and hated.

Stay strong

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#94

And what exactly is user-hostile there? It doesn't look beautiful to my tastes, but functionally nothing is particularly complicated to understand.

I had to check what the previous design looked like: http://web.archive.org/web/20060223114105/http://www.fark.co... I guess the new (current since 2007) design has a lot more whitespace, although not as bad as now "mobile-first" designs of the last 5 or so years. On the topic of mobile, the current fark.com doesn't have a phone-friendly design.

There's a separate mobile site that is not automatically launched: m.fark.com.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#95
post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

Here's my question: Can HN recover from this?

It was already getting choppy with the election and cryptocurrency generating huge emotional hellthreads. Then came Musk and Mastodon. Now it's Reddit. HN is just turning into another hub of tech outrage. This site is giving me pain to read now.

Want to see a contrast? Look at the comments on this Reddit drama and compare it against the original Digg redesign drama on HN a decade ago. There's a sharp difference in comment quality.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would joke that 9gag is the natural Reddit competitor, but I also want to point out that somehow 9gag is a YC startup.

9gag is a competitor for the “shitposting” part of Reddit, but not for the serious part.

And I can’t believe it’s YC!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4313644

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#97
post #71
post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

at this point, there is only 1 way to save reddit, and it's so drastic that they wont do it because the ones who need to do it are too blind or too far away * fire spez * promise a clear committed roadmap of mod tools * promise to review 3rd party API pricing, and delay the current rollout It's literally the only way that will be accepted by the 1% that keep the site running (read the Ennui engine principle)

you missed the big one: kill the IPO

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#98
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal feeling alert: I think some people won't need an alternate. I am just letting reddit go. I don't get enough value from it to care of it exists anymore. I let Twitter go after the free speech absolutists super sensitive filter flagged me for saying I hope Microsoft burns for what a nightmare they've made their os (trying to help a non savvy user use a local account), I did the automated appeal assuming conte…

Using less social media is probably a good idea in general. Plus HN and lobsters can replace the technical reddit communities.

HN is way too generalist to even replace /r/programming (I'd say that only ~25% of the main page is technical stuff), not even talking about subreddits dedicated to specific technologies.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#99
post #18

Oh my god. I remember this happening, and I remember email drew about it at the time. It really never did recover from this. I "grew up" on Fark, and lots of my early web projects were clones of it/inspired by it. Fark really was a special part of the internet, and it's sad that it fell off. I wonder if the fact that they never moved on from this design was Drew being gunshy about changing it again.

I briefly conversed with Drew on what seemed like the obvious next step of threaded conversations. He was clear that this way kept things in order for him, and didn't let stuff get bogged down.

In other words I think he's happy with it, and doesn't want it to change. The main change since then was more ads or paid accounts, which seems a fair tradeoff. Anybody who wants Reddit knows (or knew) where to find it.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#100
The unfortunate thing is that there isn’t an alternative. I’d like to see Reddit die as much as the next guy but considering there doesn’t seem to be a replacement it will be difficult for people who are used to it to just drop it. I hope that this may mean a federated alternative (or basically back to the old days of phpNuke forums and the like) but I somehow doubt it.
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