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Ask HN: What are some of the best Reddit alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best Reddit alternatives?

#151

I’ve been thinking about this too, and recently came back across news.ycombinator.com, which I’ve had an account on since 2016 but haven’t looked at in ages. Have been finding it to be a fantastic alternative to Reddit actually, containing content that’s actually interesting, a much simpler structure and interface, and higher-quality discussion! Highly recommend.

Due to an inherent CS bias it can only substitute a tech/programming subreddit in my opinion.

Also, unfortunately people in tech often fall into the trap of overvaluing their expertise in unrelated fields, so discussions outside the tech realm are often quite blindsided (guilty as charged). Of course there are the occasional gems of bioengineer or whatever chiming in on a relevant topic, but Reddit was very valuable at that simply due to its bigger size and more diverse audience.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best Reddit alternatives?

#152
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any problem happening on reddit could also happen on a "decentralized" platform. Whoever is paying for the servers gets to call the shots. All federated options should be automatically eliminated from contention if we're taking it seriously as a reddit replacement.

> Whoever is paying for the servers gets to call the shots But if everyone can run a server; if I can run my own server just for me to only fetch the stuff I'm following, then I'm not beholden to some unknown or commercial hosting entity.

Paying for a server is not a huge cost and being centralized is actually a good thing imo. We wouldn’t be ahead with multiple wikipedias, I believe.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best Reddit alternatives?

#153
post #71
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I would love to get an invite if anyone has one to share.

I got 10 invites. Tell me how I can sent one to you.

I would like to receive one as well if you have, under my username@pm.me

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best Reddit alternatives?

#154
post #27
post #5

Going outside is a really good one. Honestly, I was late to the Reddit train, didn't join until 2015 or 2016 or so. I noticed a marked decline in my overall mental well-being but I really did feel addicted to it. For several reasons I stopped using it a few years ago and I can't think of a single thing that's worse off than before. Unless you're running ads and using traffic from Reddit to fuel your business, you're…

This is not a good take for the things that Reddit really excelled at: niche hobbies. Mechanical keyboards, mushroom cultivation, home brewing, just to name a few of my interests. None of that gets much traction on HN, nor outside unless your friends happen to have the same interests. Discord has a bit of that content, but I find Discord harder to engage with because it feels a bit more synchronous and time sensitive…

Reddit was only “good” at those topics in that it was easy to find niches. Not that there was any measurable quality in the discussions. I cannot think of a single interest of mine where Reddit trumped dedicated forums. From Dakkadakka to geekhack to BladeForums, it really wasn’t overly beneficial. Easier to keep track of topics, maybe, but any subreddit of decent size was mostly advertising/memes anyway, not true discussion.

The only aspect I can truly say Reddit was good for me was the basics of archiving, personal finances, cooking, and frugality. And I’m sure there’s even better forums dedicated to those topics.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best Reddit alternatives?

#155
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a good take for the things that Reddit really excelled at: niche hobbies. Mechanical keyboards, mushroom cultivation, home brewing, just to name a few of my interests. None of that gets much traction on HN, nor outside unless your friends happen to have the same interests. Discord has a bit of that content, but I find Discord harder to engage with because it feels a bit more synchronous and time sensitive…

Yeah, Discord is probably the "real-time" alternative to Reddit. Unfortunately, it's not searchable. The real problem is not software but, as many pointed out before, building a community of communities that size is hard.

> The real problem is not software but, as many pointed out before, building a community of communities that size is hard.

Personally, I believe the solution is aggregation rather than forming a “community”. Outside of maybe subreddit networks, there wasn’t a whole lot of connection between various redditors. You really can’t consider the entirety of Reddit one large “community” housing other communities. Instead, it was more akin to a fancy RSS feed, aggregating posts from various communities together under a standardized API with some unnecessary algorithms mixed in.

So, my solution would be to promote individuality in communities, with having separate websites, but to offer an open source website that houses links to various communities alongside their RSS feeds.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best Reddit alternatives?

#159

I thought it would be a good exercise to see what was out there (give other sites a chance), so I started following suggestions others have made. This is the list I currently have compiled. https://lemmy.ml/ ( https://join-lemmy.org/ ) : ideal reddit replacement https://www.tiktok.com/ : from a purely entertainment value. This is number one. I was on TikTok last year and it was basically the only entertainment site I…

https://www.headcycle.com

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best Reddit alternatives?

#160
post #107
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason people are missing the mark here; the "community" feature is not what gives Reddit its crazy high value for the vast majority of its users. The ceiling is a lot lower for a community engine than it is for a link aggregator. Google News vs. Google+.

I wonder if GitHub repository Discussions can serve the need, since people can star individual repositories, each repository acts as its own subreddit which you subscribe to, and granular access permissions can be given to moderators etc. You could even make the repo host a GitHub Pages dummy that just loads Giscus/retrieves the list of threads in the repository Discussions and render it with a more Reddit-like UI. A…

It's an interesting idea, I think. I've seen this (sort of) idea before - I forget exactly when, maybe back when Musk took the helm of the Twittanic and ordered flank speed towards the already visible iceberg.

Personally, I'm going to check the project mentioned at the top of this subthread and look at other options that may already be out there. I just saw, also, some mentions of thoughts about leveraging"ATproto" ...

I am fairly certain that there are solutions that can fill the void left by Reddit's latest knife in the back of the users and communities that really made it useful and different. It's a little saddening, but not that surprising (aside from how long it stayed user / community friendly before basically declaring war on many users and communities) ... and, at this point, any pathos I would normally experience is being far outweighed by schadenfreude at seeing the site burn (in essence, if not immediately in the most tangible ways, though I suspect the arc of events should shave any potential valuation down to around 75%, perhaps, of the already reduced valuation vs. 2021) and determination to help further reduce its valuation. If Huffman and his milieu (above, adjacent, etc.) have defined everything, at this point, in terms of money, then that's the only language that they will pay any attention to.

But, away from the "Io voglio vendetta" thoughts, I like the idea of something like a "co-op" ... something it sounds like this "sociables" (makes me think "lunchables", heh) idea might be touching the edges of ... I definitely think the best of (old) reddit can be transferred successfully elsewhere by people who aren't after some kind of 90s-style SV gold-rush and Reddit itself can be left to rot / fester as it competes with TikTok, Twitter, etc. for the scraps of the divided attentions of mindless media consumers.

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