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Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

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Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#341

Post by raverbashing »

w-m wrote: post #101

Another data point, the top AskReddit posts of the past year [0]. Zero of the top 25 posts of the last twelve months are younger than five months. Two of the top 50 posts are younger than five months. Comments (using subredditstats from a sister comment) have gone from around 70k per day to around 12k per day. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/top/?sort=top&t=year

That's interesting

I remember during the blackout that there was an extra push (by reddit paid mods) of pushing content to AskReddit (or maybe they made up a similar sub) and were noticeably creating topics there

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#342

Post by kmlevitt »

mnky9800n wrote: post #339
kmlevitt wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on reddit a lot less these days, but subjectively it seems about the same for me, except most of the old subreddits I'm a legacy mod on are way busier than I remember. They're definitely still gaining users. It could just be that the longer you're on there, the worse the quality appears to get to you as newcomers come. People always start to feel that way after being there some time. But then again people have be…

In my opinion Reddit has a content problem in the same way 24 hour news does. Simply put, there's not enough content to put up constantly so it's supplemented with repeating memes, reposts, and drama.

At the end of the day it comes down to the upvotes, though. If the other users are on your wavelength, you’ll probably like whatever they recommend. But over time you could have less in common with the average user there, meaning what they upvote will be less relevant to you too.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#343

Post by gumballindie »

rabbits_2002 wrote: post #43

A massive decline in post quality. I don’t know what happened but ever since the blackout only garbage gets posted. Even the quality of niche subreddits has fallen. I think the blackout meant that all the well moderated “good” subreddits closed while the bad ones stayed open. Now the bad subreddits are more popular and have eclipsed the good subreddits. As for other websites, Lemmy and other federated aggregators hav…

The blackout is one reason for a decline in quality. The other, main reason, is people not wanting their content ingested by ai. That reason applies to a steady decrease in blog content and quality.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#345

Post by OfSanguineFire »

dmix wrote: post #337
bobsmooth wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of "gatekeeping" has ruined online communities. Remember when "lurk more" was the common advice to new users?

That is still the default. People backlashed against excessive modding and power abuse. Top commenters are still top commenters and guide the conversations with authority. They are still in most threads with the most upvotes. Communities are defined by the content contributors first and for most. That's something Reddit forgot. Reddit started with a little bit of modding to clean up the mess which is always needed (h…

No, people don't backlash against just "excessive modding". I have witnessed on several subs a belief that mods should never be able to lock a post of a question that comes up several times a week. The thinking goes, for example, that a person posting a discussed-to-death question isn't just looking for an answer to the question, but rather he/she is trying to socialize and feel part of a community. Therefore, mods who lock such posts are cruelly denying a person an outlet for socializing.

You write about developments on major subs, but those are just that, the major subs. Niche hobby subs, on the other hand, often don't see the level of moderation they actually need in order to retain knowledgeable contributors. People with a certain level of proficiency in a hobby will bail if the discussion is predominantly newbie questions or repetitive arguments.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#346

Post by rexf »

crtified wrote: post #195

As a casual but persistent user, it pains me to say it - because ethically I support the grassroots side of the equation - but as a path of least resistance to casual, anonymous public engagement on a wide range of topics, there seems no viable alternative. [For a given subjective value of 'viable', naturally!]. So after a period of abstention, I gradually ended up back there, simply because I know of no other sizeab…

agreed. The loss of Apollo was a huge blow to the UX since the official Reddit app is hard to use and has poor design choices (in favor of business choices). Why would the official app have TINY up and down vote buttons? There are countless baffling decisions in the design & functionality in the official app.

Without an alternative to reddit, using the reddit app remains the way to stay informed & engaged in various niche reddit communities.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#347

Post by wmidwestranger »

crawancon wrote: post #303
wmidwestranger wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure any platform can nosedive quite like slashdot. I'm not sure what the wreck looked like but the entire culture of slashdot and fresh meat seemed to disappear at some point.

surely Digg had a nosedive of unmatched proportions.

I do remember digg crashing because they were... Using the algorithm to get paid by advertisers and censoring posts, who could imagine?

The downfall of Digg led directly to reddit and the death of Mr. Schwartz began reddits long path into slow enshitification.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#348

Post by Kichererbsen »

sorahn wrote: post #7

My outcome was the shutdown of Apollo, rather than the blackout. I no longer read Reddit on my phone. (Except for a link or two clicked from something else, but even then I go to `old.reddit` instead to read the comments). That was really where I wasted the most time on it. It’s kind of a relief. I think I was too “lazy” to stop on my own because Apollo was so comfortable to use.

I didn't even use Apollo: I was hooked on the official iOS app. And used the blackout to kick the habit. Haven't looked back since. _Some_ of the free time I got back has now gone towards youtube shorts, but since those really requires headphones, I can keep it to a much smaller percentage of my free time. Instead, I bought a subscription to a local news paper, you know, for when you're on the loo and need something to read. I feel I'm better informed now than when I was reading reddit compusively.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#349

Post by littlestymaar »

srcreigh wrote: post #210
kmlevitt wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have mod status on a large-ish (70k+) subreddit so I can view reddit's internal traffic statistics for it, and these estimates are definitely wrong. These stats claim the sub has had 10-20 comments per day in just the past month, so maybe 300-600 tops. In reality it's had 1200+ comments just in the past week alone and probably closer to 5000 for the month. And you can see the activity with your own eyes in ev…

is your sub growing?

In practice subs are always growing while there's activity on it, because barely anyone ever leaves a subreddit.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#350

Post by shitlord »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #2

Some Reddit communities fled to other platforms such as Lemmy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy_(social_network) Many subreddit moderators protested in various ways and were removed and replaced. Reddit never agreed or compromised and for the most part the movement seems to have run out of steam. Maybe if Reddit squeezes more, more users will go to Lemmy and similar alternative platforms?

Lemmy.world has 143k users. For comparison, a now-banned snuff film subreddit made their own website, and it has over 1M users. Lemmy and similar platforms just aren't very appealing to the hordes of people who left reddit. Those users are getting their dopamine fix from somewhere else.
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