“Safety” is overloaded here. I agree with the author; the new front end doesn’t seem safer for end users. It probably does make it safer for Reddit in that it’s harder for scrapers to do their thing.
So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
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Re: So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
#42This is the second death of reddit, the penultimate one. But it stems directly from the first death in ~2015 when they accepted the massive venture capital investment and then had to try to monetize the facebook refugees which meant clearing out all the business appropriate "undesirables" including firing many beloved long time corporate employee, and switching to model where people and corporations posted to their p…
iirc they removed “fat people hate”, a variety of subreddits named after racial slurs (including literally /r/s) and a subreddit for “well it’s not technically porn” of children
new Reddit remains awful both design and implementation wise but the content they cleaned up wasn’t a big loss, and there’s still plenty of “non-desirable” content (so many porn subreddits, to start) on there
Re: So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
#43Re: So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
#44> is basically a surefire way to find results written by genuine humans Was a surefire way?
Yep. In 2023. Now it's an AI bot farm
Re: So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
#45I am hard put to defend reddit and a lot of the things they do ... but I can attest, from personal experience, that scrapers are a huge problem for anybody trying to keep a complex site working. Withholding the display of the comments will significantly reduce the database traffic needed to satisfy a request; I can see why they would want to do that for anonymous readers.
I personally don't like it, but hard to blame them.
Outside some Stoic altruists, this is their advantage and I'd do the same.
Re: So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
#46Reddit has licensing deals with OpenAI and Google, so is likely trying to keep other AI companies out https://mediaandthemachine.substack.com/p/reddits-new-ai-lic...
that's good, open weight models do not need degenerate comments to advance on AI
Re: So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
#47I am hard put to defend reddit and a lot of the things they do ... but I can attest, from personal experience, that scrapers are a huge problem for anybody trying to keep a complex site working. Withholding the display of the comments will significantly reduce the database traffic needed to satisfy a request; I can see why they would want to do that for anonymous readers.
Well Reddit would have a lot less scraper traffic if it hadn't shut down the feed API 3 years ago in an attempt to keep its data closed and only distributed to Google (which paid money for it). Self-inflicted. No sympathy.
I doubt it. The scraper botnets aren't going to bother with niceties like APIs, they just come in over HTTPS and grab anything they can.
Re: So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
#48I don't mind logging in, but when they remove old.reddit altogether, I'm just going to stop using Reddit. The new interface is the slimiest culmination of all the worst dark patterns and manipulative algorithms. I gave up on Facebook and I'll give up on Reddit. I have so many games and books and magazines to consume which I just don't because of this awful habit of picking up my phone to doom scroll. In fact, bring i…
They're requiring "age" verification via Persona on old.reddit now for some accounts.
Re: So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
#49Meta has spent $2B on verification lobbying. Very successfully it seems. In 1-2 years, you won't be able to browse the internet without scanning a body part and providing a ID for your ass. https://www.gadgetreview.com/reddit-user-uncovers-who-is-beh...
Meta has not spent $2 billion on ID lobbying. That bogus number came from a complete AI slop Reddit post that was later removed. That’s why the only references you can find to it are from sites like your gadgetreview.com link that repost clickbait without fact checking anything.
It doesn't matter what they spent excatly but it's in their direct interest to raise legal moats for competitors. Kind of like what Allegedly Open AI tried with the "AI will kill us all" threats.
Re: So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe
#50It seems like the community business itself is dying. Not just Reddit, but other communities and forums are all in decline. I thought it was because of LLMs, but they were already dying before LLMs appeared. Though LLMs did accelerate the decline. The business model where a company owns a public community and monetizes through ads and search traffic seems to have just been a failed model. The value of a community com…
Cloudflare recently reported that the majority of internet traffic is bots now. It wouldn't surprise me if the vast majority of traffic and comments on Reddit is now bots. Those organic conversations you're having? Bots. Those arguments with annoying people? Bots. All those positive comments and stories about the latest product/movie/politician/party/company/country? Bots. The entire front page is most likely owned a…
Note that Cloudflare is the least reliable source for who's a bot.