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Listen to Steve Huffman tell the story of how Reddit got started

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Re: Listen to Steve Huffman tell the story of how Reddit got started

#111

Post by flangola7 »

twostorytower wrote: post #45
qwertox wrote: post #38

I ask myself on a weekly basis when old.reddit.com will disappear. And there is nothing more cruel than the new Reddit, UI-wise. Even Twitter's "threading" of conversations appears to make more sense, even though I have still not figured out how it works.

I know some people at Reddit and sadly it's definitely going to happen.

How do they plan to handle moderation? The strong majority of subreddit mods still use old Reddit because modding on new is suffering. Many will give up modding and some will abandon using Reddit entirely. Do they have a plan to replace the thousands of free employees that currently keep Reddit habitable?

Re: Listen to Steve Huffman tell the story of how Reddit got started

#112

Post by criddell »

LegitShady wrote: post #34
werid wrote: post #5

this is good timing, as we're witnessing in real time how reddit is ending right now :)

How is reddit ending? In general it seems they waited for enough critical mass before instituting all the content policies that would kill smaller sites. And while digg's implosion had reddit as an alternative, in 2023 who is the alternative to reddit?

> in 2023 who is the alternative to reddit?

I think the rapid decline of Twitter and the sputter of Mastodon indicates that a lot of us have realized that simply removing social media from our lives and not replacing it with anything feels pretty good.

A few years ago I used to visit Reddit a couple times every week. These days I only end up there if a google search sends me there.

Re: Listen to Steve Huffman tell the story of how Reddit got started

#113

Post by ROTMetro »

hayst4ck wrote: post #84
twostorytower wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some people at Reddit and sadly it's definitely going to happen.

That is the day I will quit reddit and never look back. 6 months ago I rarely used old.reddit.com, but now I run into more and more dark patterns all the time. They tried to TikTok my feed and it was an awful experience. I frequently default to it now instead of using it only when I get sick of the dark patterns. Reddit got popular because Digg screwed up their comment threading. It's sad to see reddit is starting to…

The entire Internet at the 'fantastic' time of Reddit was very much tilted towards the elite class that could 1. Afford an expensive computer or phone (or have access from University) 2. Afford Internet (and for an added bump of exclusivity add mobile Internet) (or have access from University) 3. Have the time/inclination to put lots of energy into CREATING Internet content (via either a hobby site, or composing well thought out posts). What you are complaining about is the quality of a restaurant that has gone from an exclusive new spot you discovered to a Chili's franchise. (Phil's Fish Market?).

What everyone on Hacker News seems to long for is an Internet limited to 'that class' of people. They complain about billionaires and advertising, but maybe they should take a broader look at what they are really longing for.

Re: Listen to Steve Huffman tell the story of how Reddit got started

#114

Post by lotsofpulp »

stametseater wrote: post #110
hayst4ck wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the day I will quit reddit and never look back. 6 months ago I rarely used old.reddit.com, but now I run into more and more dark patterns all the time. They tried to TikTok my feed and it was an awful experience. I frequently default to it now instead of using it only when I get sick of the dark patterns. Reddit got popular because Digg screwed up their comment threading. It's sad to see reddit is starting to…

> The problem with all of these sites is they start to service the lowest common denominator in the name of next quarters profits. [...] It seems so clear to me that billionaires mean we can't have nice things" The pressure to increase quarterly profits to the detriment of the long-term emerges from the very nature of short-term investment, particularly as facilitated by stock exchanges. Eliminating billionaires woul…

Yes, Reddit is not even part of a publicly listed company that has investor pressure to meet quarterly numbers, it is privately owned by the Newhouse family. People just like having more money than less money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications

Re: Listen to Steve Huffman tell the story of how Reddit got started

#115

Post by sufficer »

noir_lord wrote: post #79
twostorytower wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some people at Reddit and sadly it's definitely going to happen.

Used Reddit for 14 years as a registered member and longer since before I signed up. The day old.reddit.com stops working is the day I stop using reddit completely, I detest their new UI so much that it’s essentially unusable for me.

It has seen 0 improvement since it was released lmao. Like wait 8 years ago?

Re: Listen to Steve Huffman tell the story of how Reddit got started

#116

Post by 6510 »

hayst4ck wrote: post #78
giantrobot wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got multiple migration waves from digg, added subreddits, then network effects started. Early Reddit was pretty boring unless you were interested in programming or technology. The first big bump in users from digg was during the HD-DVD key fracas. The ham-handed response by digg to even talking about the key leak pissed off a lot of users. They were already simmering due to astroturfing/Payola by "power users" (…

Digg changed the way comments were threaded meaning there could be no cogent discussion in threads. I am confident that was the mortal wound to Digg.

Same way youtube discontinued their discussion platform. One day I had 200 interesting active discussions, the next there was non. Channels that relied on feedback turned into drifting ships.

Re: Listen to Steve Huffman tell the story of how Reddit got started

#117

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

bmarquez wrote: post #51
twostorytower wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some people at Reddit and sadly it's definitely going to happen.

I hope the Fediverse replacement for Reddit, Lemmy, will pick up in popularity before old.reddit dies. It makes a lot of sense since each "subreddit" could be its own server.

I don't think Fediverse solves the problems that we see in Reddit (or Twitter, or any of the others). Instead of admin meddling from a single group of closely-affiliated admins (they all work for the same company), you just get meddling from many small groups of admins, none of those groups affiliated with each other except via ActivityPub. They can't shut down conversations they dislike entirely, but they can sever you from the Fediverse thoroughly enough that they might as well.

And they can do it early enough that no one ever knew you were there in the first place. Even the Reddit admins didn't do that... I don't know if it was apathy and indifference, or just that they couldn't pay enough attention back in the early 2010s, but they didn't. And that likely allowed Reddit to grow so large, it could be the forum for everybody, about everything. Fediverse and Lemmy just ends up being those old phpbb forums, that won't talk to or link to each other unless everything is excessively sanitized and drips with insincere civility.

Lemmy doesn't even have an Elon Musk to piss everyone off of Reddit and drive them to search for an alternative.

Re: Listen to Steve Huffman tell the story of how Reddit got started

#119

Post by LegitShady »

criddell wrote: post #112
LegitShady wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is reddit ending? In general it seems they waited for enough critical mass before instituting all the content policies that would kill smaller sites. And while digg's implosion had reddit as an alternative, in 2023 who is the alternative to reddit?

> in 2023 who is the alternative to reddit? I think the rapid decline of Twitter and the sputter of Mastodon indicates that a lot of us have realized that simply removing social media from our lives and not replacing it with anything feels pretty good. A few years ago I used to visit Reddit a couple times every week. These days I only end up there if a google search sends me there.

I don't think twitter has anything to do with reddit -they don't exist in the same niche in social media. The sputter of mastadon was because the decline of twitter was largely short term outrage. I hear every day on hackernews that twitter is failing and I'm not sure that's true.

Twitter and reddit exist because there is a market for those types of social media experience. If even 50k computer science specialized people stop visiting reddit and twitter I don't think that matters to those sites overall traffic levels.

If you already aren't visiting twitter or reddit than you aren't really interested in the alternative for them, are you? Since you're already rejecting those experiences. You aren't the target audience, you're just imagining everyone is like you, when all evidence seems to go the other way.

So again, lets say people want an alternative platform to twitter, they could go to substack maybe. but whats the alternative to reddit? Discord? I don't think so.

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