An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads? • Hacker News Board

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#361

Post by unityByFreedom » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 4:52 AM UTC

mtVessel wrote: post #347

DocG wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will be sad day. If old.reddit.com goes, so do I. I use Reddit mainly on phone, via browser because I use tabs and old.reddit.com because its the most content dense view and and is the fastest view (no stupid js loading icon thankyou). I'm not there, like I'm not here, for the design. I'm visiting for the content. Reddit.com front page takes about three seconds to load with stupid blocking js, old takes about se…

"And my axe", as PTG used to say. The redesign did nothing positive and the site has less and less interesting content every day. They say the action is in the subs, but I still can't find a decent way to discover which ones are worthwhile. I find I'm just hanging on to the few I settled on years ago, and as my interest wanes, I visit less frequently. The day they pull old.reddit.com, I won't bother with the site at…

> They say the action is in the subs, but I still can't find a decent way to discover which ones are worthwhile. I find I'm just hanging on to the few I settled on years ago, and as my interest wanes, I visit less frequently.

I believe this is everyone's experience, even some admins'.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#362

Post by Deimorz » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:38 AM UTC

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #256

kordlessagain wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes sense to think of Reddit as an application rather than a company. Saying something makes sense doesn't make it make sense. Reddit is not just an application. Reddit is millions of like-minded users exchanging thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. The software or application may affect how those users interact with the other users, but it is the users at the end of the day that define what Reddit (or this…

This ignores astroturfing, abusive mods, user hostile tactics (forcing v.reddit on users and disallowing converting it to gifs - even banning a bot that did it at the website level), and a lot of other serious systemic problems with reddit's "community." Reddit was once a community, but now it's an attempt to monetize its users - nothing more, nothing less. It's clearly already dying to anybody that isn't inside the…

You've missed two more investment rounds. They raised $500M more after that one:

$200M in July 2017: https://www.vox.com/2017/7/31/16037126/reddit-funding-200-mi...

$300M in February 2019: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/reddit-300-million/

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#363

Post by lonelappde » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

hanniabu wrote: post #250

jandrese wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about leaving is that I don't know where I would go. As much as I much preferred the way Usenet clients worked the weak moderation made it untenable. Most of the competing sites are overrun with the neo-nazis that were kicked out of Reddit or topics are limited to whatever the news story of the day is. The ability to create long term communities around extremely niche topics is the strength of Reddit. Despi…

> The thing about leaving is that I don't know where I would go Outside, a friend's house, visit family, etc

Do you visit family when you are sitting on the toilet?

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#364

Post by lonelappde » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

beowulfey wrote: post #128

AJ007 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you using now? I’ve been an active member of various communities and forums over the years (excluding reddit), and I never actively left one. It was always just a realization I hadn’t been to the site (or really aging myself, BBS) in a year. Most of them where daily habits at one point.

I use tildes now, although it’s still growing I like the community so far. Small site, very open to feedback, open source and (most importantly) it’s non-profit.

A website can't be non-profit. It's currently owned by a nonprofit, who could sell it to a VC at any time.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#365

Post by lonelappde » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

cdiddy2 wrote: post #93

mietek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

12 year club; charter member; already gone.

Is there somewhere people are going to? similar to when Digg went to reddit. where will reddit users go? Not all of the outcasts can end up on HN

Group Chats.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#366

Post by aschismatic » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

olyjohn wrote: post #331

aschismatic wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your favorite alternatives to stay in tune with what's happening now? I browse r/all multiple times daily for a bit. I don't get a lot of need-to-know information from it, but some things I like to see are movie trailers, big tech announcements (Xbox Series X yesterday), and in general, things that everyone seems to be "in the know" of. It's my main pop culture news outlet, but I feel like it shouldn't be.

I think you'll find that if you just quit worrying about "what's happening now," you'll find that you aren't actually missing anything.

That's a pretty good point. Thank you.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#367

Post by matheusmoreira » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 12:39 AM UTC

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #201

ken wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to migrate software without driving off all your users. It's soft , after all. When the 8-bit wave crested, that didn't mean Apple was done as a company. Why do we accept that such a short-lived company (less than one human generation) is "a good run", just because it's software? If Tesla turned into a "classic pump and dump scheme", nobody would say "Well, Tesla is 16 years old. They've had a good run.…

It makes sense to think of Reddit as an application rather than a company. Reddit the application depends on network effects to grow, and without growth, decay will be inevitable. Facebook the company has been able to create other applications that grow, even while Facebook the application is starting a network effect-triggered death spiral. Reddit Inc. has not created any other growth applications like the Reddit ap…

Perpetual growth is good only in a business sense. Social software has an optimal amount of users. Too few and there isn't enough signal, too many and there's too much noise. Both make people lose interest and leave.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#368

Post by harimau777 » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 12:50 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #165

harimau777 wrote: post #31

It feels to me like social media has been imploding recently. It seems like I am seeing more and more efforts to overtly force people use an app, associate browsing with an account, and link their account with a real world identity (e.g. via phone number). This in turn makes the platforms less useful and more hostile to users and presumably at some point that will cause users to leave the system. It also feels like s…

Is Reddit social media? Are usenet newsgroups and IRC channels social media?

The differences that I see between Reddit and, for example, traditional forums are:

- The ability to use one login and interface across multiple boards/subject areas.

- The ease of communicating between different boards either via links, cross posts, or some form of aggregation.

- Features that over time allow a post to become one that can be recognized as well regarded by the community. These could include good support for listing important posts in the subreddit information, the ability to tag posts, and the ability to archive posts.

- The natural support for media and links. Although to be fair, the media support is actually provided by sites that grew up around Reddit like Imgur.

Reddit may not be social in the sense that, as another poster points out, it is built around following topics rather than users. However, the degree to which it allows different topics and communities to interconnect allows relationships to form that function as a society. For example, a post on the Male Fashion Advice subreddit on how to be more presentable might link to a series of posts on the Male Hair Advice subreddit that have become well regarded in the community.

By way of comparison, on conventional forums there is often little interaction even between sub-forums in the same forum let alone between different forums. Support for media also tends to be more limited.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#369

Post by matheusmoreira » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

msluyter wrote: post #59

coldpie wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same thing that happens to all "free"/ad-sponsored/VC-backed services. Unless you're FB or Twitter or YouTube, your ads aren't profitable enough to run your business. The business model is unviable unless you get that big. So you lose a bunch of money until you find a way to monetize or close. This always takes the form of user-hostile anti-features. Currently that's forcing users into your special apps, whe…

I call this the dismal equilibrium . Anything free that provides value is, in brute economic terms, mis-priced. Thus, it tends to degrade due to attempts at monetization until a balance is reached between its inherent value and the pain one must endure to use/access it.

What if the thing provides maximum value only when it's free? Monetizing via advertising implies losing the speech the advertisers don't approve of. If we had discussion forums that didn't allow free accounts to post, we'd lose the speech of people who can't or won't pay.

Would be interesting if some rich benefactor randomly decided to run such a community.

Re: An account is now required to read Reddit comment threads?

#370

Post by dghughes » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

XaspR8d wrote: post #180

dghughes wrote: post #94

If you have a reddit account and go to the site not logged in the site looks like trash. The articles seem worse than what you see when logged in. Similar to YouTube if you aren't logged in you see the trashiest videos on the "unlogged in" main page. I don't know if that's on purpose or it's just like that. But there seems to be a big difference in the quality depending on whether you are logged in or not. As for the…

> As for the reddit site itself I wonder what is the ratio of old.reddit viewers vs reddit viewers are. I moderate a top 100 sub and if the built-in stats are to be believed, the recent breakdown is something like: = Pageviews = 40% apps 28% old reddit 17% mobile reddit 15% new reddit = Unique visits = 41% mobile reddit 27% new reddit 24% apps 8% old reddit This doesn't really capture the ratio of contributors who us…

Well shoot I never thought about checking stats.

I just checked one of my subreddits and for the Pageviews stats I see graphs for old reddit 3,500 vs new reddit 15,000.

Unique visits: old 1,200 vs new 9,370

I find that much of a difference surprising.