7 ms·

The Fall of Reddit: Why It’s Quickly Declining into Chaos

21 points by memorable 4y ago

richbell 4y ago
I think a dupe of this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31881238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31881238
8note 4y ago
Reddit seems to be doing fine though? Certainly better than it was in like 2013
superkuh 4y ago
The original techy userbase left when reddit accepted massive amounts of venture capital and had to make a profit in early to mid 2010s. It's been inertia ever since. They've been trying very hard to gentrify and make reddit as appealing as possible to all the people that wanted to leave Facebook but still wanted a facebook-alike. And reddit provided that with a heavy shift to user-profile based posting and integration of commercial ad accounts as users. So now they're left with effectively Facebook users but without all the real names and private information to sell so of course that doesn't work. There's no way 1.3 billion USD in venture capital is getting a return without it continuing to be run into the ground.
- cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
  Yep. Most Reddit users are now mainstream average people which unfortunately leads to average signal interactions. This happens to almost every platform when those late to the party tend to push away the cool kids. The only high signal communities are perpetually the next ones that haven't become too popular yet. I posit that invite-only via vouching, subscription fees, not run by a corporation, real names+faces profiles, and policed just enough to defend decorum is one of the only ways to build a useful, enduring community that's not a fad.
bioemerl 4y ago
Aside from this place, are there any good alternatives to that website? Everything else I see is either dead, or incredibly political to a degree that I do not want to be involved with it.
- rr808 4y ago
  Agreed, I've loved newsgroups back in the day, Slashdot, HN and a few other online forums. There isn't anything else better than Reddit right now. (HN aside of course :)
kelseyfrog 4y ago
What a weird perspective. Anyone who's ran a social media site seems to understand that unmoderated sites devolve into hatepits that drive out the normies until they capture the orbit of 1-10k full-timers. That's no way to run a business - money speaks.
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  Likewise weird perspective. The early reddit was a place for reading interesting stories and having intelligent conversations. Now it's among the most hateful places on the internet, despite all the "moderation". It seems censorship doesn't actually solve the issue of hatred, it's a question of culture. In the early days it was a community of geeks and people looking to discuss niche interests. Now the mainstream is there with all its toxic political bickering and personal attacks. The more the thought police tries to turn social media into autocracy, the worse it gets. Early internet forums and remailers had trolls, but it was never this bad. Hackernews btw also has much less moderation and is less horrible. Again, it's simply down to the users that you cultivate. Also unlike reddit, HN has never hired pedophilia supporters as admins and then tried covering it up by censoring mentions of it.
  - emerged 4y ago
    As someone who is shadow banned, the moderation is no less strict here than on Reddit. Your experience will ultimately depend on a mods particular mood or sensitive topics.
    - dang 4y ago
      You're banned, but not shadow banned. We told you we were banning you and why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31332637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31332637
      - emerged 4y ago
        First time I’m seeing that link (56 days later). So the distinction between ban and shadow ban seems pretty minor. Anyway zero warnings and I’ve posted no “ideological” material other than fully in context responses to posts. Again, same here as Reddit. Mods didn’t like a particular political association with a post so made the choice to label it ideological and ban me.
mcphage 4y ago
1. It’s not quickly declining into chaos. 2. Despite the title, the author offers no evidence of it doing so. Maybe some of the big subs are crap, but the big subs have always been crap. And the vast ocean of smaller subs have plenty of good communities.
jti107 4y ago
why is anyone surprised? if you're using a free product, most likely they are collecting your data and selling it to the highest bidder.
simonblack 4y ago
My censorship story about reddit begins when I somehow or other saw the front page instead of just my usual set of selected subreddits. On that front page was a thumbnail photo of an old piece of medical equipment. It was an Iron Lung. I hadn't seen one of those since the 1960s. So I commented on that front page article stating just that, that I hadn't seen one of those since the 1960s. What's the big deal about that, you might ask. As did I. Except that the following day, I received a notification that I had been permanently banned from some subreddit that I had never heard of ever before. Huh? The reason given was that the article I had commented on was in one of the Trump subreddits. Who Knew? When I commented on this strange state of events, that new comment of mine was 'disappeared' within minutes. I knew then that Reddit had 'jumped the shark' and could only terminally decline after that.
- richbell 4y ago
  Many subreddits use Mass Tagger[0] or other bots to automatically ban people who post in 'right-wing' or 'reactionary' subreddits. The criteria for being tagged is shakey at best. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/masstagger/ https://www.reddit.com/r/masstagger/
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Many subreddits use Mass Tagger[0] or other bots to automatically ban people who post in 'right-wing' or 'reactionary' subreddits. The criteria for being tagged is shakey at best. Last time I used reddit (years ago), it was easy and ubiquitous to use many alt accounts and to switch between them using RES. Seems like it would just encourage people to use more alts.
    - richbell 4y ago
      It is — Reddit still doesn't require email verification — but I don't think the average user does. To the average user it's inconvenient and either: - has a chilling effect on what subreddits they participate in - annoys users and dissuades them from participating in the banning subreddits I suspect both are desired outcomes for Mass Tagger, regardless of 'collateral damage'.
pupppet 4y ago
The popular subreddits are a write-off but there’s still good discussion if you dig a little. I like to think the mainstream subs are acting as the fall-guy for lesser known subs, leaching the awful populace away.
- thefz 4y ago
  I used to think this way but the redditor mentality is creeping up on smaller subs too.
- DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
  IRL that's somehow like Tenerife, Canary Islands, works as a popular European tourist destination: They built (in the 60s and 70s) two major centers in the dry south, not far from the airport: Los Christianos and Los Americanos. When exiting the airport, the crowds divide: all those (mostly anglophone I think) tourists who are there with their buddies for the booze and the all-you-can-eat turn left and are shuttled to those two centers, everybody else—the retired couples, the quiet types, people into hiking and stuff—heads down the highway to the right and distributes over the much larger rest of the island, including the green and more hospitable north. For all the crowds and the frenzy at the airport, Tenerife has many quiet and even lonely and downright deserted spots.
EddieDante 4y ago
Reddit has always been a place where you deviated from the prevailing groupthink at your own peril, and if people on HN are honest with themselves they might come to realize that HN is only marginally better than Reddit in that regard. Also, in fairness to HN, they didn't erase one of their founders from the site's history after he was driven to suicide by the US government.
- permo-w 4y ago
  I disagree that HN is only marginally better. on reddit, it doesn't matter how polite or substantive you are, if you step out of the groupthink you get downvoted to fuck. on HN, in my experience, as long as you're substantive and polite, even if you're genuinely egregiously wrong, you very rarely get downvoted. obviously there are other factors, like the lack of downvote for newer or low-karma users, but this is my experience
- taolegal 4y ago
  There's something about the direct democracy upvote/downvote system that hyper-polarizes the whole forum. Marginal (read: interesting and crucially under-appreciated) voices are silenced & made to disappear, only reinforcing the absence of marginalized voices. On Reddit, it's done for overtly political reasons. And on HN it's done under the pretense of expertise (a loose proxy for majority "respectable" political opinion of the relatively wealthy tech industry social class).
ohCh6zos 4y ago
Does it feel like reddit used to encourage outbound linking and now does everything to make users stay on the site?
thefz 4y ago
Bring back the old bulletin boards, or forums. Specialized communities driven by a common interest. Not everything needs to be centralised. Reddit is a dumpster fire today and finding any relevant information is a chore,it's just meme after pun after stupid comment
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Bring back the old bulletin boards, or forums. Specialized communities driven by a common interest That's what Reddit is, just at a central platform, which is easier for most involved with regards to UX (i don't want to have a separate account and notification system for each of my interests), discoverability, etc.
- permo-w 4y ago
  >it's just meme after pun after stupid comment this really is the case. it's actually quite an interesting social phenomenon. facebook and twitter aren't like that[1], and they have a roughly similar userbase at this point. where did it originate? what UI/UX features promote it? was digg like that too? [1] yes people make jokes, but there isn't the same scramble to make the best pun/chain of puns every time someone makes a post.
bigtex 4y ago
Trump broke Reddit. I remember around 2017 where r/popular was nothing but negative stories about Trump and republicans and has only gotten worse. The echo chamber there is insane. RIP NoNewNormal.

21 points by memorable 4y ago

richbell 4y ago

I think a dupe of this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31881238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31881238

8note 4y ago

Reddit seems to be doing fine though? Certainly better than it was in like 2013

superkuh 4y ago

The original techy userbase left when reddit accepted massive amounts of venture capital and had to make a profit in early to mid 2010s. It's been inertia ever since. They've been trying very hard to gentrify and make reddit as appealing as possible to all the people that wanted to leave Facebook but still wanted a facebook-alike. And reddit provided that with a heavy shift to user-profile based posting and integration of commercial ad accounts as users. So now they're left with effectively Facebook users but without all the real names and private information to sell so of course that doesn't work. There's no way 1.3 billion USD in venture capital is getting a return without it continuing to be run into the ground.

cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
Yep. Most Reddit users are now mainstream average people which unfortunately leads to average signal interactions. This happens to almost every platform when those late to the party tend to push away the cool kids. The only high signal communities are perpetually the next ones that haven't become too popular yet. I posit that invite-only via vouching, subscription fees, not run by a corporation, real names+faces profiles, and policed just enough to defend decorum is one of the only ways to build a useful, enduring community that's not a fad.

bioemerl 4y ago

Aside from this place, are there any good alternatives to that website? Everything else I see is either dead, or incredibly political to a degree that I do not want to be involved with it.

rr808 4y ago
Agreed, I've loved newsgroups back in the day, Slashdot, HN and a few other online forums. There isn't anything else better than Reddit right now. (HN aside of course :)

kelseyfrog 4y ago

What a weird perspective. Anyone who's ran a social media site seems to understand that unmoderated sites devolve into hatepits that drive out the normies until they capture the orbit of 1-10k full-timers. That's no way to run a business - money speaks.

trompetenaccoun 4y ago
Likewise weird perspective. The early reddit was a place for reading interesting stories and having intelligent conversations. Now it's among the most hateful places on the internet, despite all the "moderation". It seems censorship doesn't actually solve the issue of hatred, it's a question of culture. In the early days it was a community of geeks and people looking to discuss niche interests. Now the mainstream is there with all its toxic political bickering and personal attacks. The more the thought police tries to turn social media into autocracy, the worse it gets. Early internet forums and remailers had trolls, but it was never this bad. Hackernews btw also has much less moderation and is less horrible. Again, it's simply down to the users that you cultivate. Also unlike reddit, HN has never hired pedophilia supporters as admins and then tried covering it up by censoring mentions of it.
- emerged 4y ago
  As someone who is shadow banned, the moderation is no less strict here than on Reddit. Your experience will ultimately depend on a mods particular mood or sensitive topics.
  - dang 4y ago
    You're banned, but not shadow banned. We told you we were banning you and why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31332637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31332637
    - emerged 4y ago
      First time I’m seeing that link (56 days later). So the distinction between ban and shadow ban seems pretty minor. Anyway zero warnings and I’ve posted no “ideological” material other than fully in context responses to posts. Again, same here as Reddit. Mods didn’t like a particular political association with a post so made the choice to label it ideological and ban me.

mcphage 4y ago

1. It’s not quickly declining into chaos. 2. Despite the title, the author offers no evidence of it doing so. Maybe some of the big subs are crap, but the big subs have always been crap. And the vast ocean of smaller subs have plenty of good communities.

jti107 4y ago

why is anyone surprised? if you're using a free product, most likely they are collecting your data and selling it to the highest bidder.

simonblack 4y ago

My censorship story about reddit begins when I somehow or other saw the front page instead of just my usual set of selected subreddits. On that front page was a thumbnail photo of an old piece of medical equipment. It was an Iron Lung. I hadn't seen one of those since the 1960s. So I commented on that front page article stating just that, that I hadn't seen one of those since the 1960s. What's the big deal about that, you might ask. As did I. Except that the following day, I received a notification that I had been permanently banned from some subreddit that I had never heard of ever before. Huh? The reason given was that the article I had commented on was in one of the Trump subreddits. Who Knew? When I commented on this strange state of events, that new comment of mine was 'disappeared' within minutes. I knew then that Reddit had 'jumped the shark' and could only terminally decline after that.

richbell 4y ago
Many subreddits use Mass Tagger[0] or other bots to automatically ban people who post in 'right-wing' or 'reactionary' subreddits. The criteria for being tagged is shakey at best. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/masstagger/ https://www.reddit.com/r/masstagger/
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Many subreddits use Mass Tagger[0] or other bots to automatically ban people who post in 'right-wing' or 'reactionary' subreddits. The criteria for being tagged is shakey at best. Last time I used reddit (years ago), it was easy and ubiquitous to use many alt accounts and to switch between them using RES. Seems like it would just encourage people to use more alts.
  - richbell 4y ago
    It is — Reddit still doesn't require email verification — but I don't think the average user does. To the average user it's inconvenient and either: - has a chilling effect on what subreddits they participate in - annoys users and dissuades them from participating in the banning subreddits I suspect both are desired outcomes for Mass Tagger, regardless of 'collateral damage'.

pupppet 4y ago

The popular subreddits are a write-off but there’s still good discussion if you dig a little. I like to think the mainstream subs are acting as the fall-guy for lesser known subs, leaching the awful populace away.

thefz 4y ago
I used to think this way but the redditor mentality is creeping up on smaller subs too.
DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
IRL that's somehow like Tenerife, Canary Islands, works as a popular European tourist destination: They built (in the 60s and 70s) two major centers in the dry south, not far from the airport: Los Christianos and Los Americanos. When exiting the airport, the crowds divide: all those (mostly anglophone I think) tourists who are there with their buddies for the booze and the all-you-can-eat turn left and are shuttled to those two centers, everybody else—the retired couples, the quiet types, people into hiking and stuff—heads down the highway to the right and distributes over the much larger rest of the island, including the green and more hospitable north. For all the crowds and the frenzy at the airport, Tenerife has many quiet and even lonely and downright deserted spots.

EddieDante 4y ago

Reddit has always been a place where you deviated from the prevailing groupthink at your own peril, and if people on HN are honest with themselves they might come to realize that HN is only marginally better than Reddit in that regard. Also, in fairness to HN, they didn't erase one of their founders from the site's history after he was driven to suicide by the US government.

permo-w 4y ago
I disagree that HN is only marginally better. on reddit, it doesn't matter how polite or substantive you are, if you step out of the groupthink you get downvoted to fuck. on HN, in my experience, as long as you're substantive and polite, even if you're genuinely egregiously wrong, you very rarely get downvoted. obviously there are other factors, like the lack of downvote for newer or low-karma users, but this is my experience
taolegal 4y ago
There's something about the direct democracy upvote/downvote system that hyper-polarizes the whole forum. Marginal (read: interesting and crucially under-appreciated) voices are silenced & made to disappear, only reinforcing the absence of marginalized voices. On Reddit, it's done for overtly political reasons. And on HN it's done under the pretense of expertise (a loose proxy for majority "respectable" political opinion of the relatively wealthy tech industry social class).

ohCh6zos 4y ago

Does it feel like reddit used to encourage outbound linking and now does everything to make users stay on the site?

thefz 4y ago

Bring back the old bulletin boards, or forums. Specialized communities driven by a common interest. Not everything needs to be centralised. Reddit is a dumpster fire today and finding any relevant information is a chore,it's just meme after pun after stupid comment

sofixa 4y ago
> Bring back the old bulletin boards, or forums. Specialized communities driven by a common interest That's what Reddit is, just at a central platform, which is easier for most involved with regards to UX (i don't want to have a separate account and notification system for each of my interests), discoverability, etc.
permo-w 4y ago
>it's just meme after pun after stupid comment this really is the case. it's actually quite an interesting social phenomenon. facebook and twitter aren't like that[1], and they have a roughly similar userbase at this point. where did it originate? what UI/UX features promote it? was digg like that too? [1] yes people make jokes, but there isn't the same scramble to make the best pun/chain of puns every time someone makes a post.

bigtex 4y ago

Trump broke Reddit. I remember around 2017 where r/popular was nothing but negative stories about Trump and republicans and has only gotten worse. The echo chamber there is insane. RIP NoNewNormal.