>A big reason why Reddit is so popular is that it is mostly free of self-promotion spam I think the newer generation wasn't around for the bad ol' days of self

>A big reason why Reddit is so popular is that it is mostly free of self-promotion spam I think the newer generation wasn't around for the bad ol' days of self promo spam. I don't know if you remember, but when Stumbleupon was a thing, or Digg came out and Adsense was popular, people would shove just so many ads into their site, run it through the aggregator, and then get a big cashout from hitting the front page. These self-promo spam rules are vestigial, but originated from those times. And let's be honest, OP's blog has no visible ads, but it is the front end of a subscription funnel for their substack. At the end of the day, self-submission of external links is a signal that someone is trying to drive conversion to their personal blog, or their personal brand, whereas having another community member submit content is a signal that the content is interesting just by nature of the fact that they liked it enough to share. There's a huge difference between, for instance, /r/astrophotography where people share their creations, and submitting a link that's a vehicle for subscription.