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I desperately hope Reddits recent changes kill it. It's nothing personal towards reddit, but I can't think of anything else which will dissuade enshittification

I desperately hope Reddits recent changes kill it. It's nothing personal towards reddit, but I can't think of anything else which will dissuade enshittification of other online places.

AceJohnny2 3y ago
Don't count on it. I'm afraid Steve Huffman made the correct calculation that Reddit's network effect is large enough that the wound it'll sustain with the API lockout won't be enough to imperil the platform. On the scale of other platform enshittification (Digg in particular), this one isn't directly user-hostile enough, and the aren't any good enough alternatives. Enshittification is basically inevitable for (venture)capitalist-funded online platforms. My biggest disappointment is that Reddit went that venture-capitalist (or adjacent, whatever) route, I thought/hoped their "Reddit Gold" approach was good enough to be sustainable.
- shmatt 3y ago
  People (for obvious reasons) like to compare Digg to whats going on at Reddit. It seems a lot closer to Facebook Facebook has always lead the fight to monetize users to the max. If its sudden API changes or shutdowns, or suing 3rd party app developers. Yet they still generate Billions and people are fine using them, instagram, or Whatsapp, even though they fully understand the enshitification the timeline has gone through throughout the years, and how aggressively they monetize their user base I also see Reddit as extremely similar to Facebook groups, which can also have millions of users, and are moderated for free by volunteers
  - _urvc 3y ago
    Unlike Reddit, most of Meta's apps are commonly used on mobile. Furthermore, all the apps you listed actually bring long term value in the form of real life social and business relationships. Emotionally and economically Reddit has not nearly as much of an impact.
  - Macha 3y ago
    I think it's a mistake to confuse the health of Meta, the company, with Facebook, the platform. I think as a company they made the right decision in the acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp because they captured some of the platforms that were stealing their important demographics. I think if they hadn't made these acquisitions and were still just Facebook.com, we'd be looking at Facebook the company not as a FAANG giant but as a Yahoo or IBM or similar.
- andrewflnr 3y ago
  The strongest theory I've seen for this killing reddit is that moderation quality goes down enough that being on the site is no longer fun. Even if Reddit replaces all the moderators who quit (which, yes, won't be hard), Reddit itself doesn't provide tools with the same power as what mods were using, to say nothing of the new mods' lack of experience and questionable motives and judgment (if you're smart and have good motives, you at least think really hard before going into a position left empty by mass resignation). But yes, long term it's on We The People to fund our own communities.
  - matteoraso 3y ago
    >moderation quality goes down enough that being on the site is no longer fun. I'd say that Reddit (and really the internet as a whole) hit that years ago. Another user said this on a different thread, but Reddit has this deep depression inside it that isn't really noticeable until you leave. Like, you don't ever really see happy people on there anymore, just people with varying levels of misery. I don't think that's really unwanted by Spez and Co, either. If there's something that the internet has taught me, it's that it's easier to retain audiences by keeping them miserable and afraid than it is by keeping them happy.
    - Extasia785 3y ago
      > but Reddit has this deep depression inside it that isn't really noticeable until you leave. Like, you don't ever really see happy people on there anymore, just people with varying levels of misery Well put, I've also noticed this. Be it games, movies or sports. Whenever I enjoy something, I just know that the moment I go on Reddit (or Twitter), there will be a shitstorm complaining and crying about mundane details. And without fails those threads gain thousands of upvotes, while the positive threads die with 12 upvotes in new. Outrage seems to be the best way to drive engagement and clicks.
      - andrewflnr 3y ago
        As everything with Reddit, this depends which subs you hang out in. This doesn't match my experience.
ryandrake 3y ago
Enshittification is caused by greed, so unless you've fixed greed, it's going to continue. Every site that has deliberately made their site shitty probably has some "math with dollar signs" to back it up. We're lucky that HN is pretty much a side-show for YCombinator. If there was even a remote chance that it could make a significant amount of money (compared to YCombinator's actual business), I guarantee you we'll be reading "Announcing HN's Redesign" pinned to the top one day.
- andrewflnr 3y ago
  It'll continue iff it actually works to satisfy greed. If platform builders and funders see there's a limit to enshittification before a platform breaks, then they'll stop crossing that line out of self interest. I guess there will always be a few just trying to sell the platform to a sucker before it crashes, but you'd at least see the shit diminishing.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    Enshittification is caused by bad behavior being profitable. If bad behavior weren't profitable, greed would make everything nice.
    - nbadg 3y ago
      I would put a slight caveat on that: it's caused by bad behavior being _perceived_ to be profitable. That doesn't mean it necessarily is. Nor that the bad actor necessarily has the tools (or desire) to evaluate the effectiveness of their behavior in realizing their greed.
      - spacemadness 3y ago
        Or perhaps profitable in the short run, which for an IPO is all that matters when people with more money than sense buy into it.
    - jll29 3y ago
      Would you say profitability is an issue per se? It seems to me that users should _want_ their community platform to be profitable in order to sustain, but not "too profitable" (=greed) or the sense of community vanishes. If that is true, is it the responsibility of the online citizen to interact/transact on a platform with the "right" degree of profitability (not too small, or it'll close tomorrow, but also not to greedy, or enshittification occurs)? PS: How profitable exactly is "right" - reminds me of the family game where the winner is the "most average" person - scoring points closest to the arithmetic mean instead of the person with the max. score.
Levitz 3y ago
The death of tumblr made other communities worse. Even if Reddit dies, its users won't. This is a cancer that won't stop spreading.
- system2 3y ago
  Death of tumblr? It is currently 114th most visited website with over 300 million users per month. Who says it is dead?
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
I hope its IPO goes the way of WeWork’s.
zirgs 3y ago
Redditors will flock to other places and enshittify those as well. It's already happening.

I desperately hope Reddits recent changes kill it. It's nothing personal towards reddit, but I can't think of anything else which will dissuade enshittification of other online places.

AceJohnny2 3y ago

Don't count on it. I'm afraid Steve Huffman made the correct calculation that Reddit's network effect is large enough that the wound it'll sustain with the API lockout won't be enough to imperil the platform. On the scale of other platform enshittification (Digg in particular), this one isn't directly user-hostile enough, and the aren't any good enough alternatives. Enshittification is basically inevitable for (venture)capitalist-funded online platforms. My biggest disappointment is that Reddit went that venture-capitalist (or adjacent, whatever) route, I thought/hoped their "Reddit Gold" approach was good enough to be sustainable.

shmatt 3y ago
People (for obvious reasons) like to compare Digg to whats going on at Reddit. It seems a lot closer to Facebook Facebook has always lead the fight to monetize users to the max. If its sudden API changes or shutdowns, or suing 3rd party app developers. Yet they still generate Billions and people are fine using them, instagram, or Whatsapp, even though they fully understand the enshitification the timeline has gone through throughout the years, and how aggressively they monetize their user base I also see Reddit as extremely similar to Facebook groups, which can also have millions of users, and are moderated for free by volunteers
- _urvc 3y ago
  Unlike Reddit, most of Meta's apps are commonly used on mobile. Furthermore, all the apps you listed actually bring long term value in the form of real life social and business relationships. Emotionally and economically Reddit has not nearly as much of an impact.
- Macha 3y ago
  I think it's a mistake to confuse the health of Meta, the company, with Facebook, the platform. I think as a company they made the right decision in the acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp because they captured some of the platforms that were stealing their important demographics. I think if they hadn't made these acquisitions and were still just Facebook.com, we'd be looking at Facebook the company not as a FAANG giant but as a Yahoo or IBM or similar.
andrewflnr 3y ago
The strongest theory I've seen for this killing reddit is that moderation quality goes down enough that being on the site is no longer fun. Even if Reddit replaces all the moderators who quit (which, yes, won't be hard), Reddit itself doesn't provide tools with the same power as what mods were using, to say nothing of the new mods' lack of experience and questionable motives and judgment (if you're smart and have good motives, you at least think really hard before going into a position left empty by mass resignation). But yes, long term it's on We The People to fund our own communities.
- matteoraso 3y ago
  >moderation quality goes down enough that being on the site is no longer fun. I'd say that Reddit (and really the internet as a whole) hit that years ago. Another user said this on a different thread, but Reddit has this deep depression inside it that isn't really noticeable until you leave. Like, you don't ever really see happy people on there anymore, just people with varying levels of misery. I don't think that's really unwanted by Spez and Co, either. If there's something that the internet has taught me, it's that it's easier to retain audiences by keeping them miserable and afraid than it is by keeping them happy.
  - Extasia785 3y ago
    > but Reddit has this deep depression inside it that isn't really noticeable until you leave. Like, you don't ever really see happy people on there anymore, just people with varying levels of misery Well put, I've also noticed this. Be it games, movies or sports. Whenever I enjoy something, I just know that the moment I go on Reddit (or Twitter), there will be a shitstorm complaining and crying about mundane details. And without fails those threads gain thousands of upvotes, while the positive threads die with 12 upvotes in new. Outrage seems to be the best way to drive engagement and clicks.
    - andrewflnr 3y ago
      As everything with Reddit, this depends which subs you hang out in. This doesn't match my experience.

ryandrake 3y ago

Enshittification is caused by greed, so unless you've fixed greed, it's going to continue. Every site that has deliberately made their site shitty probably has some "math with dollar signs" to back it up. We're lucky that HN is pretty much a side-show for YCombinator. If there was even a remote chance that it could make a significant amount of money (compared to YCombinator's actual business), I guarantee you we'll be reading "Announcing HN's Redesign" pinned to the top one day.

andrewflnr 3y ago
It'll continue iff it actually works to satisfy greed. If platform builders and funders see there's a limit to enshittification before a platform breaks, then they'll stop crossing that line out of self interest. I guess there will always be a few just trying to sell the platform to a sucker before it crashes, but you'd at least see the shit diminishing.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  Enshittification is caused by bad behavior being profitable. If bad behavior weren't profitable, greed would make everything nice.
  - nbadg 3y ago
    I would put a slight caveat on that: it's caused by bad behavior being _perceived_ to be profitable. That doesn't mean it necessarily is. Nor that the bad actor necessarily has the tools (or desire) to evaluate the effectiveness of their behavior in realizing their greed.
    - spacemadness 3y ago
      Or perhaps profitable in the short run, which for an IPO is all that matters when people with more money than sense buy into it.
  - jll29 3y ago
    Would you say profitability is an issue per se? It seems to me that users should _want_ their community platform to be profitable in order to sustain, but not "too profitable" (=greed) or the sense of community vanishes. If that is true, is it the responsibility of the online citizen to interact/transact on a platform with the "right" degree of profitability (not too small, or it'll close tomorrow, but also not to greedy, or enshittification occurs)? PS: How profitable exactly is "right" - reminds me of the family game where the winner is the "most average" person - scoring points closest to the arithmetic mean instead of the person with the max. score.

Levitz 3y ago

The death of tumblr made other communities worse. Even if Reddit dies, its users won't. This is a cancer that won't stop spreading.

system2 3y ago
Death of tumblr? It is currently 114th most visited website with over 300 million users per month. Who says it is dead?

NotYourLawyer 3y ago

I hope its IPO goes the way of WeWork’s.

zirgs 3y ago

Redditors will flock to other places and enshittify those as well. It's already happening.