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Is there some special features that make Reddit a must for small/niche community building? Or is Reddit's value purely that it has the most users? I'm failing

Is there some special features that make Reddit a must for small/niche community building? Or is Reddit's value purely that it has the most users? I'm failing to see why Alien Blue, RiF, other 3rd parties cannot create a replacement platform. I'm sure there may be some context why (feel free to inform me).

dybber 3y ago
I think Lemmy has a similar API, so the hope is those apps will start working towards being Lemmy clients.
technofiend 3y ago
>Or is Reddit's value purely that it has the most users? Most users and now that SEO spam has corrupted search results, Reddit often has the most useful answers. This is why reddit also has a karma farming and astroturfing problem since the spammers are trying to inject themselves into search results from the platform as well. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there's not a reddit fork or mass exodus when a compelling replacement comes along. So far it's early days and much like mastodon vs Twitter, there's not a yet a critical mass on the replacement.
YetAnotherNick 3y ago
Every one the site doesn't have good ARR. While investors may fund these now, they are funding on the expectation of getting their money back. And as of now enshittification for ads is the only proven way to earn revenue that is good enough for the valuation. Donation model or premium model(like discord or reddit premium) doesn't work.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Isn't discord (rumored to be) profitable?
- KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
  As they are a company trying to make profit, isn't it their _literal job_ to find a way to make the site profitable without alienating a significant chunk of the userbase? Because, from this standpoint, it just looks like they're incapable of doing their jobs properly. Especially Steve.
  - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
    > to find a way to make the site profitable without alienating a significant chunk of the userbase? Is it? Apple is the most profitable company and by most metric a well performing company and they never shied away from alienating their users(by things like removing 32 bits, headphone jack, iphone mini etc). Google is the same where they killed many services used by millions.
    - KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
      > Is it? Apple is the most profitable company and by most metric a well performing company and they never shied away from alienating their users(by things like removing 32 bits, headphone jack, iphone mini etc). Apple has intentionally raised it's userbase inside of a walled garden from the start of the second Jobs era. The Apple experience is to be told what is good and why. Yes they are very effective at this but I see no point of comparison with how Reddit has evolved - or failed to - over the last decade or so. >Google is the same where they killed many services used by millions Google are as bad as Reddit, if not worse, for the same reasons that I gave. They are an ad company with a slew of vanity projects that wouldn't exist without ads, or only exist to deliver more ads or provide data for more accurate targeting of ads.
      - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
        > Google are as bad as Reddit, if not worse, for the same reasons that I gave No one is denying that the things reddit or Google did are bad for the users. The discussion was whether it is bad for the company's shareholders. As a company, Google kind of succeeded even after killing lot of products and only keep the products which are relevant for the ads at least till now. And keep the focus on scaling ads at the cost of user satisfaction.

dybber 3y ago

I think Lemmy has a similar API, so the hope is those apps will start working towards being Lemmy clients.

technofiend 3y ago

>Or is Reddit's value purely that it has the most users? Most users and now that SEO spam has corrupted search results, Reddit often has the most useful answers. This is why reddit also has a karma farming and astroturfing problem since the spammers are trying to inject themselves into search results from the platform as well. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there's not a reddit fork or mass exodus when a compelling replacement comes along. So far it's early days and much like mastodon vs Twitter, there's not a yet a critical mass on the replacement.

YetAnotherNick 3y ago

Every one the site doesn't have good ARR. While investors may fund these now, they are funding on the expectation of getting their money back. And as of now enshittification for ads is the only proven way to earn revenue that is good enough for the valuation. Donation model or premium model(like discord or reddit premium) doesn't work.

HWR_14 3y ago
Isn't discord (rumored to be) profitable?
KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
As they are a company trying to make profit, isn't it their _literal job_ to find a way to make the site profitable without alienating a significant chunk of the userbase? Because, from this standpoint, it just looks like they're incapable of doing their jobs properly. Especially Steve.
- YetAnotherNick 3y ago
  > to find a way to make the site profitable without alienating a significant chunk of the userbase? Is it? Apple is the most profitable company and by most metric a well performing company and they never shied away from alienating their users(by things like removing 32 bits, headphone jack, iphone mini etc). Google is the same where they killed many services used by millions.
  - KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
    > Is it? Apple is the most profitable company and by most metric a well performing company and they never shied away from alienating their users(by things like removing 32 bits, headphone jack, iphone mini etc). Apple has intentionally raised it's userbase inside of a walled garden from the start of the second Jobs era. The Apple experience is to be told what is good and why. Yes they are very effective at this but I see no point of comparison with how Reddit has evolved - or failed to - over the last decade or so. >Google is the same where they killed many services used by millions Google are as bad as Reddit, if not worse, for the same reasons that I gave. They are an ad company with a slew of vanity projects that wouldn't exist without ads, or only exist to deliver more ads or provide data for more accurate targeting of ads.
    - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
      > Google are as bad as Reddit, if not worse, for the same reasons that I gave No one is denying that the things reddit or Google did are bad for the users. The discussion was whether it is bad for the company's shareholders. As a company, Google kind of succeeded even after killing lot of products and only keep the products which are relevant for the ads at least till now. And keep the focus on scaling ads at the cost of user satisfaction.