4 ms·

It succeeded for a long time without becoming enshittified. It was the front page of the internet and it was great. Then they took VC funding. That changed ever

by dimal 3y ago

It succeeded for a long time without becoming enshittified. It was the front page of the internet and it was great. Then they took VC funding. That changed everything. That was the driver for all the enshittification that followed. The VCs need to get a 10x return and they only have one playbook — the one you describe. But if they hadn't taken VC funding, maybe they could have found a different path.

intended 3y ago
They were a YC team. They were always on VC funding - and they were not exactly a tale of profit and success. Essentially, Reddit always had to IPO.
- Iulioh 3y ago
  The problem was the pandemic expansion. See how many people worked at reddit in 2021 and in 2022. It went from something like 500 to 2000 And even if, the CEO said that reddit was never profitable and that's or bullshit or a clear sign of how badly can a company be managed.
ryandrake 3y ago
If you remember Fark, they did the exact same thing. At some point in these sites' growth/success they always seem to have this irresistible compulsion to do The Grand Redesign which always, always shittifies itself. I wonder if there were any dissenters inside of Reddit who have actually been on the Internet in 2007, desperately warning the designers that they were "Farking" themselves with that redesign.
- pbj1968 3y ago
  What killed Fark was the founder ran for office and we all found out what a terrible person he is. It’s still fun to visit that ghost town and look at the tombstones occasionally.
  - cutemonster 3y ago
    I think he looks like an interesting person: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Curtis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Curtis at least compared to most other local governor candidates? The book summary was interesting too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Not_News,_It%27s_FARK https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Not_News,_It%27s_FARK
strbean 3y ago
Eh, I think the reason reddit was resilient against this effect was because of the balkanization resulting from the subreddit model. If you look at an individual subreddit, unless it is incredibly fringe, it will follow the 'social enshittification' model perfectly. Reddit has the advantage that a portion of users can migrate to a newer, still-fringe subreddit as a replacement. Over time, though, the namespace starts to get cluttered. You have to go to r/realTrueSubreddit2 to find a decent community now. Also, r/realTrueSubreddit1 was taken by nazis/trolls who were mad at getting banned for using slurs.

by dimal 3y ago

intended 3y ago

They were a YC team. They were always on VC funding - and they were not exactly a tale of profit and success. Essentially, Reddit always had to IPO.

Iulioh 3y ago
The problem was the pandemic expansion. See how many people worked at reddit in 2021 and in 2022. It went from something like 500 to 2000 And even if, the CEO said that reddit was never profitable and that's or bullshit or a clear sign of how badly can a company be managed.

ryandrake 3y ago

If you remember Fark, they did the exact same thing. At some point in these sites' growth/success they always seem to have this irresistible compulsion to do The Grand Redesign which always, always shittifies itself. I wonder if there were any dissenters inside of Reddit who have actually been on the Internet in 2007, desperately warning the designers that they were "Farking" themselves with that redesign.

pbj1968 3y ago
What killed Fark was the founder ran for office and we all found out what a terrible person he is. It’s still fun to visit that ghost town and look at the tombstones occasionally.
- cutemonster 3y ago
  I think he looks like an interesting person: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Curtis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Curtis at least compared to most other local governor candidates? The book summary was interesting too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Not_News,_It%27s_FARK https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Not_News,_It%27s_FARK

strbean 3y ago

Eh, I think the reason reddit was resilient against this effect was because of the balkanization resulting from the subreddit model. If you look at an individual subreddit, unless it is incredibly fringe, it will follow the 'social enshittification' model perfectly. Reddit has the advantage that a portion of users can migrate to a newer, still-fringe subreddit as a replacement. Over time, though, the namespace starts to get cluttered. You have to go to r/realTrueSubreddit2 to find a decent community now. Also, r/realTrueSubreddit1 was taken by nazis/trolls who were mad at getting banned for using slurs.