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I have noticed a serious decline in the quality and quantity of good posts to the front page since the API changes; I wonder if that's noticiable from the inter

I have noticed a serious decline in the quality and quantity of good posts to the front page since the API changes; I wonder if that's noticiable from the internal numbers, or if the remaining people are engaging with the system in a more monetisable fashion and so it doesn't matter. I'm slowly using it less and less; don't think that will change.

Jordan-117 3y ago
The Guardian's recent follow-up suggests it's not something they track at all: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/30/reddit-moderator-protest-communities-social-media https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/30/reddit-mo... > While traffic has not changed substantially, many users report the quality of content and the kinds of posts that are surfaced on user homepages now seem different. RamsesThePigeon said the content on some of Reddit’s most-followed pages, which he moderates, had “gone sharply downhill”. >Stevie Chancellor, an assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at the University of Minnesota who has studied Reddit for years, echoed these sentiments. >“A lot of people who made Reddit a place where people wanted to be are not there any more, and a lot of high-quality content that I went to Reddit for is gone,” she said. “There has been a noticeable decline in the quality of content, both in terms of what is posted and what people talk about.” >In response to such critiques, Reddit spokesperson Rathschmidt said he did not “know of an industry benchmark for scoring content quality”. Anecdotally, while I no longer visit the site directly I do maintain an RSS feed to the front page to keep abreast of big stories. It has become absolutely lousy with reposts, rehosted TikToks, and Facebook-tier engagement bait (often using a title in the form of a question) that's clearly trying to exploit their new "contributor program". My sense is the bottom is falling out of their organic content creation base and they're leaning on repost bots (including reposted comments) and junky incentivized posting to hold their apparent traffic up long enough to IPO.
TomMasz 3y ago
Same here. I visit it once a day skim a screenful or two and that's it. No comments, no up/down arrows. If they measure more than just pageviews it's not to count for much.

Jordan-117 3y ago

The Guardian's recent follow-up suggests it's not something they track at all: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/30/reddit-moderator-protest-communities-social-media https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/30/reddit-mo... > While traffic has not changed substantially, many users report the quality of content and the kinds of posts that are surfaced on user homepages now seem different. RamsesThePigeon said the content on some of Reddit’s most-followed pages, which he moderates, had “gone sharply downhill”. >Stevie Chancellor, an assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at the University of Minnesota who has studied Reddit for years, echoed these sentiments. >“A lot of people who made Reddit a place where people wanted to be are not there any more, and a lot of high-quality content that I went to Reddit for is gone,” she said. “There has been a noticeable decline in the quality of content, both in terms of what is posted and what people talk about.” >In response to such critiques, Reddit spokesperson Rathschmidt said he did not “know of an industry benchmark for scoring content quality”. Anecdotally, while I no longer visit the site directly I do maintain an RSS feed to the front page to keep abreast of big stories. It has become absolutely lousy with reposts, rehosted TikToks, and Facebook-tier engagement bait (often using a title in the form of a question) that's clearly trying to exploit their new "contributor program". My sense is the bottom is falling out of their organic content creation base and they're leaning on repost bots (including reposted comments) and junky incentivized posting to hold their apparent traffic up long enough to IPO.

TomMasz 3y ago

Same here. I visit it once a day skim a screenful or two and that's it. No comments, no up/down arrows. If they measure more than just pageviews it's not to count for much.