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The network effects are too strong. Remember, the only reason Reddit "won" was because Digg destroyed itself with a radical upgrade that everyone hated. Reddi

The network effects are too strong. Remember, the only reason Reddit "won" was because Digg destroyed itself with a radical upgrade that everyone hated. Reddit would have to do something similarly self-inflicted, and I can't even guess where people would go. Reddit was already an alternative to Digg -- what's the alternative to Reddit? I mean, it's certainly not Quora.

tayo42 2y ago
Reddit is quietly a huge website with a significant amount of users. So many people use it but dont talk about it. Google search says 1billion mau? Twice as big as Twitter
nope1000 2y ago
There is Lemmy for example, very similar to old Reddit. The big problem is the missing content outside of mainstream communities.
- warkdarrior 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - talldayo 2y ago
    No, because people don't come to Lemmy to read AI-generated posts. It's called social media, not robot time with language models.
    - EasyMark 2y ago
      there are plenty of reddits outside of the "popular ones" that have invaluable information in one place and I can ask questions. It still has value for me, and not much value for axis of evil bots to spread political disinformation like popular subs and on twitter.
  - Slyfox33 2y ago
    Why would anyone want to purposely read AI bot content?
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
It was already dead by then. Really, it was the various Slashdot exoduses... sites like K5 got large initial boosts, but stumbled and started to deteriorate. If the Digg exodus is what sent you to Slashdot, chances are you're the kind of user everyone else was trying to escape. >what's the alternative to Reddit? I mean, it's certainly not Quora. If it was deliberate I certainly can't tell, but one of the characteristics of Reddit is that it caused so many other little tiny internet forums to just wither away. Most were visually unappealing, running some ancient phpbb software or whatever, but there were so many like stars in the night sky. Now, if they're even still running, you look for the newest post, and it will say "November 2023". Hell, the only reason they are still running is that the credit card number on file paying for hosting doesn't expire until next year somehow. Reddit is a red tide algae choking out all life in the ocean, nothing else gets to exist anymore.
- bobajeff 2y ago
  I think you might be onto something with the observation about people moving from old forum software like phpbb to subreddits. It's like what happened to personal websites when things like Blogger, Tumblr and Facebook popped up. It's hard to beat something that is easy to set up and pays for hosting but still let's you control moderation. It's a no brainer. Managing your own domain where users post content is a minefield of problems these days even if you didn't mind the cost of running it. Something like this might also explain the move to things like Discord over IRC.
Suppafly 2y ago
>Reddit was already an alternative to Digg -- what's the alternative to Reddit? This site is essentially 'orange reddit', they just need to add sub-HNs or tagging or something and it'd be ready for an influx of reddit refugees. Not that any of really want it, but it's possible.
CSMastermind 2y ago
I don't think this is true. The main thing I see Reddit being useful for are discussions about entertainment. There's probably a subreddit for your favorite sports team, twitch steamer, TV show, book series video game, politics (which is entertainment for some people). Reddit has seriously degraded the experience of a lot of these communities with things like restricting custom CSS. It seems to me that the way you'd disrupt Reddit as a startup is to pick a vertical and laser focus on becoming the best discussion board for that community. If it's sports than have integrations for live stats, scores, etc. In general you could attract users by offering profit sharing on ads the same way Youtube does for creators. Have the best moderation tools in the world, a constant painpoint with Reddit. Give admins more flexibility over the appearance of the board, all things Reddit took away. The other path for disruption would be if an established company with those communities tackled the problem. Lots of communities already us Discord, but they tend to also have a subreddit because chat and forums are different communication methods. Discord could easily offer a forum product as an extension of their chat services. If they do it well they'd drive a lot of users away from the subreddits.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

tayo42 2y ago

Reddit is quietly a huge website with a significant amount of users. So many people use it but dont talk about it. Google search says 1billion mau? Twice as big as Twitter

nope1000 2y ago

There is Lemmy for example, very similar to old Reddit. The big problem is the missing content outside of mainstream communities.

warkdarrior 2y ago
[flagged]
- talldayo 2y ago
  No, because people don't come to Lemmy to read AI-generated posts. It's called social media, not robot time with language models.
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    there are plenty of reddits outside of the "popular ones" that have invaluable information in one place and I can ask questions. It still has value for me, and not much value for axis of evil bots to spread political disinformation like popular subs and on twitter.
- Slyfox33 2y ago
  Why would anyone want to purposely read AI bot content?

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

It was already dead by then. Really, it was the various Slashdot exoduses... sites like K5 got large initial boosts, but stumbled and started to deteriorate. If the Digg exodus is what sent you to Slashdot, chances are you're the kind of user everyone else was trying to escape. >what's the alternative to Reddit? I mean, it's certainly not Quora. If it was deliberate I certainly can't tell, but one of the characteristics of Reddit is that it caused so many other little tiny internet forums to just wither away. Most were visually unappealing, running some ancient phpbb software or whatever, but there were so many like stars in the night sky. Now, if they're even still running, you look for the newest post, and it will say "November 2023". Hell, the only reason they are still running is that the credit card number on file paying for hosting doesn't expire until next year somehow. Reddit is a red tide algae choking out all life in the ocean, nothing else gets to exist anymore.

bobajeff 2y ago
I think you might be onto something with the observation about people moving from old forum software like phpbb to subreddits. It's like what happened to personal websites when things like Blogger, Tumblr and Facebook popped up. It's hard to beat something that is easy to set up and pays for hosting but still let's you control moderation. It's a no brainer. Managing your own domain where users post content is a minefield of problems these days even if you didn't mind the cost of running it. Something like this might also explain the move to things like Discord over IRC.

Suppafly 2y ago

>Reddit was already an alternative to Digg -- what's the alternative to Reddit? This site is essentially 'orange reddit', they just need to add sub-HNs or tagging or something and it'd be ready for an influx of reddit refugees. Not that any of really want it, but it's possible.

CSMastermind 2y ago

I don't think this is true. The main thing I see Reddit being useful for are discussions about entertainment. There's probably a subreddit for your favorite sports team, twitch steamer, TV show, book series video game, politics (which is entertainment for some people). Reddit has seriously degraded the experience of a lot of these communities with things like restricting custom CSS. It seems to me that the way you'd disrupt Reddit as a startup is to pick a vertical and laser focus on becoming the best discussion board for that community. If it's sports than have integrations for live stats, scores, etc. In general you could attract users by offering profit sharing on ads the same way Youtube does for creators. Have the best moderation tools in the world, a constant painpoint with Reddit. Give admins more flexibility over the appearance of the board, all things Reddit took away. The other path for disruption would be if an established company with those communities tackled the problem. Lots of communities already us Discord, but they tend to also have a subreddit because chat and forums are different communication methods. Discord could easily offer a forum product as an extension of their chat services. If they do it well they'd drive a lot of users away from the subreddits.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]