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The benefit of a centralized forum like Reddit, for a user like me, is the ability to use one account for everything (i.e. easy to join new forums) and the abil

The benefit of a centralized forum like Reddit, for a user like me, is the ability to use one account for everything (i.e. easy to join new forums) and the ability to have everything on one algorithmic or chronological feed. Traditional forums can solve the former by using social sign-ins, and the latter by having RSS. However, support for either of this is inconsistent, so it's usually easier to just use subreddits. Finally, money. Forums cost money to host, while subreddits don't.

jayknight 2y ago
Lemmy works like that more or less. You can subscribe to communities on other instances and interact with them.
- CaptainFever 2y ago
  True, I've forgotten that's the whole purpose of federation: to create a unified home feed. But then the Fediverse unfortunately runs up with the classic issue of network effects. For me personally, my Unified Home Feed of Reddit has more relevant content to me than my Unified Home Feed of Lemmy. And it seems it'll stay that way since Reddit's communities have thousands or millions more subscribers in general. So, sticking to Reddit is easier. This isn't helped by the admin wars on the Fediverse which introduce messy and silent breaks in the network, often requiring multiple accounts to view everything you're interested in. To the Fediverse's credit, their network is a lot wider so it still has some uses, that is, hosting communities banned on Reddit. But I'm not sure if some of the more "normal" subreddits have much incentive to move over.
alexvitkov 2y ago
Those are real and well understood benefits, and they're the reason Reddit won. The costs of moving a community from a forum to Reddit are nowadays mostly understood as well, unfortunately they weren't as obvious back then.
Propelloni 2y ago
Hmh, that's a drawback to me. I like to have different accounts for different things and keep them more or less strictly separated. I use two subreddits and each has its own account. On average I'd say account creation has become harder because everybody and her child tries to shunt you into some social sign-in but it still is not difficult to make accounts. "Modern" password managers make it a breeze to juggle many accounts, and frankly, what Netscape Navigator could do almost 30 years ago was already enough for that. Same goes for forums. phpbb [1] can run on any LAMP potato and you get a whole boatload of potatoes for 2 EUR/month at Hetzner. I don't know what HN requires, but I guess it's not much more. The hard part of forums are the people needed to keep order and Reddit is not helping there, quite the opposite. Sorry, I notice I'm grumpy. [1] https://www.phpbb.com/ https://www.phpbb.com/
- CaptainFever 2y ago
  That's fair. Don't worry, you didn't sound grumpy to me :) I do acknowledge that there's a big benefit of having different accounts: different personalities! You don't have all your social eggs in one basket, so to speak.

jayknight 2y ago

Lemmy works like that more or less. You can subscribe to communities on other instances and interact with them.

CaptainFever 2y ago
True, I've forgotten that's the whole purpose of federation: to create a unified home feed. But then the Fediverse unfortunately runs up with the classic issue of network effects. For me personally, my Unified Home Feed of Reddit has more relevant content to me than my Unified Home Feed of Lemmy. And it seems it'll stay that way since Reddit's communities have thousands or millions more subscribers in general. So, sticking to Reddit is easier. This isn't helped by the admin wars on the Fediverse which introduce messy and silent breaks in the network, often requiring multiple accounts to view everything you're interested in. To the Fediverse's credit, their network is a lot wider so it still has some uses, that is, hosting communities banned on Reddit. But I'm not sure if some of the more "normal" subreddits have much incentive to move over.

alexvitkov 2y ago

Those are real and well understood benefits, and they're the reason Reddit won. The costs of moving a community from a forum to Reddit are nowadays mostly understood as well, unfortunately they weren't as obvious back then.

Propelloni 2y ago

Hmh, that's a drawback to me. I like to have different accounts for different things and keep them more or less strictly separated. I use two subreddits and each has its own account. On average I'd say account creation has become harder because everybody and her child tries to shunt you into some social sign-in but it still is not difficult to make accounts. "Modern" password managers make it a breeze to juggle many accounts, and frankly, what Netscape Navigator could do almost 30 years ago was already enough for that. Same goes for forums. phpbb [1] can run on any LAMP potato and you get a whole boatload of potatoes for 2 EUR/month at Hetzner. I don't know what HN requires, but I guess it's not much more. The hard part of forums are the people needed to keep order and Reddit is not helping there, quite the opposite. Sorry, I notice I'm grumpy. [1] https://www.phpbb.com/ https://www.phpbb.com/

CaptainFever 2y ago
That's fair. Don't worry, you didn't sound grumpy to me :) I do acknowledge that there's a big benefit of having different accounts: different personalities! You don't have all your social eggs in one basket, so to speak.