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Reddit Has Become the Internet's Strip Mall
- tim-tday 9mo agoI hate this metaphor before I even hear about it.
- anonym00se1 9mo agoreddit was great when Digg existed. It was a niche community where you could find experts sharing information about all sorts of topics. Now it's just a hivemind of low information opinions, hot takes, and brainrot.
- alex1138 9mo agoBecause they also ban everyone they disagree with
- konaraddi 9mo agoThere isn’t one “they”, each subreddit does its own moderation
- hxugufjfjf 9mo agoReddit itself can and still do ban users at site-level.
- alex1138 9mo agoWhich would be fine if there was a good reason to do so but there often isn't
- smuhakg 9mo agoThere are still networks that ban users for posting on /r/Israel and /r/Jewish. Famously the ones that run /r/interestingasfuck, /r/therewasanattempt, /r/soccer. /r/bannedforbeingjewish tracked this until it was banned.
- delecti 9mo agoThat certainly applies to the biggest subs, but there are usually still high-quality subs for most topics.
- paulryanrogers 9mo agoSmall subs are more diverse and accommodating IME. Worse than popular though are flaired-only subs. They are so heavily moderated that posting feels like an exercise in guess-the-unspoken rules.
- x0x0 9mo agoReddit chose this, unfortunately. When you let google read your site, let alone sign deals with them, you create commercial incentives to rank/post on reddit. Everything that follows is inevitable and obvious. They have now positioned themselves as an ai-slop source of truth. Expect everyone interested in ranking well in google's AI Overview -- essentially every marketer -- to treat reddit as a high-priority slop/advertising target.
- khelavastr 9mo agoRemember when an engaged worldnews moderator got sent to federal prison, because she was Ghislane Maxwell?
- deadbabe 9mo agostatistically, reddit mods are far more likely to be involved in serious crimes and felonies.
- tayo42 9mo agoWas this actually confirmed?
- pentaphobe 9mo agoFor anyone else who was entirely unfamiliar, here's a low-effort search "Incoherent Conspiracy Suggests Ghislaine Maxwell Is a Powerful Redditor" https://www.vice.com/en/article/incoherent-conspiracy-suggests-ghislaine-maxwell-is-a-powerful-redditor/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/incoherent-conspiracy-sugges...
- khelavastr 9mo agoA little more effort comparing writing styles shows they're likely the same.. https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/1lxvajq/has_anyone_else_compare_the_writing_style_of_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/1lxvajq/has_anyone...
- bawolff 9mo agoIs this actually true? Edit: appears the answer is no.
- khelavastr 9mo agoLook at the writing style comparison between /u/maxwellhill and Gislaine from the Epstein files.. https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/1lxvajq/has_anyone_else_compare_the_writing_style_of_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/1lxvajq/has_anyone...
- DJBunnies 9mo agoLike most of the internet, this site included, it's about how you use it and where you choose to participate. You can get dirty by digging, of course. But there are still excellent communities on reddit that you really can't find anywhere else.
- duxup 9mo agoI'd argue it's more true on Reddit than anywhere. Subreddits are fairly self contained. Other social media sites I feel like I'm fighting off a wave of whatever the site wants / momentum of all the users is. Granted that doesn't mean they're completely isolated, a lot of smaller subs I was a part of have fallen into a mess of spam and engagement bots and so on so my total subs I'm interested in has fallen off.
- immibis 9mo agoIt used to be the case Reddit itself would run spambots, and if you reported them you'd be banned. Also they have a habit of, if a subreddit isn't moderated how they like, finding excuses to ban the moderators and then either ban the subreddit for being unmoderated or replace the moderators. There were also times they just replaced a moderator list because they didn't like how the subreddit was moderated if there was a financial or reputation incentive to do so. Are these things not still the case?
- regenschutz 9mo ago>It used to be the case Reddit itself would run spambots, and if you reported them you'd be banned. Wow, do you have a link to where I could read more about that stuff? I tried doing a quick search, but couldn't find anything. Banning users for reporting bots is a crazy moderation decision...
- immibis 9mo agoSince it happened several years ago it would be hard to find now. Here's a different, related issue that I did find (with links to several more threads): https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/17bkv3f/false_bans_issued_for_report_abuse https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/17bkv3f/false_b...
- lvspiff 9mo agoDoes that make hackernews the radioshack? The entire internet is really not much more than a strip mall at this stage with every site being subscription or ad based.
- deadbabe 9mo agoThis article is pure LLM generated. Lists, X/Y comparisons, em dashes, rhetorical questions... Just has a gross feeling to it.
- yuppiepuppie 9mo agoMaybe it’s just the way I use Reddit, but I still find it very informative and engaging. I subscribe to communities I can’t find elsewhere and the small niche communities there are fantastic. For instance, in r/peloton which I follow heavily, a number of pros post there and engage with their fans. I stay far away from the front page, even my own. I use an rss reader for all the subs and when I want to comment I login into old.reddit.
- robbiet480 9mo agoDiscord isn’t an alternative as it’s not publicly searchable
- dmix 9mo agoRule no 1 of Reddit is stay away from every popular subreddit unless you like low quality US politics 24/7. Even the one's not ostensibly about politics.
- pityJuke 9mo agoQuite frankly, this article feels like SEO bait for their website, rather than anything useful.
- encoderer 9mo agoIs it really the moderators that make a community special? They are vital no doubt but I have never came here for the moderation. For me the magic of a niche community like a subreddit or HN is when a 99th percentile expert in the subject shows up and gives everybody a brilliant lecture on the actual truth of things. These are not 99th percentile in Reddit use or post count or any of those things.
- yodon 9mo ago> I have never came here for the moderation. The moderators (and the algorithm they support and tune) are why the conversation on HN is compelling enough to attract 99th percentile experts on just about every subject.
- nickthegreek 9mo agoModerators are the invisible hand pruning the garden weeds. You might not always see them working, but they allow the space necessary for the good conversations to grow and thrive. Their absence would be felt quickly.
- Gigablah 9mo agoOne of the shallowest “articles” I have read on HN. Full of unsubstantiated statements and banal platitudes. Non sequiturs everywhere. Weak conclusion built upon a list of unrelated grievances. Oh, that’s because it’s LLM slop.
- impure 9mo agoRSS still works, power users are still there.