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Calling Reddit a CRUD app isn’t wrong, it’s just vacuous. It strips away every part that actually makes Reddit hard. What happens when you sign up? A CRUD ap
by spiderfarmer 9mo ago
Calling Reddit a CRUD app isn’t wrong, it’s just vacuous.
It strips away every part that actually makes Reddit hard.
What happens when you sign up?
A CRUD app shows a form and inserts a row.
Reddit runs bot detection, rate limits, fingerprinting, shadow restrictions, and abuse heuristics you don’t even see, and you don’t know which ones, because that knowledge is their moat.
What happens when you upvote or downvote?
CRUD says “increment a counter.”
Reddit says “run a ranking algorithm refined over years, with vote fuzzing, decay, abuse detection, and intentional lies in the UI.” As the number you see is not the number stored.
What happens when you add a comment?
CRUD says “insert record.”
Reddit applies subreddit-specific rules, spam filters, block lists, automod logic, visibility rules, notifications, and delayed or conditional propagation.
What happens when you post a URL?
CRUD stores a string.
Reddit fingerprints it, deduplicates it, fetches metadata, detects spam domains, applies subreddit constraints, and feeds it into ranking and moderation systems.
Yes, anyone can scaffold a CRUD app and style it like Reddit.
But calling that a clone is like putting white lines on your lawn and calling it the Bernabeu.
You haven’t cloned the system, only its silhouette.
- csande17 9mo agoMoltbook didn't do any of that stuff either, though!
- spiderfarmer 9mo agoSo if Reddit is just a CRUD app, what is Moltbook
- Ma8ee 9mo agoWhy do you think the app they call a clone of Reddit do all of those things, or most, or any?
- carlmr 9mo agoI was thinking the exact same thing. Moltbook isn't that sophisticated. We're moving goal posts a lot here. However, I do think 1 week is ambitious, even for a bad clone.
- spiderfarmer 9mo agoSo if Reddit is just a CRUD app, what is Moltbook?
- Ygg2 9mo agoAn impressive MVP of Reddit, with zero sophistication. It's a CRAP app.
- spiderfarmer 9mo agoMy point exactly. But if you're semi-capable and have a week of spare time, you can build a better Reddit clone, or so I heard.
- coldtea 9mo agoSorry, but this reads like AI slop.
- bodge5000 9mo ago> Reddit runs bot detection, rate limits, fingerprinting, shadow restrictions, and abuse heuristics you don’t even see, and you don’t know which ones, because that knowledge is their moat. > Reddit says “run a ranking algorithm refined over years, with vote fuzzing, decay, abuse detection, and intentional lies in the UI.” As the number you see is not the number stored. > etc... The question is; is moltbook doing this? That was the original point, it took a week to build a basic reddit clone, as you call it the silhouette, with AI, that should surely be the point of comparison to what a human could do in that time
- spiderfarmer 9mo ago"A basic Reddit clone" So as we have established, it's not even a basic Reddit clone. And anyone who says they can build one in a week is giving HN a bad reputation.
- bodge5000 9mo agoThat just seems like a completely different argument, Reddit only came into a part of this in relation to Moltbook