4 ms·

I'd agree on /r/FlockSurveillance/ specifically, but if Reddit itself does not qualify as "mainstream", then what does? Just FANG?

by zetanor 8mo ago

philipallstar 8mo ago
Facebook alone is far more mainstream than Reddit, I would say. Thousands of times more.
- Forgeties79 8mo ago
  Roughly 6x the users and 7x the traffic. “Thousands” is a bit dramatic. Reddit is a massively popular site now, pretty sure it’s among the top 10 most visited in the world.
  - philipallstar 8mo ago
    It's the demographics I mean, not the numbers.
    - Forgeties79 8mo ago
      I don’t entirely disagree with that but with that kind of traffic/userbase clearly it’s far more mainstream than is being implied. Also, young people are definitely not getting on Facebook, which impacts how “mainstream” we can consider it. Reddit skews a fair bit younger than FB.
      - dathinab 8mo ago
        > young people are definitely not getting on Facebook but Reddit is mostly relevant "in the west" where most countries have an inverted age pyramid and most old people are not on Reddit, but on Facebook and reddit relevance outside of the US is often far less then people think, to a point where many people not even know what it is. It doesn't has a network effect pulling in "friends and family". and a lot of people "around 30" are still on Facebook due to network effect and active enough to count as active users (which doesn't mean much to be fair) And in the US around ~18% of US users where in the age group 18-24 in 2025. Idk. how but somehow Facebook still manages to convince surprisingly many "just adults" to join it. And if they aren't on Facebook then they are on WhatsApp and maybe Instagram. Now all of this doesn't really fully show how relevant reddit is because checking some minor memes once a week makes you show up as active user but also means it's pretty much irrelevant for you. And if I look at people I interact with or where I can see a bit how they interact (i.e. _very highly biased by social environment_) then thinks look far worse for it. Reddit seems relevant in the US, mainly for people "around" 30. But outside of it, it seems to be more like a footnote. Used, but something most people would not care if it's randomly gone.
        Forgeties79 8mo ago
        I don’t know why you are commenting in two different places with roughly the same points but I’m just going to stick to this thread if that’s alright. You are making some assumptions and guesses when all of these numbers are generally searchable - I don’t disagree with your point largely speaking, but the magnitude(s) is what seem off to me. Over 50% of Reddit traffic is international, about 75% of Facebook’s is. Yes clearly Reddit biases “the west” but a couple of y’all keep trying to paint these incredibly stark pictures. Reddit and Facebook are both massive. They both have significant influence on culture and discourse worldwide. You’re also disputing Reddit’s traffic but again a search will confirm it is the 7th most visited site in the world. We can argue with the significance of that is given their demographic distribution, but then we would have to do the same thing to Facebook and I just don’t think that’s a particularly useful conversation without some concrete data at our fingertips. If you have some I am legitimately interested to see it. Either way: Yes facebook is more international. Yes it is larger. But the gap isn’t 1000x. It’s not even 100x. They both have mainstream appeal, they both have shortcomings that keep them from being “truly” representative. It doesn’t help that Facebook hides their DAU’s among their other offerings to obscure the stall (perhaps it’s now even in decline) they have experienced. That’s not a good look I’ll say that much.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
  - ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
    Don't know why you are being downvoted. Thousands of times more is clearly wrong. Facebook has billions of users. Reddit has way more than single digit millions of users.
  - dathinab 8mo ago
    at most most in the US and also because many modern platforms are app focused and don't care about web traffic and Reddit is a huge target for scrapping int the US so traffic numbers of recent few years have become a meaningless metric Outside the US Reddit is often far less relevant then in the US, still somewhat relevant in many "western" countries but often far far less then in the US (like e.g. where I live no on "young" (<20) nor "old" (>50) people use it and the people which do use it are mostly from a _subset_ of often very US influenced tech/nerd/gamer cultures). And if you go to countries where speaking English is far less the norm Reddits relevance drops sharply. The thing is, that is something like 50% of the word population... In India Reddit doesn't matter, nor does it in China, nor does it in many (but not all) of the highly populated areas "between" (south) China and India. So why I don't know if "site [..] 10 most visited in the world" is technically true or false it is highly misleading even if true and seems to be bordering on US defaultism, through maybe more "the west" defaultism. Now to be fair people forgetting like half of the word population in their arguments is pretty common, in not just the US, but also the EU. It's a bit like with HN, it might feel representative for the IT industry world wide, but it is only representative for a certain FANG/US-startup/US-hacker culture influenced subset of it. Beyond this it has hardly any representation weather it's wrt. articles or people commenting. But "beyond this" is on a world wide scale a _very_ huge part of the industry.
    - bee_rider 8mo ago
      If Reddit is an ok representation of semi-techy/nerdy Americans it is probably(?) a good representation of Ring Doorbell customers, right?
      - dathinab 8mo ago
        not sure, from the not very representative context of people I know/where I live (not US): Ring customers are often old overly worried people which "don't really care anymore" about ideal (often due to an over exposure to fear inducing propaganda, like the kind of stuff which first ties to make you think you live in far more danger then you do and then blames it on immigrants; And ring them comes in by being cheap, reliable and convenient and maybe the only AD reaching that demography. Worries about privacy are on the other hand shadowed by fear about people breaking in and beating them up.) Other people needing cameras tend care more about privacy ideals and do more research. In turn they won't use ring. And people not needing cameras most times also really don't want there to be cameras, especially not internet connected ones. Through in general the relationship to surveillance is very different here compared to what it seems to be in the US.
- swed420 8mo ago
  Maybe ten years ago, but that's a huge exaggeration today.
  - manuelabeledo 8mo ago
    It’s not. Just think of anyone 60 and over, or anyone not in the US.
    - swed420 8mo ago
      That would not be the order of magnitude proposed above.
      - manuelabeledo 8mo ago
        While the comment is obviously hyperbolic, Facebook is still massively more popular worldwide than Reddit.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
- rob 8mo ago
  We can just look at both's recent reports: Reddit: 121 million "daily active unique users" Source: https://investor.redditinc.com/news-events/news-releases/news-details/2026/Reddit-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2025-Results-Announces-1-Billion-Share-Repurchase-Program/default.aspx https://investor.redditinc.com/news-events/news-releases/new... Facebook: 3.58 billion "family daily active people" Source: https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2026/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2025-Results/default.aspx https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-deta... --- I'd definitely consider both "mainstream". (I know plenty non-tech and "normal" people who use reddit.)
  - travisjungroth 8mo ago
    So like 30x the population (not thousands). The thing about Reddit is it really amplifies voices. 10-100 people can be on the same subreddit and comment or post something, and it looks like “a lot” of people. It’s also much easier to be a non-representative sample at 3% of the population than 50%. And, there’s a big sample bias for this sort of thing. I think someone is way more likely to post “I’m getting rid of X” versus “I don’t care and I’m keeping X”.
    - dahart 8mo ago
      For Facebook alone, it’s less than 30x. The “family” in “Family Daily Active People” is also referring to “Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and other services.”
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
  - drnick1 8mo ago
    I had no idea the Meta cancer spread that far.
sigwinch 8mo ago
It might be that the demographics of Reddit skew toward low economic relevance but high unique views.
friendzis 8mo ago
Reddit is at the core forum platform, therefore it's as misleading to attribute whatever is happening at any one [group of] subreddit to the whole of Reddit as it is misleading to do the same with closed Facebook groups. Remember forums of old. Larger sites with daily visitors in the thousands already had nearly isolated topic silos within the forum. The effect is even stronger here.
timmg 8mo ago
My guess is that it is more: the people that are concerned are posting about it. And those that aren't, aren't. So you are just seeing a biased subset of the (relatively) mainstream reddit.
ViktorRay 8mo ago
Reddit is filled with very vocal terminally online people. Their views and actions are not representative of normal human beings.
- imperio59 8mo ago
  Its top 100 or so subreddits are moderated by the same ~10 or so individuals who impose their ideological views on the subs and delete posts or ban anyone who dares challenge them. A great example of how community moderation inevitably slides a platform to one side or the other of the political spectrum. I honestly don't think mods on reddit should be allowed to moderate more than 1 or 2 of these top sub-reddits, this would at least force some semblance of diversity of thought on the platform.
  - moshun 8mo ago
    I think you’re dramatically overestimating how many sane adults would want to mod a top 100 Subreddit for free. It’s a job that generally only attracts the very dedicated, the very bored and/or those who’ve figured out how to monetize it.
- overfeed 8mo ago
  > Reddit is filled with very vocal terminally online people. Reddit went mainstream many years ago, hence the marketing dollars spent there on astroturfing, and brands acquiring pet moderators. The posters/commenters/readers follow power-laws like any online/offline community.
- nitwit005 8mo ago
  Try doing a search for something like "Average US online time". Those are normal people. Normal people are terminally online.
nindalf 8mo ago
You've identified the problem. It's never "reddit", it's a specific subreddit. It really depends on the size of the subreddit. Smaller subreddits can easily get riled up, and also create a sealed echo chamber by banning people left and right. But I wouldn't worry about a sub unless it was really big. For example: I'd say HBO should worry about what the game of thrones related subs are saying about their latest show (which is good, shoutout) but only as a vibe check. The normies will always outnumber the kind of people who go to a subreddit to discuss their favourite show. Normal people just watch and forget.

I'd agree on /r/FlockSurveillance/ specifically, but if Reddit itself does not qualify as "mainstream", then what does? Just FANG?

by zetanor 8mo ago

I'd agree on /r/FlockSurveillance/ specifically, but if Reddit itself does not qualify as "mainstream", then what does? Just FANG?

philipallstar 8mo ago

Facebook alone is far more mainstream than Reddit, I would say. Thousands of times more.

Forgeties79 8mo ago
Roughly 6x the users and 7x the traffic. “Thousands” is a bit dramatic. Reddit is a massively popular site now, pretty sure it’s among the top 10 most visited in the world.
- philipallstar 8mo ago
  It's the demographics I mean, not the numbers.
  - Forgeties79 8mo ago
    I don’t entirely disagree with that but with that kind of traffic/userbase clearly it’s far more mainstream than is being implied. Also, young people are definitely not getting on Facebook, which impacts how “mainstream” we can consider it. Reddit skews a fair bit younger than FB.
    - dathinab 8mo ago
      > young people are definitely not getting on Facebook but Reddit is mostly relevant "in the west" where most countries have an inverted age pyramid and most old people are not on Reddit, but on Facebook and reddit relevance outside of the US is often far less then people think, to a point where many people not even know what it is. It doesn't has a network effect pulling in "friends and family". and a lot of people "around 30" are still on Facebook due to network effect and active enough to count as active users (which doesn't mean much to be fair) And in the US around ~18% of US users where in the age group 18-24 in 2025. Idk. how but somehow Facebook still manages to convince surprisingly many "just adults" to join it. And if they aren't on Facebook then they are on WhatsApp and maybe Instagram. Now all of this doesn't really fully show how relevant reddit is because checking some minor memes once a week makes you show up as active user but also means it's pretty much irrelevant for you. And if I look at people I interact with or where I can see a bit how they interact (i.e. _very highly biased by social environment_) then thinks look far worse for it. Reddit seems relevant in the US, mainly for people "around" 30. But outside of it, it seems to be more like a footnote. Used, but something most people would not care if it's randomly gone.
      - Forgeties79 8mo ago
        I don’t know why you are commenting in two different places with roughly the same points but I’m just going to stick to this thread if that’s alright. You are making some assumptions and guesses when all of these numbers are generally searchable - I don’t disagree with your point largely speaking, but the magnitude(s) is what seem off to me. Over 50% of Reddit traffic is international, about 75% of Facebook’s is. Yes clearly Reddit biases “the west” but a couple of y’all keep trying to paint these incredibly stark pictures. Reddit and Facebook are both massive. They both have significant influence on culture and discourse worldwide. You’re also disputing Reddit’s traffic but again a search will confirm it is the 7th most visited site in the world. We can argue with the significance of that is given their demographic distribution, but then we would have to do the same thing to Facebook and I just don’t think that’s a particularly useful conversation without some concrete data at our fingertips. If you have some I am legitimately interested to see it. Either way: Yes facebook is more international. Yes it is larger. But the gap isn’t 1000x. It’s not even 100x. They both have mainstream appeal, they both have shortcomings that keep them from being “truly” representative. It doesn’t help that Facebook hides their DAU’s among their other offerings to obscure the stall (perhaps it’s now even in decline) they have experienced. That’s not a good look I’ll say that much.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
- ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
  Don't know why you are being downvoted. Thousands of times more is clearly wrong. Facebook has billions of users. Reddit has way more than single digit millions of users.
- dathinab 8mo ago
  at most most in the US and also because many modern platforms are app focused and don't care about web traffic and Reddit is a huge target for scrapping int the US so traffic numbers of recent few years have become a meaningless metric Outside the US Reddit is often far less relevant then in the US, still somewhat relevant in many "western" countries but often far far less then in the US (like e.g. where I live no on "young" (<20) nor "old" (>50) people use it and the people which do use it are mostly from a _subset_ of often very US influenced tech/nerd/gamer cultures). And if you go to countries where speaking English is far less the norm Reddits relevance drops sharply. The thing is, that is something like 50% of the word population... In India Reddit doesn't matter, nor does it in China, nor does it in many (but not all) of the highly populated areas "between" (south) China and India. So why I don't know if "site [..] 10 most visited in the world" is technically true or false it is highly misleading even if true and seems to be bordering on US defaultism, through maybe more "the west" defaultism. Now to be fair people forgetting like half of the word population in their arguments is pretty common, in not just the US, but also the EU. It's a bit like with HN, it might feel representative for the IT industry world wide, but it is only representative for a certain FANG/US-startup/US-hacker culture influenced subset of it. Beyond this it has hardly any representation weather it's wrt. articles or people commenting. But "beyond this" is on a world wide scale a _very_ huge part of the industry.
  - bee_rider 8mo ago
    If Reddit is an ok representation of semi-techy/nerdy Americans it is probably(?) a good representation of Ring Doorbell customers, right?
    - dathinab 8mo ago
      not sure, from the not very representative context of people I know/where I live (not US): Ring customers are often old overly worried people which "don't really care anymore" about ideal (often due to an over exposure to fear inducing propaganda, like the kind of stuff which first ties to make you think you live in far more danger then you do and then blames it on immigrants; And ring them comes in by being cheap, reliable and convenient and maybe the only AD reaching that demography. Worries about privacy are on the other hand shadowed by fear about people breaking in and beating them up.) Other people needing cameras tend care more about privacy ideals and do more research. In turn they won't use ring. And people not needing cameras most times also really don't want there to be cameras, especially not internet connected ones. Through in general the relationship to surveillance is very different here compared to what it seems to be in the US.
swed420 8mo ago
Maybe ten years ago, but that's a huge exaggeration today.
- manuelabeledo 8mo ago
  It’s not. Just think of anyone 60 and over, or anyone not in the US.
  - swed420 8mo ago
    That would not be the order of magnitude proposed above.
    - manuelabeledo 8mo ago
      While the comment is obviously hyperbolic, Facebook is still massively more popular worldwide than Reddit.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
rob 8mo ago
We can just look at both's recent reports: Reddit: 121 million "daily active unique users" Source: https://investor.redditinc.com/news-events/news-releases/news-details/2026/Reddit-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2025-Results-Announces-1-Billion-Share-Repurchase-Program/default.aspx https://investor.redditinc.com/news-events/news-releases/new... Facebook: 3.58 billion "family daily active people" Source: https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2026/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2025-Results/default.aspx https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-deta... --- I'd definitely consider both "mainstream". (I know plenty non-tech and "normal" people who use reddit.)
- travisjungroth 8mo ago
  So like 30x the population (not thousands). The thing about Reddit is it really amplifies voices. 10-100 people can be on the same subreddit and comment or post something, and it looks like “a lot” of people. It’s also much easier to be a non-representative sample at 3% of the population than 50%. And, there’s a big sample bias for this sort of thing. I think someone is way more likely to post “I’m getting rid of X” versus “I don’t care and I’m keeping X”.
  - dahart 8mo ago
    For Facebook alone, it’s less than 30x. The “family” in “Family Daily Active People” is also referring to “Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and other services.”
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
- drnick1 8mo ago
  I had no idea the Meta cancer spread that far.

sigwinch 8mo ago

It might be that the demographics of Reddit skew toward low economic relevance but high unique views.

friendzis 8mo ago

Reddit is at the core forum platform, therefore it's as misleading to attribute whatever is happening at any one [group of] subreddit to the whole of Reddit as it is misleading to do the same with closed Facebook groups. Remember forums of old. Larger sites with daily visitors in the thousands already had nearly isolated topic silos within the forum. The effect is even stronger here.

timmg 8mo ago

My guess is that it is more: the people that are concerned are posting about it. And those that aren't, aren't. So you are just seeing a biased subset of the (relatively) mainstream reddit.

ViktorRay 8mo ago

Reddit is filled with very vocal terminally online people. Their views and actions are not representative of normal human beings.

imperio59 8mo ago
Its top 100 or so subreddits are moderated by the same ~10 or so individuals who impose their ideological views on the subs and delete posts or ban anyone who dares challenge them. A great example of how community moderation inevitably slides a platform to one side or the other of the political spectrum. I honestly don't think mods on reddit should be allowed to moderate more than 1 or 2 of these top sub-reddits, this would at least force some semblance of diversity of thought on the platform.
- moshun 8mo ago
  I think you’re dramatically overestimating how many sane adults would want to mod a top 100 Subreddit for free. It’s a job that generally only attracts the very dedicated, the very bored and/or those who’ve figured out how to monetize it.
overfeed 8mo ago
> Reddit is filled with very vocal terminally online people. Reddit went mainstream many years ago, hence the marketing dollars spent there on astroturfing, and brands acquiring pet moderators. The posters/commenters/readers follow power-laws like any online/offline community.
nitwit005 8mo ago
Try doing a search for something like "Average US online time". Those are normal people. Normal people are terminally online.

nindalf 8mo ago

You've identified the problem. It's never "reddit", it's a specific subreddit. It really depends on the size of the subreddit. Smaller subreddits can easily get riled up, and also create a sealed echo chamber by banning people left and right. But I wouldn't worry about a sub unless it was really big. For example: I'd say HBO should worry about what the game of thrones related subs are saying about their latest show (which is good, shoutout) but only as a vibe check. The normies will always outnumber the kind of people who go to a subreddit to discuss their favourite show. Normal people just watch and forget.