this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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Disappointing article. It doesn't mention any of what I see as the biggest issues reddit faces right now.
The first issue is that the sense of community has evaporated due to the proliferation of bots, corporate shills, nefarious agents, and god knows what else. Discussions no longer feel like they're happening among regular humans anymore, and either the subject matter experts reddit used to be known for have left or their comments are getting lost in a sea of garbage. I'm not sure Cunningham's Law even applies at reddit anymore, although that's not unique to reddit but rather the general condition of the Internet nowadays.
Which leads to the second major issue: the deteriorating quality of posts and comments. Not only is reddit awash in reposts and Facebook-level content, the subs are apparently all interchangable at this point. I stop by r/all occasionally and while posts that don't quite fit the sub isn't a new problem, now it's like the subs don't even matter: MadeMeSmile-type content is ending up everywhere while meaningless catch-all subs like "r/awesome" are proliferating. I think this is due to bots and the influx of "lowest-common-denominator users," neither of whom are going to be discerning when dishing out upvotes.
The recent situation with r/wholesomememes really showed what's behind the curtain: a house of cards all made up of bots and karma-farmers. The dead internet theory is alive and well at reddit, and who's going to buy advertising on reddit (or content for AI training or Google searches or whatever other Hail Mary sales reddit is currently making in their desperate attempts at profitability) once businesses realize their audience is all machines and other advertisers? This seems like the existential issue for reddit right now, and yet it is completely neglected from the article, which mostly focuses on content moderation (which, yes, is an issue, but it's been an issue/debate/conundrum basically forever on the site).
The bots are why I never looked back. Within an hour posts are flooded with cutesy one-liners. Why would I enjoy conversing with a fucking robot?!
As a long-time user of Vkontakte (VK), the russian Facebook, I've seen it here. Big communities oriented towards diferent groups of people became parts of one long human centipede, because average content made them more clicks and views they could then sell to advertisers. With a deteriorating price of ads it meant that's the only way for them to be afloat, and the feed's algorhytm favored them.
What admins done next is some sloppy tries at cultivating OC or rather downing the visibility of what they've seen as a copied or low-effort content. As mechanics of it were obviously kept in secret, it lead to trial-and-error investigations of how it works and how to evade it. Predictably enough, it was dumb and introduced some unwritten rules for OC creators to be treated like legit posters, while repost farms were first to get the gist of it.
Later, they introduced a random semi-manually approved 'checkmark' called Prometheus, with a fire emoji, that they selecrively put onto some communities for a limited time. As it was promoted, it temporally ups the visibility of one's posts, and it has been verified to boost views to non-subscribers. But, as our classic character Chadsky (!) once said, 'Who are to judge?'. If anything, it made the favoritistic manipulation even more obvious and left the black box of algorythm a secret to mods who, unlike most subreddit mods, really made it their paid work with hired editors and stuff. It reshuffled the informational landscape and highlighted some small creators, but also brought even more garbage due to what (now admins) see as safe and potentially popular.
I suspect Reddit may try something like that at some point.
It's like attending one of those trade shows for Mary Kay or Herbalife etc : the only people there are other salespeople, I assume, and once you realize you're not the consumer but the product, it all starts to feel like a Sunday morning ride home from Vegas.