Reddit updates look after rough 6 months and ahead of reported IPO::“Edit: Obligatory ‘F— Spez’ for karma.”

  • _number8_@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    reposting one of the worst things i’ve ever heard someone say:

    “There’s a lot of stuff on the site that you’d only ever say in therapy, or AA, or never at all … But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”

    eat my ass spez

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I dont have any direct experience with reddit any longer.

    What I can say, is that I think a verrrrrrry significant portion of comments and commenters are actually reddit run bots. My source for this is my experience in the daily thread of a certain degenerate gambling forum. There were maybe like 12-30 posters who would reply, engage, etc… in the daily and day after threads. However, there was a yyyyyuuuuugggge number of accounts that would just comment with no real further engagement. Like you would respond to them, but they wouldnt respond back.

    I truly believe that reddits internal business model is predicted on the use of reddit run bots to create synthetic engagement in certain audiences around marketing targets that a selective group of advertisers (read, not buying reddit ads) are given access to. The basics is that reddit astroturfs synthetic engagement until organic engagement takes over. I have no way of proving this and its pure speculation.

    This is why I don’t even worry about considering the user numbers on lemmy. Relying on my anectdotal experience, we’ve got about the usership/ engagement numbers from around the 2009-2011 time period, which is actually pretty amazing. Also, the overall lemmy experience is far superior, for example, just the ability to sort by a couple of different ‘hot’ options is a major improvement. I really think if the devs just keep vibing on their plan, lemmy will be more than strong enough to survive and continue for decades to come.

    The fact is that reddit stole from us our faith in a ‘good internet’. The users of reddit built reddit, not the company that owns it (they suck). The users of reddit paid for the server time and made the system work. That good faith was utterly exploited by the leadership of reddit and we should never forget how they stole from and exploited their community.

    • LifeOfChance@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      You’re absolutely right about most of it. My only criticism is the first paragraph as I am notorious for just commenting and not responding. Literally if you reply I won’t respond lol but I can’t imagine I’m the only one. A better way to sniff them out would be profiling them and finding things like hobby subs where they would be significantly more likely to comment vs addiction subs where they may feel some shame in interacting or engaging in their addiction.

      I’m pretty stupid so I could be talking out my ass but I figured input for data collection and such.

    • TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I am not saying you are wrong, but when I was active on Reddit I rarely checked my mail. I still have like 12k unread messages.

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          7 months ago

          You’d be surprised. Lots of people live like this, with all their devices and accounts. Ever piling up never read messages, whether emails, texts, or DMs. I don’t know if they’re just fine with it or if its something psychological making that many messages seem to big to approach, or because they don’t want to hear everyone’s cruel responses to what they said or I don’t know. But people do use accounts like that, for sure.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            It makes more sense if it’s something like email, where you likely know most of it is junk mail advertisements.

            But how can people not be curious why they have several unread messages where it’s very likely they are responses from humans who specifically responded to things they said?

            • deweydecibel@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              It’s pretty simple:

              Because a lot of those comments will be filled with abuse, and some will be garbage not worth reading.

              After a certain point, you get tired of opening the inbox and sorting through it.

              You’d stop checking your email, too, if there wasn’t a spam filter.

              Same thing here. People get tired of trash.

              I don’t read my inbox. Instead I use the same strategy I developed long ago on the forums of old: I check in later to see the responses to certain comments. After the karma system has hopefully moved the shitty or worthless ones down, and I only check the comments where I genuinely care what the responses will be.

              • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                You’re saying all this like I haven’t been on the Internet long. I’m over the two decade mark myself. I base my question on this fact actually.

                What makes you think there isn’t just as much junk in your comment replies inbox?

                My experience with the Internet all these years…

    • sarcasticsunrise@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Yo you might’ve dropped this, King 👑. This post is the best way of putting into words my thoughts on the matter that I’m too smoothbrained to formulate into creation. Especially the last paragraph, the theft of “good Internet”. Fuckin A, m8

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
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    7 months ago

    Oh oh… can we look forward to another wave of reddit leavers after inevitable changes to the site to please investors?

    • jtk@lemmy.sdf.org
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      7 months ago

      Anyone who didn’t leave when old.reddit.com stopped being the default isn’t going to leave over any other redesigns. They couldn’t possibly be worse.

        • jtk@lemmy.sdf.org
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          7 months ago

          I’m kind of looking forward to that. I don’t have an account there anymore, but I still check old.reddit.com because it’s quick enough scan the homepage on my phone when I’m waiting on something. Dropping old would help me break that habit very easily.

          • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            7 months ago

            Agreed, that band-aid needs to be ripped off, because the site is really dead anyway. (It only appears alive because of bots trolling for engagement.)

            • jtk@lemmy.sdf.org
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              7 months ago

              It really is bad. I ask myself why I even bother every time I look at it. Looking at r/popular now feels more like what looking at r/popular/rising/ used to be, mostly reposted garbage with only the occasional interesting topic, but even those I’ve usually already seen somewhere else.

              • batmaniam@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Responding to like three of your comments at once. But I used RES since like 2010. Until June I, and I imagine many others, had zero idea what “vanilla” reddit even looked like.

                But yes, I only do r/NFL because I haven’t found that in fediverse yet. When I’m there and the muscle. Memory kicks in and I click the logo and go to the home it’s… Bad…

                I’ve popped in once or twice in the niche communities I used to do. There’s activity, but it’s stuff I would have called filler posts two years ago. Not bad just… Not good.

      • whats_all_this_then@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Honestly, dark theme is how they got me with that one. Haven’t used the site aside from search results since the API changes went live but I like to think I’d leave if a new redesign was worse.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    See, we made the holes in the d’s look like little talking bubbles. We’re not evil. We’re cuuuuuute. Money please!

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        At least Spez said racism and hate speech are allowed on the platform

        Which Spez claimed Reddit used to be against so character growth I guess

  • ilikecoffee@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    At least they didn’t rename themselves to “Y” I guess… Though that would be mildly hilarious.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 months ago

    New look, same Reddit

    I mean, yes and no. It’s the same reddit from six months ago yeah, the vultures hungry for an IPO and who don’t give a fuck about users.

    The change in font actually speaks massively to a huge change in how reddit functions, and this has been a slow, gradual change.

    Reddit was originally an all text site. The name fucking implies it.

    “Oh did you see that link?”

    “Yeah, I already read it.

    The pivot to sound and video has been going on for a few years. The logo still referenced the text-heavy nature of the site by being stylized as text you might read on a website. Now it is clearly a logo that has dropped that pretense entirely, as they have said “fuck people who like to read,” we’re here for eyeballs on screens, and video is what makes that happen!

    So yeah, it screams a huge change in direction that’s been happening for years now. They’re just updating the branding to match the site direction.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Exactly. I remember going to Reddit as a minimalist alternative to Digg even before 2.0 pushed everyone out.

      It was only a matter of time.

    • gareppa@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      Yes, reddit has been for a while 2 distinct websites:

      • old reddit, centered around text, links and discussion
      • new reddit, a pinterest/instagram/tiktok mashup
  • LWD@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    But for remaining users, including Reddit’s own workers, some wounds haven’t healed. And there’s still a yearning for a return to the old and general site improvements over branding updates (Reddit says that the branding updates didn’t impact employees working on updating the Reddit platform).

    The top comment on Acidtwist’s post announcing the branding refresh reads: “My love of old.reddit.com continues to grow.”

    Anyone placing bets on how long old.reddit will continue working?

  • db2@sopuli.xyz
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    7 months ago

    I looked at reddit today, it looks like ass. Not nice ass either.

  • figaro@lemdro.id
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    7 months ago

    Everyone here is on copium, not gonna lie.

    Reddit isn’t going to die. Honestly it has 1000x more content than lemmy.

    Lemmy has a place and so does reddit.

    • SLGC@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I still browse reddit, simply because the size of the communities I want to visit is much larger there. My browsing is however confined to the mobile page in Firefox, which is slow, clunky, and breaks frequently, which means my reddit usage is down by something like 99%. Lemmy has the sync app, and without the app I wouldn’t be here. Browsing Lemmy before it was awful.

      Also, I kinda like that Lemmy is smaller. There’s much less noise, less of an algorithm feel to browsing. It feels slightly more like the internet I grew up with in the 90s and 00s, and I kinda missed that.

      • CH3DD4R_G0B-L1N@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        The throwback feel really is an intangible value add that means it might not catch on for younger folks but damn it does feel good.

        • FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 months ago

          honestly I think the opposite. from what a younger sibling has told me, old is new and the current trends in TikTok and stuff seem to be younger people wanting physical media, non flat design back, the old internet and etc. gives me hope at least.

      • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I go back for sports communities because they’re still active enough on reddit for back and forth during live games, but literally yesterday on the hockey sub people were talking about how there’s less content. API changes meant less autoposted game highlights and it even seems there’s less back and forth on the game day threads. Now it depends a lot on the team these days.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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      7 months ago

      Honestly it has 1000x more content than lemmy.

      So steal the content and post it here. At least the good stuff.

      There aren’t any laws preventing you from doing that.

      • SLGC@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It’s kinda how these sites function at all nowadays lol. Wasn’t reddit text posts only a long time ago?

    • satan@r.nf
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      7 months ago

      Everyone? Those people who say these companies are sinking ship are probably so addicted to them they have to mention it anytime anything vaguely relates to it. Normal people use both and don’t give a shit where their meme comes from.

    • SquirtleHermit@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      TIL not supporting businesses you don’t agree with = being on copium.

      Guess I better go buy Nestle products again.

  • Veneroso@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Has he tried publicly spouting fringe fascist conspiracy theories yet? No? Give it time…

  • Nipplecreek@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Fuck spez I used that reddit for years. However you can only be fucked over so much.

  • Mr_nutter_butter@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    i still use reddit a lot of comunities havent left and my god the amout of bots now is insane entire threads are coppied with 1 year 6 month old acounts with zero history and what i think is ai spam from simualr acounts its a mess over there now what brainless idiot is letting this happen

    • Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi
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      7 months ago

      A friend of mine was talking about how they had blatant homophobia sent their way on an LGBT subreddit, which was upvoted. Went to check r/ApolloApp and someone critical of the dev (because he was selling merch) was being blatantly and casually homophobic.

      Honestly, I’m glad I left that shithole.

        • Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi
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          7 months ago

          Yeah. I read an article (also on Ars Technica funnily enough) about how some moderators aren’t equipped to deal with things. I believe they singled out r/canning because of the potential for food poisoning, but r/ender3 had a sympathetic “mod” who only joined that subreddit as a moderator just to fuck with Reddit corporate when they were replacing the mods.

          Reddit, predictably, did not respond, so whoever wrote that article did their job right.

        • CluckN@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Yeah new moderation didn’t stand a chance because the good mod tools were all 3rd party.

      • sarcasticsunrise@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Had a brief look at r/WorldNews yesterday. Every comment was blatantly disgusting Islamaphobia that I couldn’t believe hadn’t been deleted yet. I don’t ever remember it being that bad over there

    • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      what brainless idiot is letting this happen

      I can’t begin to imagine, who could it be, there are so many Spezs* to choose from. I guess we will just never know.

      *Actually the entire board is rotten. We love to blame Spez (and he’s an incessant liar who deserves every last bit of contempt he gets – all while making comments about “landed gentry” while he profits off free content and moderator labor) but he’s just the public face on the entire board, who ALL just want to push through an IPO and then cash out. They do not care at all that it has destroyed the site, and because bots use API calls, they’ve known about the bots all along, and have openly used bots themselves. Sam Altman was a board member of Reddit for a while, and oh look, Reddit is used for AI training. Or was, until Altman left the board and then decided they wanted cash for that to continue.

      The entire board is shit.