this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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Inertia will carry them pretty far, and I'm sure they'll find some way to increase profits — most likely by changing the rules to the point where the site and community is unrecognizable. It will take a while before anyone really notices, and many people probably never will. Reddit will continue boiling the frog indefinitely in search of profits, the same way most social media corps do. Today's YouTube is nothing like what it was when it became popular. Same with Facebook, same with Twitter.
Reddit just needs to pivot before they fall. They probably are in good position to do so, tbh.
There's more money in passive, less-savvy users. The ones who don't use ad blockers, don't use third-party apps, and just consume the feed.
I shouldn't be surprised that Reddit is actively alienating people like me, because people like me do not bring them ad revenue. We DO bring them users, in theory, because we contribute to conversations and make original posts — you know, the things people go to Reddit too see — but what does that really mean for the bottom line? Possibly nothing. There's no shortage of posts on Reddit, many of which never see the light of day because they never get the upvotes. If the top contributors leave, it will just create more room at the top. The feed will remain full, and the subjective quality of that feed probably won't affect the bottom line very much.
I agree for the most part, but the one thing that I think they'll have trouble with is bots. I think they truly underestimate the work that mods and contributors did for free in raising the quality of content, and now they have to build the plane while it's flying after having booted the ones building it off, and now it's just pilots and passengers. Those uniquely impactful few that have been brushed away will hurt the most in a brain-drain kind of way.
Are there less bots here for any specific reason? Or will bots start to run rampant here as soon as the Fediverse becomes more popular?
Bots on Reddit for example did farm karma to later sell those accounts (more karma makes accounts look more legit) or circumnavigate karma thresholds to spam. There is no karma here so that's (hopefully) not going to become a thing.
I see no reason why they couldn't. There's even built-in support for bots in the user settings, at least in Lemmy.
Like on Reddit, it will take some moderation to keep the more malicious bots under control in the Fediverse.
I'm not informed on the topic by any means, but my take is reddit should be less susceptible because they have the resources to combat bots and spam -- or at least empower mods to do so -- but they choose not to. It's pretty surprising to me that they cut support for critical mod tools like Pushshift without having a replacement ready to go. The mod support posts only spoke of tools/capabilities they were planning or committing to, or links to "we want to help" pages. Lemmy is probably more susceptible to bots, especially now, but I think a lot of that up-to-date expertise of how to spot bots is coming over with the new wave of membership. Plus, I don't know if or how bots would be worth it here aside from trolling.
tl;dr I have no idea
Sorry if I have to go on a tangent here but reading your posts reminds me of the Imperium of Man from warhammer. Reddit has grown so big that it probably won’t matter if entire subreddits disappear, as some would replace it eventually.
Though how long they can sustain this remains to be seem.
In the grim darkness of the 21st century, there is only advertising. For more than a hundred centuries Spez has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Reddit by the will of the gods, and master of a million subreddits by the might of his admins. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand moderators are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
As he sat on his golden throne, his empire growing and diminishing in its own weight, new gods and empires rise and fall, his very legacy cast to the forces of chaos as the sons and daughters of his mighty but rotting Imperium fought amongst themselves. And as he watched satisfied from his divine city, the hungering investors, devourer of worlds and empires, crept ever closer, waiting for the most opportune moment to strike, to feed its never ending hunger for profit.
TTS emps would wipe the floor with ad-emperor spez no question
He's a product of the digital landscape that we live in today.
Reddit has improved considerably over the years.
As much as I personally don't want to use their app, they've done a reasonable amount to actually clean up the site.
The old Reddit had a lot of garbage and a lot of garbage people. This will help to prevent that from being an issue in the future.
There's probably always going to be some kind of groupthink circlejerk happening in the background; it's annoying and gives reddit a bad name, but it's usually harmless.
I'm sorry but no, reddit has consistently gotten worse over the years, to the point that I can't possibly imagine what you mean when you say it got better.
The userbase has become more of a PC mob that continues to regurgitate the same stale words, but that's my only real gripe with it.
The moderation has improved
The only reason I'm still on youtube is because there is no real alternative. They have the monopoly for an invaluable service. Facebook (meta) on the other hand has a (not so)monopoly on a superfluous service. I don't use facebook and such (twitter, instagram). Reddit also had a monopoly, but due to reddit's own acyions, there now is a valid contender in town, one that isn't a bully, so I'm stoked. Once there is a valid contender for youtube, I'm switching to that as well.