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The original was posted on /r/modcoord by /u/cavscout43 on 2024-07-11 19:33:43+00:00.
After the blackouts, I started muting the annoying "front page" subs, since they were just full of spam bots reposting old memes and shit for karma. And noticed something interesting after that.
Gradually over the last 6-8 months or so, it's been wild watching the commercialization of Reddit. Most everything that swims to the top is some variant of marketing or a product fan base.
Every TV series, video game, streaming service, sports team, anime, celebrity, "streamer content creator influencer," or even movie that isn't in theaters yet gets a dozen subs, from serious to memes/circle jerks. I've muted 7x subs about Fallout alone (loved the classic 90s ones, not bothering with the TV series) and I keep seeing new ones every few weeks. Often I'll see posts with 2-3x as many upvotes on them than subscribers of the entire community end up on the front page, not so stealthily promoting something specific.
There aren't many generic communities which have broad discussion topics making it to the front page anymore, even if they have way more active members. Sure the plural of anecdotes are not data, but I think we've shifted from the "front page of the internet" to the "ad page of the internet" quietly since the IPO. That in addition to fucking annoying ads being stuffed in between every 5-6x posts on top of all that.
But to wit, the TL;DR - Reddit has Balkanized in that it's no longer of collection of forums and content sharing, it's turning into little niche product / media focused commercial YT comments sections. I've managed to keep my communities I help mod open and active discussions, but the platform as a whole doesn't seem to embody that anymore sadly.