In the last 3 days I’ve been paying attention to r/all, expecting several posts about it and…
Yeah
Wasn’t expecting the website to literally shut down nor to monopolize r/all, because 3rd party users are the minority, but I hoped for more than whatever this was.
At least there’s a silver lining, I discovered new alternatives that have healthier communities
I think Reddit has become too mainstream to die. I think it will simply continue to become mainstream, perhaps eventually become more like Twitter in terms of userbase. and the next generation of niche forums will be born, and therefor the next Reddit. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe reddit will ‘never die.’
Reddit isn’t going to disappear, but that doesn’t mean it won’t die. Going public will kill Reddit. The parent company isn’t profitable, and the product isn’t profitable, and public investors will only tolerate that if growth suggests future gains.
Those future gains will be had by strangling Reddit and twisting its corpse into something much less useful, interesting, and fun.
Reddit’s animated corpse will carry on for years, but that IPO will be a poisoned pill for what we know and recognize as Reddit.
Digg was around for a long time after Reddit took over. Hell even fark is still kicking.
So how do we stop that happening here? Do we just bounce between admins and they eventually can’t pay for their servers?
Support your admins, if you can. But yes, bouncing around will happen. Hopefully with added development support coming from an expanded userbase, account migration can be implemented on both Lemmy and kbin and people can move around with relative ease, as the need or desire strike.
They telegraphed this when they started forcing users to look at depressed buskers (in between ads for Jesus and pizza rolls) and making posts scream almost uncontrollably as you scroll by them. It’s like someone really wants sfw OnlyFans, or Twitch without the video games, or YouTube except the content isn’t very curated. Instagram but live? Anything but Reddit.
The difference that I see between reddit and twitter is that reddit hasn’t been purchased to be the plaything of a billionaire. This matters because unlike facebook and google, reddit and twitter aren’t profitable. That means that reddit doesn’t have to pockets to buy up competitors, lobby for beneficial regulations, focus on expanding overseas, or move into making hardware.
Reddit is just the plaything of anonymous billionaires that’s the whole reason they want the IPO at all costs because they can’t cash out without it, even if it is less than they had hoped for.
Yet. It hasn’t been bought up yet, but they really really wish they were. Reddit has flipped to profits only mode already and they’re never going to change now. Being bought out during
IPO isn’t going up change that either, only intensify it
Possible it’ll go the direction of Neopets and stuff. Still around, but not what it once was.
Alternatively, it could go in the direction of facebook - still around, but packed full of everybody’s racist great aunts, romance scammers, and weed dealers.
It will be like Facebook, once massive, now where genx parents get their ads and warn others to get off their porch
As a Gen-X parent, I’ve abhorred the look and feel of Facebook even from the beginning. When I first made an account I got connected with old high school people and thought it was pretty neat. But then I tried to share some thoughts for discussion like one would do on a BBS/forum/Reddit, and realized that wasn’t what it was for. That was the last I posted. I know I’m in a minority and people who love it have a need for sharing everything they do, but that isn’t me.
There’s a saying I like: “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” I don’t think this means that a person can only be one of those, but that in discussions there is a level of thinking going on with the category. I prefer the first one more, and even Reddit had places where you aren’t going to find that…but it had some, and I enjoyed my time there.
Oh, and get off my lawn. You too, boomers. Everyone get off the damn lawn!
There are dozens of us!
I like that saying, by the way. I want to discuss everything, but when someone is limited to that lower level it’s quite disappointing.
I’m also a Gen X parent on Facebook. I don’t post anything, but so many groups use it as a public posting board. My kids sports leagues all have Facebook groups, my son’s piano school use Facebook for news and information. It’s really become indispensable as a collection of small, easy to use, newsgroups…