For people who were more than just the causal browser/lurker, Reddit was an amazing place to not only obtain information about very specific things, but also to connect with other people. I have type 1 diabetes and the ability to connect with other type 1 diabetics to commiserate, share information, and seek help on Reddit was like nothing else anywhere else on the internet. I have a few other niche interests that also only had communities on Reddit.
Years ago, these things (health conditions, niche interests, etc) all had their own separate forums scattered throughout the internet. One forum might have a few dozen people, one might have a hundred or so. But Reddit quickly became the central place where we could connect. Whereas forums could maybe attract a few hundred people, subreddits could connect with THOUSANDS. There’s not yet been anything else like it.
Unfortunately, we made the BIG mistake of relying on a for-profit, centrally owned company to function as a town square. Same with Twitter. We found value in sharing information and connecting through these platforms, only to get screwed over by billionaire CEOs.
Hopefully we have learned our lesson. Hopefully something comparable will take Reddit’s place. It’s not going to happen over time. I never expected Mastodon to replace Twitter overnight. But slowly, very slowly, at least some people are seeing the downfall of corporate social media and will hopefully slowly switch over to federated alternatives. I don’t think it will happen quickly, nor will it happen for everything. But I do think it’s already happening. And it will happen faster if we get some good mobile apps.
The thing that was going around the rest of the internet was niche tech answers, like if you’re trying to learn programming, or you have some obscure computer problem. Years and years of answers were all siloed on Reddit, text searchable, and it was indispensable. Lots of people who don’t care about Reddit were in a panic during the blackout, so many people became dependent on it.
The only thing that compares is Youtube, now infamous for always having a video about it, but Youtube is obnoxious because video isn’t searchable and creators generally title their posts for clicks, not subject matter. Somebody might do an informative video on obscure crucial changes in some software but it will be titled THIS WILL BE A DISASTER. You have to scrub through people’s videos hoping to get the one nugget of answer you were after. Meanwhile, Reddit was like StackOverflow’s side lounge, and full of the right answers.
The real question is if anybody in this community wants to become that sort of resource. I can only imagine that we’re all getting sick of “if you’re not paying you’re the product”. Over and over again, we discover that our input is worth billions and not a penny for us, not even happiness, we’re the cattle, so who cares if we moo so long as we produce meat? It gets old.
I’m also hoping that this Reddit situation is the catalyst for the death of unpaid mods. That was a slapped together duck tape solution from 1998, when a web community was a prefab message board stuck on the back of some truly obscure cartoonist’s site, with a community size in the hundreds. It was never supposed to be the permanent solution, but you know what they say about temporary solutions becoming permanent.
Either you’re expecting nice people to mod their way through the truly horrific shit that gets posted to the average website, for free, which is odious, or you’re going to attract people whose motivations are not good, so they don’t care if they have to wade through some beheading videos, they’ve got worse ideas.
It’s been one of the most unsustainable situations in the modern internet, and it’s going to have to change, somehow.
For people who were more than just the causal browser/lurker, Reddit was an amazing place to not only obtain information about very specific things, but also to connect with other people. I have type 1 diabetes and the ability to connect with other type 1 diabetics to commiserate, share information, and seek help on Reddit was like nothing else anywhere else on the internet. I have a few other niche interests that also only had communities on Reddit.
Years ago, these things (health conditions, niche interests, etc) all had their own separate forums scattered throughout the internet. One forum might have a few dozen people, one might have a hundred or so. But Reddit quickly became the central place where we could connect. Whereas forums could maybe attract a few hundred people, subreddits could connect with THOUSANDS. There’s not yet been anything else like it.
Unfortunately, we made the BIG mistake of relying on a for-profit, centrally owned company to function as a town square. Same with Twitter. We found value in sharing information and connecting through these platforms, only to get screwed over by billionaire CEOs.
Hopefully we have learned our lesson. Hopefully something comparable will take Reddit’s place. It’s not going to happen over time. I never expected Mastodon to replace Twitter overnight. But slowly, very slowly, at least some people are seeing the downfall of corporate social media and will hopefully slowly switch over to federated alternatives. I don’t think it will happen quickly, nor will it happen for everything. But I do think it’s already happening. And it will happen faster if we get some good mobile apps.
Yeah, the small specialized communities were really the best on Reddit and its the one thing that may pull me back if they don’t develop here.
The thing that was going around the rest of the internet was niche tech answers, like if you’re trying to learn programming, or you have some obscure computer problem. Years and years of answers were all siloed on Reddit, text searchable, and it was indispensable. Lots of people who don’t care about Reddit were in a panic during the blackout, so many people became dependent on it.
The only thing that compares is Youtube, now infamous for always having a video about it, but Youtube is obnoxious because video isn’t searchable and creators generally title their posts for clicks, not subject matter. Somebody might do an informative video on obscure crucial changes in some software but it will be titled THIS WILL BE A DISASTER. You have to scrub through people’s videos hoping to get the one nugget of answer you were after. Meanwhile, Reddit was like StackOverflow’s side lounge, and full of the right answers.
The real question is if anybody in this community wants to become that sort of resource. I can only imagine that we’re all getting sick of “if you’re not paying you’re the product”. Over and over again, we discover that our input is worth billions and not a penny for us, not even happiness, we’re the cattle, so who cares if we moo so long as we produce meat? It gets old.
I’m also hoping that this Reddit situation is the catalyst for the death of unpaid mods. That was a slapped together duck tape solution from 1998, when a web community was a prefab message board stuck on the back of some truly obscure cartoonist’s site, with a community size in the hundreds. It was never supposed to be the permanent solution, but you know what they say about temporary solutions becoming permanent.
Either you’re expecting nice people to mod their way through the truly horrific shit that gets posted to the average website, for free, which is odious, or you’re going to attract people whose motivations are not good, so they don’t care if they have to wade through some beheading videos, they’ve got worse ideas.
It’s been one of the most unsustainable situations in the modern internet, and it’s going to have to change, somehow.
Could it be Lemmy?
I think it’s certainly possible.