Ask HN: Is Reddit going the way of Stack Overflow?
No synthesized answer yet. Check the discussion below.
Reddit isn't comparable, as AI has not replaced human opinion.
This doesn't hold up when looking at usage charts. There is a clear peak around ~2015 with a steady decline through to now. LLM's came to market in their current form in the last couple years, and took a couple years to be broadly adopted. There was a clear and obvious market fall off way before AI / LLM.
> Reddit isn't comparable
I agree with that in isolation; but since I don't agree with the AI premise this isn't especially relevant. I don't think AI will replace Reddit, I think one of the other major platforms will absorb it's users like Reddit / Hackerrank / better documentation / back searching absorbed SO's users through 2015-2021
As I said in my original post, LLM was the final nail in the coffin. I'm not arguing they aren't related. I'm saying they SO was falling long before LLM's took over. This isn't difficult logic.
You seem to think they weren't failing before LLM (simply rapidly losing member activity), which is a narrative that I won't follow.
This was the "stage 4 cancer" point of no return. Statistically, it chugged on for a while, and then the dips happened and people just blamed AI, when it was really just a zombie past this point.
Quora is still going on strong despite AI.
When you load a random content page, the top 50% of the page is a question, the bottom 50% is an ad that is designed to look like a comment, and the entire right panel is ads. Quora is more ads than content, you have to scroll and decipher what is or isn't an ad based on their greyed 2px font ad disclaimer.
SO -> Github Issues, LLMs
Quora -> Medium/Substack/SO/SE
/., Digg, Quora -> Reddit -> ??
I'd love something to replace reddit, but I can't find another platform that is as open (e.g. don't need an account), has the diversity of topics.
The political (and sub-reddit) echo chambers are ridiculous though.
I feel some users will leach into platforms that created even more walled gardens, i.e. Discord, or platforms that reduce the sense of walled gardens i.e. Twitter.
Instead of platforms expecting the user to inform who/what to follow, they infer from user behaviors.
It's eerie.
They are actively harming human users in defense of their toxic mods & botters. Site is dying and they are the murderer.
How do you let bots roam freely and yet you ban me?
It’s a controlled magazine with an editorial staff that selects topics, and controls the gates for commenting. It’s not organic on any level.
Fuck Reddit, seriously.
Dudes be like "Reddit sucks". My brother in Christ, you made the sandwich.
It got very political everywhere too, which I assume gets clicks and are a favourite of bot farms
For example there is an official Peloton subreddit. There is also one that’s looser and more free wheeling (OnePelotonSub). Some communities have circle jerk versions. Or ones that are more or less AI content friendly.
Stack exchange got stuck in a rigid, strict moderation regime. Which maybe makes sense for only one kind of community.
It should die, but I don’t know, we need like an army to kill this thing really. An army killed Digg. We need to assemble the avengers all over again.
The best thing I can think of is to clone Reddit posts and bring it over to a new Reddit clone daily (not a full clone, just the last 24 hours of top subreddits). That way there’s no FOMO for people on the new platform. Basically, seed the Reddit clone with Reddit.
Figure out how much it costs to run a Reddit clone, and try to charge a dollar or two a month from the community.
It needs to die, god willing. It’s really one of the most shameful YT alumni, like they literally do not get the spirit of Internet forums and made it disgusting.