[clickok]

Furthermore, over the long term it can change the texture of the Reddit community. What sort of person quits using Reddit after becoming frustrated with yet another imposed hassle? What sort of person stays, or is retained by pop-up notifications and whatever other tedious blandishments their app/redesign provides?

There are other sites with similar features and layout to Reddit (Voat, Ruqqus, Saidit, Raddle, communities.win, etc.) but none are really in competition to be "the front page of the Internet". This is because Reddit has a huge community with varied interests which provides self-perpetuating advantages. For example: the activity level is generally higher; if you start a subreddit for a niche topic you have a chance at finding an audience; great comments/submissions will garner thousands of upvotes rather than a few dozen (smaller sites have a proportionately tinier vote ceiling, making it hard to differentiate between "good" and "amazing").

I can see increased retention/monetization maybe leading to a larger user-base in the short term, but if it makes good content less likely to crop up, or leads to less discerning users (ingenious effortposts lose out to low-effort pandering memes), or even if it just narrows the interests/hobbies represented on there, then over time it will destroy Reddit's main source of value.

[EVdotIO]

I'm sure good subreddits still exists, but it has gone way past eternal September at this point and Gresham's law is in full effect. Once an organization reaches a certain size, vested interests on all sides have perverse incentives, and it starts a terminal slide to the lowest common denominator. I suspect the issue is largely in the inherent zero marginal cost to entry for most social media platforms.

[vorpalhex]

Ruqqus is generally better as an alternative and has been doing a better job navigating the line between free speech and not letting neo nazis invade every sub.

Like old school reddit, people do say inflammatory things to get reactions but usually get downvoted. There are also good tools for muting people.

[stimpson_j_cat]

Really? Communities featured on the Ruqqus front page:

* EnoughTransgenderSpam: Transgender ideology makes no sense.

* SimpsInAction: Simp - A man who foolishly overvalues and defers to a woman, putting ...

* JustBeWhite: A place to discuss racial dynamics in the dating market.

* JewishQuestion: This community is dedicated to discussing and exposing Jewish control...

* SoyBoys

...looks like all the worst supremacy and hate channels from reddit.

[amxn1]

To be honest, it's a breath of fresh air.

[peruvian]

"JewishQuestion: This community is dedicated to discussing and exposing Jewish control.."

This is fresh air?

[stimpson_j_cat]

Fresh? Since the_donald and the other white supremacy reddits got big the air has been stagnant with that kind of hate.

[ericbarrett]

I dunno, just went to the site and the front page is 80% alt-right conspiracy theories. Also, the second DDG result for “ruqqus” is a Qanon sub.

[suby]

Agreed. I tried consistently visiting and posting for a week or two,and while I feel like the site has been getting more popular, it's not a place for adult conversations.

What finally made me quit was a post of a meme involving Kamala Harris in a non-political section which was one of the most upvoted things I'd seen on the site, yet the meme itself was childish and racist.

I dislike censorship, but if the initial source of people visiting a site which has these anti moderation policies are low quality, good luck climbing out of that hole. Smart people are attracted to smart people, so your initial userbase is paramount. This isn't a condemnation of all on ruqqus, but the majority are looking for a right wing echo chamber.

The site is nowhere near as bad as voat, but give it a little time, it'll get there.

[vorpalhex]

But it'll only avoid becoming voat if people invest time to grow the community into a place of meaningful discussion and beneficial discourse. There are some sub mods who are trying very hard to build welcoming (and non-political) subs but they can't do it singlehandedly.

If you want something to grow, you have to invest in it.