[cblconfederate]

I don't think reddit is that unique. The main problem is that forums are no longer monetizable, so people don't have an interest in maintaining and moderating separate websites, so not unbundling.

My use of reddit, and what i observe in general (by looking at other people's post history) is to visit a few specific subreddits often, not the homepage, not r/all. It seems there used to be a time when everyone was there for the giggles, r/pics, r/politics etc, when the content was very viral and entertaining. Nowadays all the major generic subs are filled with so much spam (i mean politics) that they're barely useful other than as a place to blow off some steam against the other team.

Topical subreddits could fork off reddit if they wanted to put the effort in it. HN is nothing other than r/technology or r/programming without the politics, and it exists because YC has an interest in maintaining it. Nomadlist exists despite r/digitalnomad/ etc.

Reddit is aging, and it shows. There are subs with the same moderators for more than 10 years, who often end up removing the interesting parts in order to maintain an imaginary "culture" in their heads. And there are a lot of shady moderators too.

[rozab]

Reddit is unique in that it allows you to find and connect to a community with very little friction. The other day I was thinking about buying a mini PC. I googled 'mini PC reddit' and immediately find r/MiniPCs and r/sffpc. Now I can sort by top all time and see the lay of the land in the community, see which devices are popular, etc. I can ask questions and get a quick response.

If these communities were on traditional forums, I wouldn't be able to do any of this. I would never bother to make an account specifically for that forum. Some communities benefit from keeping out tourists like me, but not commercially.

[optimalsolver]

>HN is nothing other than r/technology or r/programming without the politics

How many front page posts have we had in the last two weeks whining about political censorship?

HN has politics alright, just the other side's politics.

[lordloki]

I disagree. HN has actual discussions and is, for the most part, politically neutral. That is, while some discussions will have a political component to them, such as discussing tech censorship, no opinions are being buried for simply existing "on the other side."

While being a free speech advocate is political, it does not fit into the US left/right political structure. So I don't see opposing the censorship of political speech as being "the other side's politics."

It's funny because I clearly remember when it was the other side with a "moral majority" who was trying to silence all opposing views. I was against it then as well. I think we should all be against authoritarianism no matter which political party we support. As I see it authoritarianism has led to suffering of the common people almost every time.

[meowster]

> is, for the most part, politically neutral.

I thought so too, but in the last few months, I wasn't sure. Comments seemed pretty polarizing, but each "side" was about equal in number.

Prior to the last few months, it seemed like political discussions were actually nuetral/objective. Hopefully it returns that way.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

If you were old enough (:) everything you've written above could be rewritten by just substituting "[rR]eddit" with "[uU]senet".

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

[cblconfederate]

usenet died out because it did not have moderators. Reddit will do the same because of moderators