[rd]

This happens with any social media. The great Digg exodus happened, and Reddit boomed. Reddit’s content and community grew healthily, then Reddit blew up exponentially, and now the content and community have grown sure, but very unhealthily.

Actually, unhealthily for what Reddit used to be (long form content and discussion), healthily for what it’s becoming (social media a la infinite scroll, chat, and notifications galore).

The point I’m trying to make is I don’t think this sort of effect is preventable - any community which encounters growth will see an influx of shitty content, unless you keep the community exclusive purposefully. Reddit just decided to roll with the punches so they could make some stacks on a nice IPO I imagine in the future.

[rightbyte]

> notifications galore

This is so annoying. The bell has a number on it and you think "Oh, somebody answered me or sent a DM" ... but no. Some post is trending on XY sub.

I think Reddit doesn't realize how much they lose in the longterm from hollow 'engagement'.

[gunapologist99]

ditto from Twitter. and then they ignore your "do not notify me about anything ever" setting. Now I never use Twitter anymore. The short-term boost is not worth the long-term loss of trust.

[edgyquant]

Yeah or “your comment got 5 upvotes”

[RocketOne]

I wonder if the next successor to reddit could possibly become successful by limiting its user base. Once it reaches a certain size, you can only join when someone else leaves. Or be put on a waiting list while you scroll and lurk.

[darepublic]

They recently rolled out chat and I have already received messages from some obvious bots with fake female avatars. No real chat though