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by anonymousab 1512 days ago
It's not a belief, it's outcome oriented. I have had more luck troubleshooting a niche issue or finding common viewpoints (negative ones being the most important) on products and problems I am trying to solve via Reddit than the autogen listicles and vaguely related quora posts that make up the vast majority of Google's first 10 page results.

All the signals I am picking up on/using to differentiate a real or usable comment (sometimes paid ones can still be useful!) can of course be gamed the same way Google search or Amazon product reviews can. Reddit can also still be botted.

But in practice I am currently finding more success at home with information sourced from Reddit. That will no doubt change eventually, but right now, it is indeed better for me.

I hint at it above, but we all use Google for different things - buying things, finding things, getting information on a variety of topics. If I'm trying to do something like solve a technical or software issue, it actually doesn't matter if the result is gamed or not - what matters is if I solve the issue. Stackoverflow, Reddit and wikipedia results easily help me reach that end far more often than Google does, especially when Google doesn't seem to often surface the more obscure hobby forums that might have niche information.