[seabird]

I would argue that reddit never was really that great. It has gotten worse (the really aggressive advertising and dogshit UI is fairly recent), but karma farming is as old as time, is pretty much fundamentally unavoidable with their current model, and is probably one of the biggest issues with discussion on the site. I avoided the site for years because of the tendency toward low quality high engagement posts, and I know plenty of people who felt the exact same way. I can't speak to what it was like around 2010, but when I started looking a few years after that it was a lot of what I described above.

The only true fix to this is either firm AND benevolent moderation (really only works for small stuff, like HN), or just ditching usernames and internet points altogether. 4chan was, for the most part, low quality discussion, but people at least had a reason behind their post that wasn't ego-flaming to save face on their pseudonymous internet account/getting internet points to feel like they had some clout.