Answering the immediate question: KPIs. The company is prepping for an IPO 2H2023,[1] trying to juice engagement, advertising, and revenue stats, and is well down the enshittification track: <https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys> (Doctorow's describing a different site, but the dynamic is identical in cause and consequence.)
As to what to do about it:
- I'm pretty sure RES (Reddit Enhancement Suite) will kill this. Even if it doesn't, it's worth using regardless. You'll also want to visit old.reddit.com rather than the default site. <https://redditenhancementsuite.com/>
- Look to alternative discussion sites. I'm a member of (though fairly rare participant these days) Tildes <https://tildes.net>. There's a Federated Reddit alternative as well, Lemmy: <https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy>. Probably others.
- Spend your time more wisely. I'm finding online content vastly unrewarding in general, with few exceptions. Wikipedia for reference, and a few other informational sites. I'll check text-only news (there was a great HN discussion on this a few weeks back: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35313232> based on <https://blog.wturrell.co.uk/text-only-news-websites/>). Mostly though I rely on articles, books, or (carefully curated) podcasts.
Hacker News is a quite-good link aggregator. If you want even more discriminating selections, check the curated collections:
You can also use Algolia Search to show the top items from the past week, month, or year, according to HN's vote and activity stats, by submitting a blank search and selecting the appropriate date range:
Really though I hate the “new” interface of reddit where, with my neurodivergence, I am greatly distressed by the ads blending with content.