[jampa]

I've been using Reddit for 12 years. After the API fiasco, the quality dropped a lot. Most popular subreddits are now astroturfed, where every week there is a crusade against something (First it was for banning Twitter, now it is against banning AI Art).

Even in regular posts, Reddit has been a hive mind lately. If you scroll through the comments, most of them will have the same opinion over and over, with comments that add nothing to the discussion, like "I agree," getting hundreds of upvotes.

[kridsdale3]

I've been there for 17 (!) years, and I could have written pretty much the same message as you since around 2012. Dennis Kucinich was a huge campaign!

But I agree, since the API thing, it has sucked HARD.

[lynndotpy]

I agree, the API change was the last nail in the coffin, honestly. Reddit was always bad for several reasons, but it always had some availability of smart people that placed it alongside StackExchange and Hacker News. But 2022 and 2023 really saw a mass exodus of expertise from Reddit (and Twitter, etc.)

Lots of smart people left to Mastodons, at least.

[Max-Ganz-II]

My account on Reddit, and so as I was the founder also the sub r/AmazonRedshift, was in Sep 2023 banned by an automated system.

The sub was working normally, I posted about the Amazon Redshift Serverless PDF, and then Reddit began behaving oddly.

After some investigation, and some guesswork, I concluded my account had been silently shadow-banned, and the sub banned (and then shortly after, deleted).

Two years of posts and the sub disappeared, instantly, abruptly, without warning, reason, appeal process or notification, and Reddit was trying by shadowbanning to lead me into thinking my account was still active.

I used a utility to scramble (you can't delete) all the posts I'd ever made to Reddit, and closed my account.

(There's a bit of a happy ending - about a year later someone who was doing work with Reddit and had an archive of all my poss sent them to me, as a thank you. I processed the JSON and put them up on my Redshift site.)

[seanw444]

I like how you both responded to GP's roast of "I agree" comments by saying "I agree". Maybe that was intentional.

Anyway, I agree. I used Reddit fairly regularly before the API change, though I was already starting to get disenfranchised by the political hive mind by that point. The death of FOSS third party clients that made the platform bearable to use was the straw that broke the camel's back, for me. I've completely left it behind since.

[Dylan16807]

The complaint was about comments that are functionally an overly large upvote, not comments that have the word agree in them.

[seanw444]

I know, but it's still funny.

[kridsdale3]

I hate that they took Apollo app from us.

[polynomial]

Missing the Kucinich connection here, what's the lore?

[kridsdale3]

First major presidential campaign astroturfing on a social media site. If you looked at Reddit (I dont remember what year it was, 2008? 2012?) you'd think 60% of America was dead set on the guy. It was less than 1%.

[Aurornis]

> I've been using Reddit for 12 years. After the API fiasco, the quality dropped a lot. Most popular subreddits are now astroturfed, where every week there is a crusade against something (First it was for banning Twitter, now it is against banning AI Art).

This didn’t start with the API change drama. The API change protests were their own crusade. The calls to ban Twitter links or AI art are just the next iterations of the same form of protest.

Many of the big subs were thoroughly astroturfed long before the API changes. The famous ones like /r/conservative weren’t even trying to hide the fact that they curated every member and post

[gruez]

>This didn’t start with the API change drama

The proximate cause IMO is that the protests (ie. moderators shutting down their subreddits) resulted in some moderators being deposed, causing new subreddits and moderators to come in power, which were easier to astroturf or whatever.

[DustinBrett]

Happy to see posts like this, I have the same experience. It fell apart a few years ago with the fiasco's and it's a shell of what it was now. Total echo chamber. Sadly seems to be spreading to HN in some comment sections. And X has it's problems in the other direction. There aren't many places left like how it was, when up and down votes meant something.

[andrepd]

> Reddit has been a hive mind lately. If you scroll through the comments, most of them will have the same opinion over and over, with comments that add nothing to the discussion, like "I agree," getting hundreds of upvotes.

That has been the case for over 10 years now. It's absolutely not a new phenomenon.

[DustinBrett]

It got much worse a few years ago. I am a daily Reddit user and it was a big difference.

[CSMastermind]

I feel so old that I remember the post-2016 election when Reddit started down this path. It's been particularly bad in the last few years but agree. Ever since the_donald and the admin's reactions to it, it's been bad.

[andrepd]

Damn, 2016 was almost 10 years ago. When I said 10 I was more thinking 2010-2011

[unethical_ban]

The API shutdown allows a flooding of bots, crippled 3rd party apps and the moderator tools that kept things clean.

But I don't think the "crusades" are always bot related. Movements get momentum.

[gruez]

>The API shutdown allows a flooding of bots, crippled 3rd party apps and the moderator tools that kept things clean.

I thought they backed down on the API changes for moderators?

[os2warpman]

> now it is against banning AI Art

AI art does not exist. There is only slop stolen from artists.

[fkyoureadthedoc]

Gatekeeping the definition of art probably doesn't help your cause. Even if you convince everyone to say, I don't know, "algorithmically generated images" instead, have you really improved the situation from the artists perspective?

[os2warpman]

The only thing that matters is ridiculing people who think typing something into a text entry field and receiving a shitty image in return is art.

edit: now that I think about it, a public performance where an artist generates "algorithmically created images" in real-time and they and the audience bask in the shit would be fantastic! Maybe coupled with some shitty AI music, narrated in that shitty Attenborough rip-off AI voice.

It could be called "requiem for a techbro".

[windsignaling]

Not just lately. See /r/politics. Sometime in the last 5-7 years /r/science or /r/technology (or both, I forget because I stopped reading) basically became the science/tech versions of /r/politics.

[chneu]

Lol dude reddit has been heavily manipulated since like 2013, if not earlier.

I was heavily involved in buying/selling spam accounts for years on reddit. If you think it wasn't heavily manipulated, at least the frontpage, then lol you were buying it like everyone else.

[dmonitor]

> banning Twitter

This is just practical given you can't see tweet threads (and sometimes even tweets) without an account.

> against banning AI Art

I think you mean to say reddit is pro-banning AI art?

Anyway, banning AI art is absolutely good for curating quality posts. AI art is incredibly low-effort, easily spammable, and has legitimate morality concerns among artist communities (the kind that post high quality content). Same goes for obviously AI-written posts.

I agree content quality on the site has fallen drastically, but those are both measures to try and save it.