Reddit's Technology North Stars for 2021
reddit.com
reddit.com
Reddit's been squandering trust in multiple ways (and amonst multiple constituencies, some of whose weakened trust cheers me greatly). But it's been dumping most consistently on substantial, expert, informative, and intelligent discussion and content. Reddit is openly contemtuous of all of these. Which is where I get off the train.
Fix that shit.
Otherwise, "modernize" is bullshit buzzwording unless it's precisely scoped. Age isn't a liability in technology. Complexity, risk, and technical debt are. Address those. Change for its own sake is a crutch. (One that's been weilded in quantity at Reddit.)
Most of Reddit's recent change seems to have been driven by two unmentioned goals: revenue and risk reduction. Neither are addressed here, and their omission makes what's mentioned look less like a mission plan and far more like whitewash.
Businesses need revenue, there's no doubt about that. Unfortunately, media still seems stuck on advertising, which is ultimately rot.
Risk for Reddit has had strong overlap with the fake news / conspiracy / disinformation / misinformation complex (itself strongly overlapping with advertising's remit). Which means that Reddit's lifeblood is its poison.
But yeah, fix those, stop shitting on intelligence, and try honesty for a change.
Also, ditch "new".
Reddit never did a single thing to support that community. They never assisted the mods when we were being slandered by other political camps, submitting concerns about death-threats was a labyrinthine task, every aspect of moderation was a grind. In that time they implemented the emails, the app telemetry, the thinning of controversial political communities, and a general abandonment of the core ethos of the platform. The admins have horrible reputations for abuse, censorship, editing user comments without consent.
They don't even honor Aaron Schwartz anymore.
I loved and dedicated a huge part of my life to Reddit for years. It's over now. I'm a refugee here because people can actually talk to one another with a sliver of respect, which you cannot say for the most popular communities on Reddit.
> The admins have horrible reputations for abuse, censorship, editing user comments without consent.
To me this really just reeks, particularly the habit top sites have of tinkering with user content, or filtering it based on their own "expert" ideologies (e.g. vaccine, politics, etc)
I'm building a new social site & I'd be interested to learn more about your experience if you're open to it! email is in profile
The reddit user experience has been on the decline for a while now. It’s at a point now where you can’t even view comments effectively on the mobile site without logging in to an account.