Reddit is saving a little on bandwidth since I stopped, and I've gained some time and energy. Seems like a win-win.
I know the story goes that you can avoid it by carefully selecting the right subreddits, but in my experience the trash content bleeds into everything. Even the technical subreddits I followed have become inundated with low-effort posts and people who just want to pick fights.
> I don't think they're losing anything of value when I stop browsing. I've been using old. for years, and always been pretty strict about blocking ads.
Thanks for being honest about it. I suspect Reddit is well aware that the average user (who views ads) is not likely to be among the angrier power users who are pulling the strings. If anything, I'm starting to get a sense that the non-commenters and casual users are getting sick of the mods using their power to shut the conversation down. The average user doesn't use Apollo and doesn't care about this drama. I think it's easy to forget this when the vocal minority of power users are upvoting angry topics and mods are shutting down subreddits.
An hour later (without doing anything else) I got banned site wide for 3 days for "ban evading".
That really pissed me off and I haven't used reddit ever since (except for google search results). I'm definitely happier without reddit.
And another popular imaginary reason for bans is the crosspost feature. If you ever crosspost anything from the snowflake sub they will automatically ban you with a script, for using this stock Reddit feature.
Since Monday I've stopped visiting Reddit to try to get less addicted to mindless reading. I've caught myself opening the app like 5 times already, but so far experiment was mostly a success. Need to keep up for a month more I think.
The reddit experience I've had in the last few days is actually the best I've had since I signed up 12-13 years ago. All the smaller niche subreddits I forgot about are back to front and center, all the community interaction is on AskReddit, answers, etc again and the overall communal aspect is back. It reminds me of how much the site has really changed and, like you, I'll probably be gone once it goes back to normal.
If someone says they only see crap on Reddit it's their own fault. It doesn't take a ton of effort to cultivate what you want.
While I’m familiar with many of those tricks, I haven’t even thought about them in probably, literally years.
The current Reddit UX does not encourage and maybe doesn’t even support that view. If that’s something you’re doing, I can say with some level of confidence that you’re a Reddit Poweruser. The only time I ever really thought about tricks like that is when I used the Reddit Enhancement Suite, which, as far as I know, is not a part of New Reddit, at all.
And despite what anyone’s insular, private group of friends may say, I strongly suspect that New Reddit is the one that the vast, vast majority of users user.
No doubt, those people are masochists, either knowingly or not, same with the people that use the official app. Old.reddit and/or third party apps made a huge difference in usability of Reddit, there is a reason so many people are up in arms over this change.
If it took subs going dark for you to see what was available to you all along that's yet another massive failing on reddit's part to provide value. To people who have been living that dream via third party apps, that was a normal Tuesday. I don't know a better way to put it, I constantly hear people say "I've been using the app, it's fine" and then also saying things like you did, the truth is the app is not fine, discoverability is shit, the features are limited, etc. Apollo is a power tool for reddit similar to how RES was, I won't wade through the reddit BS to use it without an app like Apollo.
Its discoverability is difficult. It is still possible.
https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/36004304341...
The key part is the "overflow menu"
> Visit a community that you’d like to include in a custom feed. On the right-hand side of the page, you’ll see a Community Details box. Click the overflow menu (⋯) in the top right of the box.
> Select Add To Custom Feed then choose Create A Custom Feed.
These show up when you use the drop down for subscribed and favorited subreddits or on the sidebar (if that is expanded).
(VERY late edit)
The other thing about multis - you can make them public and allow other people subscribe to them.
As an example: https://www.reddit.com/user/shagieisme/m/orangecats/ which is the combination of six subreddits that feature orange cats.
Furthermore, users may be added to a custom feed.
All you'll see at reddit.com are subreddits you've followed.
My favorite contribution to that subreddit was one of the first logos. They held a contest and my submission was a drawing of Snoo with his bum facing the viewer with a dollar in between his cheeks. Ass Credit.
I can't believe people voted for it lol, but that was when the subreddit was a lot less serious.
You can still see the remnants of that work by going to old.reddit.com/r/askreddit: Hover over the Snoo's talking and wait for the tooltip.
It helped with the noise.