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> if Reddit itself has no value, why does every other option suck?

Becuase its a money losing model. Nobody is competing because in Reddit's 18 years of operation its yet to get even remotely close to turning a profit.

The alternatives that have popped up (Lemmy for example) arent even close to being at the same level from a software point of view.

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Maybe it could have be profitable if Reddit didn't feel the need the add useless features. Poorly done video and chat, NFTs, etc.

Not the mention overhiring the past 3 years.

Reddit could have been a lean text based forum, it doesn't need to host images and video.

Hosting images and videos has a powerful lockin effect. For example I look to repost things from Reddit and then realise I can't because Reddit is hosting the video. It's additional work to go find the original source and post that.

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