I’m just a sample of one, but it’s certainly interesting to see how apparently I’m just one of many
And even then, Reddit's "new" design is shit for usability, sine the actual text you were searching for is nowhere on the page. It's hidden somewhere behind one of a hundred "click to see more" interactions, some of which are nested, and some will cause a completely new new page load that erases your progress and makes you start over. (But look! Engagement metrics!)
On a lighter note, a humorous critique that mentions the same mitigation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrFv1O4dbqY
The problem is that many links (i.e. from Google) do not go there, most people won't know that's an option, and even if you do it means additional friction. (Yes, putting on a browser plugin to redirect also counts as friction. )
[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/old-reddit-re...
Zero friction.
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/?...>
I installed it a couple of years back after multiple recommendations from other HN members. It fixes more than just Reddit.
I haven't used SO in weeks prior and I think ChatGPT has pretty much killed its use case for me. Even two years ago, I would spend 1-6 hours/week searching SO posts depending on what I was working on.
Wirecutter is like: "we tested the top ~10 results on Amazon for ten minutes each and picked one."
Whereas reddit is either: "we're so obsessed with flashlights we know the exact part number of the best LEDs to use (after you remove the cap from it)" or "haha I also remember the lyrics to that old top 40s hit song haha."
Though as of late, that’s been eroded too. Increasingly the most useful answers are in older threads more than newer ones, an effect I’d at least partially attribute to the APIpocolpyse a while back that drove away some of the site’s best and most prolific contributors. It’s becoming filled with the same mindless drivel found everywhere else.
Just commiserating, I guess...
Then guru-influencer-like people started selling growth hack tactics. Pretty much, again, openly discussing purchasing old Reddit accounts, how to make posts that are not obvious product placements and etc. Like if you see a list of suggested products, it’ll be:
1. Competitor 2. Your product 3. Competitor
With some pros/cons listed with the hopes to skew the result towards the second choice.
There are exceptions, like very hardcore tiny moderated subreddits, but I really wouldn’t take product recommendations from Reddit very seriously.
Sure. But, in the comments, you will find out that if you press both control and m and backspace at the same time, the keyboard explodes. Unlike Google, that when searching about explodey keyboards it gives you 37 pages of "10 reasons why this is the best keyboard that totally doesn't explode".
If I’m shopping for something deliberately enough to be digging through reviews I’m probably pretty sure it’ll solve the problem all the positive reviews say it will solve. But I want to weigh that against all the negative feedback that might be removed or downplayed in big marketplaces or commercial review sites.
Reddit is not even a great source a lot of the time, just a way better start than a ton of marketing sites. Some type of search product that enables you to filter out results from companies trying to sell something would be awesome and an easily achievable benefit of AI.