As AI Changes Internet Search, Reddit Lies in a Sweet Spot | Hacker News Reader

As AI Changes Internet Search, Reddit Lies in a Sweet Spot

wsj.com

3 pointsimpish920818 comments

I do wonder how this plays out over time. As people go to AI to ask questions, instead of places like Reddit, where will AI get new or more current information?

I also question if we even want to lean on sites like Reddit so hard. It turns AI into a way to effectively ask random people on the street, rather than good factual information from reliable sources.

I share those concerns. Reddit is already 90% crap, with 10% decent info. People who rave about reddit focus on that 10%, and ignore the 90%. But how is AI going to properly filter that?

I also worry about the echo chamber effect. If people learn from AI, and AI is updated based on reddit... which is full of people talking about what they learned from AI.... you can see the echo chamber being built before our eyes.

The voting cybernetics on Reddit already made it a bad AI. Subreddits would just decide certain memes were real. I remember one technical subreddit for a project I was involved in that decided things worked a certain way. I would show up to correct people and get downvoted while people posting popular myths would have their posts at the top of the threads for everyone to read.

It really killed the site for me. I think going there will often mean you understand less, not more.

Why am I on the side that thinks Reddit has become a mess?

Gamification strategies, like medals and paid goodies, polluted its points system.

That whole fiasco trying to come up with NFT avatar pictures, it was an especulation shot in the dark about uniqueness identification that went nowhere.

To me, it looks like a dead platform floating in the water. When it moves, it's because the ocean moves, not because it's alive.

Instead of focusing on what its perceived advantage is (humans talking and a supposedly good karma system), it keeps going for these cheap shots.

This is pretty much my opinion of Reddit. I stopped using it a few years back because of it.

Don't make it personal. It's not.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I don't think it's personally aimed at me. But it does make Reddit unpleasant and less than useful, so I stopped using it. That's a personal decision for sure, same as every decision about what I'm willing to tolerate is personal.

You made it personal: you left it because you don't like it anymore. I am not talking about that kind of thinking.

I totally understand why you would be encouraged to think that everyone that does it would do it for the same reasons as you. However, I'm offering an explanation that roots the critique in a more reasonable ground.

To me, HN displays the same level of degradation of discourse. If you think the way I think you think, the decision to stay here and leave reddit would seem impossible to understand. Instead of encouraging to see it as a personal choice, I encourage you to try to understand why someone would do that.

> You made it personal: you left it because you don't like it anymore.

So wait, you're taking exception to someone on the internet expressing a personal opinion?

> I totally understand why you would be encouraged to think that everyone that does it would do it for the same reasons as you.

I don't think that at all. I'm very confused by your comments. I don't know what you're getting at here or why you seem to be offended.

Don't take it personally.

OK. I don't understand what you're saying here, but oh well. I don't need to.

I understand, you wanted to get close to my argument and show support.

However, if you don't understand what I'm saying, maybe you should avoid it. Don't you think?

Once they decided to go public the enshittificafion intensified as the users took a backseat to the company’s efforts to monetize those users.

Are you trying to drag this into a "capitalism bad" narrative?

If I were to conform to your suggestion, I could be easily mistaken by some person who was convinced by popular rethorics.

I don't need to say this more than once.

I'm not anti-capitalism. I'm against sacrificing the long-term health of a service by trying to pump it for cash in the short-term. I like slower sustainable growth that stays true to the core service, rather than business models that are at odds with the core service being provided. It's this incongruity which puts companies at odds with its users and often leads to their demise... which isn't good from a capitalism point of view. Digg 4 did that, which led to the rise of Reddit in the first place. Now Reddit is making the same mistakes. Everyone is in such a hurry to be a unicorn that no one seems to run a boring sustainable business anymore. We need more boring businesses. It provides the stability this industry often lacks.

I often have the impression that reddit burned cash in useless things (instead of pumping it trying to recover any investment), and they didn't even knew what they were. It happens more often than you think.

Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/reddit-rddt-stock-ai-search-2dcc...

Thank you, https://chatddit.com an alternative, I like those that create them. Competition is nice and good for consumers.

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