kiko Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 Can someone explain to me what makes reddit so special that it woul be a loss? Don't say the community, network effects are understood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog-days Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 Pictures of rare dog breeds and funny stories about people's pet guinea pigs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 One stop shop for the closest thing to old school forums that seems to exist outside actual old school forum hold outs (like here) that covers every interest topic. Including things like Am I The Asshole etc that provide a regular source of certain types of stories of variable authenticity that can somewhat reliably fulfill a desire for that type of story. Luzifer's right hand, Prince of the North, Starkess and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durckad Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 7 hours ago, kiko said: Can someone explain to me what makes reddit so special that it woul be a loss? Don't say the community, network effects are understood. To be fair, I ask the same thing about Twitter each and every day. I guess it ultimately depends on what exactly you want to get out of social media. Like karaddin said, reddit most resembles the old forum style of discussion boards that I, personally, am fond of. It's also much easier to filter out random nonsense than on Facebook or Twitter (especially Twitter now). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luzifer's right hand Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 (edited) 8 hours ago, kiko said: Can someone explain to me what makes reddit so special that it woul be a loss? Don't say the community, network effects are understood. It is great for niche things, cute animals and memes. It is my go to place for discussing old games when I play one. I have yet to find a game without a somewhat active subreddit while forums dedicated to those games usually died years if not decades ago. The Austrian subreddit also seems to be the only active community that has not been completely overrun by the far right and conspiracy folks. Was a useful source of information during the pandemic(a guy active there made a site to find open vaccination slots). Right now someone made a site that actually shows real food price increases in stores. Shockingly interesting and it does not even account for shrinkflation. Does not help that other active communities are either on facebook or on news websites. Edited June 7 by Luzifer's right hand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 8 hours ago, kiko said: Can someone explain to me what makes reddit so special that it woul be a loss? Don't say the community, network effects are understood. It's not terribly different from what Digg used to be, and who remembers Digg now, really? I use it regularly for various topics, but if it disappeared I imagine I'd find other sources of the same discussions and information I'm looking for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 I like Reddit. I use it for consumer reviews, as the results on Google are just one big ad-fest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiko Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 Okay you all explained to me that you use it because of the content. But that's the network effect. What are the features that makes reddit worth keeping? Can't be the UI, because it's just terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luzifer's right hand Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 (edited) 17 minutes ago, kiko said: Okay you all explained to me that you use it because of the content. But that's the network effect. What are the features that makes reddit worth keeping? Can't be the UI, because it's just terrible. That's why people are so annoyed about the API thing I guess. I only use it on the PC and I find the UI works well enough. A lot of people prefer the old reddit UI which is still available as an option. Obviously a similar site would work just as well be the transition phase would do suck until enough people that are interested in the same things moved to that site. I'm over 30. Change is bad. Edit: on the being old part I never really got into video based game social media and the part of reddit I use feels like the last somewhat active holdout. Even the official forums of games and steam discussion pages are usually pretty dead. On reddit you get responses in minutes for the stuff I'm interested in. Edited June 7 by Luzifer's right hand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalnak the Magnificent Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 14 minutes ago, kiko said: Okay you all explained to me that you use it because of the content. But that's the network effect. What are the features that makes reddit worth keeping? Can't be the UI, because it's just terrible. The feature is the community. That's the same for all social media. That community can eventually be reformed and remade but it takes a lot of time and won't always be the same. I guess I don't get that as an argument for reddit or Twitter- the value is the people, not the app. And that has immense value! JGP and Starkess 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilbur Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 10 hours ago, kiko said: Can someone explain to me what makes reddit so special that it woul be a loss? Don't say the community, network effects are understood. One aspect of Reddit that is very much comparable to the days of Internet 1.0 and sites such as listserv is the ability to be in a discussion on one Reddit forum and link to a related but separate topic discussion on another Reddit forum. Eg. A user is reading about the hybrid engine on the Ford Maverick forum, and sees a link to more information on the comparison of Atkinson vs Otto cycle engines in the Engineering forum. After following the discussion and better understanding the efficiency differences and how it drives the decision to use the hybrid on the Maverick, he or she returns to the original discussion better informed. And maybe joins the discussion on Engineering. Readers and users can follow the links and cross-links and maintain their user identities, stay within the overall site, and generally not "go off campus". This is only possible because of the catholic nature of Reddit, which has a forum for every topic imaginable, at least in English. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted June 7 Author Share Posted June 7 48 minutes ago, Wilbur said: A user is reading about the hybrid engine on the Ford Maverick forum, and sees a link to more information on the comparison of Atkinson vs Otto cycle engines in the Engineering forum. Isn't that how Mastodon works? As I don't, and never have, used any of these, whether Reddit, fb, twit, etc., I honestly have no idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalnak the Magnificent Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 56 minutes ago, Zorral said: Isn't that how Mastodon works? As I don't, and never have, used any of these, whether Reddit, fb, twit, etc., I honestly have no idea. Not really. Mastodon is more like twitter but with more local moderation and restrictions. Every server doesn't have a major identity of its own like reddits do. Zorral 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 3 hours ago, kiko said: Can't be the UI, because it's just terrible. For real. Reddit seems like something I'd love to use but the format of it and my brain simply do not work together. Half the time I click on something it does the opposite or something orthogonal to what I expect, or the post I'm reading disappears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Consigliere Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 (edited) 12 hours ago, kiko said: Can someone explain to me what makes reddit so special that it woul be a loss? Don't say the community, network effects are understood. Speaking purely from a football/soccer perspective, Reddit is incredibly useful for aggregating news. The dedicated subs for football teams have put in A LOT of effort analysing various reporters and coming up with a "tier guide" which has been incredibly useful at blocking out the bullshit merchants. For more niche subjects, I've found the dedicated Reddit subs to be very useful for Windows LTSC and Linux. Linux has so many distros that it can be overwhelming for a beginner and the various subs helped me greatly in choosing one that suits my needs - dual booting with Windows LTSC of course. r/datahoarder, r/plex, r/freemediaheckyeah and similar subs have been very useful to me. Edited June 7 by Consigliere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Consigliere Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 (edited) 10 hours ago, dog-days said: Pictures of rare dog breeds and funny stories about people's pet guinea pigs. r/aww and similar subs always makes my day better. Old.reddit is way better though. RES extension is a must on desktop. Boost is my app of choice on mobile. The official Reddit app is dogshit. Edit. Yeah, the UI is not great but as @Kalnestk Oblast said, it's the community that makes it. Sure, there are a lot of crappy subs but also many that are incredibly useful. Edited June 7 by Consigliere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGP Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 I took a relatively long break [4 to 5ish months] from online sheesh, and lo, it was good. When I decided to do so I also requested my archive and deactivated my Twitter account, and lo, my mood was better. Week 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Varysblackfyre321 Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 he’s ideologically at least a Nazi-sympathizer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
felice Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 2 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said: Not really. Mastodon is more like twitter but with more local moderation and restrictions. Every server doesn't have a major identity of its own like reddits do. Well, it depends on the server to an extent. The boundaries are a lot fuzzier than on reddit, but some servers have very strong local communities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted June 8 Share Posted June 8 I guess if you want a technical answer about Reddit, the big selling features would probably be around it's scalability and I have to assume something with it's database management. No other forum style site I'm aware of is even close to handling the number of subforums and users that Reddit has. That's going to be entirely backend technology that we don't even have to think about as an end user though, so not surprising we don't have the details Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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