I see a lot of comments from bootlickers on how the protests are dumb and stupid and dont work and engagement metrics are still holding but the quality of posts and comments has noticeably depreciated imo. So much so that whenever I visit the site Im actually shocked at how bad it is.
The quality of discussion here reminds me of when I joined Reddit like 12-13 years ago. The massive user base and tendency toward hivemind/dogpile responses, canned inside jokes, and repetitive content definitely made the experience stale and uninteresting the last few years. If you use the new website design and/or the first party app, you can see how the content delivery has become the same as every other social media, a nonstop torrent of visual candy you can flip through, with the comments becoming an afterthought. The only thing that kept me coming back to Reddit were the comment sections, and I feel a rebirth of that draw occurring in this open-source social universe.
Yes exactly! I’ve always be in Reddit for the comments sections. 12-13 years ago, back when forums and IRC were what there was (aka, DISCUSSION based communities where low effort posts didn’t blow up, and platforms were run by hobbyists and webmasters catering to communities rather than social media corps desperate for clicks). It was a better time to be online IMHO. I think part of it was that joining web communities was slightly unapproachable, which meant you had to be at least a little smart to realize that you wanted to join that community and figure out how to join it. But I think the format of the sites had a bigger effect in selecting the quality of content that got popular.
As you say, nonstop torrent of visual candy you can scroll through and click click click getting another ad impression or 12 each time.