Reddit used to be a great platform to discuss some topic and get different points of few in a friendly but factual manner. However, slowly it seems like the platform has become a lot more like Facebook, where it's been invaded by toxic people that are constantly looking for opportunities to shit and hate on others.
The change has been gradual so I really didn't notice it creep up on me. It's become super evident now having used Kbin and others for a week or so where people generally seem to be more friendly again and willing to actually discuss things in a usually civil way.
The difference is stark too. Today I replied to a comment saying that I hope things turn out better for them and wound up in a weird comment chain about how people were apparently insensitive for wanting to get a basic haircut that they for some reason couldn't afford themselves. Meanwhile, Kbin and the Fediverse feels like a refreshing place to actually converse with people once you get past the clunk and figure it out.
I think Reddit may well have reached that main stream social media saturation point where it very objectively now sucks. It happened originally with the internet itself thanks to the rise of the smartphone and this is just another iteration of it. I feel like Spez might as well get that bag at this point because they've ruined what used to be the platform people went to for social media without the bullshit, without algorithms to drive "engagement" and to avoid the toxic culture that has prevailed.
Thanks for reading my rant.
@Maxcoffee
Here is what I honestly think happened: a lot of older gen x and boomers saw their reputations destroyed on Facebook during the Trump Era.
The people who didn't leave Facebook because of them just put them on mute. They only had other old people to communicate with. This didn't satisfy them though, because really their entire ideology is wrapped around triggering other people.
So they went to reddit and discovered that anonymous shit posting was safer and their Facebook went back to livelaughlove largely.
When I joined Reddit 10+ years ago there was no "old.reddit.com" it was just reddit. The "new" UI was designed to basically entice users who found the original threaded discussion forum a bit daunting. But that (barely) complicated looking format kept a lot of lazy minded fools away from the place.
It's that way with literally every "scene". The easier it becomes to join, the more diluted the quality of the music/activity/discussion/hobby.
So....that's what happened. Reddit made reddit more palatable to a wider audience, and that wider audience includes a wider spread of the bell curve that is humanity. Sucks, don't it.
I don't know if you've seen the official phone app for Reddit but its an even worse version of that. There's no "hot" etc of your subscribed subs, rather it's now a firehose of whatever the algorithm thinks will piss you off enough to interact more with it.
I still can't believe people are okay with an algorithm choosing what they see on social media, let alone a completely private one where you have no clue how it works. Like, obviously because it's a bright-red flag that they're going to try to manipulate you. But even if you don't care about that, like, I want to see posts from communities and creators I've chosen to follow. Not have my feed flooded with garbage from random creators / communities.