cross-posted from: feddit.org/post/37870004

reddit got bad because spez (the reddit admin) restricted API access to the platform for third-party apps, such that people would be forced to use the official app or web UI, both of which display advertisement and collect user data (e.g. scroll behavior).

the reason why this happened is because reddit is a for-profit company and tries to extract money out of the userbase, at the expense of the users.

another example of a bad decision that reddit made was to push a lot of ragebait (“Am I The Asshole?”) because company shareholders want to see “engagement numbers” go up, and if somebody writes an angry reply to a post, that’s “engagement”. but it makes you angry at the stupidity of the “Asshole”, so it makes your day worse. that is another example how reddit makes money at the expense of the users.

size (number of monthly active users) is not what made reddit bad. commercialization is.

we should probably get rid of the “don’t make lemmy grow, it will ruin the platform if we grow” idea.

happy 10-year anniversary of the Unicode Mouse Incident, for those who celebrate!

the mouse fell out of a light fixture, was listed as an official meeting attendee, and given 0.002 votes

@Migueldeicaza I feel indifferent towards socialism, but dislike some socialists. I feel like people who attach their whole identity to some label can be extremely dogmatic.

@ai6yr @Nshrubs Up thread I linked youtube of someone doing battery replacement, though not sure same gen watch, not as bad as iphone, but battery soldered to phone. Not made to be replaced for sure.

I built this tool a year ago but I feel like Mastodon folks would like it

The "Weird Old Book Finder"

Type in a search query, and it'll find one randomly-chosen public-domain book that matches the query -- and present it for immediate reading: https://www.weirdoldbookfinder.net/

Why only one book? To prevent the paradox of choice! Just *start readin'*

Can't promise every book will be weird, but most are

A longer essay on how/why I developed it: https://debugger.medium.com/a-search-engine-that-finds-you-weird-old-books-3a74fbb5f3d4

This was a search for "mastodon"

@rolle @timitii Siis jos liikevaihto on lähemmäs 30 miljoonaa ja siitä jää voitoksi alle prosentti, niin hinnoittelussa on kyllä vikaa... Pari isompaa asiakasta jättää laskut maksamatta ja tilataan yksi isompi erä väärää tavaraa, niin tuo koko vuoden voitto katoaa kumpaan vaan...

No, what made Reddit bad was incivility, bots, trite comments, and theme accounts (and my axe!). It was massively popular, which exacerbated this stuff, and it incentivized upvotes.

Lemmy has upvotes but people seem less interested in them.

Here, we have the ability to mute toxic groups (defederate). We are decentralized, so it’s not just one dickhead in charge. Our users are, for the most part, civil and somewhat intelligent and funny.

I was with Reddit from 2012-2015ish and then lurking on and off until the API shit storm, and we are nothing like Reddit in my opinion - not that that was the intent of the original post but still

🥹 Postcard from my collection, mailed 1941.

@georgetakei
Funny how they never ‘apologize’ until they get caught!

@MuseumJoe@oldbytes.space this is a little too mean to comic sans

@davidgerard there was a bad joke I heard many years ago, something like "we're losing £1000 for every car we sell"
"That's ok, we'll make up for it in volume".

I didn't expect the joke's characters to dominate the world economy"

The original demographic was male, 20-40, geek. Conversations were pretty mild, very respectful.

Only if you were also a 20-40 yr old man.

Imagine being an adult human person with an education in something and a job that pays you money, and thinking Reddit is some sort of leftwing conspiracy. You literally had Ghislaine Maxwell moderating some of the biggest subs in the entire site and this guy thinks they’re leftists. Amazing.

Down here on planet earth, Reddit is not leftwing

@9to5Mac

@MuseumJoe you can pry my comic sans from my cold, dead hands! Although I do like this one.

Damn I remember that Nicole thing, feels like its almost ancient lore at this point.

@carnage4life I dunno man, I think he might be lying

protip: if you want to feel like an absolute genius here, all you have to do is read the actual articles before going to the comments.