This is how you bankrupt Reddit
Posted by silverbullet20@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 140 comments
In order to convince a Reddit user to switch to an alternative, we must identify something Reddit is inherently weak at—something they cannot fix, no matter what, because their entire business relies on it. For example, when DuckDuckGo (DDG) started, they knew they couldn’t simply say, “Here’s another search engine supported by ads, just like Google. Please switch.” Instead, they focused on an area where Google was weak: privacy.
Since Google’s entire business model revolves around selling ads, and ads require extensive personal data collection, Google cannot adopt a “we will not violate your privacy” approach because it would conflict with their core business of data collection.
So, what is Reddit's weakness that an alternative can leverage to differentiate itself from Reddit?
Let's explore:
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Federation: This won't work because 99% of users don’t even understand the problem it solves. It’s far too technical. If your grandfather can’t log in and use the product without assistance, it’s too complicated for the average person.
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Open Source, No Venture Capitalists: Again, this is too niche and "inside baseball" for the average Reddit user. Only a small group of tech enthusiasts and nerds care about this.
So, what’s the solution? Cloning Reddit with a fresh coat of paint and promising to be ethical and honest won’t work—everyone claims that. Simply copy-pasting Reddit content to a new platform won’t work either because you’ll always be playing catch-up.
The key is to find something Reddit, as a company, is inherently bad at and something they can't fix, no matter how much money they invest, because it’s incompatible with their business model.
Autumnwood@reddit
I'm on your side. So don't get me wrong here.
You can show all the weaknesses you want. It won't get people off the platform. There is something here that keeps people - quantity of people with quality answers to their problems. Also there is social media quality that can't be found elsewhere.
I gave the federated apps a really fair shot. The type of answers I would get here were not there. And that's if I was lucky enough to find a similar community there.
Additionally, front pages on the other apps were always random political posts or no-quality posts. I never see these things on Reddit unless I go looking for them. It's probably the way my app is set up, but it's overwhelmingly ugly on the federated apps. I just stopped using them.
If someone can provide for folks what would be missing from here, I'm sure a lot of us would jump ship. We haven't forgotten Reddit antics.
Sowhatsthecatch@reddit
This is an important point and often understated. The quality of the front page of most of these alternatives are so incredibly low that it makes the buy in incredibly difficult. Discuit, for example, is 70% politics, 30% lowest of the low quality posts. Think your elderly aunt making ‘memes’ on fb. So it has the same problem that the Lemmy’s and the like have : it requires buy in and set up. I personally, am not interested in putting in work to manicure a feed right out of the gate. That should be something that comes naturally through use. I don’t go searching for the Reddit communities that grab me, they grab me in passing because they’re interesting.
As a pure conjecture, but related, if you’re not interested in reading (and only reading) about American politics then Reddit is currently the best site by a mile. Everything else is just the same regurgitated political bullshit ad nauseum.
Autumnwood@reddit
Yes! "The quality of the front page is so incredibly low". I didn't say this and pointed to the political posts, but it's this, what you said. There were more than political posts. It was garbage memes and nonsense waste of time stuff. How does one filter random nonsense?
BlazeAlt@reddit
You go on https://lemm.ee/c/newcommunities@lemmy.world, have a look at the topic posts, go through, and see which community might interest you
Autumnwood@reddit
Thank you
BlazeAlt@reddit
You are welcome!
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
The network effects are great obstacles. I'm on reddit and a lemmy and the twitter-style fediverse. I see stuff there. I post stuff there. I see stuff here. I post stuff here.
Reddit's quality has tanked since the API purge. Maybe not in a way that's perceptible to you yet, but with all the people who just said fuck this and left, that "quantity of people with quality answers" is declining.
you were on lemmy.ml weren't you? don't go to that one.
On federated apps it really matters which server you join because most of them show other posts from the same server on the front pages, and you have to dig a bit deeper to get posts from other servers. So if you join a server about making games then you see a lot of game making content when you log in. It also ensures inter-server politics won't affect the game making content you see. Servers should be treated more like forums with bonus cross-forum access features than like one big system. You can have more than one account, of course, if you want.
Autumnwood@reddit
Ha I think you're right, I was on .ml. I think I left it and went to a different one or made a different account - it's starting to come back to me.
Do you have suggestions? I'm definitely willing to try again. Maybe things are better now than when I was using it? I can try.
BlazeAlt@reddit
https://lemm.ee is a good option.
https://lemm.ee/c/newcommunities@lemmy.world to find communities relevant to you
Autumnwood@reddit
Thank you
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
the main one I know is the piracy lemmy, where the r.piracy mods moved to, on lemmy.dbzer0.com
BlazeAlt@reddit
Thank you for your comment. We usually recommend to block the politics and news communities.
After that, the feed gets much more interesting, and other communities start showing up
Autumnwood@reddit
I will try that. I usually set up word filters, but can try blocking those communities.
Which service do you like? I think I've tried lemmy. I also have something called Three Cheers, and Bluesky.
BlazeAlt@reddit
I'm usually on Lemmy. Bluesky is centralized while they pretend to be decentralized https://lemm.ee/post/41714674
Three Cheers is Tildes, and a bit too quiet for me
ProbablyMHA@reddit
Reddit came to power because its only competitor Digg killed itself by scrapping its core UX/features. I believe Reddit was originally a Digg clone with a slight libertarian bent, with content mostly reposted from Digg. It wasn't innovative, Digg just regressed.
I think it's more marketing than innovation that makes social media succeed. It's about being able to appeal to an audience. "Content is king". After that, it's waiting for the incumbent to keel over from either its audience getting bored/aging out or enshittification.
mad_edge@reddit
That’s not unlike Reddit killing itself with ads - wonder if the likes of Lemmy could be successful if they started with quality Reddit reposts (it’s also quite difficult to find quality content of Reddit)
BlazeAlt@reddit
I repost quality content to Lemmy, that's definitely true
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
You're right. People need a reason to go to the site and if your site makes sense for them to go to, they'll go to it. My homepage used to be Not Always Right because it was funny.
Reddit started without comments because there weren't enough real people to leave comments. It was a bot-posted and curated internet homepage. People went there because the homepage always had interesting links. After enough real people went there, they started allowing comments.
resolutiona11y@reddit
Let's entertain this. You're asking questions. I don't see any suggestions.
If I could figure out those two items, sure, I'd happily build a social app.
BlazeAlt@reddit
Lemmy has low cost per user (around 0.80$ per user per month) so donations are enough to keep the servers running.
We have a lot of mods as most of them left Reddit and came to Lemmy
https://lemm.ee/
tankerkiller125real@reddit
My problem with Lemmy, many, many of the same exact subs for the same exact thing spread across many different instances. If I wanted to say look at beekeeping, I have one for the local instance, another for a different instance, and like 15 others with varying amounts of users. Sure I could subscribe to all of them, or maybe just the most popular one. But why? Why can't they all just be merged into one view, with one big button that subscribes me to all of them? Why do I have to go to each individual instance and subscribe to each one?
BlazeAlt@reddit
For beekeeping, the most active one is definitely https://mander.xyz/c/beekeeping with 97 users per month.
The others have barely 1 user: https://lemmyverse.net/communities?query=beekeeping
So here it's clear. And it's similar to Reddit. You have /r/games as the main gaming community, but there is also /r/Gaming, /r/videogames /r/gamers, etc.
Everyone is free to create a sub on both Reddit and Lemmy. Getting popular enough to survive is how some make it while most die.
RemarkableLook5485@reddit
in their defense it’s confusing when the communities are decentralized and* have no differentiating name. for gamers, they’ll start to know which subs are the good ones because of the names
BlazeAlt@reddit
I have two people named Tom, one is a dear friend, the other is not, I never confuse them
RemarkableLook5485@reddit
Delete both their last names in your phone and then report back.
BlazeAlt@reddit
But instances are always mentioned next to communities names, so what is the issue?
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
You start to remember the server names, like the piracy community is on dbzer0.
RemarkableLook5485@reddit
i hear you but sorry, that is not good enough for the mass adoption. and it’s unnecessary friction as of now
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
Your problem is that you can have more than one sub with the same name. But Reddit has the opposite problem - all the good names are taken and you can influence people with the name. E.g. worldnews is a propaganda operation, but because it got the name "worldnews" people still flock to it and assume it's world news.
What you're complaining about it just how decentralized systems always are. I can have a web page called "beekeeping" and you can have a web page called "beekeeping" and people could bookmark all of them, but why? Why can't they all just be merged into one beekeeping web page? Why should I have to go to each website?
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
How do you calculate 80 cents per user per month? And for thousands of users, that's a lot.
BlazeAlt@reddit
I linked it in another comment, but here it is: https://lemm.ee/post/41577902?scrollToComments=true
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
So this is all based on servers with low amounts of users. In this case you only need one server, which costs the same no matter how many people use it. Small servers might also cost more relative to their computing power than big servers.
BlazeAlt@reddit
Indeed, Lemmy.ml goes as low as 0.03€ per month per user
Various-Singer4422@reddit
azodu solves both those things. Moderation with AI and an architecture that is extremely cheap to scale. No funding necessary. I can scale azodu to 1m DAU for $300/month.
sexyama@reddit
do you use chatgpt api or somethjng else?
resolutiona11y@reddit
How are you itemizing those costs?
AI inference is not free. That requires servers, electricity, and bandwidth. Either yours or someone else's. When you host in the cloud, your rate is based on resource utilization. It's easy to spend over $10K on hosting in AWS.
Data storage and retention are not free. You must handle geographically separated database replication for terabytes of content over time. The 321 rule is for disaster recovery.
How much data are you storing? If you are self-hosting video content, the cost will skyrocket.
How much are you investing into security and CVE patches when a vulnerability is inevitably discovered?
I'm not willing to believe it's "extremely cheap" until I see the numbers. I work in software engineering.
firebreathingbunny@reddit
Free speech. Reddit is ideologically and financially captured and cannot allow free speech.
However, it turns out that, when a competitor does allow free speech (8kun, Scored Communities, Poal, talk.lol, etc.) most of you get upset. You start complaining. You can't take it.
The problem isn't with Reddit. The problem is with you. Y'all are too soft.
minneyar@reddit
The problem is that you think "free speech" means "speech without consequences." You just don't like it when you face repercussions for being a jerk.
"Freedom of speech" means the government cannot punish you for what you say, and, outside of a few particular categories, they do not. That doesn't mean private citizens can't decide they don't want to listen to you and then show you the door.
Fucking_That_Chicken@reddit
well cool, governments inherently have a monopoly on the legitimate ability to "impose consequences" so the analysis stops there. one private citizen attempting to "impose consequences" on another -- for any reason whatsoever, and no matter whether this is relational aggression or some other form of violence -- is cruisin' for a bruisin' by the government's very much bigger stick
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
so if I block you it's an illegitimate consequence?
Fucking_That_Chicken@reddit
yes, very clearly if you do those things with the intent to punish someone for what that someone says, those are illegitimate. like blackmail, it's the "I'm doing this to make you obey me" that's the problem
it's rare that it would amount to a punishment to block someone, but we can all envision cases where it would be (e.g. if you're the emergency services). same with telling your friend that I'm an asshole if you're doing so with a clear intent to induce him to impose "consequences" (e.g. "will no one rid me of this turbulent chickenfucker")
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
If someone punches me in the face and I punch them back is that an illegitimate consequence?
firebreathingbunny@reddit
You misspelled "threats". You're a fascist.
RedditAlternatives-ModTeam@reddit
Comments must be civil. What does this mean? No racism, homophobia, blasphemy, arguments, drama, trolls, insults, slurs, automated rage bots, political attacks, profile fishing, etc.
Use your best judgement. If something feels rude, it probably is rude.
RecentMatter3790@reddit
But I hat about if people start being racist and saying whatever they want? Would you be upset too?
More like filtered-speech instead of free speech.
Free speech doesn’t exist because people cannot say whatever they want without consequences
hy7211@reddit
I would simply ignore it and not take the person seriously. Instead of being overly-sensitive about it.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
What do you do if 90% of your site homepage is racism because everyone is posting racism though? You leave the site. Site owners don't want that.
hy7211@reddit
I would ignore it. I might also use the block button if I really don't like a user.
With a Reddit type of website, I could also filter the homepage to communities that tend to have no racist content. Like how I treat subreddits that tend to have political propaganda: instead of demanding those subreddits to get banned, I simply filter them out from the homepage.
If a website or community is getting filled with racist content, then the owners/mods should wonder why their website or community is attracting so many racists users. The owners/mods could also try to figure out how the racists were allowed in so easily e.g. can any anonymous user become a member or is an invite required from a current member? is the membership free or do you have to pay a subscription fee to an owner who is a minority or an anti-racist?
Also, you should keep in mind that if a website has a downvote button, then that button can get misused by the racist users. You could get heavily downvoted just for speaking out against them.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
what if the communities you like were full of that content?
firebreathingbunny@reddit
Nobody in Reddit's administration has a problem with racism because they're just fine with anti-white racism. Racism as a general concept is clearly not an issue.
hy7211@reddit
Looks like they're proving your point.
minneyar@reddit
I'm willing to bet your grandfather can use e-mail, which was the original federated service. It's not too complicated; people have just become so conditioned to using centralized service that they just assuming anything else must be too complicated. The real problem is that massive corporations spend billions of dollars advertising their services, whereas federated services are generally run by private individuals who have no marketing budget and have to rely on word of mouth to spread awarements.
BTW, Lemmy is the federated equivalent to Reddit. Try https://lemm.ee
mikeevansmassivecock@reddit
Had him try. He tried creating an account on lemmee.see, verified his email, and got hit with a "Registration approval pending." message and never went back.
Test failed.
BlazeAlt@reddit
Which instance is that? The domain name doesn't redirect to anything
minneyar@reddit
If your grandpa cannot understand the concept of waiting for his registration to be approved, is he actually ok to be using the internet?
mikeevansmassivecock@reddit
Not understanding and not wanting to bother with the inconvenience of something that's been automated for sites for decades are pretty different.
But hey, thanks for demonstrating the condescending nature that has been and will keep driving away the majority of potential users.
BougGroug@reddit
It's not complicated to use, but it is complicated to explain why it's better than centralization. I think federation alone is not a selling point strong enough for most people
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
You're right. We need to stop using it as a selling point. But there aren't any other selling points. Lemmy is Reddit but federated. Mastodon is Twitter but federated. Perhaps the same selling point can be dressed up differently: you get to choose who's in charge of your account, instead of it always being silicon valley venture capitalists.
BlazeAlt@reddit
Lemmy has no ads, and does not promote hidden ads as legit posts
minneyar@reddit
I think the real selling point behind the federated model for most people is that it is inherently resistant to corporate control, which means no ads, and nobody is harvesting and selling your personal data.
Unfortunately, for a lot of people, first you have to get them to care about what companies do with their personal data...
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
And why should they? The worst impact is that their insurance randomly goes up, but that happens all the time anyway.
Guilherme_Sartorato@reddit
Ah, I miss Yahoo Groups. The groups would have 3 e-mail accounts: for posting, for (un)subscribing and a third one Reddit would call "modmail". You'd check your groups activities through the automated posting e-mail account of the group. Used it before the creation of Reddit, and found it better than webchat rooms and IRC.
hy7211@reddit
So no thanks. The downvote button is something I largely dislike about Reddit. It's way too easy to abuse and misuse.
BlazeAlt@reddit
Nice comment
DamionDreggs@reddit
Free API access.
ProbablyMHA@reddit
Clearly not a feature users care about
DamionDreggs@reddit
There was a reddit user Exodus because of the API access restrictions that were brought into policy more than a year ago 🤷
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
That was because reddit shut down third-party apps, not because they shut down the API.
DamionDreggs@reddit
They didn't shut down third party apps though. They made it cost prohibitive to keep third party apps working by altering the cost structure of their api
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
Reddit makes an individual financial deal with each app. It's not like they just updated the API pricing and then each app had to pay the pricing. Actually Reddit doesn't even have any automatic system to collect this money. They just say pay us this much or we'll block you from the API.
DamionDreggs@reddit
So you see how this makes it difficult for app developers to even want to make third party apps, yes?
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
What makes app developers not make apps isn't scrapers paying money, it's that third party apps are treated the same as scrapres.
DamionDreggs@reddit
They didn't have a problem with scrapers until OpenAI started showing interest in the data.
It all comes down to having an open and free API, like I said.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
It comes down to OpenAI. Reddit wants to sell its data to OpenAI and management is incompetent to prevent collateral damage because management is incompetent. Reddit could have said third-party apps are allowed, but AI is not. Half the API still works with no payment anyway. Reddit specifically blocked the API keys of these apps. You can generate your own API key and use it with some of these apps, and they work once again for free.
DamionDreggs@reddit
Sounds like a lot of friction for developers to build integrations with what amounts to a message board forum.
Again, the point of thia conversation is asking what would make a better competitor to reddit.
A platform with an easy to use API without all the restrictions and friction would make a better competitor to reddit.
The fact that a conversation even needs to be had about loopholes and cost management is the reason no one wants to build shit on this platform.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
Nobody wants an API, everyone wants a good app.
DamionDreggs@reddit
Everyone's ideas of a good app is different. You need an API to encourage a diverse app ecosystem. It's a dependency problem that reddit can't do correctly right now, because of all the things we've already talked about.
If you want a good app, start with a good API.
Users don't care about the API. They care about what developers do with the API.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
So you agree, users don't want an API
DamionDreggs@reddit
Sure. You're right. I completely change my perspective now and no longer see how a free and open API would provide a better user experience 🙄
ProbablyMHA@reddit
I don't disagree that a free API is a pro-user feature. It's just that most users don't care for it and will never use it.
DamionDreggs@reddit
The apps that users use will use the API though. That's what it does.... It powers the user experience.
It's like saying commuters don't want a nice roads, they just want a comfortable commute so focus on the commute and not the roads..
If you make the roads nice, the quality of the commute is directly improved even if the user doesn't know or care about the roads themselves.
kdjfsk@reddit
reddit cant fix its moderator problem.
reddit relies on this free labor, and the mods do it for free because they push their own narratives, abuse users, and stroke their own ego.
imo a good platform would:
AND
so mod A might promise to block only literal spam, like crypto scams.
mod B might block all politics
mod C blocks what they consider right wing misinformation.
mod D blocks what they consider left wing misinformation.
mod E blocks anything sexual
Mod F blocks illegal sexual stuff
Mod G blocks sexual stuff that isnt high quality.
users then basically subscribe/unsubscribe from whatever combination of mods suit their preferences, just like they sub and unsub from subreddits.
theres no need for a democratic vote...because theres no need for everyone to have the same mods on a digital platform.
AND
also give users powerful filtering tools. Reddit Enhancement Suite has some of these, butnot all.
let users auto-filter posts and comments by keywords. the user can block any content with the word Trump, or Biden, or Harris, etc. block words related to political issues.
let users block other users who use certain words. block everyone who uses the n word all at once, with the click of a button if you want. let people block them only if they say it more than x times total, or x times a month. same for any word. tired of people who use the word "climate"? block em. how about the phrase "illegal alien"? block them, too.
if you have filters like this, advertisers will feel safer that no one will see their ads next to content they dont like...because users can self vaporize all content they dont like before they even see it, and subscribe to mods who'll block the rest.
sexyama@reddit
You need mods to create subs and kickstart communities.
Growing subs from zero to 1000m subscribers is actually the hard part.
kdjfsk@reddit
there would still be mods, users can just unsub from the mods actions if they want.
NecroSocial@reddit
Mainchan.com does this in a broad sense. It allows free speech (and thus the perils therein) however certain types of posts (like NSFW, NSFL, Politics) must be tagged as such (or be removed or tagged by mods). Users can then use simple toggles in the profile sidebar or check-off in their settings to filter out or filter for those tags.
The site admin is active in working with user input to improve site features. Thus further filtering options are on the table should a demand or need for them arise. This ability to self moderate allows the site to offer an anonymous posting feature that eliminates the need for Reddit's famous throwaway account problem. About to make an uber personal or spicy post? A lil checkbox lets you anonymize/deanonymize as you like. Meanwhile users are free to filter out your brand of spicy. More people should try it out.
PrincessPiratePuppy@reddit
We went down this road - generally it's a great idea but it has 2 major glaring issues. 1. People do not actually take the time to set preferences. 2. You will not build a 10x better platform this way. It is not enough of an advantage to gain traction.
kdjfsk@reddit
this is a UI issue, imo. like in RES you have to...
open RES
goto the right section
scroll to down to right section of the section
type in fucking regex like a nerd.
there should be a quick sidebar feature, single click. the page should do the regex for you. if i put trump in the box...it should block trump, Trump, Trumptard, etc. automatically. no one is going to learn regex. just do it for the user.
i disagree. users main beef on reddit is the mods. its a meme. ditch em. just let people post funny bullshit, they'll go.
Efficient_Star_1336@reddit
Moderator subscriptions are a good idea, but most of the people who want anything banned want it banned for everyone, not just themselves. It's also true that spurious claims of "harassment" were used to kill subs (famously FPH) back when reddit's sitewide moderation was still officially non-partisan and apolitical.
That said, the sites that are still aligned with the pre-2018 internet on freedom of speech would benefit a lot from this feature. As an (extreme) example, imageboards generally do as you suggest by allowing users to filter posts with a regex, but an extra layer that lets users subscribe to more intensive moderation of spam, shitposts, and the like in an organic way would make them a lot more usable.
ProbablyMHA@reddit
IIRC Bluesky does something like this by letting people subscribe to labelers. It didn't solve the mod legitimacy problem. The mods were still abusive and the users would mudrake the mods and harass them into quitting.
TheArstaInventor@reddit
Thought you had something going there until I read that you cross out federation and opensource lol, without either any alternative will be just as bad as reddit even if not at the very beginning, we need to address the root cause, and that is centralization and closed source (as well as VCs) when it comes to reddit, you seem to want exactly that in a new alternative.
This is the issue, people fail to understand that you need to give up something to gain something, sure federation is not as simple as using a centralized platform like reddit (but it's also not anywhere complicated as people make it to be, confused? Just join the most popular server and sign in, just go to the link and sign in with your email like you would on reddit, nobody is asking you to host servers and go through other hoops, that won't be you) but it matters because it solves to route cause of why reddit is where it is today and why it has and continues to become shit.
Same goes to open source vs closed source backed up VCs, companies will always aim to please VCs if they exist, not the users.
This arguement is flawed.
Emergency_Plankton46@reddit
I'm curious if anyone with this opinion would be willing to post what they consider to be the best thing they have seen on an open source alternative made in the last week.
faustianredditor@reddit
I think OP's point was very clearly that FOSS and federation aren't sufficient arguments to switch for the average user. OP didn't say you can't be FOSS or federated, and I think it's probably better for the users if you are. But simply being FOSS or federated won't get my grandpa to switch from reddit. You need a value-add that the average user cares about, otherwise you're not going to reach the critical numbers of users needed for network effects.
Yes, you can have a FOSS/Federated alternative with an active community. But just because you're FOSS/Federated doesn't mean you will dethrone reddit.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
You know what would make grandpa switch? Being able to see what his grandson is doing i.e. network effects.
faustianredditor@reddit
Yes. I'm well aware. As said, you don't reach the critical numbers for those network effects by simply being FOSS/Federated. You need, at least according to OP, some other value add. I'm inclined to agree, there's plenty of FOSS/Federated services out there, and growth is mediocre whenever reddit isn't fucking up. A consistent pattern of not-fucking-up is perhaps a decent value-add whenever reddit fucks up, but that's hardly reliable for consistent growth.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
Maybe a site that just mirrors Reddit but with less bullshit would be useful. Some subreddits, like programming, are still high-quality.
BlazeAlt@reddit
If we talk about original content, https://lemm.ee/c/gardening@lemmy.world is a good example
If we talk about improvement of the platform itself, there is now a bot for live thread matches on https://lemm.ee/c/football@lemmy.world
stay_fr0sty@reddit
The main thing you are missing in your argument is that the majority of Reddit’s user base is happy.
Federation and Open Sourcing the code solves problems very few people care about. And if they care about those problems, they’ve likely already switched.
Not to mention, Federation has its own problems: far less content/discussion, duplication of subs, extremist moderators, etc. Very few people here want that amount of change when Reddit doing just fine for an anonymous message board.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
The majority of facebook's user base is happy enough to stay on facebook, but nobody cares about facebook, nothing important happens on facebook. Old ideas die when their believers die, not when their most stubborn believers replace them with new ideas. People were still using Myspace until the end.
spacebulb@reddit
Federation and open source are literally the answers for a decent Reddit alternative; nothing more than a matter of marketing. What do you market open source as? how do you market federation? these are not questions for tech people these are questions for the people most tech people hate… ad people.
Skyis4Landfill@reddit
Reddit’s weakness is censorship. Not even including it dozens of niche subs that went private or were banned (and I’m not including pure hate groups, a lot of cool subs got removed for dumb reasons, the popular page isn’t even world events anymore like it used to, it’s literally the same shit over and over everyday. I used to use Reddit to keep up on what was going on in the world, now it’s so censored I actually feel like watching tv news might be better. That’s gotta be one of the biggest ways to win people over.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
You're doing the same thing, you can't market open source, federation, or different censorship. You have to market what users want. Hacker News is a centralized, heavily moderated forum, and people subscribe because it's moderated in a way to show the things that its users want to see. It's because anything not related to technology is censored that people go there for technology.
ikediggety@reddit
You're overthinking it. People don't choose a social platform for technical reasons. They choose a social platform for social reasons. People will adopt an alternative when there are enough people there that they already like.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
yeah i had to join instagram because i wanted to talk to people who mainly use instagram. Sucks.
jtnishi@reddit
The weakness is obvious, but fixing it is not. The weakness is the same damn one that all companies have: they need to make money. Servers, networking, engineers, administration. That isn’t free for the most part (moderation being a touchy subject on its own).
Honestly, the best alternative is probably not to compete with Reddit in the broad, but in the narrow: charge a small sub fee that hopefully is enough to run things but small enough that users are okay with it for the delivered value. That will never work for a large broad social media site like Reddit, but a more focused community that has value to being in a group might make it work.
Would it work? I doubt it TBH. But I think trying to “beat” a large social media company in whole without a ridiculously sized war chest is fools folly.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
I foresee a network of small to medium digital cooperatives. A group of friends pitches in like a buck a month, and the most techy guys in the group run the servers. They run federated services like email, fediverse, web hosting, file sharing.
hy7211@reddit
That seems to be how Locals works.
BlazeAlt@reddit
Lemmy has a very low cost per user: from 0.11$ per user per month on average to as low as 0.03€ per user per month. Donations keep the servers on
https://lemm.ee/post/41577902?scrollToComments=true
cyb3rfunk@reddit
Cap number of threads/posts per day on a sub. Allow subscribers of that sub to pay to remove the cap.
Efficient_Star_1336@reddit
This is a good line of questioning - you need a unique value-add to compete. So far, the big approaches have been:
Allow the other half of the Overton Window on, and attract users by coordinating an exodus among soon-to-be-banned subs. The big FPH backlash created Voat, which lasted a while, and T_D foresaw its getting shut down and created its own offshoot. Anchored by T_D (with a handful of other smaller exodus communities), dot win might be the most active alternative, by some metrics. Anything that might be censored already has been, though, so the window for this has closed.
Create a better mobile app as an alternative to reddit's terrible one (which they're too slow and clumsy to improve), following the closure of third-party apps, and coordinate with moderator cliques sitewide to promote your alternative. Lemmy did this, and while it doesn't have the size or content diversity of Reddit, it's still around and will likely last for the forseeable future. Like the above, this has now been done, so the window has closed, though federation means that it's easier to get in on it.
Both of these approaches depend on a controversy that alienates a significant portion of the site's users for which no other website serves as a valid alternative. I don't think any remotely long-lived alternative hasn't relied on the initial boost of a controversy to get off the ground, so while "wait for the next one" isn't the most useful advice, I think it's the best we can do.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
theredpill is another sub that still has its own site. They think they got quarantined instead of banned, because reddit knows their users would totally go off site without a problem, and reddit wants to keep the MAU.
redditjoda@reddit
Reddit is FULL of bots and fake/multi accounts. The way you get rid of this is heavy centralization and identity verification. So to "improve" on Reddit is to completely go against your values of privacy and decentralization.
There may be another way via Web of Trust model, but personally I think most people would rather give up their privacy rather than deal with that.
aamfk@reddit
I don't agree that 'bots are bad'.
When YOU say 'Bot' I think you mean 'automated software'.
I don't give a fuck about 'automated software'. I don't GIVE a fuck about AI-Generated responses. They are appropriate MOST of the time.
I just don't like kids posing as pretty ladies and us not being able to PROVE that someone PRETENDING to live in Country123 ACTUALLY lives in Country123.
I don't think that Reddit is EVER going to help ME to find a girlfriend.
I think that this whole nonsense prohibiting 'self-doxxing' is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
we're talking about the ones who post propaganda and look like people, not RemindMeBot
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
On a decentralized platform you have two levels of identity. You have the server and then you have the accounts on the server. If I run a server and some other server is just full of bots, I block that whole server. And I try a CAPTCHA and email verification to stop bots from signing up on my server.
BlazeAlt@reddit
On decentralized platform, we have a higher number of mods as most of them left Reddit a while ago.
Bot and political shills get called out, and it's impossible to silence that as there isn't a single team in charge.
Donaldsfuckinglaura@reddit
The only right answer. We have to remove the Russian trolls from social media to make it useful. All trolls. Businesses even use them. Reddit knowingly uses them and makes money from them.
b183729@reddit
Sure. What is it?
stay_fr0sty@reddit
It’s a concept of a plan to replace Reddit.
Interesting-You-7867@reddit
They became so greedy and a replacement is a must
aamfk@reddit
I think that statement is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. There is NOTHING wrong with GREED. Whoever taught you that should be stuck in the fucking GULAG in siberia.
I don't LIKE a bunch of reddits decisions these last few years. like shutting down all those 3rd party apps? It's the same thing that twitter did. It's fucking bullshit.
But it's NOT because of GREED. It's because they need to defend their own CONTENT better.
MaleficentFig7578@reddit
It's because they want more money for less content, so, greed.
bob_jody@reddit
Thank you for your comment. I'm about to put my Kindergarten teacher in a chain gang for tell me that sharing is caring
stay_fr0sty@reddit
Sad.
muimi2@reddit
I wish we'd normalize being able to acknowledge a problem that needs solving without having to solve it simultaneously. This is a good post.
jazzresin@reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/tintyp/s/UT8OYunQ7i
Guilherme_Sartorato@reddit
I'd be happy with a Reddit clone that, besides its two-layered moderation system (admins + mods), had a third layer of moderation: OPs. They would have moderation powers over the comments people make on their posts. Of course the subs of such an alternative would need pre-moderation and/or whitelisting to make very clear mods won't tolerate bad posts aaand... abuse of moderation powers. That would hybridize actual Reddit moderation system with that of YouTube, where each account is treated like a channel and have moderation powers over the comment sections of their posts.
And would increase the platform ability to get rid of bots and bad comments by... 100x? How about 1000x?
mohirl@reddit
What a pointless post. Literally every single existing potential alternative to Reddit is superior to a vague how-to post that contains nothing beyond a bunch of blandly obvious criteria and no actual how-to.
Oh wait, op is an AI shitposter . That makes sense.
YourNewGoddess666@reddit
The most ironic thing is; the Decentralization is what Reddit is already doing via subreddits...
Even though most of the popular ones are modded by the same group of people (which are less than a hundred total...) there are also smaller subreddits still popular... this is similar to decentralized format... the thing with reddit is, it is also centralized... and some subreddits are prone to be more touchy on the ban wagon... along with other really power hungry factors...
The things we must see are not the advantages that reddit provides... it is it's downfalls...
The downfalls are based off the lack of net neutrality; this gives reddit the ability to lower our viewership and how often people would see our posts... the fact is; my post would likely be lower than everyone elses... or most peoples... i haven't done intensive research on this; but i think this is related to how much karma we have which will result in the placement...
There are also a lot of corrupt practices here... no subreddit will declare the exact amount of karma or how old our accounts are. like you could end up writing a really long thing... that is heartfelt or intuitive to the process... only for you to get a message saying your comment or post have been removed because of those specific reasons... they should at least tell us... i mean why would this be hidden or difficult to find? most subreddits have rules placed in their thing... and the more popular the group the longer the rules are... and some of them have temporary rules...
People just want to post... unrestricted...
though this would have plenty of unnecessary rebuddles; for instance to remove spam or bot posts in high number... but these are still making their way into the subreddits... the bots are another problem...
people want fluid content as well; because the more active users scroll and like seeing new things; or at least stay up to date with their subreddits... reddit defaults the home page to "best" which really has no clear indicator for what "best" means; as it has a wide range of karma and comments... and half the time they seem to mind read what i was thinking... which is really trippy...
The main thing to think of; is what is already causing reddit to feel shitty to you...
for me... it is the downvotes... people can silence you with one downvote which will drop the comment to the bottom of the page; it also causes people to gang up and mass downvote... there really is no reason for this... as this can prove to hurt some people's self confidence; and it is harrowing for those who have an already low self confidence...
where there are also other faults... that reddit has... mainly i have been looking around on various subreddits like this one; and such... turns out the things i pointed out are a common thing...
how would we persuade people to go from reddit to the new alternative?
Creativity...
many of the major subreddits are really anti-creativity... even the ones that are promoting your own works... this is a major fault in reddit... the thing with this is people collectively will critique your work... even if you don't want it... it kills the creative process and diminishes one's own ability of creative thought... whether it be to tell a story or share a song, a painting, etc.
Mainly; the way to provide a great insentive is to provide the knowledge that there is a lot of things that are not welcome in reddit... those unwelcoming things should be more welcoming in the alternative...
The alternative should not have an automative moderation using bots or any kind of AI... like many auto-mods here...
If you have read thus far; then you understand and agree... however many of the people here would downvote just because of the first paragraph. this is precisely why downvoting is negative for one's own wellbeing...
i will delete this if i come back and see it has been downvoted... like i do with all my posts... i don't like seeing downvotes... and i rarely downvote my self... unless it is a nefarious reason... not because it disagrees with my or your worldview...
downvotes are abused here in reddit... and they happen often to those who have their own opinions on various manners... (not only politics... but also in music and other subjects) i don't like music subreddits because i am unwelcome in most of them... and i am a composer.... go figure...
resolutiona11y@reddit
Why not? This is a rational way to moderate millions of users simultaneously. If you don't even have so much as regex checking for keywords...I don't know, it's matter of time before another Omegle situation happens. People will participate in illegal behavior. Can't rely on others to report it. So auto-moderation should be a consideration, at least for flagging the content
Prime624@reddit
I think what that person wants but doesn't realize, is just better built-in auto mod support. Instead of auto mod bots, the posting rules should be built-in to the post ui. You can't make a post without a title and it tells you this right on the page. Same should happen with other subreddit-specific rules. I'm not sure how this person got from "rules should be clearer" to "we shouldn't have rules" though.
YourNewGoddess666@reddit
when did i mention we shouldn't have rules?
YourNewGoddess666@reddit
do you know how many times i would have a post removed for how i express things... the mods don't take the human into consideration... i write with capital letters to either express excitement or to express emphatically spoken... and they are a few words or a sentence in the post... many will just remove the post just going off on that... or if you use a keyword...
i don't like having to read a long list of rules to post in a subreddit... this is because i whimsically think of something and want to express it... only to find that after spending an hour writing it; that it broke one of the rules... and trying to figure out those rules even if you have read them... you realize that just mentioning the rule it's self is enough for the auto-mod to remove the post...
after reading hundreds of individual rules of different subreddits can become difficult to keep track... and not all of the subreddits have such long rules...
this subreddit is really standard and has easy to remember rules that are practical; where others have a book for each number telling us that all we can post is a limited amount of things... by the end of their rules one may end up not wanting to post the thing... because then it may get taken down...
No subreddit should have their own terms and conditions... the reddit terms and conditions are long enough... plus "reddiquit" is kinda self explanitory... and has enough rules sitewide...
auto-mods take the context of these rules as a formula rather than how the post is implimented... i am on about those auto-mods... people can report things... and can block... though the blocking capability is limited here... and likely every other social media... so one ends up filling out their blocklist and they cannot block...
minneyar@reddit
This is not what people mean when they talk about decentralization. As long as you still have to connect to Reddit's servers, and they are in charge of your login information, and their admins can do anything they want to you, it is still centralized, no matter how many different subreddits there are.
Compare this to e-mail or Mastodon. You can set up your own e-mail or Mastodon server; nobody can stop you from running your own. You can own the hardware it runs on, you can control who uses your server, and you can communicate with everybody else who is running their own server (unless they decide to block you). That is what people mean when they talk about services that are "decentralized" or "federated". It's not a popular model nowadays because it can't be controlled by a single giant corporation, and all of the big social media sites are owned by a corporation that wants to keep you on their site so they can profit off of you.
YourNewGoddess666@reddit
yes; and each and every subreddit can ban you...
the only difference between reddit and decentralized network is they are opposite...
decentralized networks go from several servers; to one shared experience.
where reddit goes the opposite direction; each of the subreddits in this manner are kinda like individual servers... they are the same kind of process...
if you make a decentralized network server mad... this would constitute their deleting your profile just like how reddit mods are... this does happen... because i was deleted for being trans on a certain diaspora server... and had to move to another one... and that ended up being filled with p3dos...
reddit on the other hand has power hungry mods in several of their things... the mods in both variations have the final sayso on their server/subreddit... where the user is helpless otherwise.
the thing about these larger sites is they are collecting data on us... and this is without our conscious permission, we just click agree to the terms and conditions on the site... other wise most of us wouldn't use the site after reading that we already accept that they are using our data to perpetuate things and most of this is opt-out here on reddit...
which is not existent with most decentralized networks... the thing with most decentralized networks is they don't provide any suggestions and are difficult to pick up a lot of friends... not to mention most of them are full of various people who want me dead or silenced...
another difference is that i would much rather put blame on a company than to pit blame on a server mod...
you can set up your own subreddit... and no one is stopping you.
i don't like decentralized because it is far too difficult to actually enjoy... especially with the fact that most of them attract people who are wanting more of a freedom on free-speech. and this is really taxing on someone who already faces that kind of free speech else where...
Mastodon, Friendica, Diaspora, they all kinda felt socially restrictive... in fact it brought me face to face (per se) to people who would unreservedly degrade and discriminate... if they had that freedom of speech...
so no; i am speaking from experience. only people decentralized networks will benefit are those who are into a small bubble...
I cannot join a trans focused server... because those omit the music part... i cannot join a music focused server because they tend to be of the more popular genres and not obscure ones i listen to... (even though i listen to classical...) and even then it may prove to have some of the same people that wanna kill me...
we all have diverse values and loves... this is what makes a centralized thing work... and it is easier. the only thing is the owner of the said centralized network will have the option of joining the capitalist elite or sticking to the methods of before capitalism monotized social media...
some sites that have not fallen into the capitalist grasp are... the internet archive and wikipedia. every other site has ads and various other things... decentralized networking just makes it more difficult not to mention that these capitalist companies also make it difficult to find a server that meets your needs... not to mention the people like me whom just tend to spend their time on reddit when she's not writing music...
i occasionally type and i also delete a lot of my own posts... often.
myfunnies420@reddit
Okay. What about Reddit's strength? Quality and Size. I don't give af about federation, you gotta keep the lights on somehow. Open source? Also don't give a f about that.
How do you match the Quality and Volume? How does federation and open source help you do that?
Do you even manage product or a company?
Physical-Exam8193@reddit
aamfk@reddit
uh, I think that the fatal flaw of Reddit AND of Federated sites is that you fucking bastards censor people WAY too much for no reason. It's ridiculous.
ndneejej@reddit
Only way is for Elon to buy Reddit
omfgcow@reddit
Reddit's primary problem is that its simple voting mechanism amplifies groupthink, which compounds the quality decay inherent to popular user communication.
kdjfsk's proposals bear some similarity to what I've come up with over the past 8 years. My hypothetical solution focuses more on weighted voting, where a user's voting power increases or decreases based off similarity to a group's curators' votes. Various groups to cater to various preferences, while giving first-movers the ability to resist Eternal September effects, without forgoing the benefits of crowd-sourcing.
TechFiend72@reddit
How do you expect to pay for the infrastructure and development for a new Reddit?