BartramJun 13, 2023
Alex

One of the main tragedies of #Reddit decline is that it was one of the last big bulwarks against #SEO-driven enshittification of the web, which’ll only get worse now with LLMs.

I don’t want to know the 7 Best Soundbars for Gaming in 2023, I want to know if a Nintendo Switch can pass its 5.1 PCM signal through a TV and out via the HDMI eARC port fully intact.

Anyway, good article on what all this decline means: https://defector.com/the-last-page-of-the-internet

The Last Page Of The Internet | Defector

Gradually over the last decade, Reddit went from merely embarrassing but occasionally amusing, to actively harmful, to—mainly by accident—essential. As the platform that swallowed niche message boards, it became home to numerous small communities of surprisingly helpful enthusiasts, and grew into a repository of arcane knowledge about, and instantly available first-hand expertise on, a staggering […]

Jun 12, 2023 at 3:58amMona for iPhone
Show threadAlexJun 12, 2023

We’re rapidly getting to the point where the only good stuff on the web—the Fediverse, Wikipedia, the Internet Archive—is volunteer-run.

#Reddit, #Bluesky and #ChatGPT aren’t going to save you.

Show threadAlexJun 12, 2023
#Reddit is also a reminder of what the web used to be. Aside from its vast range of user generated topics, it’s also still a www domain and its main metaphor—“the front page of the internet”—still conceives of the internet as a discrete place/object, rather than a continuous medium.
Show threadZippy WonderdustJun 12, 2023
@eARCwelder The best of it has aways been volunteer-run for as long as I can remember — and I’ve had an email address since 1988.
Show threadChris AdamsonJun 12, 2023
@eARCwelder Good examples. I’ve been saying for a while now that the last good page on the Internet is going to be AO3.
Show threadandreasJun 12, 2023
@eARCwelder always been this way.
Show threadrastilinJun 12, 2023

@eARCwelder

Look on the plus side. We're all being motivated to switch to open source distributed services; and SEO driven enshittification loses its power when we just stop using Google all together.

Show threadAlexJun 12, 2023
@rastilin Right, I dropped Google a little while back for Kagi. Happy to use open and/or paid services instead of feeding the ad machines.
Show threadrastilinJun 12, 2023

@eARCwelder

Me too. I especially like that Kagi lets you block domains, which I do for anything that seems like a SEO'd blog-domain. It's a feature that Google desperately needs.

Show threadDaniel VydraJun 12, 2023
@eARCwelder yes and no, it was very convenient for that, in a kinda “how do I X reddit” search way, but lots of good topic specific forums existed before reddit and we might see a bit of splintering back to those (avsforum, ars technica, flyertalk, gamefaqs, resetera, etc etc)
Show threadAlexJun 12, 2023
@daniel Yep, avsforum has been really useful for me in the past and I’ve been hooked on gamefaqs since the early days (I think I first used it with an #snes game!). I think you’re right that we’ll see some splintering back and renewed interest in them going forward (or at least I hope that’s what happens).
Show threadDaniel VydraJun 12, 2023
@eARCwelder me too, I feel like communities could incorporate upvoting tech for q&a pretty easily. Biggest challenge is getting critical mass.
Show threadandreasJun 12, 2023
@eARCwelder so sad, so true
Show threadBartramJun 13, 2023
@eARCwelder it was always a moment of “wait, what?” when the first Google search result for my overly specific query was Reddit.