cross-posted from: https://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.
it’s entire like that.
people’s tolerance for differences has degraded to the point what was once previously considered a difference of opinion is now considered ‘hate speech’.
the viewpoints that many folks have normalized today also, would have been considered totally insane 10 or so years ago. people are far more radical, and far more intolerant, and many lemmy users are here precisely because of their radical views they use to abuse others.
my heyday on reddit in the 2010s I was a part of a lot of diverse communities that simple could not exist in 2026. the majority of folks would be banned for offending users and violating the political ‘truths’ so many people cling to here on lemmy. i also watched in real time as my communities were invaded by these values and the tonal shift in content and interactions went from easy and fun and diverse to very serious and homogeneous. the ‘fun police’ came and basally reported friendly interactions in the name of ‘justice’, because as outside observers they saw in-jokes as abusive and awful.