When I was on reddit I wasn’t exposed to so many people with extreme absolutist views who will stop at nothing to maintain the echo chamber.
Very few people here are able to make concessions.
I just feel like every time I get on here I go away angrier. We won’t attract new users if we’re like this
Yes, I recall the content of reddit being much better around the same time you describe. There was a vast amount of actual original content produced directly by the users there at the time, and the quality of discussion was very good.
Over time as more people joined it, it seemed to become more and more of a sort of parody of itself, sort of like when you make a friend and introduce them to your group of friends, and they begin to use an inside joke that existed before they were there. Sometimes it’s still funny, but it is an odd feeling that when this new friend tells the joke, you can tell they don’t exactly understand why it’s funny themselves.
Reddit to me felt like this to the nth degree when I left. I suppose it really is a result of some kind of “herd” behavior; people just acting a specific way or saying specific things because they saw other people doing or saying the same things, but to the point it no longer goes any deeper than that and becomes bereft of any real meaning or deeper thought or variety.
Yes, it saddens me greatly to see how far Reddit had degraded. It was an amazing place back then. Then, again, I suppose the whole Web has changed. It’s much more compartmentalized now, and even worse, much more corporatized. Walled gardens, echo chambers, the whole nine yards.
Yes, there were echo chambers even back then, but it wasn’t as...well, I guess the word I would choose is “sanitized”. It was free-er, whatever that word may have meant. Honestly, I feel sad when I hear people say the Internet is magical. Because yes it can be from time to time, but they don’t know or remember or care that it used to be so much MORE magical.
The Internet used to be Leeroy Jenkins; now’s Leeroy’s gone and it’s just a rich executive in a suit trying to peddle the newest software as a service. :(