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.

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[–] mad_lentil@lemmy.ca 10 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

the RAMPANT sexism and racism as thinly veiled intellectualism that has gone on for DECADES

This what I came to associate with reddit.

This kind of very super shallow toxic intellectualism that consisted mostly of call-and-responses opinions play-acted in weird rituals really wore on me. Even the more organic conversations were more like people just slapping opinions at eachother.

Not that we're immune to ANY of this. Our smaller scale and decentralisation sidesteps the issue a bit, though. For now anyway.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I dont think it is likely to deteriorate in the same way. The mainstream service algorithms reward engagement and make no value judgments about the type of engagement. Since its easier to get engagement by spouting bombastic false claims and unsupportable opinions, that is the bulk of what you see.

Lemmy barely rewards engagement, if at all, so the perverse incentive to be a jerk on purpose is simply just not there. Surely, drawing a broader audience will shift discussion toward humanity's lowest common denominator, but it doesn't actively encourage that particular bad behavior, at least.