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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[–] N0t_5ure@lemmy.world 6 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I don't disagree, but I think the heavy-handed moderation was often in service of "cleaning up" to make the website more commercially palatable. Like when they pulled r/atheism as a front-page reddit.

For me, the out of control engagement bots constantly commenting on my comments was the last straw that made me leave.

[–] Pratai@piefed.ca 1 points 41 minutes ago (1 children)

The problem is, they get so trapped up in the vague-at-best definition of “civility”, that they allow propagandaised bullshit as lit as its polite.

This isn’t how a community should be run, and it’s why the divisionists pretty much own the comment sections in any political posts and communities.

No mods have the balls to tell these fuckos to kick bricks.

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 1 points 17 minutes ago

So, you want mods that power trip harder, just in the direction you like?

I dont fully disagree, but it would be a very hard role. They'd be volunteering to cop abuse from all sides relentlessly.