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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[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I see the point but I don't necessarily agree. Before the intense commercialization Reddit had definitely changed for the worse for me because of the influx of people.

I stopped talking about Linux because Winbros would brigade me. I stopped talking about politics because I would be brigaded by western/capitalist bros. The discussions also got a lot worse over time and nuanced opinion was almost always down voted and brigaded.

I fear the same would happen for lemny if we suddenly had a hundred million users. Having a good community is desirable, but having a ton of people not so much so.

[–] bretton.dev@coves.social 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I stopped talking about politics because I would be brigaded by western/capitalist bros.

With the Ghislaine Maxwell WorldNews moderation stuff I wouldn't doubt if there were more unknowns around banning generally cordial leftist/Pro Palestine/Anti capitalist voices. I mean also just look at the Luigi Mangione crackdown.

It bleeds into conspiracy, so I try not to push it much, but I'm sure there's some type of moderation aspect.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I noticed a profound change in moderating about the time TheDonald became popular. People started getting bans after this for things they would have never been banned for before and it wasn't the racist/sexist people getting banned.

I eventually received a subreddit ban after leaving a comment in a conservative Reddit effectively stating the Republicans should take out Ron Desantis like the dirty diaper he was. When I pointed out to the moderators that what I said was rather tame compared to other comments they claimed I was harassing them (for exactly one appeal message). I received a 24hr site ban over this which was both bizarre and confusing. I started to disengage after this and after the API changes I stopped using it completely.