WIRED reviewed edits made by Reddit to its IPO paperwork over the years ahead of its stock market debut this week. Here are seven big takeaways.
    • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      The lessons from Twitter are clear: most people will not leave bad social media without a better replacement. They’re attached to their history, and attached to their routine. It getting worse does not change that.

      Mastodon didn’t scratch the Twitter users’ itches, and it doesn’t look like Lemmy will scratch Reddit users’. These aren[t the people that populated the Internet 20 years ago.

      They’re the people who never would have touched it, because it was too technical, had too high a barrier of entry, and saw it as niche.

      It’s time to stop focusing on whether Reddit succeeds or fails. They’re not going to fail. Instead, it’s time to make an internet of niches again, for ourselves, without the Twitter and Reddit users.

      • The Bard in Green@lemmy.starlightkel.xyzEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        They’re the people who never would have touched it, because it was too technical, had too high a barrier of entry, and saw it as niche.

        Yep. My dad uses Facebook, Reddit and Youtube now. I remember having conversations with him where he was confused about why anyone would ever want to use Facebook and what the point of Youtube is… it just wastes time. When I first exposed him to AMAs I thought he would be interested in, in like 2012, he was like “It’s really cool that you can talk to this person, but there’s so much noise and joking around… how are you supposed to follow it all?”

        Now he posts on reddit for help with home improvement projects and watches youtube channels about classic cars and how to fix your garage door opener and talks about stuff he saw his other Boomer friends post on Facebook. He sends me unfunny Youtube videos of AI Deepfakes of Trump and Biden talking about how they pooped their diapers. It’s a weird role reversal, because now I’m like “I’ve left every single one of those enshittified platforms.” But it took him years to get on them. It would take him even longer to get off.