If you think about it:
- Reddit gives Google access to everything so that Google can train their AI
- Google is now showing AI generated snippets on every search page and is pushing its own AI chatbot everywhere
- Users are getting the answer they want from those AI generated answers Google generated from Reddit comments
- Traffic to Reddit is collapsing
In the meantime, spez totally trashed his site, destroyed valuable communities and pushed away the mods that keep the place clean. Really, really great business strategy there.
The really amazing thing is that spez’s planet-sized ego created the whole user exodus. People were willing to pay a monthly fee to continue to use the site ad-free via our mobile apps. Hundreds of other companies remove ads when people pay fees, but all of that revenue is just gone along with a big chunk of contributors because spez had a tantrum.
Maybe instead of blaming Google, Reddit should stop pandering to Nazis and condoning zionists committing genocide.
This is just attention grabbing language for something that really isn’t even a problem for Reddit. The longer recent trend of stunted growth could be cause for concern, but the actual numbers are something like they got 101.6 million unique visitors instead of their projected 103.4. That’s nothing. They’re talking like they’re in free fall. It could be the start of a trend that could be bad for a public company, but realistically, what we’re all hoping to see isnt what this article is actually telling us. Unfortunately.
I see reddit links in my searches. Sure as heck don’t click on them.
Just Google. Not killing mobile apps, not packing more ads than posts, packing more bots than users…
Huffman: “Is it our shitty policies towards users, AI developers, and moderators that caused our growth to show down? No it must be Google! Even though they are ranking us higher than we deserve in their search results!”
First off all, what an idiot. Second, you made the deal with them, ya fucking idiot!
Third, I’ve noticed when I go to reduce from a search engine result, the UI is horrible (because I’m not logged in). Like, significantly worse than it used to be several years ago when I’ve wasn’t logged in.
My browser extension that forces old Reddit is essential for this reason. The new UI is a cluttered mess
I refuse to use the new site, its crap. And on old. from mobile, it always opens images and videos in a new tab with the new interface, its worthless!
if I have to use a reddit page from work, I always change it to old.
when that old. stops working, I will never visit that site again
On iOS, “Sink It” makes running into a Reddit page palatable again.
I think we are the primary alternative platform. We really need to improve ui/ux if we wanna keep tightening those screws. And for fucks sake can we get fediversal accounts already. We had 1 job (inter operability) and we failed with the most important part of that.
Lemmy devs specifically spent very little time developing the UI because they wanted other devs to step in, and indeed they have with frontends like Photon and Voyager, which both basically couldn’t be any better. They’re awesome.
Voyager also has a web ui and not only the app?
Yep! In fact there was no app for a good long while.
“It’s everyone except me at fault!” - Steve Huffman
Blame the last guy, take lots of money, get fired, repeat.
They would like to have you call that the “golden parachute”.
Lol, what, reddit is everywhere on google. It is me who clicks anywhere else though.
Huffman and Co. are apparently oblivious to the fact that Reddit is and has always been a niche “social media” platform. They’re more closely related to forums than mainstream social media.
I’m just making wild assertions here but somehow I think that the thing I liked about Reddit is also the thing the average TikTok/Insta/Snapchat/Facebook user does not like. That being that Reddit is mostly text based and requires lots of reading and writing (if you want to interact on any meaningful way). The only other thing they offer is meme scrolling and that can be done pretty much anywhere.
Adding any substantial user growth would require basically abandoning their entire format and would have a minimal chance of success at best.
I mean that is why the new reddit page is so less information dense and image-heavy. The app also implemented swiping to get you to mindlessly scroll through memes, often into algorithm-recommended subs you’re not even subscribed to. It’s all an attempt to move the average content toward low-barrier slop thats easy to consume and pad their engagement numbers.
Ah. So they do recognize the problem and are going with the worst possible strategy.
Trying to compete in the field of “digital landfills”, which is already completely saturated, seems like an incredibly stupid idea but what do I know.
Yeah and they still crushed the ER.
