cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/37870004

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.

    • Stormy@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      63·
      7 hours ago

      SVU shit happened there. It wasn’t just actors or consensual bs from some freaks. It was, compare that girl to the girl on the missing posters on vicap and the fbi missing people posts shit.

      Then the Arabics found the place. They began auctions of their “concubines” giving their real cell numbers.

      • stopforgettingit@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        6 hours ago

        Totally - “jailbait”, beatingwomen, rapingwomen and creepshots were also fetish subs. The more you know 💫

        • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          5 hours ago

          No, women/men getting in cages and acting like slaves is a fetish thing. It’s part of BDSM practice for some folks, including the physical abuse. Some folks like being hit. I’ve dated women who I had to break up with because they wanted me to beat them, spit on them and etc. and treat them like a slave, and that wasn’t my thing.

          But keep equating it to abuse, if you want? Just because you find something distasteful doesn’t mean it wasn’t produced by consenting adults who actively seek it out and derive pleasure from it.

          • stopforgettingit@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            5 hours ago

            I am sure it was the content from consenting adults that got the sub banned https://www.reddit.com/r/slavetrade/.

            Listen - I am not saying you can’t have fetishes and consenting adults cannot enjoy fetishes together, I am saying reddit is a cesspool of people trying to play off horrific abuse as fetishes and this is very well documented.

            • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
              12·
              5 hours ago

              reddit is made of people, yes.

              do you think those types of things were unique to reddit or something? i just get so confused when people make these things, like… what is your thought here? reddit should have never allowed this stuff ever in the first place, and that they ever did at all ever, means reddit is forever awful and horrible, and so is anyone who ever used the site, even if they lurked?

              or are you just morally grandstanding here or something?

              • stopforgettingit@lemmy.worldEnglish
                21·
                4 hours ago

                Is this not the thread where we are talking about reddit being shitty? Is there some reason you feel like you need to defend reddit so hard for slave trading?

                Yes, I am 100% morally grandstanding here. Jailbait, BeatingWomen, RapingWomen, Creepshots and YES SLADETRADE should have been banned before they even got started. Doubling down I also think BlackCrime, AsianFemaleHate, DailyStormerCom, JewExtinctionFetish, PicsofDeadkids, SexwithDogs, GOREgousWomen, ProED, and many many other subreddits should not have even been around long enough to even make the list of banned subreddits.

                • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  11·
                  4 hours ago

                  OK, at least you’re honest. Better than most users who here who grandstand and refuse to admit that’s what they are doing.

                  But you realize you can’t ban content before it’s posted right? What you are asking for is technically impossible. You can’t control what users do, all you can do is ban them after they have done it.

                  Sounds like your objection is reddit should have had much more restrictive content policy from it’s inception, rather than the one it does now. Do you think fediverse should also have a restrictive content policy, that stuff totally exists here.

                  • stopforgettingit@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    2·
                    4 hours ago

                    Banned before they started is hyperbole.

                    I mean they should have been shut down at the first report of the illegal/pedo activity on the sub, they should have lasted weeks to months at the longest.

                    They should have never been around long enough for someone like, me, a vanilla layperson who does not go to reddit for porn, to hear about - which is they were around for years before I heard of them and for more years after.

                    On Fedi I also think communities like this should be banned, and typically they are, the admins of the largest instances are very protective of what they are hosting and linking to and I appreciate that. NSFW is also much more compartmentalized on Lemmy, so I very rarely if at all run in to anything more than people being politically questionable but not physically.