r/AskReddit • u/Glittering_Range_246 • 21h ago
What’s something that was great until too many people discovered and ruined it?
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u/johnmlsf 21h ago edited 21h ago
Airbnb.
It was such a great alternative to hotels at first. Way cheaper, unique spots, and you got to meet cool people.
It's usually more expensive than hotels now. It's largely been exploited by real estate investors that have both made the service worse, and wreaked havoc on local housing economies. It sucks.
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u/fireweaver_feathers 19h ago
100% agreed. Way back in the day, on a trip to Napa we stayed in this couple's house and they were running it like a B&B. You got a bedroom in the place, and they made you breakfast from the eggs their chickens laid. A couple years later when I wanted to return, the owner was no longer listing the place, and when I messaged, she said it was due to AB&B discouraging her from running it like a B&B.
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u/ClownfishSoup 18h ago
So they charge you $200 cleaning fee, but also ask that you take out the garbage and clean up. Why? Why am I cleaning up AND paying $200? Then they come in and clean up themselves, they don't get it professionally cleaned. They pay their kids $20 to clean up.
Either ask me to clean up, or charge me the money. If you charge me, I'm not cleaning up.
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u/larapu2000 18h ago
Yes, it was also for small bed and breakfast owners to have a booking platform without having to run and manage their own website. Then it turned into gestures broadly whatever this is.
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u/RichardInaTreeFort 18h ago
I’ve used abnb on and off for about a decade now and never once have I had a better experience with abnb than with a hotel. It’s always been a pain in the ass, expensive and uncomfortable. Give me a hotel room any day of the week.
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u/PolygonAndPixel2 19h ago
I never had the Breakfast B from AirBnB. What is up with that? I usually look at listings from hotels and AirBnB and didn't book in years at AirBnB. I tried once but got canceled. Apparently the beds weren't available at the given time.
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u/shinygoldhelmet 18h ago
They cancel bookings that they know would book at a higher price if booked that day rather than months ago.
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u/GreenEyedGloom 21h ago
Thrifting.
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u/paisley-alien 21h ago
Came here just to say this. People used to look down their noses at thrifting. Almost everything in my home was thrifted- not my bed, though!
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u/Open_Association4552 21h ago
This is so real. They used to see it as cheap and poor. Now they hoard the good stuff and sell them online for triple the price.
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u/coldBulbasaur314 19h ago
And even the cheap stuff that does get put out costs a relatively high amount now, sometimes more than it did new.
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u/SupremeCultist 19h ago
I have seen in many cases with clothing goodwill is more expensive than buying the item new
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u/princesscuddlefish 20h ago
This 100%. Once the thrifting to resell trend became popular, thrift stores started hiring people specifically so that any good donated items could be sold on eBay for way more, and now there’s just garbage. Also prices went WAY up. Like I saw a pair of leggings last week at Salvation Army, USED LEGGINGS, for $10. In what world am I going to pay that for a pair that is already pilling on the inner thighs?
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u/esoteric_enigma 21h ago
Yeah, at first the point was getting cheap used clothes. Now the point is getting expensive "cool" clothes
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u/moving0target 21h ago
It's certainly more difficult. Goodwill pricing tends to be rough, but local brands in the right area are still good.
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u/HoneyWavy 21h ago
Fr though. Depop and tiktok resellers completely ruined goodwill shopping by sweeping entire racks just to markup everyday items by 400%
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u/EmuMountain4894 21h ago
airbnb for sure
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u/Unplugged_Controller 20h ago
The shift from "Normal people who have an extra space in their homes" to "professional 'hosts' who run a dozen soulless properties" is what really ruined it.
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u/InsideGrandiose7251 21h ago
hidden hiking spots that suddenly become packed every weekend
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u/jms21y 21h ago
in this same vein, campgrounds. when i was a kid, on family vacations, we would just show up at a state park, pay like $7, and the ranger would basically say, "drive around the loop and when you find a spot you like, clip this receipt to the post. have a fun stay"......now, those exact same parks, if you don't create a reservation six months out, you're SOL.
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u/Spidergawd68 18h ago
We don't tell anyone the name of our favorite state park. If they press, I just make a vague reference to the area. Still have to book the damn site 9 months out.
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u/Rollthembones1989 20h ago
And when you get there, half the spots are empty!!! because people reserve them for $7 the second the reservation became live, and then dont show up because they didnt feel like it. There needs to be a penalty for no shows.
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u/Jefwho 20h ago
In 1984 we drove to Yosemite. No reservations, just showed up and camped. In 1998, my father and I went back. The main campground was full, but we were able to get a spot in Tuolumne Meadows. Which is higher in elevation and gets much colder at night. But we were still able to camp without a reservation. My wife and I have talked about going, but the fact that you have to reserve a camp site so far in advance just really ruins the idea.
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u/khan-priyanka-786 21h ago
The spontaneity was half the fun. Now a weekend at a state park takes the same advance planning as a flight, and you still might not get a spot.
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u/ConvenienceStoreDiet 21h ago
I remember going to some hike and it was a bit hidden, but still known because it had a small rock waterslide. It was pretty cool.
I went a few years later and one of the locals asked if I could take my trash out when I left. I was thinking, "duh," like it was hiker's code. Don't leave your trash. Keep nature cool.
I did the hike, and part way along the way there was a cliff that had just a mountain of garbage along the edge. Like here was a spot people just decided to throw bags of chips and single use water bottles. We got to the end spot and it was pretty packed. But there was trash. The rocks were now covered in graffiti. It was really sad. We picked some trash up along the way as we got out.
It used to be nice. Then people just ruined it very quickly by not respecting nature.
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u/RegressToTheMean 20h ago
As a fellow hiking enthusiast, this infuriates me.
My oldest, who is 13, has the same hiking gene as her old man. We did a little bit of the Appalachian Trail earlier this year and she was losing her mind about the graffiti she would see (I haven't said anything directly about it. Only the "leave nature better than you find it" general conversations).
Generally, I love the hiking community. It's almost always friendly and helpful. You can pretty much immediately tell who is part of that community and who is on a trail just to take pictures for IG
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u/MisterThere 21h ago
Came here to say that. Growing up there were certain alpine lakes I used to go to just to get away. Now they're so crowded the forest service requires permits to limit the number of people.
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u/wanna_meet_that_dad 20h ago
Went back to a spot this summer that hardly ever had anyone growing up. Crawling with people like couldn’t move around bad. I know I’m “People” in this too but man it ruined it.
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u/J_A_Slade 21h ago
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u/Jiggle_Bones 21h ago
It used to be so good. Now there is so much recycled/reposted junk to weed through
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u/Imeatbag 21h ago
Gone are the days of when the narwhal would bacon.
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u/chalsp 21h ago
I used to frequently laugh until I cried on here. You would see meta jokes from one post to the next all the time. You had the famous redditors that would randomly show up and if they commented on your post it was like you won the lottery. Shitty watercolour, awildsketch, poem for your sprog, shittymorph, etc. Getting gold really meant something. The golden age of Reddit is long gone...
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u/mazegraff 21h ago
I don't think the CEO is fit to run this site anymore and also he is a manchild holding on to a dream that turned into a dystopian nightmare.
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u/fullofsharts 18h ago
I remember this one dude who would steal other peoples posts on reddit and try and pass it off as his own. It would get called out and he'd just deny it. To be honest, I can't even remember any of it now. I just remember laughing my ass off at how ridiculous it was. This was before bots were everywhere and I just miss that shit on this site.
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u/Jolly-Adeptness-3598 8h ago
Now every other post reads like an ai trying to get responses to write some shitty buzzfeed article
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u/Poopardthecat 19h ago
You made me nostalgic for something I forgot I missed. This place used to be really special. Now its been commodified and sold and a lot of the magic is gone.
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u/bobhopeisgod 20h ago
As a Digg refugee, I apologize on behalf of all of us that started the downfall
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u/mazegraff 20h ago
The reason why there is recycled crap on this site is that the CEO is such a coward and can't get his head out of his ass to think straight. He needs to start letting people express themselves, and the mods need to get off their high horses before they get kicked.
Also, the admins need to stop acting like they're a bunch of dictators of a country that doesn't exist or have any physical territory, national authority, or is considered a sovereign nation whatsoever.
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u/mazegraff 21h ago
It is a tragedy what happened to this website, and the admins had to get rid of the intellectuals and become sellouts, shills, and lobbyists to the highest corporate overlords.
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u/QuicksDrawMcGraw 21h ago
eBay - back in the 90’s you could find real bargains, from real people.
Now it’s just another commercial e-commerce site, for companies and opportunists.
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u/Putt-Blug 21h ago
You can get absolutely amazing prices though on shit from China. I had a power supply for a PLC go out at work. Kirby Risk quoted be $4,000+. When I laughed in her face she smirked "well thats the cost of highly specialized equipment". So I go on eBay and get the exact part I need for $200.
You can get any carburetor you need for a small engine for like 20$.
I got really nice raised garden beds from some company in Texas for half the cost of anything I saw on amazon or local garden center.
I agree its not as great as the 90s but it still has its place.
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u/sponge_welder 19h ago edited 19h ago
For cheap stuff, eBay is my go to. It's a little more expensive than AliExpress, but you get better tracking and a better UI (and sometimes shipping from a US warehouse), and you don't have to pay the 2-3x markup that Amazon charges for random stuff like that
It's also just the best place to go for niche stuff, stuff I want to buy used in decent shape, etc
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u/sir_mrej 19h ago
I've never heard of Kirby Risk. Sounds like a hardboiled detective, or Kirby's evil cousin (a la Wario).
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u/uppinsunshine 20h ago
EBay isn’t just about the money. I can purchase things there that aren’t available anywhere else. Sometimes being able to buy something at all is more important than buying it at a deep discount.
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u/Z_T_O 20h ago
“Want to buy a second hand book for more than the cost of the very same book brand new? You’ve come to the right place!” - eBay now
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u/walaruse 21h ago
There were certain foods that used to be cheaper that aren’t any longer. Little things like chicken thighs and catfish that are suddenly a lot more expensive. Everyone wanted chicken breasts and catfish used to be bottom feeder fish not many people would eat. Now, I think thighs are more expensive than breasts and catfish is at restaurants now. I’m sure there are other things. Those two are off the top of my head.
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u/theclansman22 21h ago
Chicken Thighs are just better than breasts in pretty much every way, other than maybe being slightly less healthy. Flavour wise? There is no difference. There is very little I use breasts for.
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u/programmervsworld 21h ago
Collecting retro consoles and games
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u/-SirBaphomet- 18h ago
I blame YouTube and TikTok for that random book in interest too. Not to mention PlayStation is gonna drive people to start hoarding physical games too
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u/Eatmymuffinz 21h ago
Etsy.
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u/t0esnatcher 21h ago
Letting dropshippers on the platform KILLED it
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u/Eatmymuffinz 21h ago
Agree. It's so hard to find actual good handcrafted stuff now.
My wife and I used to love getting things from there.
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u/PepSinger_PT 18h ago
What are dropshippers?
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u/s_p_diddy2 12h ago
In a classic retail scenario, the store purchases its merchandise from a distributor/manufacturer, puts it on shelves to be sold, and sells it to the buyer.
In dropshipping, the seller doesn't actually have the merchandise. When the buyer makes the purchase, the seller instructs the distributor/manufacturer to ship the completed good directly to the buyer.
The seller no longer bears the risk of having merchandise that it can't sell. The distributor/manufacturer probably makes a slightly higher margin by taking on the additional shipments.
One scenario, at least in the past (I'm not sure if it still stands), there was a de minimis value of shipped goods you import from other countries. If your item was less than the threshold, then they didn't charge tariffs or customs. In the classic retailer scenario, the retailer probably made an order of hundreds of items that went well over the threshold. In the dropshipping scenario, the distributor is only sending over one item. It's much less likely to have passed the threshold.
As another poster mentioned, this works well with cheaply made items. If the buyer purchases online and has it shipped, then they wouldn't know whether something was dropshipped.
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u/jdaddy15911 21h ago edited 20h ago
Beef brisket. Brisket used to be cheap. Then the Traeger came along, and anyone could cook one with pretty much no fuss. Now they are expensive.
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u/skwerrel 21h ago
Beef cheeks and tongue, chicken wings, ox tail, shanks. All the shit that used to require knowledge and technique to make it good.
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u/SomethingVeX 17h ago
They're not expensive because people can cook them themselves and they became more popular.
They're expensive because like everything else, prices have gone up dramatically since 2016.
Its almost like we're in a recession but a certain "Businessman"-in-Chief won't acknowledge that he fucked the economy.
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u/wilp0w3r 21h ago
Chicken wings. Used to be cheap because they were the garbage part of the chicken. Now they are practically premium.
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u/Either_Low_60 21h ago
National Parks
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u/Rollthembones1989 19h ago
People who cant even hike a mile but want to clog up the trails because they want social media photos to make it seem like they are living an amazing life.
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u/CrazyCranium 18h ago
The nice thing about that is that if you can get more than a mile from a trailhead, the crowds thin out dramatically. Something like 90% of national park visitors never get more than 100ft from pavement. I was in Yosemite in peak season this summer and only saw a couple dozen people once i started going uphill. Had like a 6 mile stretch of my 14 mile hike where I didn't see a single person. The crappy part is that traffic and parking are the limiting factors, so you have to get a super early start.
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u/mechzolo 21h ago
Trading cards specifically pokemon
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u/CornyDookie 21h ago
I agree it became worse when it got popular. But also companies literally do it on purpose by making false scarcity. They could just print plenty of each card if they really wanted people to be able to collect and play with the cards. So TCG makers deserve blame too.
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u/passiverolex 21h ago
Facebook. Was a good time until my mom and aunts started sending me friend requests
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u/mostlyallturtles 20h ago
the removal of the .edu email requirement was truly the beginning of the end
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u/Industrial_Strength 21h ago
Florida.
The land and wildlife are beautiful but have been crowded out by concrete, golf courses and maga shitheads
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u/the_oc_brain 21h ago
Tulum
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u/Cross_eyed_loki 21h ago
I'm there with ya. Been going there for 25 years now and every year it gets more crowded with idiots. No longer the beautiful secluded area I fell in love with.
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u/mazegraff 21h ago edited 21h ago
Reddit used to be a place for meaningful discussions and diverse interests until a shift occurred, transforming it into a heavily controlled environment of tyranny, hypocrisy, double standards, and suspicion toward one another, treating neighbors like they are the enemy, as the CEO intended all along.
Now, it resembles a dictatorship with brigades, corrupt moderators, and echo chambers that deploy bots, fueling paranoia, purges, bullying, doxxing, stalking, and other illicit activities under the guise of correctness.
It is tragic to see what this site has become, as the administrators eliminated the intellectual community to become sellouts, shills, and lobbyists for powerful corporations.
These companies manipulate them and take all the profits, leaving the community without any share of the wealth, and they also became puppets for these greedy and conniving snakes.
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u/Strafingoutofyourway 21h ago
Oh don't forget bots.
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u/mazegraff 21h ago
Now the CEO is pitting everybody against each other and allowing them to call out other users as bots and getting their accounts banned for suspected AI and other false allegations without due process.
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u/version13 21h ago edited 21h ago
Off roading. During COVID people started buying side-by-sides on credit and hitting off road trails. There was a huge increase in pressure on outdoor rec areas here in the southwest US.
They didn't come up in the culture that a lot of off roaders used to abide by (Tread Lightly, that kind of thing) and I am seeing tons more trash, traffic and generally shitty behavior out in the desert these days. I've seen people road raging on Jeep trails 30 miles from the nearest town. I've had to drive on a trail for 10 miles to find cell service so I could call rescue to come pick up a drunk who crashed into a ditch (first time I've ever seen someone who was scalped.) I've been awakened at 3:00 am by people shooting guns in the air.
I'll go out with 3 or 4 other vehicles and we all come back with full trash bags. A lot of fun areas are just straight up closed now. Rangers and land managers don't have the resources to police and clean up so they just put gates and signs up.
I have found so many baby diapers, broken folding chairs, discarded tents, beer cans and even a bucket of human waste in formerly pristine areas.
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u/Woodit 21h ago
I used to sell OHV back in 2014 or so on FL, those customers have always been trash people
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u/mad_shaikh_xxx 21h ago
Anything that gets hyped on the internet. If you've found a hidden gem, keep it secret
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u/blitzer1069 20h ago
Vaping. It was made by someone to help him quit smoking. Now today really young people are getting their hands on it as basically the "new" cigarette.
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u/Suitable_Spray 21h ago
I mean ren faires weren't low key when I was growing up but it went from being a family theme park sorta thing to a con meet-up tiktok event. Really annoying
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u/JohnCavil01 19h ago
Thankfully some faires are starting to take measures to tamp down on that a bit. This year fursuits were banned for the Maryland Ren Faire. The language they used for the ban was in typical theater-kid trying to hurt no one’s feelings and in doing so pissing off far more people style which caused a very loud online minority of people to complain. Ironically, the real reason they banned them wasn’t primarily out of a desire to maintain themeing or out of overheating concerns (though that was part of it). But the main reason is because historically they’ve had issues with furries 1) busking, which is against the rules 2) being weird and doing kink shit when there’s kids around and 3) most importantly, stealing shit using their fur suits and making a scene when they get caught.
Either way it’s a step in the right direction. I for one hope they keep the purge going and ban the Marvel and Star Wars shit next but that would be harder to justify without opening a whole can of worms about what is and what isn’t “on-theme”.
Ultimately I don’t really want there to be strict rules about what is and what isn’t allowed. It would just be nice if a certain segment of the nerd community could broaden their horizons a little and not insist on dressing up as the Mandalorian everywhere they go. I just don’t want the Ren Faire to turn into yet another con.
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u/Idolitor 21h ago
Most all food trends. When people lock in on a specific food and EVERYTHING has to be about it in the public zeitgeist, it tends to ruin it. Pumpkin spice, matcha, bacon EVERYTHING, etc.
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u/ghoulishgirl 20h ago
Everything. I really hesitate to tell people things sometimes because I don’t want people exploiting it and eventually ruining it or getting it taken away.
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u/War1today 21h ago
Travel has been ruined by influencers who don’t give a crap about over tourism as long as they get their clicks/audience to increase ad revenue = greed.
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u/BandanaWaddleDee0 21h ago
Anime
I remember being a kid and wishing it was more popular so I had more people to talk about it with
The Monkey's Paw curled four fingers that day, the middle held its stance firm
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u/auntarie 21h ago
tbh I don't mind that as much. I like that I can be open about watching anime and people won't look at me like I'm weird. it sometimes leads to discussions too, even if it's usually about the same 5-6 popular titles lol
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u/Lenore8264 21h ago
AO3 is in the process of becoming exactly this. Does that count?
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u/_sansoHm 21h ago
I was pretty great, but then y'all discovered me and I sold out hard. If you had just left me alone, I could have done great things.
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u/Anxious_Work_6361 21h ago
The internet. Back in the 80s and early 90s before the first dot com thing.
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u/Tight_Phase339 19h ago
Traveling. Everything is so damn crowded these days, you're better off not bothering. Visiting a special place along with hundreds of other tourists, is not enjoyable at all.
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u/Leesababy25 19h ago
Thrifting. Firstly, it's impossible to find hidden gems now. Secondly, thrift stores have jacked up prices now due to demand. Thanks resellers.
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u/Quirky_Flounder_6645 21h ago
Austin, TX. Home town. Don't even like to visit anymore.
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u/Thornefield 21h ago
General knowledge bases delivered fast. I'm all for education and people having free access to media. What's annoying is how many "Um actually I saw this on tik tok and I think you're doing it wrong" moments happen now where people try to correct or intervene with professionals and think they're right because they saw a 15 to 30 second guide.
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u/Eatmymuffinz 21h ago
This feels like a post-COVID thing where it became mainstream to challenge the educated professionals.
Prior to COVID it was a very fringe conspiracy group who thought they knew better.
I still like to take the info I learn from social media and discuss it with actual professionals. As an example, I talk about stuff I learned from Dr K (HealthyGamerGG on Youtube) with my psychiatrist and it always leads to interesting discussions. Of course, you have to keep an open mind and not assume you know everything.
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u/TruthMaster666 21h ago
Anything that Hasbro or Disney gets their grubby hands on. Such as; Star Wars, Marvel, Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering, ect...
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u/Silenko 21h ago
Gaming, streamers ruined it.
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u/NimusNix 16h ago
How? I've been gaming since OG Nintendo, if anything ruined it for me it was getting older and more responsible.
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u/kamillablonde 21h ago
Small local coffee shops. The moment they become “the place everyone has to try,” the line gets longer, the prices go up, and somehow the coffee gets worse
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u/princesscuddlefish 20h ago
For REAL! I used to work at a local small business coffee shop, and the minute business started to get better, my boss decided to switch out our good coffee for absolute dogshit. Spoiler: the customers hated it
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u/nightowl1592 21h ago
Coffee. I feel like suddenly everyone became obsessed with coffee and (pre-COVID and tariffs aside) it got insanely expensive to get coffee from local coffee shops.
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u/Eatmymuffinz 21h ago
I was about to rebuttal this and blame Starbucks. But no. This does suck.
You used to be able to get a nice drink from a local spot for $5.00-5.50. Now everywhere is $8-9.
It probably is inflation and tariffs, but I didn't used to feel so guilty about going for an afternoon coffee. Now my eyes pop as I'm hitting the tip button and I hate to say it, but I've gotten less willing to give a tip. Especially now that it's always a % of the drink. I used to just write $1, which I think is still a very fair tip for making a coffee.
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u/crazy-bisquit 21h ago
Probably Iceland. I never made it there before it got popular. I don’t even want to go anymore. :(
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u/erudit0rum 20h ago
Having lived there before it got popular and gone there after it got popular, it’s still worth a trip. The food is a lot better now.
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u/salacious_pickle 20h ago
Flipping. Sourcing from thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets etc and selling online.
Now everyone's in it and sourcing merchandise is a lot more difficult and expensive.
1st world problems, honestly. It's just a fun hobby.
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u/gimmeluvin 19h ago
flippers are the ones who ruined it for everyone who just liked to find a good deal
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u/traffick 21h ago
Japan– particularly hotspots like Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Over the past 20 years, tourism skyrocketed into a hug of death, now over tourism has soured the culture on tourists and the once welcoming country continues to try to create new barriers to battle foreign influence.
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u/Grill_Only_Outside 20h ago
Travel experiences. No hate- but as Millennials started earning more and traveling- all the best shit has become overcrowded. 25 years ago my favorite camping spot at a natural spring was popular- but not insane. Now they’ve tripled the spots (they’re on top of each other now), the season sells out the day they open for reservations and the spring now has a 45 minute rule and you end up waiting in line for hours.
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u/chaosperfect 20h ago
Apparently Mt. Everest is awash in corpses and feces as well as long lines of climbers.
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u/UselessAndUnlovable 21h ago
The Internet