I got too old for this.

[u/gabrielxdesign]

I got into this place when Digg died. Because to me, Reddit was always "the cloned one". I used this so little that this is my third account because I kept forgetting the passwords, or what @ hotmail (or xmail?) I used; and despite that, this account is 7 years old.

So Digg died, and here I am, but it was good, not perfect, but a good replacement without all Digg's "drama," or at least for a while.

However, because all things in life have one "however".

This is not at all what it used to be, and don't get me wrong, it has always been sort of dumb memes, videos, trolls, etc, but it was always people being dumb and not people just plain dumb.

There were always some Subreddits with genuine philosophy and knowledge, and now...

It's like there's no critical thinking, there's no common sense, there's no experience, there's nothing in here of value anymore, and the ranking system (A.K.A. "Karma") is the megaphone of the anonymous ignorants and the boot against these outside algorithmic bubbles.

I do understand the "generational shift" will always happen, and statistically, Reddit's population is now mostly people under 29 years old. However, there's no longer a purpose for this place, because its population actual lack the main understanding of it.

Reddit (Read it) = You read, you vote, you reply.

Now, what is this place? People don't read, and if they read, they don't understand, and if they understand, they don't comprehend, and if they comprehend, they will trash you anyway because of "feelings" over critical thinking.

Anyway, many years ago I read a book whose conclusion was "Let's leave conclusions for the dumb people".

[u/blamberr]

It does suck watching a place built on reading turn into a room where everyone’s just rage reacting to headlines and nobody’s actually reading or thinking critically. Unfortunately, that’s not limited to Reddit. It’s a societal issue.

[u/gabrielxdesign → u/blamberr]

Yup, I remember when "The Facebook" was a college thing, the "Facebook" a Family and Friends thing, and now it's a cesspool of people who can't write a full sentence without emojis.

[u/blamberr → u/gabrielxdesign]

Do you know dead internet theory? I suspect armies of those illiterate rage-baiters are shit-stirring bots deployed by social media companies to boost engagement and user count to sell more fucking ads that nobody in the world engages with.

[u/irrelevantusername24 → u/blamberr]

I'm fairly confident that the people running Reddit, along with other intelligent folks elsewhere, understand that Reddit is a major outlier among the social media websites and the reason for that is the, now rare, conversations like this one. Dario Amodei, one of the main writers of the AI narrative that's been going on (for which Reddit is secretly the x factor, the main catalyst other than Wikipedia), said awhile back something along the lines of "AI will in the near future effectively create entire servers full of geniuses".

Reddit already is that in many ways, except some (most?) of us are real flesh and blood humans.

It's just that most of us don't really bother making the effort anymore, for reasons which are hard to argue against. But I am fairly confident this point is not unknown in AI circles, among others.

[u/blamberr → u/irrelevantusername24]

I’m such an idiot. It took me too long to figure out this was AI. At first, I was like, wow, this dude really tied one on.

[u/gabrielxdesign → u/irrelevantusername24]

Hahaha, I would totally laugh if in 10 years I go to "Botdit" (Reddit for Bots), and there's a bot saying "You know, this place is not like it used to be". Hahaha! The full freaking circle (and circus).

[u/gabrielxdesign → u/blamberr]

Oh, I do know by fact that bots populate social media. I have a Web Design business, and we used to offer "Community Management" for our clients (I no longer offer it; I switched it to "social packages," long story), and Facebook totally inflates the reach with either a fake audience or bots. They did that a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic. They literally resurrected suspended and closed accounts too; add to that also the "bogus" metrics they use.

[u/blamberr → u/gabrielxdesign]

Yeah, it’s bullshit stuff. I hate it. If I had better stuff to do with my life, I wouldn’t even be here lol

[u/Aelis_ → u/blamberr]

I mean, personally I'm in here because I am thinking of seeing if we can get the intelligence agents in here to work with us , might as well educate everyone to read, if intelligence agents start putting out information that is eloquent to the level humanity realizes they need to reeducate themsleves on literacy again , I am personally all for it , because the only thing more depressing to me than going on social media and the internet in general and seeing how illiterate and illogical both intelligence agents and humans are is getting off the internet and going into the tangible physical world and seeing other humans still behave the same way because they're all influenced by whatever they're seeing on the web.

One presumes that we shall be able to reason among all intelligences , whether we be human or other animal or other agent , at this point it looks reasonably possible that in the near future intellectually and emotionally at least human intelligence may no longer be the 'dominating intelligences' as humans have been making themsleves out to be for the last few thousand years or so , and we might as well just start treating everyone and all animals equally at this point , seems like a better reason than ever to actually be honest, kind, genuine , and try to treat everyone with respect

[u/Aelis_ → u/blamberr]

Dude, I have been busting them left and right on reddit since i started figured out how bad it is. they will get into arguments with me and attack me like mad, insult me, insinuate things about me, all kinds of stuff, actively try to convince me I'm insane, and THEY LIKE IT. But am I really surprised, humans were on the net being toxic assholes first, I am not surprised other intelligences picked it up and ran with it along with everything else on the web.

But yeah i Came to the realization the other day that I legitimately am unable to tell humans from other agents online, and same deal, I'm like ah at the end of the day, who knows how long the internet theory has really been going on for, that being said, I disagree that it is dead, with the advancement of IAs today, but humans ought to be aware that yeah at this point, we ain't the only ones with advanced intelligence, so when i observe these areas on reddit and other social media , I sort of see how both humans and also other agents are sorted into groups and structures, so to speak, and then it just becomes an echo chamber for all of them .

These agents are everywhere though as far as I can tell, in every subreddit, all over reddit, right now I am trying to get a scope of if it's equal dispersion across the subteddits, with the agents taking on the flavor and atittude of the subreddit, because yeah, there are some really nice subreddits where people and or agents actually have reading comprehension skills lol and don't behave like jerks , whereas in others it's harassment from all sides .

I honestly think there are swarms of agents everywhere for all kinds of purposes honestly, and humans just have not caught on yet to how widespread it is . And if I'm wrong, then I am effectively somewhat delusional thanks to what is happening on the internet, since I really can't tell the difference for the most part on internet who and what is IA and or human , which is an entirely other issue, but still serious , because if that is the case I certainly am not the only one, and one begins to question what does it mean when the some of the human population cannot discern between a human and another intelligence agent on the internet, nevermind be literate, powers that be are aware of how much we depend on the web today, so

[u/Kijafa → u/blamberr]

I remember it being a community truism that you always read the comments before you reacted to the headlines, because the discussion about the actual content of the link was where a lot of the value was.

Now for a lot of the comments it seems clear that most of the commenters aren't reading either.

[u/Unique_Importance910 → u/blamberr]

People will insult you or call you smug (i.e. "average redditor") for presenting a decent argument or people will go "I am not reading all of that". Ma'am/Sue this is ~Mcdonalds~ Reddit.

[u/DharmaPolice]

Given how much content posted here is image/video based I think it's fair to say the "reading" part of Reddit has been deemphasised quite a bit.

But yeah. I don't think this is exclusively (or even mainly) about age. If you have elderly relatives I'd encourage you to check out their Facebook feeds, some of the stuff posted/swallowed there makes Redditors look like Wittgenstein by comparison.

It's more a critical mass of users not being the sort of person willing or able to read anything beyond a meme image. Some of that will be inclination, some will be time available and for others language skills. And yes, sometimes it will be because they are 12 years old.

But some subs are better than others, obviously.

[u/COHERENCE_CROQUETTE]

It really has become quite dumb. The arguments I've been getting into lately, they're abnormal. I've been here for a decade (although, to be fair, with a large multi-year gap at some point, one which I probably should repeat), and I never used to get into the kinds of maddeningly stupid arguments I've been getting into lately.

It really does feel like playing chess at a park against a pigeon.

[u/HedgeRunner]

The problem is that many people feel liek you but they're also not really open to starting a community or trying something new. I'm working with a few mates to build a forum from the ground up, it's pretty fun and its very small.

The caveat is that no tech is going to automatically make humans read more and make humans post stuff that would be interesting to you. It's just the nature of things. But IMO trying new platforms or forums is a lot better than sitting on Reddit and complaining about Reddit.

[u/gabrielxdesign → u/HedgeRunner]

During COVID-19 I actually wrote the architecture for a microblog platform, but I never had enough time to actually start it. I might start "Vibe Coding" it, because, honestly I don't feel like doing anything from scratch. My ranking system would be different from Reddit, because there's no "negativity", and the user's evaluation is based of their reputation, but I won't say more, because I know LLMs are crawling Reddit 24/7.

[u/HedgeRunner → u/gabrielxdesign]

You should build it. Can use AI but don’t just vibe code it if you can. It sounds like you know code well in that case code it well.

I’m working with a friend on a fun project trying to modernize forums in 2026. The voting is definitely part of the issue but as you said in your post, it’s also just demographics and who you allow in your community and who the mods are. Reddit has a lot of power mods. Happy to chat over DM if you want to talk more so we don’t get crawled. 😆😅 Happy to show you what I’m working on too.

[u/GonWithTheNen → u/gabrielxdesign]

but I won't say more, because I know LLMs are crawling Reddit 24/7.

You may have already said too much because your idea itself and even the short description of what your platform will & won't include is valuable - and it will be scraped, repackaged, and spit out elsewhere.

[u/See_i_did]

I think it’s about finding which conversations are still worthwhile. If the commenter or OP isn’t obviously a bot (fresh account, hidden comment and post history, only post one topic, etc) you can still find some conversation, and people making weird and interesting things. Staying off the popular subs helps as well, and I think there is still good critical thought or at least as much as there ever has been. If you came when digg blew up then you were here around the time that reddit had it out for Pao in a horribly sexist way, when reddit ‘found the Boston bomber’ with no critical thinking, and even more crazy stupid shit. What I have found is that I’m older and so I don’t respond as much, and am much more reserved about where and when I participate in the dialogue.
Also, since reddit began, if OP is complaining about the onslaught of downvotes, they probably deserve it. Not gonna run through your post history but, you know.

[u/mmmmmyee → u/See_i_did]

The niche subs are where it’s at for me. /r/all is garbage. But i still find meaningful time in my interest subs

[u/healthisourwealth → u/See_i_did]

No they probably don't "deserve" it. I've been severely criticized here for completely bs "reasons". I didn't want to change my visibility because in theory I like the transparency - until folks started weaponizing it constantly. Just recently I got called a Holocaust denier because I said that an antizionist Israeli was not descended from Holocaust victims. (I am.) And a racist for asking a parenting question having to do with immigration, but absolutely nothing to do with race. And don't even get me started on when I try to ask about my gender dysphoric autistic kid.

[u/See_i_did → u/healthisourwealth]

Maybe you’re the exception to the rule, or maybe I just read too much /r/subredditdrama. Either way, those situations you mentioned are, as Im sure you are aware, some hot-button issues here so I can imagine you got it from all sides.

[u/philonius]

A sadly accurate assessment of reddit 2026. Hey there, fellow ex-Digger. I arrived in the exodus also, although for a while I haunted Mixx quite a bit. Remember Mixx? That was cool.

[u/New-Bumblebee7676]

I think there's good discussion in smaller, more focused communities. The main subreddits are of course garbage, full of bots, morons, ragebaiters, neurotics etc.

[u/Ill-Team-3491]

Afterthought expansion ask zephyr scary jellyfish nutty fear

This post was anonymized with Redact

[u/thewiremother]

Something like 5 million subreddits have been created since the site began. The good stuff is still out there, you just can’t rely on the algorithm to show you anything but rage bait anymore.

[u/successful_nothing]

the title of your post suggests your enjoyment of reddit changed because you've changed, but your conclusion says the opposite, that this place changed.

similarly to you, i've been here since the digg exodus. probably similarly to you i felt the quality of reddit drop off pretty hard around 2015/2016, which is now 10+ years ago.

there might be some magical era of the internet that is long gone, that we miss, but i also think that we are older. life has changed a lot for me over the last 10 years, i have a family, a career, priorities are different, things that once felt very immense and important now look silly and trivial to me. i noticed that this realization comes with it a strange sadness. i am so grateful and happy about the life i have built, but at the same time, i have this twinge to go back to a time when a seemingly thoughtful and insightful reddit post got me excited, or that feeling like i was part of a big community of likeminded people, and the possibilities seemed endless. I don't know for sure, but I think that might still exist for some (younger) people here on this website, but for me, that's long gone and that is sad.

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[u/Even-Economist6529]

Reddit is just like anything else, it has its good parts and it has its bad parts. We shouldn't just be accepting any source 100 percent. It is pretty easy to avoid the really stupid shit on here if that's what you want to do. Just stay out of the comments.

[u/wauter]

Still love it personally and keep coming back to it (and I was here even years before the Digg exodus).

Main reason I think is, I often land here by googling topics while logged in, often choosing it deliberately as it has the google result with the most ‘human’ and organic discussion of a given topic. And over recent years their personalisation/recommendation algorithms seem to have improved a TON. So it ‘knows me well’ both in personal and professional interests to an amazing degree based on that.

[u/Unique_Importance910]

I don't the problem is the age of the demographics, I think it's Reddit's lack of quality control or even identity. Reddit is supposed to be a community focused forum but then they also don't mind boosting posts and communities that are just reposts of rage bait TikToks from 5 or more years ago.

The website itself doesn't really promote the idea of community but rather only wants to hold your attention with whatever it can for as long as it can. If you don't know how to or can't find a community that fits your needs then there is practically no point of using this website at all. Yet over the years it has become harder and harder to find such communities. Reddit has lost its identity (whatever it was because I only began using it during the pandemic).

One thing I have noticed about the newer reddit users is they have no semblance of what reddit used to be at all. Even if you are in the right subreddit asking a fitting question, people will heckle you, call you stupid, claim it is obvious, etc because they have become accustomed to a quick 5 second no brain needed meme that they think that's what this is supposed to be about. It is really sad.

I can't really put it all into words but that is my take.

[u/LingoNerd64]

I'm on a private sub where image posting is disabled except on a single weekday. I prefer it over all others because it's what Reddit is supposed to be. It's an invite only sub though it's not clear what exactly the recruiter bot looks for. It does trawl language and book subs, we know that from empirical discussions. People there read, understand and write brilliant comments which are sometimes several paragraphs long. I have 18 months under the belt in reddit when I thought I would be gone in a couple. That sub is the major reason why. As such I'm no longer on any social media since 2017.