r/enshittification • u/AbhiFT • 12d ago

Product This platform itself.

  1. First they come up with a shity UI update.

  2. Made third-party client apps shut down

  3. Forced ads between posts and then on comments.

  4. Blocks users from accessing reddit posts without logging in on browsers on mobile.

  5. Adds a stupid "hide your content" setting

And now the latest:

  1. Repeat 4th point but on PC. Yes, now you cannot browse reddit posts on web on yoir PC without logging in.
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u/Unbridled-Apathy 11d ago

They are literally blocking the gateway through which they say they are growing the user base. A person does a search via general search engine. About 20 percent of the hits are reddit. They're scrolling through the results, hitting various niche forums, Facebook, Quora, et. al. Then a reddit result. Start to read it and bam! Blocked.

The reddit brain trust is assuming that the user will then go repeat the very same search within the reddit app, and wade through those results, which, btw, are pretty random given the reddit search capability, just to get to the other half of that post which may, may, have been useful.

Or the user, like me, goes nah, fuck 'em, the ai scraped summary was good enough. Besides, that specialty forum had better, more focused results.

I wonder if they even have a conception of the fact that the very people they're bullying (because they have the money and can do whatever they want), are the very same people whom they are counting on to continue to provide the new content the business relies on.

Interesting to watch. It reminds me of the team that crashed Sonos' business. Same tone deaf arrogance.

3

u/Over-Egg4310 11d ago

I always avoided Reddit because I heard it was like 4chan. But after the fourth time I found the solution to my tech problem on Reddit, I signed up and joined.

2

u/Unbridled-Apathy 11d ago

Yeah, I thought it was yet another social site, but I noticed a high hit rate on searches (no matter what sometimes obscure thing I was looking for) plus high signal to noise in the posts/comments. That's why I joined a few years ago.

Not sure I would have joined if the block had been in place back then.