The inadequacies of Reddit make me miss the message board days of old. Around 2001, I was active on a niche message board for a Gameboy Advance game. The board was only vaguely about the game itself; most topics were just random news and conversation. At its peak, there were probably a few hundred posters, tops, but everyone had an avatar, a screen name and a recognizable identity. I never met any of these people in real life, but nearly two decades letter, I can still remember the various screen names and personalities. This sort of thing just doesn't exist anymore, simply because the subreddit version of X would destroy a (non-Reddit) budding community before it had a chance to grow.
Reddit is a reflection of the broader societal trend away from local or small communities toward an anonymized, faceless megacorp one, replete with all the problems that usually entails. I hope that somehow we can get back to the human feeling of the early internet.
Reddit is a reflection of the broader societal trend away from local or small communities toward an anonymized, faceless megacorp one, replete with all the problems that usually entails. I hope that somehow we can get back to the human feeling of the early internet.