this is an interesting question i’ve had banging around in my mind since well before Reddit’s implosion (and Discord’s enshittification), but which seems really worth asking now.
you can’t blame Reddit and Discord or their imitators entirely for these going out of style, but they’ve sure put the dagger in a lot of remaining ones, and i kind of wonder if they’re just in an irreversible and terminal decline a la USENET. i can only name two or three i even consider checking anymore, and i’m not sure how sustainable any of those are long-term.
This really connects with how I’ve been feeling switching from reddit to beehaw the last couple of days.
I used to be very active on a game-related forum and knew most of the regulars there pretty well (esp. the other teenagers/young adults). It was a nice time.
However, now that I’ve gotten used to reddit over the past ~6 years, I’ve realised the standard level of engagement with others and the amount of attention I feel like spending on a comment or post is so much lower than it used to be back in my forum days.
I won’t lie - it’s been hard to find the mental capacity to write a full and engaging comment sometimes. I find myself having some thoughts on a subject and then giving up before I start writing because I’m just not used to writing that much anymore.
It’s not a bad thing though! I’m glad to be spending more time on honest and engaging replies :)
This is why it was extremely easy for me to ditch reddit. Other than asking a few questions in niche help subs, I was not interacting with anyone in a meaningful way.
I could recognize several usernames in many posts’ comments over the years, but something that called my attention at one point is that those regulars were not recognized as such on reddit (not counting novelty accounts). There are some that have distinct names that will catch people’s attention but no one is saying “hey John, how are you doing?”
And very, very rarely did I ever see someone tagging a non-bot username to a post’s comment section, like you’d do in any other platform.
reddit, to me, has felt for a long time, as being adrift in the middle of the ocean with thousands of people who are constantly talking with one another as the current shifts us around.
I might have interacted with certain users multiple times and I honestly wouldn’t have a clue. It’s too large to be cohesive like that.