AskReddit is over run by bots
AskReddit is over run by bots
Gather round, children, and let me tell you a story of the same type of mindless corporate stupidity that happened in my state, about how something successful was ruined because all they could see was at the surface level...
When the mini-market chain AM/PM opened some stores in Baja California, they came up with a hybrid concept that also included a made-to-order fast food kitchen serving burgers, and a sizable seating area, they called this Dave's Kitchen. It was a huge, huge hit.
Enter 7-11 into the scene. Getting wind of this new phenomenon and armed with corporate cash from their Mexico offices in... Monterrey I think it was... they bought every AM/PM in the state and converted them to 7-11s, surely salivating at the prospect of this large client base that was supposedly built-in with their acquisition.
So what was the first thing they did?
They shuttered Dave's Kitchen. Poof... gone!
They got rid of the soda machine, the ice cream machine... instead of assimilating the business model of what they had bought, they got rid of everything that made these AM/PMs unique in the market, replaced it with their own bland and generic way of doing things according to the home office in Monterrey.Within a month, the new 7-11s had lost around 3/4 of their customers. Their emergency response was to send in a squad of corporate poll takers to pester the customers still there and see... why the other ones had gone, I guess?
Asking the wrong questions (why did the customers leave in droves?) to the wrong people (the few remaining clients who didn't leave). And thus, nothing of value was learned, because when your corporate business school suits are clumsy unthinking hammers, every situation and problem look like a goddamned nail.
Ok this red on black contrast is awful on the eyes.
how are people so bad with colors
Pissing off all their best users sure was a fantastic idea.
If reddit hadn't locked their API behind absurd paywalls, it would have been a cool project to try to make a browser plugin that gives accounts a "credit score" based on the factors you've been looking at, in order to let users quickly judge how likely an account is a bot.
It could let people adjust the metrics it uses to calculate that score in the settings, so even if it becomes popular enough for bots to start trying to game the system, people can adapt their scoring metrics themselves and share config profiles that they think are more effective at rating bots.
Might be something cool to see for activitypub/fediverse/lemmy accounts, but with the data available varying by instance it might be a little harder to calibrate a "catch-all" scoring config
Askreddit was a scummy Karma farm already. This still sucks, though.
What's your favorite Iron Man scene from any of the Marvel Movies?
Fun thing to do is when you realize 99% of the internet is just advertising teams working for these rich fucking A hole's, is you make them work for their money but posting things that PR companies would hate. Just culture jam the hell out of the dead internet. Its the only way to be. Its what makes places like r/joerogan and r/thefighterandthekid so much fun.
Oh yeah, AskReddit went to shit a while ago. It used to be my favourite subreddit, but it changed about 5 years ago I think.
Reddit is a cesspool.
can i get more schadenfreude on this 🍿. its delicious
I would almost be okay with a proffer that it is bots asking the questions, but that the discourse is between human beings. That's all I really care about. It's rare that I respond directly to OP, or at least I do so less frequently than I'm responding to someone in the comments.
I remember back in the early days on forums, sometimes they'd just feel dead, and it was mainly a lack of content (threads). Once a thread would open, us morons behind keyboards could talk it to death, or more likely just divert in perpetuity.
but I the real human get permanently banned from all of reddit for "ban evasion" (I deleted my account to change my name and accidentally posted a comment over a month later) and my appeal gets denied in 2 hours 🙃
No offence to anyone here but fuck Reddit!
AskReddit was a junk pit anyway, so it would not be a loss, even if it wasn't reddit.
That was true a decade ago
Ever since the War Lizard Gaming Forum shutdown Reddit has been 99% bot content
Oh no!
Anyway.
Honestly though. No one really cared about the original post anyways. The comments are the actual content.
AskReddit is just simple mindless enjoyment to pass the time, nothing wrong with that.
The theory of the empty internet is looming. ;)
It has been for a long time.