cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/37870004
reddit got bad because spez (the reddit admin) restricted API access to the platform for third-party apps, such that people would be forced to use the official app or web UI, both of which display advertisement and collect user data (e.g. scroll behavior).
the reason why this happened is because reddit is a for-profit company and tries to extract money out of the userbase, at the expense of the users.
another example of a bad decision that reddit made was to push a lot of ragebait (“Am I The Asshole?”) because company shareholders want to see “engagement numbers” go up, and if somebody writes an angry reply to a post, that’s “engagement”. but it makes you angry at the stupidity of the “Asshole”, so it makes your day worse. that is another example how reddit makes money at the expense of the users.
size (number of monthly active users) is not what made reddit bad. commercialization is.
we should probably get rid of the “don’t make lemmy grow, it will ruin the platform if we grow” idea.
No, women/men getting in cages and acting like slaves is a fetish thing. It’s part of BDSM practice for some folks, including the physical abuse. Some folks like being hit. I’ve dated women who I had to break up with because they wanted me to beat them, spit on them and etc. and treat them like a slave, and that wasn’t my thing.
But keep equating it to abuse, if you want? Just because you find something distasteful doesn’t mean it wasn’t produced by consenting adults who actively seek it out and derive pleasure from it.
I am sure it was the content from consenting adults that got the sub banned https://www.reddit.com/r/slavetrade/.
Listen - I am not saying you can’t have fetishes and consenting adults cannot enjoy fetishes together, I am saying reddit is a cesspool of people trying to play off horrific abuse as fetishes and this is very well documented.
reddit is made of people, yes.
do you think those types of things were unique to reddit or something? i just get so confused when people make these things, like… what is your thought here? reddit should have never allowed this stuff ever in the first place, and that they ever did at all ever, means reddit is forever awful and horrible, and so is anyone who ever used the site, even if they lurked?
or are you just morally grandstanding here or something?