Like, for example I have a specific issue with a digital audio converter by a popular brand but their customer service is awful. A simple google prompt followed by site:reddit.com would yield solutions almost every time. In fact I would say I did 90% of my googling that way. How do I break this cycle and do you feel this is one of the biggest challenges we’re facing? If anything, Reddit remains the biggest repo of easily accessible solutions for anything. We’re seeing right now what happens if this is being taken away by subs going private. Vanilla Google is a shitshow.
A few things come to mind that I don’t think have been mentioned:
libreddit - a private front-end for Reddit that should avoid your traffic monetizing Reddit
Old.Reddit + uBlock - should similarly help avoid monetization by blocking ads
Ask your question on the threadiverse! - probably not as convenient as a google search but gotta start building an alternative knowledge base somewhere
The first two obviously won’t help with private subreddits, more to keep Reddit from making money by hoarding all of our data. It’s going to be a rough transition for many of us.
I recommend c/techsupport to stop relying on Reddit even in its archived version
Teddit.net is also a good option, as it just mirrors reddit but doesn’t give them any money.