I used to YouTube-mp3 a lot of music and then go through the very annoying process of renaming all of the files and moving them to itunes. After about the 6th time my favorite (or newly made favorite) site got removed by DMCA, I gave up and moved to Spotify. They had a 3 month free trial and I marked my calendar to cancel when it was over. When that day came I was like, lol, never mind. It was so much less hassle and less riddled with viruses and ads.

Really good point, and great reminder that I don't appreciate Wikipedia enough. They've been doing the same thing for 20+ years with no ads and only the occasional ask for money. And I think they know better than to try and make money or go public when all of their content is user-generated.

And because we all know the kind of content on Reddit is worth paying money for. You know, stolen memes from Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, etc, etc, etc......

Quora has to be one of the most useless, misdirecting "resources" out there. No idea how much of this changes once you make an account, but every single question is filled up with ads and other people's responses to other questions. It looks so confusing and messy. Who would want to sign up for a site that seems so disjointed?

It's like that billboard in the middle of nowhere that ISN'T advertising lions den or pecan shops. Nobody is advertising here because nobody knows it exists!

I genuinely can't tell if the headlines are satire these days

THEY ARE CHARGING FOR THE APP???

What alternate reality are they living in?

No they are not.

Not an expert in the matter, just do not want to take cold showers.

The first time I saw this headline I thought it was from one of those Onion offshoot websites and skimmed it over. I can't believe it's real, but I'm both delighted and dumbfounded that it is!

I choose to believe they're doing this for our entertainment. Out of the goodness of their hearts. Things have been rough lately and we all need a little silliness and fun. Thanks, guys!

I hope this whole ordeal, no matter how it goes down, ends up being a landmark for "social media as a monopoly". I think there's been a lot of talk about this in past years, with little real interest, because people are more interested in their next dopamine fix no matter how much they say they care about their data being sold. I hope this is the push we need to start considering these things for real. Most of us are uncomfortable with personal information being sold to 3rd parties, or knowing that users of these sites are technically the product being sold. It's more weird and uncomfortable knowing the CEO and other execs are throwing a tantrum because user data and user submissions AREN'T being generated for them to sell to earn money to buy some yachts and golf courses.

Should social media be a public commodity, same way a community center or library is? Something paid for by taxes and regulated by government. I think it's interesting in concept but odd to consider once you get into government censorship and surveillance aspects. Not a good idea either.

I began using reddit in 2017. I never really realized there had been a decline in quality until I recently ended up on some threads from 2017ish. I think some of it had to do with the change from a very desktop-oriented, forum-style page, to a dumbed-down mobile-friendly experience. The emphasis is now heavy on pictures, videos, instant messaging, avatars, online status, shiny award bling, infinite scrolling, etc. Reddit may not have intended it, but I feel like their target age demographic is much lower now. I'm shocked at how many regular users are still in high school or even middle school. I'd guess the kids are the ones repeating the funny jokes en masse. They're just kids being kids, but it gets old sometimes.

I exclusively used old-Reddit, and I'm not in love with the new interface yet, but it's not bad.