Social network Reddit recently began blocking mobile visitors to its website while pushing them to download the official Reddit app, and it's fair to say that the move is not going down well with users. If you visit reddit.com on your iPhone today, you may see a new popup that can't be dismissed, asking you to "get the app to keep using Reddit".
the problem with reddit is that it used to be amazing, and is still the best place to ask questions (though with the number of bots this is slowly becoming less and less true).
i still vividly remember the time when i spent 2 weeks messaging microsoft support that insisted that i need to replace the device i just bought, even though i repeatedly told them the device works fine with a different machine so something must be wrong with my PC. so i got frustrated and asked the same question on reddit, within a few hours someone diagnosed exactly what was wrong, and gave me tips on how to fix it (or well, in that case i needed to walk around the issue rather than fix it)
and even now whenever i look up tech issues the first results that actually have thought behind the words (instead of sponsorships for whatever driver updating software company bought the article) it’s usually on reddit
it’s such a shame it’s been aggressively going down hill, it could’ve truly stayed the front page of the internet for decades. all it had to do was not get worse for the user
If you have a question, ask it on lemmy then…
The first people asking on reddit couldn’t just look up an old thread. And they may have waited days for an answer.
But someone answered, and then everyone else with that we just had to search. And the knowledge spread.
If you just search reddit…
You do understand how that’s not helping anything, right?
Like, you could even just make a post here and post the solution you found too. But the only way to fix your complaint is asking questions on lemmy…
Do Lemmy threads ever show up on search engines (the way Reddit threads do)? I don’t think I’ve ever had Google or DDG point me toward any fediverse thread or post.
To be perfectly clear, “Make fedi better for the future by hopping aboard and contributing today” is fine, I don’t object to that. But is that envisioned future, where a search for “Why doesn’t my [X] work with my [Y]” points to the fediverse, even possible in principle? I genuinely do not know the answer.
yeah man but when i have an issue i want a solution to that problem, i’m not thinking about the engagement strategies of social media environments
I understand that and even explained what someone like that would do ahead of time…
After you find the answer, you could make a post about the issue and the fix. Preserving that knowledge on Lemmy. If others do that as well, then eventually it will have a base of knowledge.
Which means more people coming here for answers, more people viewing those communities, answering and asking new questions.
Like, if you’re just lazy and don’t want to contribute anything, cool…
But why bother arguing about this?
Why is this more important to you?
man, imagine calling people lazy for not wanting to do double the work just so a social media platform has more content
why don’t you start archiving all tech issues from reddit since you have so much free time?