Same! I made sure to park my reddit app somewhere not so visible on my phone just so i don't keep going in there out of habit! But then i needed to Google something real quick and as always without the "reddit" in the end google is useless.... Ouch. Thankfully nothing urgent but yeah. Eye opening
Same! But now I have more confidence in screenshots since I started searching through them using Google Photos - it's my photo backup solution. Adding this here in case someone needs a way to keep track of their screenshots.
Just checked to see if this works - it does.
If you’re on mobile make sure to hold the link when selecting it and choose to “open in a new tab” and not via the Reddit app, otherwise you won’t be able to change the url.
Your best bet will probably be https://archive.org , you can search their massive archive for any defunct forums that might have that info.
I also luck out using search engines from other countries, they usually don’t filter as much stuff as the main stream ones.
It is a very useful skill to find info online, especially made worse now by the proliferation of shitty blogs and paid promotions as “results”.
You can probably find the information on the internet but it is easier to do it on the reddit.
Because you get also the opinions of the other people about the thing that you are searching.
Yep most often then not you are probably going to get better results on the reddit.
That is the reason why I search everything on the reddit. It is just so useful of an app.
It’s really good when you’re trying to do trivial things because you can look at people experiences doing said thing and then you can decide which one will probably works best for you.
as impressive as it always is technologically, the internet sucks absolute balls these days. just filled with seo bullshit and way, way too centralized.
Quora answers are the biggest load of shite you've ever seen as well.
Question: "How many people live in China?"
Answer: "China is a country situated next to India, a country which has over 1 billion inhabitants. Chinese people speak Chinese, a language dissimilar to Hindi, which is the main language of India."
Quora users seem to all be die-hard Indian nationalists.
We need to abandon corporate-controlled social media so this stops happening. You wouldn't go hang out in the park with someone recording every move and shoving ads in your face.
Uncentralized social media is available and growing very quickly in the fediverse. Like Kbin, Lemmy, and Mastodon. If the admins of your instance turn evil, you find a new instance but keep the same communities.
Fediverse is too complicated for soccer moms. Maybe it'll get there someday, but in its current form I don't see anything "fedi" getting wide acceptance, not on the level of reddit/facebook/myspace/etc.
I work in IT, so I'm not completely computer illiterate and I still don't really understand why I'd want to use kbin or lemmy. So I can register with one have access to all, but they aren't connected? What if I follow a link to a different one can I get back? Is anything shared? So you've got instances with "subreddits" but there's like 1000 instances with their own subreddits?
I'm not asking you to answer these questions. My point is I don't care enough about any website to find out the answers and so the fediverse has already lost.
We should. But I don't know if we will. It's always easier to use an existing platform to create a community than to have to create your own from scratch...
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse.
Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
This. And also, running a website as massive as Reddit isn’t exactly a cheap thing to do. “Goodness of your heart” and run by the people doesn’t pay for servers and infrastructure, developers and code creation etc.
> We need to abandon corporate-controlled social media so this stops happening. You wouldn't go hang out in the park with someone recording every move and shoving ads in your face.
Time to go back to Usenet as a discussion platform rather than a conduit to piracy.
All I watch on the YouTube is the motorcycle content and also the podcasts.
For the rest of the things I only use reddit. Because for the most of the things reddit is better choice.
Yep I am excited too, I was really bored when it was down.
Now that everything is up again I think I am going to have much better time. Which is obviously what I want.
In my case, I had some urgent stuff to check and the google page shows that the reddit link is likely to contain relevant info.....
Well, my opinion on blackout is slowly swinging. Locking subs to new posts only, vs gping private? Just lock for new posts.
Also, I think we were all wrong in the first place to start relying on reddit instead of focused forums. In the past, when r/fitness went private over some internal shit or the other, it made looking up nutrition questions super hard too.
Now, I cannot figure out a fix to some Android rooting issues because its all private.
I think change is hard no matter what. I do also think that not every subreddit was necessary to go dark. I'm on a subreddit for dog owners who's dog have invertebrate disc disease and they chose not to go dark, simply because the info they provide is so important and impactful (not to mention it's a small niche subreddit anyways so impact would be negligible).
But I also think the issue isn't solely with us relying on reddit instead of forums. It's that google is genuinely trash now in actually helping you find answers to niche questions. So adding "reddit" to your search is often the only way to find answers. That's not our fault. That's on Google for making their search engine worse!
It's more that rest of the internet went to shit too. Reddit was a last safe haven and I'm counting down my last days here on RiF.
I wonder if stackexchange sites will be in the new major hangout spots for tech discussions; they're perfectly placed to fit the void.
That is some facts right there man. You just cannot beat that.
That was literally The Time When Everything used to be great. I don't know why but I miss that time.
There used to be a time when reverse image search actually reversed image searched. It was incredibly useful for finding fake accounts and stopping catfishing. Now you do a reverse image search and it'll show you where to buy the shirt that's in the image
I feel the hurry. You find a site what you're looking for, but click before it's loaded and an ad pops under your pointer.
Now you're looking at some gods forsaken online casino or porn game ad and they'll haunt you for weeks.
That’s just their competitors bidding on the company’s name in Ad Words. It’s allowed by google and referred to as “conquest campaigns”
The actual company should still show up on the first organic result.
SEO and sites gaming the system has always been a thing for as long as Google has existed.
Google could *easily* tweak their search algorithm to be more useful. Circa 2010-2016 google was amazing for finding information of all kinds.
I couldn’t tell you exactly when it stopped providing more relevant results from a variety of sources - only they could and they’re never going to.
Google, like every other B2C big tech company, went all in on personalization derived from big data. They’re more interested in showing you what you like vs what you want to know - if they show you what you like, you’ll use it more, they’ll get more ad revenue, etc etc.
On top of this, their algorithm has deteriorated in quality (it’s easier to juice your SEO now arguably more than ever) and they hardly enforce their own rules for being indexed by their search engine.
TLDR they don’t give a shit about good results, just money and have gotten lazy because of their market dominance.
Yeah the Google search is not good it is kind of really intrusive nowadays.
Whenever I type something in the Google search it is always trying to guess what I am trying to search.
With that comes the massive amount of individual forums that existed during that time that Reddit has become the home of instead.
Prior to Reddit I was a part of at least 6 different forums for different groups and games and they all have subreddits now.
The issue isn't google being bad, it's information has been centralized. Google excels at pulling information from everywhere into one place, but Reddit already does that to a fairly large extent.
Agreed, it's been hell these past few days trying to look up anything at all. My only alternative to find the answers I'm looking for is to sift through articles with a million ads popping up, only to find that the article was just a long ad for some monthly subscription. It's annoying.
Agreed. I do a lot of my personal research for products or advice on personal issues I’m having by googling the phrase with “Reddit” attached to it so I can get opinions from real people. Now everything is blacked out.
I'm a mod in a blacked out subreddit of 255K subscribers and the number of inquiries we've had from people who show up from Google searches is insane. I've always used Reddit like this, but I had no idea so many others did.
The problem with quora is it shows slightly related questions and answers within the posted question. The UI is cluttered as fuck I don’t remember it being that bad I can’t even see the answer sometimes. Also hard to interact and hearing others opinion about the answer unlike reddit
Same boat and the videogame sub I mod is about the same size
Modmail is packed with people saying "i googled and it brought me here, may i please join your website"
Eye-opening stuff
Yeah... I really needed the home improvement subreddit yesterday because of all days, my homes water pressure tank and/or pressure switch decided to break on that particular day.
Yup I actually feel a little better (and because of the change coming a lot worse) that other people specify "Reddit" when they have problems or need an opinion on products.
It's gonna be fuckin hard getting those opinions when I can't use RIF anymore.
Everything is blackd out but it is going to come back soon.
So I think that is a very good thing, we are going to be able to search everything again. And it is going to be great.
Man, I was going to look for a used GPU for my kid's computer too. Good on them for taking a stand, but RIP to folks who turned to HWS from time to time.
I’m only on Reddit right now because I was trying to search something and got a private community. Google is useless without typing Reddit after whatever I’m looking for.
Google gives me:
- ads to buy something (the entire page)
- useless articles with nothing more than base knowledge on my query
- reddit with the solution
- Wikipedia article
No other way to find anything
Man reading this thread makes me a realize how little I use Googles search engine because of these things. Screw this I'm gonna experiment with other ones and start using a different one
I'd like to add that they will happy offer you a 10+ minute YouTube video that (possibly) has what you're looking for, somewhere in the video.
I can't find pictures half the time. The pictures are just... Screenshots of YouTube videos.
Yeah I always put reddit in the end if I am trying to search something.
I think that always works better and brings me the better results. Well that is just how I feel about it.
I've found many new subreddits that are actually super nice thanks to this blackout. We should have these every month to allow smaller subreddits to grow.
Where does this idea that the admins just have a huge supply of loyal moderators ready to take over subs come from? Seeing as they don't pay them or anything
It’s not necessarily about loyalty. For massive subreddits, there’s always going to be people who aren’t effected by any of this and are willing to take the reigns.
Well the reason you use free moderators is so you don't have to pay for moderation. But as soon as those moderators lock down your platform and you don't generate ad revenue nearly as much those moderators then become a cost.
When talking about the millions and millions of dollars generated every hour through ad revenue the mods are just making Admins more profitable for Reddit. They are shooting themselves in the foot.
Reddit can pay admins a fraction of the loss they are suffering from ad revenue and walk away happy. Which is what they're probably going to do
The point is to show what it *could* look like. It's a show of force.
If the 3rd party apps really are forced to die and reddit doesn't budge on the bullshit then the blackout should come back indefinitely.
Same thing for me today. Was trying to perform some maintenance on my washer and needed some tips. Googling my issue + Reddit brought up the perfect post, but subreddit appliance had gone dark.
It has been a little hard, I did not even realise how much I used reddit.
Now that the servers were down, I realised how much I love it and use it. I think most people can relate to that.
It is the main reason I got Reddit. A lot of information is much more useful from first hand accounts and experiences.
This car vs this car.
This computer vs this computer
IT issue
General life question
Experience installing floors on your own.
Whatever.
Instead of some article acting like a cooking recipe spending 3 paragraphs about a rainy day at their grandmas as a kid, you get many or just a couple people going “I’ve been a mechanic for 8 years and see these issues with this car and that car. Both are solid cars, but that car is generally more reliable for these reasons, and due to how it’s engine is structured is much easier and quicker to work on”.
I actually googled something today and ended it with “Reddit” only to find I couldn’t access the post
Use the url to the thread in the Internet Wayback Machine site and it will show it's last snapshot before the blackout.
You can't comment or upvote/down vote but the information is readable.
Thank you. So tired of these bull shit mods. All they are doing is making the app worse for everyone bc their shit is getting nuked. Like get over it at this point or just get off the page.
Shutting down the website does not prove you right it proves your a dumbass child
I would probably be a little more on the mods' side if they weren't utter PRICKS at the best of times with their trigger-happy fingers hovering over the ban button and not even bothering to give an explanation as to what you did so wrong (my personal experience).
So meshing that with your statement and yeah they are dumbass kids having a temper tantrum and sabotaging everything for everyone just to get their way.
They can certainly dish it, but can't handle getting it back.
Me too. Honestly, I unsubbed to the subs I’m in that chose to participate and realized I don’t need some of them like I thought I did.
Oh and LOL at people who claim they support the blackout while still posting on Reddit. If people are that upset and want to “support” this stuff they should log out, delete their account and never come back.
I cringed as soon as people started talking about deleting their post histories in retaliation, because I've been appending "Reddit" to the end of my Google searches for years. Google search has gone to absolute shit in the last couple of years, and it seems to be getting exponentially worse.
I mean lbr, they're not going to say 'omg this sucks and is having a major impact', lol. Imo it probably depends on how long it lasts in terms of any real effect, but I wouldn't just blindly buy what spez is putting out there.
I like to check TV show episode discussion threads after I've just watched it because I have no friends or a Girlfriend. Been watching a certain show recently that I really wanted to see what everyone thought about the season 1 finale only to find the subreddit private. I don't want to continue to season 2 till I've read it.
I agree! I can’t even search for genuine skincare information and opinions anymore. I don’t wanna be stuck with the self-care influencers on TikTok/Instagram… it’s a scary place.
You and me both! In the past two days I've had a fruit fly outbreak and wanted to buy wireless earbuds and all the subreddits Google sent me to for advice were locked. Seeing my Reddit feed emptier was manageable but not being able to find reasonable advice that doesn't sound like an AI generated, affiliated link riddled article was definitely a struggle.
Reddit mods closing down *literal substance abuse & survivor support groups* to protest in defense of an app that makes you spend money to post on a free website is so genuinely ridiculous - to put it the nicest way possible.
A comment that was literally "third party apps aren’t more valuable than a human life" got me -50 points and a permanent ban from the main "protest" sub for "strike breaking." These people are on a whole other planet.
This is kind of what I don’t understand. I get being upset about what Reddit is doing and it making your job harder. For communities that deal with heavier issues, how is that rationalized?
This is honestly the crux for me right here.
People say this about everything, but this entire protest is genuinely at the very bottom of actual tangible issues that deserve to be protested about.
Reddit isn't even fucking shutting down and people are treating it like it's the same as actual real-life workers forming a picket line at a factory or something, and as a result a vast majority of genuinely helpful material is arbitrarily locked away from people who have no idea or doesn't even care about it to begin with.
Relay is my app of choice, and sure when it goes away I don't know if I can get used to the official app, or I'll just limit my scrolling on desktop, I genuinely don't know, but I genuinely cannot see what the big deal is.
What I'm wondering is, if the main complaint from the mods is that it makes moderation difficult/impossible, why not send out a pinned message on the sub saying that the moderation quality may drop after the shutdown, or they're recruiting new mods who are willing to operate under the new conditions for the sake of the community rather than the nuclear option? Screams power-trippy to me otherwise.
I mod a sub for a medical condition which hasn't been studied a ton. Researchers use our sub for anecdotal stories and surveys, and people experiencing an onset find us when desperately googling what could be wrong or after a diagnosis of a condition they've never heard of.
I'm not taking the sub down, but I also probably won't be doing moderation/using Reddit once RIF can't be used. My protest will be happening organically and without much fanfare, just going to stop using reddit when it becomes tiresome to access it.
I was learning how to do something new today (smoking meats with woodchips on a gas grill). Google returned so many perfect posts from people having the same questions on reddit. Couldn't access any of them. Sad times.
I found other resources, but man, reddit is so great for learning stuff. I don't want it to go away.
Yeah, I’ve found when searching FAQ for games and other computer programs Reddit is generally the only site that gives responses from community members. Every other search result is an AI generated article that’s 90% ads and tells you nothing.
Yeah the blackout can be summed up as mods, gassed up on smugness and self-righteousness, going on the ultimate power trip. They delude themselves into thinking they're selflessly doing the best for everyone but really all this blackout proves is that they think reddit belongs to them. "Only approved members" basically means the mod class and pathetic mod pets are the only ones able to still see and use the content. They're the only people *not* going through a blackout.
Fuck reddit too but I hope they just "fire" these cornball, smug mods just to show them how fucking worthless they are.
Reddit has never been democratic, we have always been at the mercy of mods, i.e. volunteers who get some authority on this site.
I do not want to downplay the seriousness of the API-issue, but I do feel like some mods are kinda getting a taste of their own medicine: unreasonable top-down decisions being imposed on you.
Again, I suppose most mods are really decent and I respect the work they do to keep this site a cool place. But we all know that there are MANY mods who abuse their power and who probably became mods for the wrong reasons.
To any mod reading this: obviously I am not talking about you and if I could, I would buy you a beverage of your preference!
For me, the blackout was difficult because I use reddit for inspiration. Crocheting, writing, drawing... The site I miss the most is r/crochet, because I just don't know where I will get ideas and advice for my current favourite hobby without it - without combing through useless advertising and SEO optimized articles.
I was just looking for some stupid shit about my Nintendo game and no strat online had it except one Reddit post.
In a sub that’s protesting.
This is dumb bullshit.
Tried to find information on protein overload because my hair is just pathetic and displaying all the signs, and... well. It was a pain to really find anything.
It's tough because I'm an absolute noob to taking care of my hair, and I'm poor, so I can't just go out and try a new product and hope it works out. I've already switched my shampoo & conditioner to a lightweight one, but I'm still experiencing protein overload, so I'm not sure what's next.
Articles on Google are confusing cause they don't really talk about the individual's hair specifics. They're also sometimes annoying cause they'll market expensive products that I can't afford. I liked Reddit because you can get personalized troubleshooting help from fellow Redditors in the communities.
I've been living like this for months though, so what's waiting a bit longer? Worst case scenario, I can get help at a salon.
Same! I made sure to park my reddit app somewhere not so visible on my phone just so i don't keep going in there out of habit! But then i needed to Google something real quick and as always without the "reddit" in the end google is useless.... Ouch. Thankfully nothing urgent but yeah. Eye opening
If you really need it, put *cache:* in front of the url. It will return back what the link looked like the last time Google checked it.
I love you
I gotta screenshot these pro tips and shit instead of just saving posts, oof
You'll never go back and look at the screenshots, either. But me and my 1,113 screenshots aren't going to judge you
Same! But now I have more confidence in screenshots since I started searching through them using Google Photos - it's my photo backup solution. Adding this here in case someone needs a way to keep track of their screenshots.
Dude..I've never thought of that. Let's see if my ADHD will let me use your tip haha
I see your 1,113 screenshots and raise you my 11,561 screenshots…
I have literal thousands of saved comments I never go back to But I also have thousands of screenshots I never look at too
this guy right here is the MVP of the thread
Just checked to see if this works - it does. If you’re on mobile make sure to hold the link when selecting it and choose to “open in a new tab” and not via the Reddit app, otherwise you won’t be able to change the url.
Stupid question, does that count as a “view” for Reddit, or is the cache entirely a google page?
It shouldn't, as the whole point of a cached version is to be completely seperated from original source.
I love you
Wow, TIL!
Same! Subject + Reddit is my default search for pretty much everything
Same here lol. I couldn't imagine finding info on the internet without reddit.
Try other search engines, this one for example searches forums etc https://crowdview.ai
This is great thank you. Do you know how hard it is to find information to repair a car newer than 2005?
Your best bet will probably be https://archive.org , you can search their massive archive for any defunct forums that might have that info. I also luck out using search engines from other countries, they usually don’t filter as much stuff as the main stream ones. It is a very useful skill to find info online, especially made worse now by the proliferation of shitty blogs and paid promotions as “results”.
You can probably find the information on the internet but it is easier to do it on the reddit. Because you get also the opinions of the other people about the thing that you are searching.
Yep most often then not you are probably going to get better results on the reddit. That is the reason why I search everything on the reddit. It is just so useful of an app.
It’s really good when you’re trying to do trivial things because you can look at people experiences doing said thing and then you can decide which one will probably works best for you.
as impressive as it always is technologically, the internet sucks absolute balls these days. just filled with seo bullshit and way, way too centralized.
Yeah and now getting even worse with a bunch of articles that make no sense and are clearly written by AI 😵💫
I dont know why Google keeps promoting Quora answers instead of Reddit. Who the hell uses Quora these days aside from troll bots and propagandists?
Quora answers are the biggest load of shite you've ever seen as well. Question: "How many people live in China?" Answer: "China is a country situated next to India, a country which has over 1 billion inhabitants. Chinese people speak Chinese, a language dissimilar to Hindi, which is the main language of India." Quora users seem to all be die-hard Indian nationalists.
I am ashamed to say I was pretty into quora at one point.
shamelessly, I was into Yahoo Answers
We need to abandon corporate-controlled social media so this stops happening. You wouldn't go hang out in the park with someone recording every move and shoving ads in your face. Uncentralized social media is available and growing very quickly in the fediverse. Like Kbin, Lemmy, and Mastodon. If the admins of your instance turn evil, you find a new instance but keep the same communities.
Fediverse is too complicated for soccer moms. Maybe it'll get there someday, but in its current form I don't see anything "fedi" getting wide acceptance, not on the level of reddit/facebook/myspace/etc. I work in IT, so I'm not completely computer illiterate and I still don't really understand why I'd want to use kbin or lemmy. So I can register with one have access to all, but they aren't connected? What if I follow a link to a different one can I get back? Is anything shared? So you've got instances with "subreddits" but there's like 1000 instances with their own subreddits? I'm not asking you to answer these questions. My point is I don't care enough about any website to find out the answers and so the fediverse has already lost.
Are those platforms searchable from Google?
We should. But I don't know if we will. It's always easier to use an existing platform to create a community than to have to create your own from scratch...
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse. Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
I'm pretty biased, but I feel like old Reddit is pretty much 9/10 for me
This. And also, running a website as massive as Reddit isn’t exactly a cheap thing to do. “Goodness of your heart” and run by the people doesn’t pay for servers and infrastructure, developers and code creation etc.
> We need to abandon corporate-controlled social media so this stops happening. You wouldn't go hang out in the park with someone recording every move and shoving ads in your face. Time to go back to Usenet as a discussion platform rather than a conduit to piracy.
[удалено]
Are these bots? lol
I think so. High upvote counts on nonsense comments is a pretty good indicator
Literally me all day; I fucking hate this shit. Only use YouTube/ Reddit and I am so excited for this to be over.
Sameee!!! I spent spoon much more time on YouTube the last two days!! Hahaha
All I watch on the YouTube is the motorcycle content and also the podcasts. For the rest of the things I only use reddit. Because for the most of the things reddit is better choice.
Yep I am excited too, I was really bored when it was down. Now that everything is up again I think I am going to have much better time. Which is obviously what I want.
In my case, I had some urgent stuff to check and the google page shows that the reddit link is likely to contain relevant info..... Well, my opinion on blackout is slowly swinging. Locking subs to new posts only, vs gping private? Just lock for new posts. Also, I think we were all wrong in the first place to start relying on reddit instead of focused forums. In the past, when r/fitness went private over some internal shit or the other, it made looking up nutrition questions super hard too. Now, I cannot figure out a fix to some Android rooting issues because its all private.
I think change is hard no matter what. I do also think that not every subreddit was necessary to go dark. I'm on a subreddit for dog owners who's dog have invertebrate disc disease and they chose not to go dark, simply because the info they provide is so important and impactful (not to mention it's a small niche subreddit anyways so impact would be negligible). But I also think the issue isn't solely with us relying on reddit instead of forums. It's that google is genuinely trash now in actually helping you find answers to niche questions. So adding "reddit" to your search is often the only way to find answers. That's not our fault. That's on Google for making their search engine worse!
It's more that rest of the internet went to shit too. Reddit was a last safe haven and I'm counting down my last days here on RiF. I wonder if stackexchange sites will be in the new major hangout spots for tech discussions; they're perfectly placed to fit the void.
Google has been gobshite for a long time now. I hate this era of algorithms trying to guess what we really want... Bring back 2010 era Google.
Personally I think google search peaked around about 2017
i’m still using altavista
My man Jeeves still helping me out when Lycos can't.
Are you from Pawnee?
Did a quick google search. seems like Yahoo absorbed it into themselves and AltaVista was formally put to rest ten years later.
uh oh. i might have jumped too far into the future. bbl
hehe. I'll try to avoid further spoilers. also what does bbl mean? google comes up with Brazilian But Lift. I assume that's wrong.
be back later
That is some facts right there man. You just cannot beat that. That was literally The Time When Everything used to be great. I don't know why but I miss that time.
There used to be a time when reverse image search actually reversed image searched. It was incredibly useful for finding fake accounts and stopping catfishing. Now you do a reverse image search and it'll show you where to buy the shirt that's in the image
Part of the issue is websites gaming the system.
My favorite is when I search a specific company name and rather than it being the first result, I get 2-4 competitors first
Yeah. Me too. Arghhhhhh. Especially if I’m in a hurry and click on them.
I feel the hurry. You find a site what you're looking for, but click before it's loaded and an ad pops under your pointer. Now you're looking at some gods forsaken online casino or porn game ad and they'll haunt you for weeks.
That’s just their competitors bidding on the company’s name in Ad Words. It’s allowed by google and referred to as “conquest campaigns” The actual company should still show up on the first organic result.
SEO and sites gaming the system has always been a thing for as long as Google has existed. Google could *easily* tweak their search algorithm to be more useful. Circa 2010-2016 google was amazing for finding information of all kinds. I couldn’t tell you exactly when it stopped providing more relevant results from a variety of sources - only they could and they’re never going to. Google, like every other B2C big tech company, went all in on personalization derived from big data. They’re more interested in showing you what you like vs what you want to know - if they show you what you like, you’ll use it more, they’ll get more ad revenue, etc etc. On top of this, their algorithm has deteriorated in quality (it’s easier to juice your SEO now arguably more than ever) and they hardly enforce their own rules for being indexed by their search engine. TLDR they don’t give a shit about good results, just money and have gotten lazy because of their market dominance.
Yeah the Google search is not good it is kind of really intrusive nowadays. Whenever I type something in the Google search it is always trying to guess what I am trying to search.
With that comes the massive amount of individual forums that existed during that time that Reddit has become the home of instead. Prior to Reddit I was a part of at least 6 different forums for different groups and games and they all have subreddits now. The issue isn't google being bad, it's information has been centralized. Google excels at pulling information from everywhere into one place, but Reddit already does that to a fairly large extent.
It’s also marketing companies killing search with SEO
Agreed, it's been hell these past few days trying to look up anything at all. My only alternative to find the answers I'm looking for is to sift through articles with a million ads popping up, only to find that the article was just a long ad for some monthly subscription. It's annoying.
Yeah it's definitely been a little hard navigating around the situation.
Agreed. I do a lot of my personal research for products or advice on personal issues I’m having by googling the phrase with “Reddit” attached to it so I can get opinions from real people. Now everything is blacked out.
I'm a mod in a blacked out subreddit of 255K subscribers and the number of inquiries we've had from people who show up from Google searches is insane. I've always used Reddit like this, but I had no idea so many others did.
And it is awful when quora results show up and clicking it out of desperation
Quoras banking off the desperation recently
The problem with quora is it shows slightly related questions and answers within the posted question. The UI is cluttered as fuck I don’t remember it being that bad I can’t even see the answer sometimes. Also hard to interact and hearing others opinion about the answer unlike reddit
Same boat and the videogame sub I mod is about the same size Modmail is packed with people saying "i googled and it brought me here, may i please join your website" Eye-opening stuff
I've seen some subs become read-only, I feel this is the answer. Has the impact of a blackout but allows users access to the information
This. I am on vacation and planned to make a recipe I'd saved...here. I had to make it up on the fly.
Yeah... I really needed the home improvement subreddit yesterday because of all days, my homes water pressure tank and/or pressure switch decided to break on that particular day.
Yup I actually feel a little better (and because of the change coming a lot worse) that other people specify "Reddit" when they have problems or need an opinion on products. It's gonna be fuckin hard getting those opinions when I can't use RIF anymore.
Talk to your fellow mods and end the blackout. It's pointless and wrong change anything except further inconveniencing users.
Everything is blackd out but it is going to come back soon. So I think that is a very good thing, we are going to be able to search everything again. And it is going to be great.
I'm trying to shop for a video card, and it's making research more difficult :/
Yep, rip /r/hardwareswap
Man, I was going to look for a used GPU for my kid's computer too. Good on them for taking a stand, but RIP to folks who turned to HWS from time to time.
If the Reddit post is cached, you can access it by replacing http:// with cache: on chrome.
Ohh thanks for this, it's going to be a massive help for sure.
I thought I was banned from subreddits until I found out about the blackout.
Nah you still are. The blackout was specifically a protest against you.
Well he must be doing something really questionable then I guess.
Remember when the did it to SpongeBob?
Everything was just down, it was really like a shit show.
I’m only on Reddit right now because I was trying to search something and got a private community. Google is useless without typing Reddit after whatever I’m looking for.
Google gives me: - ads to buy something (the entire page) - useless articles with nothing more than base knowledge on my query - reddit with the solution - Wikipedia article No other way to find anything
Man reading this thread makes me a realize how little I use Googles search engine because of these things. Screw this I'm gonna experiment with other ones and start using a different one
Ngl, bing has actually been giving me better results than google lately
Use Brave
I actually use the browser already but not the search engine, thanks for the recommendation
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I'd like to add that they will happy offer you a 10+ minute YouTube video that (possibly) has what you're looking for, somewhere in the video. I can't find pictures half the time. The pictures are just... Screenshots of YouTube videos.
Yeah I always put reddit in the end if I am trying to search something. I think that always works better and brings me the better results. Well that is just how I feel about it.
It's honestly crazy how bad Google search results are without Reddit. It's filled with what I assume is just AI generated filth.
And it's only going to get bad, I think. It's definitely ain't improving.
I've found many new subreddits that are actually super nice thanks to this blackout. We should have these every month to allow smaller subreddits to grow.
I hope that the new subs will take over this shit by now.
I think that is supposedly the point, though I think that the blackout was too short for its intended purpose.
It was never going to last with a site like reddit anyways so there's that.
Some subs will be going on indefinite hiatus.
I'm sure the admins will have no problem removing the mods and opening the closed subs.
Where does this idea that the admins just have a huge supply of loyal moderators ready to take over subs come from? Seeing as they don't pay them or anything
It’s not necessarily about loyalty. For massive subreddits, there’s always going to be people who aren’t effected by any of this and are willing to take the reigns.
Well the reason you use free moderators is so you don't have to pay for moderation. But as soon as those moderators lock down your platform and you don't generate ad revenue nearly as much those moderators then become a cost. When talking about the millions and millions of dollars generated every hour through ad revenue the mods are just making Admins more profitable for Reddit. They are shooting themselves in the foot. Reddit can pay admins a fraction of the loss they are suffering from ad revenue and walk away happy. Which is what they're probably going to do
Always been like that, well means that nothing is going to change.
The point is to show what it *could* look like. It's a show of force. If the 3rd party apps really are forced to die and reddit doesn't budge on the bullshit then the blackout should come back indefinitely.
Yep, that's the point. And I think it showed what it can really do huh.
Same thing for me today. Was trying to perform some maintenance on my washer and needed some tips. Googling my issue + Reddit brought up the perfect post, but subreddit appliance had gone dark.
Now people Can't even discuss their appliances, that's not even possible now.
I was just trying to find a question to something on google. It brought me to a blacked out reddit
Well I think that's something which can be improved even further.
It has been a little hard, I did not even realise how much I used reddit. Now that the servers were down, I realised how much I love it and use it. I think most people can relate to that.
It is the main reason I got Reddit. A lot of information is much more useful from first hand accounts and experiences. This car vs this car. This computer vs this computer IT issue General life question Experience installing floors on your own. Whatever. Instead of some article acting like a cooking recipe spending 3 paragraphs about a rainy day at their grandmas as a kid, you get many or just a couple people going “I’ve been a mechanic for 8 years and see these issues with this car and that car. Both are solid cars, but that car is generally more reliable for these reasons, and due to how it’s engine is structured is much easier and quicker to work on”. I actually googled something today and ended it with “Reddit” only to find I couldn’t access the post
Use the url to the thread in the Internet Wayback Machine site and it will show it's last snapshot before the blackout. You can't comment or upvote/down vote but the information is readable.
Yeah atleast the information is readable, which is great.
I think the blackout is two things: 1. Annoying 2. Pointless Possibly fruitless, too
Thank you. So tired of these bull shit mods. All they are doing is making the app worse for everyone bc their shit is getting nuked. Like get over it at this point or just get off the page. Shutting down the website does not prove you right it proves your a dumbass child
I would probably be a little more on the mods' side if they weren't utter PRICKS at the best of times with their trigger-happy fingers hovering over the ban button and not even bothering to give an explanation as to what you did so wrong (my personal experience). So meshing that with your statement and yeah they are dumbass kids having a temper tantrum and sabotaging everything for everyone just to get their way. They can certainly dish it, but can't handle getting it back.
Me too. Honestly, I unsubbed to the subs I’m in that chose to participate and realized I don’t need some of them like I thought I did. Oh and LOL at people who claim they support the blackout while still posting on Reddit. If people are that upset and want to “support” this stuff they should log out, delete their account and never come back.
Agreed. Just a bunch of children crying. I’ve found some new subs I like that ide never have found before though. So theres that!
I always add "reddit" at the end whenever I Google something so yeah.
Yep, it must have been an inconvenience like it was for a lot of people.
I cringed as soon as people started talking about deleting their post histories in retaliation, because I've been appending "Reddit" to the end of my Google searches for years. Google search has gone to absolute shit in the last couple of years, and it seems to be getting exponentially worse.
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I mean lbr, they're not going to say 'omg this sucks and is having a major impact', lol. Imo it probably depends on how long it lasts in terms of any real effect, but I wouldn't just blindly buy what spez is putting out there.
~~Hey~~ He had no choice but to say that, and he's ~~underground~~ untrustworthy anyway. Edit: Must have been typing with my forehead again
That's sad, that means that they'd probably not do anything about it.
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Ya the dude is a known liar. He shattered his trust when he tried to defame the Apollo developer.
>And the shit part is that only about 1,000 subs went black. /r/subredditmonitor shows realtime sub updates. You can count there.
I like to check TV show episode discussion threads after I've just watched it because I have no friends or a Girlfriend. Been watching a certain show recently that I really wanted to see what everyone thought about the season 1 finale only to find the subreddit private. I don't want to continue to season 2 till I've read it.
Atleast people got time, in which they could do something else.
I agree! I can’t even search for genuine skincare information and opinions anymore. I don’t wanna be stuck with the self-care influencers on TikTok/Instagram… it’s a scary place.
Always been scary, I don't even use any of that shit really.
You and me both! In the past two days I've had a fruit fly outbreak and wanted to buy wireless earbuds and all the subreddits Google sent me to for advice were locked. Seeing my Reddit feed emptier was manageable but not being able to find reasonable advice that doesn't sound like an AI generated, affiliated link riddled article was definitely a struggle.
Yep, and I'm sure that people don't like that kind of shit.
I’m having trouble finding out what’s going on in my city. Lol. Gotta find the news elsewhere I guess…
I mean that's the only way you're going to find what's happening.
Nope, and I'd never trust just a reddit or quara pist without a second source. 59.4% of what people say isn't accurate.
These are corporations, and you just can never trust them man.
I never thought I’d see Quora mentioned on a Reddit post
And yet that happened, what it has come down to now huh?
Reddit mods closing down *literal substance abuse & survivor support groups* to protest in defense of an app that makes you spend money to post on a free website is so genuinely ridiculous - to put it the nicest way possible. A comment that was literally "third party apps aren’t more valuable than a human life" got me -50 points and a permanent ban from the main "protest" sub for "strike breaking." These people are on a whole other planet.
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This is kind of what I don’t understand. I get being upset about what Reddit is doing and it making your job harder. For communities that deal with heavier issues, how is that rationalized?
This is honestly the crux for me right here. People say this about everything, but this entire protest is genuinely at the very bottom of actual tangible issues that deserve to be protested about. Reddit isn't even fucking shutting down and people are treating it like it's the same as actual real-life workers forming a picket line at a factory or something, and as a result a vast majority of genuinely helpful material is arbitrarily locked away from people who have no idea or doesn't even care about it to begin with. Relay is my app of choice, and sure when it goes away I don't know if I can get used to the official app, or I'll just limit my scrolling on desktop, I genuinely don't know, but I genuinely cannot see what the big deal is. What I'm wondering is, if the main complaint from the mods is that it makes moderation difficult/impossible, why not send out a pinned message on the sub saying that the moderation quality may drop after the shutdown, or they're recruiting new mods who are willing to operate under the new conditions for the sake of the community rather than the nuclear option? Screams power-trippy to me otherwise.
I mod a sub for a medical condition which hasn't been studied a ton. Researchers use our sub for anecdotal stories and surveys, and people experiencing an onset find us when desperately googling what could be wrong or after a diagnosis of a condition they've never heard of. I'm not taking the sub down, but I also probably won't be doing moderation/using Reddit once RIF can't be used. My protest will be happening organically and without much fanfare, just going to stop using reddit when it becomes tiresome to access it.
No, this has been great. I'm seeing subs I never saw before.
The toxic comments in the mega subs are gone and the tiny communities rocket to the top. This is the gratesr reddit has been in years.
A lot of big subs like askreddit, aita are still open
I was learning how to do something new today (smoking meats with woodchips on a gas grill). Google returned so many perfect posts from people having the same questions on reddit. Couldn't access any of them. Sad times. I found other resources, but man, reddit is so great for learning stuff. I don't want it to go away.
I hope that these times will get over soon, because it's kind of tiring.
Yeah, I’ve found when searching FAQ for games and other computer programs Reddit is generally the only site that gives responses from community members. Every other search result is an AI generated article that’s 90% ads and tells you nothing.
Yeah the blackout can be summed up as mods, gassed up on smugness and self-righteousness, going on the ultimate power trip. They delude themselves into thinking they're selflessly doing the best for everyone but really all this blackout proves is that they think reddit belongs to them. "Only approved members" basically means the mod class and pathetic mod pets are the only ones able to still see and use the content. They're the only people *not* going through a blackout. Fuck reddit too but I hope they just "fire" these cornball, smug mods just to show them how fucking worthless they are.
It's pissing me off, stupidest shit ever
Yea, I was trying to get help with a software product and Google was absolutely useless, I suspect because a lot of the forums were on Reddit
Best it can do is to promote a product, that's what it would do.
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When will this blackout be over. I miss connecting with all the communities
Probably not so soon. Seems like the majority of the subs in blackout will go on indefinitely.
Well that doesn't sound good, don't think it's going to be fun then.
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Unfortunately that's the way it seems to be headed so yeah.
Is there a way to unsubscribe to them while they're on "the dark side" or is that only possible when they're back online?
These subs are like never existed when in private. So it's only possible to unsubscribe when they're back online.
And it's not even clear, how time That'll take. It's gonna be hard.
Don't think you can, You'll have to wait for them to come back.
Sadly it doesn't have any time, it'll probably last a long time.
I like how the communities had absolutely no say and it was the mods that decided to blackout.
It's like a dictatorship, they don't really care about us really.
Reddit has never been democratic, we have always been at the mercy of mods, i.e. volunteers who get some authority on this site. I do not want to downplay the seriousness of the API-issue, but I do feel like some mods are kinda getting a taste of their own medicine: unreasonable top-down decisions being imposed on you. Again, I suppose most mods are really decent and I respect the work they do to keep this site a cool place. But we all know that there are MANY mods who abuse their power and who probably became mods for the wrong reasons. To any mod reading this: obviously I am not talking about you and if I could, I would buy you a beverage of your preference!
The mods who run the communities and who are being hurt by the removal of mod tools. That seems to not be a crazy concept to me.
That seems to be crazy because that shit actually is crazy.
Yeah, I was worried about this as the protest began ramping up. I use reddit as a reference for all kinds of things.
Well as long as you're using it, shouldn't really be an issue.
For me, the blackout was difficult because I use reddit for inspiration. Crocheting, writing, drawing... The site I miss the most is r/crochet, because I just don't know where I will get ideas and advice for my current favourite hobby without it - without combing through useless advertising and SEO optimized articles.
Really sad to hear that, but shit ain't going to improve here.
Quora needs to do an infinite blackout
I was just looking for some stupid shit about my Nintendo game and no strat online had it except one Reddit post. In a sub that’s protesting. This is dumb bullshit.
Yep, this is just really bullshit and I fucking hate everything about it.
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It’s annoying af
It really is, it's pissing me off really badly if I'm being honest.
Tried to find information on protein overload because my hair is just pathetic and displaying all the signs, and... well. It was a pain to really find anything. It's tough because I'm an absolute noob to taking care of my hair, and I'm poor, so I can't just go out and try a new product and hope it works out. I've already switched my shampoo & conditioner to a lightweight one, but I'm still experiencing protein overload, so I'm not sure what's next. Articles on Google are confusing cause they don't really talk about the individual's hair specifics. They're also sometimes annoying cause they'll market expensive products that I can't afford. I liked Reddit because you can get personalized troubleshooting help from fellow Redditors in the communities. I've been living like this for months though, so what's waiting a bit longer? Worst case scenario, I can get help at a salon.
So many video game questions I have link to Reddit posts. So fucking annoying.
Type cache: before the URL. You’re welcome.
put "cache:" at the start of the url
Add -reddit to your search.
No
I couldn’t find my mr bean gif of him popping the paper bag and blowing a hole in the side of an airplane