I use an addon to always redirect to the old.reddit.com and ublock to aggressively block divs that are for advertiser's benefit rather than mine. Along with RES, it makes for a pretty nice experience. The only real downside is that once subs get large enough they invariably turn to shit.

Theres a new Reddit alternative that's open source, Tildes.

https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes

I've been on it for a few months and would recommend it.

Never heard of this. I like the philosophy. I’ve seen users try and enforce that kind of thing on Reddit, but it often falls flat because it’s not core to the platform.

Sounds good. But how will they reach critical mass? How to avoid being popular driving it into trash like most other aggregators?

> But how will they reach critical mass?

Tildes prioritizes quality over quantity.

> How to avoid being popular driving it into trash like most other aggregators?

It's currently invite-only to limit its growth and keep its userbase from being polluted. Later, a trust system will be added for active and trusted users to help moderate it. When it gets opened to the public, it might also limit signups to prevent overwhelming floods of users taking over.

Also see https://docs.tildes.net/overall-goals.

The more any service becomes mainstream the more it trends to lowest common denominator - that’s pretty much a rule at this point. Only way to avoid is to keep moving on - I welcome examples to the contrary!

What are some of the ~ you follow?

Isn't reddit open source?

It used to be, but the open-source repository stopped being updated and was archived years ago.

although if everyone hates the new version, maybe that's what people want

It’s never the app that’s the barrier, it’s the user base.