News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by d3nj4l on Thursday May 14, 2020 @12:38AM (#23175369)
IMO, reddit is the last remaining place to find genuine, user opinions on products. I've taken to adding "reddit" to all my google searches when I'm researching which product to buy; for example, I typed "DT 770 reddit headphones" in google when I was looking up which headphones to buy. Reviewers rave about that pair, but looking up real user experiences of them made me decide they weren't for me. Over time even that's becoming less useful, as memes overtake the platform and you can't find people talking about more niche products, but that's still the most useful any social network has been for me.
Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by piva00 on Thursday May 14, 2020 @03:08AM (#23176362)
For me, reddit's use is both the case for product reviews and finding collections of good beginner-intermediate level information for some hobbies.

The sidebar wikis of hobbyist communities is packed full of good content, curated over years by the community so usually it's a very good "starter pack" knowledge to save time on your own research.

Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by iphone_elegance on Thursday May 14, 2020 @03:49AM (#23176659)
I know a few people who make good livings faking those, I'd take a lot of the conversations you see there with a grain of salt.
Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by taurath on Thursday May 14, 2020 @05:39AM (#23177458)
Try to find advice on buying a hot tub. 99% of posts are hot tub dealers.
Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by d3nj4l on Friday May 15, 2020 @12:09PM (#23193808)
Dealers have crowded a lot of the markets, yeah. VPNs are another one, if you look for VPN advice you're very likely to find people trying to get you to use their referral code or lying about things.
Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by temeritatis on Thursday May 14, 2020 @06:23AM (#23177727)
I just replied to another comment saying i do exactly the same and how the rest of the internet is mad up of copy-pasted (many times faked) reviews and auto-generated content (or auto translations) which is just infuriating.

The thing is, at some point this is probably gonna happen to reddit as well, so enjoy it while it lasts. Just the other day i read in a subreddit about people being offered things in return for favorable reviews on certain products on those subreddits. Sigh.

Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by rwmurrayVT on Thursday May 14, 2020 @08:05AM (#23178451)
It's the r/juststart amazon affiliate way. I'll be really happy when Amazon finally cuts commissions to zero. There's just so much unbelievably poor content on google results.
Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by catalogia on Thursday May 14, 2020 @10:11AM (#23179728)
Reddit is utterly useless for honest product reviews. The only place to reliably find genuine product reviews is from people you know IRL. Your friends, family, coworkers, etc.
Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by d3nj4l on Friday May 15, 2020 @12:08PM (#23193787)
It's getting worse over time but you can generally find good, honest reviews. If you're doubtful about the authenticity you can usually just ask them a question about something specific and you can judge it from their response (or lack thereof)
Re:92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people by guevara on Thursday May 14, 2020 @04:38PM (#23185093)
Agreed, reddit is a goldmine for anecdata.