Isn't this actually a more general cultural shift. On the societal level, or on the level of the entire developed world. It often feels like people are simply tired of cynicism these days.

Being a trained journalist, I have observed something similar in my own country: former witty, extremely-clever-but-cynical outlets have changed to a more neutral style in recent years. I do think this is an obvious win for journalism, or at least for investigative reporting. They can possibly dig a little deeper this way. More focus on the hard work of bringing serious problems to light, less focus on crafting mean headlines.

Also, as a side note, I'd say it is actually much easier to write a "cynical" headline as compared to one that is not mean, but still playful and multi-layered. IMO cynicism is mostly a low-hanging fruit; which is why this is such a common "closet addiction" in many newsrooms.

Which is why Private Eye is so popular and has record sales figures!

(Hint: It remains as British and as cynical as ever)

But the sad thing it's Barrapunto is not more since a decade (they plugged the servers down a few years ago) and Meneame took its position, and politic arguments took over the "geeky" environment.

I miss these days, I could learn geeky and tech stuff in both languages and chat with geniouses daily. Reddit did the same for Slashdot, ok, but you kept Slashdot on.

Here, in the Spanish world (not even the whole Hispanic world across th pond) the legacy tech sites are dead, even for the Usenet es.* and esp.* (for latam hiers) . You have Slashdot at least, Ars Technica, Usenet, IRC and even Fido/Dovenet.

This is like being a curry shop known for having intensely flavorful but spicy curry - thus having dedicated fans who enjoy that flavor - and toning it down in flavor and spice because you want to have more general appeal. Now nobody thinks of you as "that shop with the intense curry" but just one of many curry shops.

Now you're just like every other shitty tech news website and competing for the same generic eyeballs who will read a story from you that happens to appear in google news and never come back.

Now they are a spammy lowest-common-denominator pop culture “tech news” and cell phone reviews.

Now I understand why it has not captured my attention in these last years: I checked the homepage and the titles are pretty vanilla, they don't read tongue in cheek not witty, which is something I liked. Nothing wrong with that, I assume the standard editorial style attracts a broader audience.

As a product, I would think that you would survive by finding a niche and expanding it. But these changes seem to try to compete for engagement rather than serve the niche.

Yes, you expand your business and make more money - but I would also think that the competition would be more fierce as a trade off.

Kind of wish it could be a setting "sarcasm on".

It's also very similar to how by a bands second or third album (after they hit it big) - they end up changing their sound (often sounding like every other band in the process) - because they go on tour and then they tailor their music to what makes the crown react more.

You have aggressively used the word "folks" without a license 8)

el Reg has always had a tone and attitude all of its own. Let's face it the forums are pretty functionally crap and yet it sort of works.

Mess with the format at your peril - make the forums/comments work effectively ... that would be nice.

I have no idea why you insist on calling it "the Reg", it's currently "el Reg" due to the Spanish influence unless you can do better ...

Do you remember say "Eadon"? or a Canadian bloke with a decently potty mouth (Trev).

Punny headlines unfortunately are terrible for targeting keywords

This isn't a new thing. When I was an industry analyst we also liked to do clever stuff in titles which at least one editor pushed back on. However, we were mostly a fully paywalled subscription so it was less of a consideration in our case.

Except you're not irreverent at all anymore. You're basically Ars and CNET. Why on earth you'd abandon your readership to attract people who already read Ars, and are unlikely to move, is beyond me.

I like that it (still, despite the insinuation) is a RedTop in spirit, and I am generally quite impressed by the technical level of its staff.

I do like that you have given Dabbsy and Simon a good home. Thanks for that.

Just one drop in the ocean of data, but I'm glad you guys are around.

https://autosaveisforwimps.substack.com

This makes sense. Somewhere I have an old hacker t-shirt that says Evolve or die that supports the mantra.

If I could make one feature request of ElReg it would be that the system used by your editors puts a hard cap on article descriptions to 80 characters so I do not have to do creative editorializing of the links when I submit them here. At times I find it very difficult to submit a link and have it still make sense.

OP here. Just wanted to say thanks a million for taking he time and sharing your insightful reply. I don't have any original/interesting points to make, so I'll let the other commenters follow-up.

Sounds basically like you were left with:

"To Assimilate or To Differentiate? That is The [Business] Question."

(to misquote another great British writer)

That's a shame. I can't stand the smug yet awfully constructed articles. The house style is beyond irritating, and I assumed Andrew orlowski was to blame, but I see he now writes for spiked (enough said) but if the writing style still makes it so hard to read, I'll continue to give it a swerve

Yelling! Yahoo! Headlines! were always easy to parse and will be missed.

Christ mate! Long term El-Reg reader here.

The pure Blightly, homegrown, sarcastic piss taking tone is why I read the Reg, and so do many others. Selling out to some bland US-corporate bullshit WILL loose you readers.

And BTW, can we have the 'Paris' icon back? Please.