I’d love to see AI that automatically curates the comments so that all the ‘witty’ takes can be collapsed under one category. But I think I’m with you in that it’s probably just time to move on. I’ve found a lot of my discussions have migrated to Discord for better or worse

Download Apollo and unsubscribe from all mainstream subreddits + remove all and popular, is the key.

I did this myself, but it only kicked the can on my eventual leaving. Sure, niche subreddits are generally better in their content and discussions, but I still noticed that the same behaviors end up being rewarded. It's the format that's the problem, not the content, and that's the one thing shared by all subreddits.

Most subreddits I visit are low volume and haven't noticed much difference in behaviour other than acceptability of short funny replies. What do you mean about the format, isn't it the same as HN (OP link/text and comments)?

I do recall a comment/thread saying how HN comments/behaviour was starting to resemble Reddit, so there may be something to that (though I'd chalk it up to becoming more popular/mainstream).

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> Any moments of "lightning-in-a-bottle" can certainly result in memorable periods where a subreddit truly adds value to one's life, and that can make the whole website hard to give up.

I would mention /r/credibledefense as a counter example. It was a niche subreddit before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in the aftermath got popular, but still managed to keep its quality.

But I agree with your general point, it's not a huge problem for me, though. Some subreddits get popular and thus bad, some new subreddits get created. Reddit's relative anarchy is its saving grace, communities can split/fork, but still stay within reddit platform.

Isn't "reddit format" essentially exactly the same as the "hacker news format"?

Format certainly influences the quality of interactions, but there are some other strong factors as well.