Lol, that’s not at all what the culture is good at. It’s an internet mob with famous examples of false accusations, doxxing and harassment. Any subreddit that isn’t severely moderated is gamed by people who know how to appeal to the local crowd.
Being cynical and anti-business is not about “getting to the facts”. It just means they need a different type of marketing.
> It just means they need a different type of marketing.
That's correct. And Step #1 is to have a product which will make it past the collective bullshit detector. Step #2 is to provide real and actual value. To have a legitimately good product.
So much of marketing is built on deception. If you try to deceive Redditors, you're going to get told to fk urself.
Dude doesn't seem hurt, they're just spitting facts.
Have those things happened on Reddit? Ya. Was that in any way an accurate summary of what Reddit is? No. And it's absurd to claim that it is.
"But look at this example and this one"
I could make a huge list of the times Reddit has been bad, too. That doesn't change a single thing about what I just said.
When submitting to reddit, you elplicitely cannot submit just to "reddit", you have to choose a subreddit. These subreddit can be as varied in response as humans can, even when apparently sharing the same topic/goal. Subreddits turn toxic sometimes, sometimes they're made that way intentionally. Some are hard fought places of positive intent with strong moderation and some are 'wild west'. Sometimes places get toxic enough that someone else creates a similarly named subreddit with an identical goal but attempts to cultivate and moderate a positive environment. If you didn't know about this you'd see 2 identical subreddits, when you post you'll get 2 very different receptions.
"Reddit"s response is entirely dependent upon subreddit. We cannot argue about how "reddit" reacts, and it's impractical to talk about individual redditors, the communities within, the subreddits, are the unit about which we can have meaningful conversation. There's no point in arguing about whether reddit has hurt someone or not or whether their reception was beneficial or degrading the community without knowing _which_ Community. There are places that will hurt everyone, there are places that will reject every product, there are places that won't. They are different places
I've never been anywhere on Reddit that doesn't have the specific characteristic that I'm referring to. If people think you are wrong, they tell you. If they think you're lying or spinning bullshit, they say so. If they think your method is suboptimal, they let you know the way they think is best.
This also applies to people on HN. We're engaged in it right now.
It’s trivial for companies to get past Reddit’s “bullshit detector”. Just sound like a scrappy small business that cares deeply about users and not money.
There is a trail of overfunded kickstarters with nothing to show years later that demonstrates how gullible redditors are.
Your overconfidence in a bunch of armchair experts is exactly why they are so gullible. Being susceptible to marketing is one thing. Thinking you’re not is so much worse.
> I can see that Reddit really hurt you. On behalf of the community, I'm sorry.
You don’t speak for the community of which I’m a part. They also didn’t hurt me, they hurt the people they doxxed and I watched it happen years ago. That’s why there are strict doxxing bans now.
Redditors as a collective are as dumb as the average population (everyone gets equal votes), which doesn’t make for a good SNR.
> However all of the people appending 'Reddit' to their search queries instead of reading the deception-based marketing pages that fill up Google results, may understand where I'm coming from.
I do this too, but what you’re failing to grasp is that you don’t realize you’re also reading deception-based marketing pages. Corporations wised up to social media a decade ago and have armies of social media experts that know exactly how to target various online communities.
You're both wrong :). There is no "Reddit culture"; on Reddit, culture is scoped to a subreddit. You and GP are likely hanging out on different kinds of subreddits - but if your experience is that of "an internet mob with famous examples of false accusations, doxxing and harassment", I strongly suggest you rethink which subreddits you follow. Yes, they probably need a different type of marketing, but they're probably also not worth it for technical products.
> Being cynical and anti-business is not about “getting to the facts”.
It's hard to tell, because cynicism and healthy realism overlap nearly 100% when it comes to modern business.
There is both.
For example, anonymity. There is nothing stopping people from using their real name as their username or openly revealing who they are, where they live and work etc. But the Reddit culture is to be anonymous.
Are there exceptions? Yes. But those exceptions don't change that it's an anonymous culture.
Any particular subreddit will have a specific ideological soft spot that a dedicated marketer will be able to identify and craft turf to exploit. It’s a fundamental flaw to anonymity.
That’s not my experience at all. I’m curious what makes you think that?
15+ years of living on Reddit.
Is it perfect at those things? Of course not. Can you and I and others provide a bunch of examples of those things not happening? Of course. It's still damned good at them.
I expanded at length here on how this works with regard to people trying to promote their products: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37703112
But it applies to all sorts of stuff, depending on the subreddit. Investing advice, sports trivia, historical facts, whatever.
Are you talking about specific subreddits or topics?
I’ve found the negativity on Reddit to be more likely as to come from completely ignorant sources as anyone with actual knowledge. I'm pretty surprised anyone on there for a long period of time would be so trusting of the community there.
I'm talking about the culture of the entire site. From tiny subreddits to huge ones and every topic.
> I’ve found the negativity on Reddit to be more likely as to come from completely ignorant sources as anyone with actual knowledge.
Maybe we're talking about different things here. You seem to be referring to jerks. I was referring to people calling stuff out. People can call things out politely. One could say you're doing it right now - you disagree with me and you're explaining why. You're not being negative but what you're doing would be an example of what I mean. Redditors do this. If they see something they think is wrong, they say so. Sometimes in great numbers. Sometimes politely, sometimes very rude. Sometimes with the IQ of a hamster and sometimes it's a genius. But they let you know.
> I'm pretty surprised anyone on there for a long period of time would be so trusting of the community there.
I don't know what you mean by trusting. They're not always right. I don't automatically believe whatever they say. It's like in Jackie Brown. 'You can't trust melanie, but you can always trust melanie to be melanie.' I trust Reddit to be Reddit. If they see something they don't agree with or think is false or think is misleading or think is not the best way - they're gonna let you know.
Reddit also seems to suffer from something you see in a lot of online communities, where in the valley of the blind the one eyed man is king. People with a slight amount experience (or even hobbyists that just post a lot) get taken as authoritative sources that can’t be questioned. Working on your history degree? You can go to Reddit and be treated with more authority than most people even give accomplished historians. One of the many individuals who served as a squad leader in the army? You can get treated as if you’re an expert on all things military and are able to more accurately predict the outcome of conflicts than the Defense Department is.
Meanwhile the “inverse Reddit” investing strategy works even better than “inverse Cramer”
Reddit comments are the whiskey to YouTube comment’s beer on the stupidity index.
Very interesting way you put that and sorta gets to the heart of the matter.
To me it doesn't even make sense, like, why would I get my information on social media. I'm telling you what I've seen on Reddit. But you went to what people say other places. Which is clearly how a lot of you are getting your information.
And ya, I've seen the receipts. I've got some receipts of my own.
If someone needs their ass kissed to recognize I'm right, that's on them. Not me.
The poster you're replying to is 100% correct.
No idea how anyone can say this earnestly about Reddit while having spent as much time there as you claim you have. It's a horrible corner of the internet rife with all kinds of bigotry and hatred and negativity for the sake of it. Not to mention it's the easiest place to astroturf ever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Sunil_Tripathi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti...
If you took what I said to be some type of blanket 'Reddit is a perfect and wonderful place' you misunderstood.
Redditors are entitled and they are demanding and they are quick to jump all over you. And they can be wrong. But it's not for the sake of negativity and it's not because there is no human there.
That culture is damned effective at filtering out bullshit and bad actors and getting to the facts. If you want to bring Redditors some overpriced vaporware you are absolutely right they're going to rip you apart. They're just doing what Redditors do - calling out bullshit.
Bring them a product worthy of praising and they'll make entire subreddits dedicated to your awesome product.