Yup Apollo shutting down broke my Reddit habit finally. I’m not downloading another client. My screen time is down 25% already and I’m doing things with that time that I’d meant to do for a while.
I exercise more, I spent more time engaged with my kid, I started reading books I have been putting off and just started to focus on my life again.
I know realize how much non-sense there was on reddit and that all the comments just kept me engaged without adding much value to my life(most of the time). Some comments and subreddits were extremely valuable.
That was the hidden value of Reddit: not the big firehose feeds, but specific communities. Want to discuss some geeky topic? If the subreddit wasn't there, you could create it just like that.
But, putting all your eggs in one basket doesn't work out well when the basket owner starts cutting holes in it.
The problem: discoverability. You need one starting point that everyone can find. We're already finding that search engines inevitably follow the same trajectory, so they aren't necessarily the answer. Maybe go back to curated indexes? Yahoo could become relevant again if they play their cards right, though I'm not holding my breath.
Hopefully, Mastodon, Lemmy, etc. can avoid turning into the next Tweddit.
