this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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According to Google trends, the people who left are an insignificantly small number, Reddit has still grown in search popularity over the last year. However, if you've browsed Reddit since the shutdown, you know that this isn't the whole story, engagement and quality are both down.
It will take a long time for the numbers to reflect reality. Look at Twitter, it's still chugging along and it's gotten way shittier than reddit has in the same time frame.
The quality time Reddit is really bad. And the app is trash, all ads and promoted posts, and a new feature to be like tiktok. Fkn gag me
Yep. Numbers alone aren't what are "significant".
Numbers are all spez cares about, though, and just like with Facebook, listicle sites, and reality tv, eyeballs are all that matters. The content is trash and may even be harmful, but if they can sell eyeballs, that’s all that matters.
I’d rather a smaller community with quality content myself, but unfortunately that’s never going to be lucrative.
Downturns in quality always take a bit of time to have an effect. Sites coast on momentum. Sometimes it takes a user a while before they decide the site just isn’t as interesting as before. Sometimes a user might be optimistic that the quality will return and stick it out. Eventually, those user numbers will see a bigger dip.
Of course, when it comes to corporations and finance, it seems all the power players ever care about are the short term. What gets them into next quarter. Most of them are going to be long gone and working on something else before the real damage kicks in.
So, yeah, you’re right. All spez cares about are the numbers. But unless they can pivot this whole enshittification process, those numbers are likely to look different in a few years. Though that only matters if you actually care about Reddit and not just making as much money as quickly as possible.
If I was spez that's not what would concern me.
Previously Reddit was the be all and end all. Sure there was alternatives for subreddits like car forums or star trek but a generic Reddit alternative no. The goal was then to increase users from something like Facebook, increase the time on the website and maximum revenue. Maybe alternatives were tried and they failed. It was almost impossible to reach that critical mass and the websites died.
This time feels different. The number of users Reddit lost is meaningless. But the number of users the alternative gained is significantly.
If lemmy keeps growing to become an actual competitor to Reddit that changes the game entirely.
The question isn't how many users did Reddit lose it is did lemmy hit that equilibrium point to keep organic grown. It's like an exponential. If lemmy wins the way Facebook beat MySpace is not about going from half the users to 100%. It's about going from <1% to 5% or even from 0.1% to 1% whatever that mass is. Getting from 1 to 100,000 will take longer than 100,000 to 1,000,000,000
I don't expect search numbers going down any time soon. I don't post there as much anymore but I always type "reddit" in search engines whenever I'm looking for answers. Seems like it's the only way to get search results that aren't bloated blog posts and articles.
Given that I no longer have an app, my google search for “what’s the best for x? Reddit” has gone up. I’m sure many people are still using Reddit for that vs relying on google for the answers.
In case you're just adding reddit into the search bar...
If you type it as "Site:Reddit.com Figurines presented in jars" it'll remove any result that isn't from reddit. It even works as "site:reddit.com/r/fuckspez" for instance.
Ehh I haven't noticed any difference when I go to the site. Seems exactly the same as before.