Ads are not the only reason, but if you're still on reddit, you clearly missed the point why reddit became popular.
15 years on Reddit before leaving. It was the only social media platform where I actually felt leadership personally hated its users.
That's illegal in Germany though, right? AFAIK all ads must be disclosed as such.
How is this news? Reddit has been doing this for literally years.
If I hadn't already left, this would probably have been the thing that did it for me.
In a few years my computer will be able to run an acceptable but obviously not chatGPT4 level AI that will among other things pre filter this crap from my feed as part of normal ad blocking. Buckle up bitches.
So the future is AI ad creators versus AI ad blockers, with all of us caught in the middle. Yay?!
Future is the internet populated by bots while humans try to go analog.
Fortunately, at least in my experience, the adblockers usually win. Even if a company changes something to avoid an adblocker or force someone to turn off their adblocker (Hi, Twitch!), it's usually fixed within just a few hours at most.
The reddit mobile browser is literally broken and keeps getting worse. They are updating it a lot, but I swear to god it gets worse and increasingly broken with each iteration. I actually liked the browser when they initially killed 3rd party apps, but shortly after that it got a huge redesign that was infinitely worse than before. I am thoroughly convinced they want that experience to be miserable so I go download and use their ad-infested shitty app instead. Fuck reddit.
I am confident that's the case - there's a reason the mobile website is constantly asking you if you'd like to use the app instead... it's their preferred mode for you to view. Even if it is terrible, it locks you onto Reddit.
This isn’t new, a few years ago I was looking at their ad program and they had inline post ads that you were taught to post like a user
First time I accidentally click on one of these I'm going to shit thst post up so hard.
Gross.
They had tons of covert "ads" before this, too. Set up like 100 fake accounts (commonly bought from people who create and fluff them up by posting and commenting for a while so they look legit) and then post your add and use like 20 or so of your Bot accounts to upvote and comment to get the ball rolling.
Then you have your add there, got it climbing a bit in "new" and didn't pay a dime for it.
Palpatine voice: Good. Goooood. Let the stupid flow through you.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
