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Reddit seems to have let this AI demand go to their heads.

I had multiple Reddit accounts, simply because I did not want my more "professional" account linked to the other accounts (some for more controversial opinions, some for more adult talk, etc.) Apparently that's a problem for them. So they banned most of my accounts. If I really was up to no good, I'd have used VPNs, etc. to hide my activities. But I just wanted to segregate my personas. e.g. I like discussing local SF and California politics, and often times take controversial positions. I don't want my activities as a respectable(?) member of the Linux Kernel group to be colored through my activities in these other groups. But now I can't do that.

Oh, and back in the day Reddit (when it wanted to pad its user numbers) didn't care for an email address or a phone number. Now, 15 years later, it suddenly wants to confirm the email address!

And don't even get me started on the moderation at Reddit. Typical example: "Hey! We deleted your comment. If you have any questions about it, email the mods." except ... they deleted the comment and now I don't even know what was wrong with it! :-D

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Interesting, because multiple accounts for the same person is explicitly allowed by Reddit:

https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/204535759-I...

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You're lucky you only got email address. I got selfie+ID. No thank you.
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Old Reddit is now completely unusable without an account. Maybe it's time for me to finally stop using it.
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Do database dumps of it still exist?

Maybe it’s time to just download it and Wikipedia, then point an LLM / vectordb at it.

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See if https://github.com/Tryhard-cs/reddit-download-tool works, the readme enumerates the data sources it pulls from.

Perhaps the way to solve for X is having a scraper serve the data via torrent and/or IPFS vs centralized systems like nitter and xcancel.

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New Reddit is too. They were A/B testing it for a while, but now you can't use it without the login pop-up after a short timespan. The funny thing is, it has nothing to do with how much content you view. So if you really want to read something, you can hit F5 and scroll back down every time the pop-up is shown. Still not worth it. But honestly, Reddit content has taken such a plummeting nose dive over the last few years, this just feels like a final reminder that it's time to move on.
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Interesting--I'm still using old.reddit.com with no problem, without an account. Maybe the change is not broadly rolled out?
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They’ve been rolling it out gradually. There was a thread on HN about it a couple of weeks ago, it just started affecting my IPs a few days ago.

It’s managed to do what years of self-imposed content blockers etc. on my own side have failed to do - finally broke my Reddit addiction!

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Could be regional - however it's odd that it pops up on old.reddit.com but not reddit.com.
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It happens to me on not old reddit as well
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Old reddit on the tor onion domain still works for me.
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Use a LibReddit/Redlib/Teddit/etc. instance.
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spez is a problem. And if it's not spez, then enlighten me. But they've taken years of built up network effects and absolutely wrecked it. It's so hostile when companies do this. They just ignore their users, straight up. That should be a firable offense. The customer is NOT 'always right', but you can meet them halfway

Fail upwards. That's all they know how to do

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> The customer is NOT 'always right', but you can meet them halfway

Reddit users are not customers. The advertisers and AI labs are the customers because they're the ones paying. The users are the cattle in the pen being sold to the advertisers and the monkeys at the typewriters whose output gets sold as AI training data.

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I understand this, but the distinction is academic

The people using their product. The people who, if the product were shit from day 1 - as Reddit wasn't - would have never signed up for it. Who have been effectively and literally lied to

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It's not day 1, so it's irrelevant what would've happened on day 1.
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What is your point. The product has been ruined and I'm saying that by 'customers' I just meant users
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> They just ignore their users, straight up.

Existing Reddit users aren’t affected by this regi wall UX because they’re already logged in. And as much as I hate the UX too… Reddit user numbers have grown a ton in the last few years. It’s difficult to make the argument that these changes are a failure.

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People who aren’t logged in are still (very arguably) users, IMHO. They see ads, and make Reddit money with their eyeballs.
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If you actually look at the content of Reddit it's obvious they're almost all bots.
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> Existing Reddit users aren’t affected by this regi wall UX because they’re already logged in.

I am an existing Reddit user, but don't want to be logged in everywhere and always. Sometimes I had a few free moments and wanted to kill some time, so until recently I could go to Old Reddit on my mobile phone and just see what the 'general human zeitgeist' was discussing: from something serious in /r/worldnews to some pop culture news story.

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What kind of users though? OnlyFans models, porn addicts, LLMs and child groomers... maybe. I could be ignorant because I'm not the target user for their brave new vision but no one I know uses reddit anymore. And with the locking of old.reddit and forcing sign-ups they probably lost the last few old timers who were still there for what was supposed to be an open forum to freely exchange ideas.
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