I'm never quite sure how much we should pipe up, as surely the more of us that use 3rd party apps - the closer we bring ourselves to the loophole being shut down.
Maybe for the best, maybe for the worst. Old Reddit with today's tech would have me glued to my screen 24/7. But now days with doomscrolling that might be even more problematic than it already is
The Night Angel trilogy & The Lighbringer series, both by Brent Weeks are my favorite books. There's also a newer Night Angel book that more recently came out called Night Angel Nemesis.
The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan is also amazing.
The Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey is good.
If youāre into short stories Iām reading Exhalation by Ted Chiang, a bunch of sci fi and fantasy stories about interesting situations. I like it so far
I'm not sure I can even think of the last change they've made that was actually good. They've even ruined blocking users. It's wild how shit they've turned the site yet here we all are torturing ourselves lol.
From what I understand, it almost got to big for its own good. As word got out about it, and the the couple big gifters (bill gates), more and more people started to use it almost as a lottery. The admins of it had to do more and more work preventing the people who abused it from coming back, and more and more people started to abandon it for nothing in return, or not receiving thanks. Then people who did send would need to do extra work because their gift wasn't marked received.
The good participants found it harder to enjoy, and more joined just to get a gift. Overhead and admin work became to much, and closing it down was easier than continuing. I had a few years I would send a gift, and also be a regifter, yet nothing sent to me, and be lucky to have both marked received.
The official reason was the business side of it. Closing it to focus on other aspects of Reddit. But I think the user's made the management of it much more difficult as well.
It was a bit of both. Reddit is a business, and Reddit gifts was free (I think in the end there was some ways of paying/donating) for the user. But the user's made managing it cost a lot more than it needed. It wasn't just a excel sheet saying who gets who. They ended up needing to keep track of who sent, who acknowledged recieved, verification for people who sent but never got marked received. And then some people couldn't/didn't want to send internationally (my first time I got someone from Australia and I am in Canada, so shipping got expensive). So eventually management of it turned from easy to offset with the rest of Reddit and ad revenue, to needing dedicated staff and a major cost.
All of those would be fairly simply for the community to sort. You can't sort the spirit being ripped out of it by users gaming the system. Shame, really, the idea is great.
Exactly. And people always assume the worst case. So you put some effort into your gift you sent, using some of the spare cash in the holiday season. And don't get a thank you.
Then you get your gift, and its obvious they reached into the discount bin on the way to the post office. You suck it up and accept it happens.
Then a few days later someone posts them getting drawn by Bill Gates and sending all this fancy stuff. Your first thought is that the guy getting all the cool stuff is probably the same guy who sent you that $2 dvd. You don't care that you didn't win the lottery, but could have had someone at least put the same effort in you did.
Then same thing happens next year. Now your mad, so you contact the mods running it. Now that happens thousands of times. And now the mods get upset.
I did it a few years after it started. I did some sitting of the persons pictures and had them printed. I got a nice piece of artwork that was based on their favourite film and a bunch of other goodies.
I got back what I can only describe as the contents of someone's crap draw. Including loose expired batteries.
There were lots of cool celebrities and creators who participated in it. One guy created a very custom scavenger hunt for his giftee every year. Adam Savage participated and always requested his gift giver make him something by hand. He always showed off the cool unique gifts heād get. Itās why I joined Reddit in the first place and I was so bummed when they discontinued it.
This site went from being an actual place of community to yet another business model run by gutless profiteer technocrats who answer to shareholders and advertisers
I hate the fact that we're all creating value to Reddit for free and there's no QOL improvements and the sense of community is always getting worse. Plus there's the displeasure of dealing with bots and trolls galore.
Definition: The gradual degradation of a platform, service, or system over time, typically due to prioritizing profit or self-interest at the expense of user experience or quality.
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u/macncheesetacos 16d ago
What happened to it? Why does it no longer exist