We had a server error... Server error. Try again later. Reddit is broken; the enshittification of Reddit, and the internet is getting worse
We had a server error... Server error. Try again later. Reddit is broken; the enshittification of Reddit, and the internet is getting worse
I went onto Reddit, and tried to add links onto my profile. Whenever I try to add links onto my profile, Reddit says things like “We had a server error“ or “Server error. Try again later.”
I tried again with a totally new profile and posted nothing. I could not add links at the time (now I can).
I tried again with a third profile. Same as before.
Reddit won’t even let me approve links on my own subreddit, r/saynotodemocide1.
But wait! There’s more!
If you look at the current version of Reddit, my profile says “u/StopDemocideone hasn't posted yet“. But you can see my content on the old version of Reddit.
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Though Reddit may not be the best platform for politics anyway.
Skip to 7:53 of Echo Chambers and the bad memes that follow.
“Try walking into a board and posting a contrary opinion and argument. You will be inundated by people posting replies daring you to respind all while getting down votes on your comment, which will automatically cause reddit to suspend your ability to reply to other replies. The people on the thread will then revel in the fact that you "lost the argument" because they literally took away your microphone until the forum moderator decides to ban you for not being a part of their circle jerk.”
- shawnandrew, Echo Chambers and the bad memes that follow..
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Speaking of a broken site, YouTube can put in features like shorts or “Channels new to you”, “People also search for”, “Previously watched”, and “From related searches“, but won’t fix comments from being hidden.
I understand YouTube is trying to fight spam, but there’s got to be a better way to do it, and they should publicly acknowledge problem with the commenting system. Though this still fails to stop degenerates from the UTTP (who used unicode to get around the censorship) to child sexual abuse material spambots.
Youtube is fundamentally BROKEN!
“Thank you, I bring this up to people and everyone treats me like I'm crazy or have tentacles coming out of my face. I knew it was happening, tested it across multiple browsers, desktop and mobile, every variable you could change or play with I did, doesn't matter; for whatever reason Youtube is just borked. I'd wager it has something to do with what that one google engineer that left said (I think he went on Joe Rogan, can't recall for sure) about how Google hasn't actually made anything in the last decade or so, they just keep doing UI refreshes to give the illusion of constant updating when in fact the code base they're sitting on was probably last touched half a decade ago.“
- YouTube user theeccentrictripper3863.
YouTube does more to try to block people from using frontends like Invidious, Materialious, FreeTube and NewPipe (which also breaks your ability to use YouTube Comment Finder) or YouTube transcript than to make the site, I dunno, good for the actual users.
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YouTube trying to block ad blockers makes me think of Black Mirror. You will watch the ads, and you will be happy about it.
Why Websites Keep Changing Their Design
The problem here isn’t merely YouTube and Reddit’s broken site design. I think the whole web is declining in quality.
There’s now a word for it, “enshitification“. As Corey Doctorow put it;
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market", where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.”
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Online Ads Are Getting Out of Control
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The Internet is Worse Than Ever – Now What?
The Internet is starting to Break - Here's Why.
The AD-BASED internet is DYING, and it's getting WORSE in the process
The End of the Internet is Here.
I do complain about censorship, but there’s something less obvious yet nearly as bad; algorithms.
In a nutshell, these platforms make most of their money from advertising and selling data to databrokers. When they stagnate to virtually no growth, they then try to keep users on their platform as much as possible, so the owner of the site/app can serve as many advertisements and collect as much data as possible.
I believe this is why YouTube felt so different is because of monetisation via advertising.
I’m not saying that monetization doesn’t have significant benefits. I’m sure that there are lots of poor people who were helped from it. Ads have also helped pay the bills for many sites, keeping them virtually free to use. But people respond to incentive structures, and the incentive with advertising is to get as much attention as possible to serve as many ads as possible, not to make the best quality content or necessarily be creative.
These algorithms promote content that either gives you a cheap laugh or pisses you off, which leads to promoting clickbait, brainrot, and ragebait. Kyle Hill has talked about clickbait in YouTube’s Science Scam Crisis.
Maybe this only made sense in a 0% interest environment. We don’t have a 0% interest environment anymore, and thus, these tech companies have to figure out a way to make their own real money instead of living on investor’s money.
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In the case of YouTube, you’re promoted in the algorithm for posting more content, at least a video a week. This is bad for creators who occasionally or sporadically post videos. Most of us aren’t good enough to dedicate our full time to YouTube when we have real jobs, families, and friends to attend to and lives to live. Most of us have little to no time to play algorithm games. The vast majority of people who try to become YouTubers fail. Even if you’re successful and you don’t talk politics or anything controversial, changes to the algorithm (or lousy moderation) can destroy your channel. Just look at Eli the Computer Guy.
This was different from how YouTube was in the past, where videos are listed on the home page chronologically, or the most recently posted videos, not the videos that were able to appeal to some algorithm.
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The brainrot content with the insane amount of ads remind me of Idiocracy. Check out this screenshot of Frito’s TV. I counted a total of 23 ads!
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“So true. Years ago when social media was blowing up someone commented to me that many of the smartest people on the planet were being used to monetize eyeballs on screens and keep them there longer, instead of doing actual engineering and innovation. It's such a depressing thought. I work in finance and it's a similar story there. We take a lot of people from STEM programs because it pays better. Hell, I myself am a STEM grad working in finance instead of the engineering and physics I actually studied. My boss has a PhD in mathematics and is brilliant but the US government wouldn't grant the security clearance to her for the nuclear engineering job she wanted so she decided to make more money in this industry.”
- YouTube user turc1656.
In my opinion, if we aren’t in the dark age of the internet, then we’re in the gray age of the internet. What I mean by a gray age is that better alternate platforms do exist, but are woefully under-utilized.
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I was born in 2001. Like a lot of other members of Generation Z, both of my parents worked, & I lived in a car-dependent suburb without any third places or activities that I could walk to, & I had no friends to hang out with, so I spent lots of time at home, either watching movies, television, or on the internet.
If you’re an older Zoomer, I might arouse some nostalgia.
I never saw content farms like today. I remember as a child, in chronological order, visiting Thomas & Friends, PBS KIDS, Coolmath Games, Lego, Cartoon Network, Star Wars, 2dplay, and some site for train flash games that I forgot the URL of.
On YouTube, I watched videos about machines like tanks and planes, History Channel’s Dogfights and Shootout!, Rescue 911, several episodes from Dragnet and Adam 12, and fan-made Star Wars videos, such as those from pizzamovies. Copyright takedowns were slower back then.
My favorite shows on Cartoon Network were Ed, Edd n Eddy and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I will not confirm or deny rather or not I use WatchCartoonOnline to watch Ed, Edd n Eddy and torrents to watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
I remember old YouTube where people made videos out of passion, not for money. While brainrot did exist back then (I watched Smosh, some GMOD and TF2 themed content, namely kitty0706’s content, Heavy is spy, [GMod] Heavy Birthday - Part 1, and All dr. Hax moments), it wasn’t aimed at children, and there were almost no content farms. I think content farms started with Little Baby Bum, then Cocomelon, then Elsagate, then modern content farms.
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The article Moonbug’s ‘CoComelon’ Leaves Nothing to Chance - The New York Times mentions a device literally called a “Distractatron” to test how easily Moonbug’s content can distract children.
In a comment left by Impalingthorn, in a nutshell, high-effort animation with creativity and/or good storytelling doesn’t create profit like low-effort animation does (I didn’t post his whole comment because this article is about the web, not entertainment).
This kind of thing also happened to the History Channel.
I’m very much against authoritarian parenting (unless the kid is literally committing crimes), but I would strongly recommend parents NOT allow theur access YouTube before the age of 10 because of the brainrot and the algorithm that promotes brainrot.
I recommend creating a home media server and ripping or torrenting content.
Time to UNSUBSCRIBE from Disney+, Netflix, etc!
Better than Disney+: Jellyfin on my NAS
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Back to Alphabet Inc., I also hate how in order to have external links in the descriptions of a YouTube video, YouTube requires people to take a picture and send them their government Identification Card or record their face, but lets through literal malvertising. Google isn’t forced to share its own private information (namely its algorithms) to serve ads. You can receive a strike or have your channel deleted for linking to “Medical Misinformation“, but Google gets no penalties whatsoever for negligently letting through malvertising.
Google Search Ads Are Spreading Dangerous Viruses
Google Is Putting YouTubers in Danger...
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Hence, why we need to support New Tech.
The Last Page Of The Internet | Defector
