(no subject)

[olivermoss]

...and I missed the news that Reddit is planning an IPO which, well, like the site or hate it, for a lot of types of information searching reddit is more effective than google and def more than chatbot hallucinations. And, since reddit is basically a free and more effective alternative to chatbots and they intend to sell the data to chatbots... the existing info bases there are likely not long for this world.

Anyway, let's ignore that and marvel at this:

Watch on YouTube

They are instantly a new favorite band of mine. Holy hell. That guitar skill level is insane

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

Re reddit: *sigh* dammit. If I can't search "thing I want" "+ reddit" then how am I supposed to find ANYTHING?

Added to watch later. Which I really WILL make it through watching, ha.

(I did finally watch the Myhouse.wad video you suggested! It was very cool, and I appreciated the level of explanation vs. just playthrough.)

[olivermoss]

Oh hey reddit was basically a long-con data collection scheme who knew?

I mean, to be fair it started as a links farm for Conde Naste, pleading poverty and 'we are barely hanging in with out scrappy little project pls donate to keep lights on' while the traffic they were driving to companies with the same parent company was... fuck, hundreds of millions? Some early mod shenanigans netted people a few mill here and there, just from making people slightly favor one ad supported meme maker or image host over another.

the whole reddit culture of 'blogspam bad' acting like people promoting their own stuff was the worst, damaging, etc, while hosting all images and writing on reddit was enriching and uplifting your community. Yeah, about that...

And yay, MyHouse! I've watched a few people play MyHouse and it was funny to see them path exactly how the devs expected because they really got both level design and Doom player expectations.

[mistressofmuses]

I know that venture capital funded stuff will always trend toward that enshittification, and there will always ultimately be the squeeze to eventually monetize the userbase, so it makes horrible sense for reddit to decide that data collection and selling/exploiting their vast amount of user-generated content is The Way Forward and the way to become profitable.

But it still fucking SUCKS.

Though fair point that there's always been some shady shit they managed to pull in terms of fundraising and that sort of... idk, it's not quite astroturfing, since that's more political generally, but that same kind of "artificially organic" way of making some particular other product (like an image host or meme maker) into the favorite for the userbase, even when it was enriching specific people.

But yeah, it CERTAINLY does paint a different picture of all the "host your stuff here so we can use it to better the community!" stuff as a lot more of a cynical long-con. Discouraging people from hosting their works independently or from ever driving people to personal sites... it seems obviously shitty all along in some ways, but now feels even worse!

MyHouse was very interesting! The design (even as someone who knows very little about Doom) looked excellent. At least from that video, it seemed like it rewarded things and hinted at things in very much the right way to reward exploration and to help people discover the whole experience without making it at all linear. Very cool!

[olivermoss]

Reddit has always been full of shut and very how do you do fellow kids and no one wanted obvious things pointed out to them.

Reddit never had a profit? Yeah, the LOTR movies also never made a profit, on paper. Maybe I am taking for granted that I know a bit about business, but like... reddit may not have made money for reddit but it's always been a powerhouse money maker and not for the userbase. The utter hate of 'blogspam' like it was harmful just, so fucked up.

Yeah, the MyHouse level design is amazing. I know way too much about level design for someone who doesn't do this professionally.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, "Reddit culture" has always been a bit... assholeish, though I knew people who were very dedicated to their particular subreddits and such.

It's pretty garbage to what extent "creative bookkeeping" can disguise whether there's a profit being turned. Lots of layers of multiple companies being owned by the same person, or funds being shifted as "expenses" that are going to specific people... So sure, the site itself isn't making money as itself, but...

Yeah, really loathe the idea (which seemed to seep out from reddit to other areas as well) that linking to your own work/your own site is inherently spamming.

I mainly understand level design just from the player side, and appreciating good design when I see it (or being frustrated by design that feels inscrutable. Like, let me know what you want me to do!) But what I saw of the MyHouse stuff, it was really excellent, guiding the player to discover more without handholding.

[olivermoss]

People acted like giving content to reddit was like giving to the greater good, not enriching a company. It was so obviously wrong from the start, but man, it was deeply part of early reddit culture.

[mistressofmuses]

Reddit really did do a fairly good job of giving themselves that veneer of "we're just a band of knowledgeable underdogs, trying so hard to amass a repository of Everything Ever." It really did kind of prey on people's passions for niche topics, forcing a lot of that into their own centralized model. Once upon a time, that really was the domain of the kinds of individual weird forums that basically vanished. (And, of course, moving everything to reddit meant never putting that information or content anywhere else!)