To be honest I think the problem for Reddit may be that no one really needs a direct alternative. For me it’s good at one thing which is reviews and in depth educational content on some of the more niche subs. For community though, people can use discord, for content consumption, people seem to be using tik tok, for political flame wars you have Twitter.
I don’t see a bright future for Reddit. A lot of the broad appeal back when I used it more was that it surfaced the best stuff from all over the internet so I didn’t have to sift through all the boring stuff but funny enough now the only time my little sister and her hip friends see Reddit posts is when the best ones have been turned into a tik tok. I doubt this is going to kill Reddit but honestly I think it’s been fighting a losing battle for a while now. I have a feeling its indirect competitors will keep getting better at providing the value reddit does over time in their own way and leave reddit with very little left to offer.
I’ve been mulling this over this morning and in the end, I think you’re right. I keep making the Discord comparison everywhere because from a structural comparison (on Twitter you follow people, on Reddit and Discord you follow communities) it seems the obvious analogue, but honestly it might just be that Reddit can actually die and it would leave no void to be filled by anything in particular.
I don’t see a bright future for Reddit. A lot of the broad appeal back when I used it more was that it surfaced the best stuff from all over the internet so I didn’t have to sift through all the boring stuff but funny enough now the only time my little sister and her hip friends see Reddit posts is when the best ones have been turned into a tik tok. I doubt this is going to kill Reddit but honestly I think it’s been fighting a losing battle for a while now. I have a feeling its indirect competitors will keep getting better at providing the value reddit does over time in their own way and leave reddit with very little left to offer.