24 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)
View submission: Sunsetting Reddit Talk
So communities which until now have built their entire presence on talks alone (like with my Karaoke subreddit) will ostensibly be forced to die. That's really unfortunate.
Also, all due respect, but you didn't "learn" much. The Live Bar was probably the one "killer feature" that Reddit Talks had over even Discord, and yet you all removed it and replaced it with an arguably much worse implementation. "Happening Now" is pretty much proof of **not** learning anything.
You also say things like "___ was built for you" when you pretty much never actually take any feedback to heart. I witnessed a near-universal dislike for Happening Now, along with other changes to the talks structure, all of which was either ignored or openly disregarded. What is the point of feedback if you don't actually *feed us anything back*. It's less feedback and more tossing notes over the Berlin Wall and hoping that someone is actually listening on the other side.
Such a shame that an admittedly promising and unique feature (arguably the first unique Reddit feature in years to have any success or community appreciation) gets shafted by the very people that came up with it, developed it, wrecked it, and subsequently buried it into the ground. It's almost poetic in a way.
In conclusion, modern Reddit's biggest problem: itself.
To all those like myself who used and appreciated the feature; It was fun while it lasted I guess. No doubt we'll see some social media program or something else steal this idea and make it even more successful. Reddit basically just spend all the R&D money for you, so why not.
Cheers.
Comment by lucasawilliams at 08/03/2023 at 21:51 UTC
7 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Reddit didn’t develop this feature, they were borrowing (or copying?) it from the company Clubhouse, therefore it wasn’t a ‘unique’ Reddit feature.
But the idea of being able to combine the specificity of communities on Reddit with a tool that allows people to have live discussions could have been really successful, and unique in this way. I don’t think this feature reached it’s best potential; as a means for disseminating ideas on niche topics. But it could have just been that I attended the wrong talks. Or that it was never going to be possible to have a meaningful discussion with random people. I’m still hopeful, and I hope it returns one day.
Comment by 405freeway at 08/03/2023 at 21:13 UTC*
12 upvotes, 4 direct replies
"We tried nothing and we're all out of ideas."
The Subreddit UI is **perfect** for building a podcast and user base, but Reddit refused to add some of the most basic things necessary to attract and retain an outside audience.
Comment by i-hoatzin at 11/05/2023 at 01:23 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It is sad to read the truths you have expressed. I very much agree with you.
Reddit has become, through these two failed experiments, a company that destroys its own user base value, without even realizing it. It reiterates the error that they claim to have made by incorrectly estimating the resources that should have been dimensioned. I fail to understand how blind you can be in a world of innovation like the computer industry, furthermore if we understand that digital resources can indeed be scaled, having great results finding investment comes down to a matter of business management capacity.
In a world where Google ads has become an insufferable crap, and Meta is out of the question, it is inconceivable to lose the path that Reddit proved to have walked.
Reddit is still a diamond in the rough. I hope they find a leader who proves to be a better diamond cutter.
Reddit, builder and destroyer of digital communities.