Reddit is a top 20 globally ranked site that does not come anywhere close to performing at the level of other sites that share a similar popularity.
In my mind, they fail their users in three distinct and pretty basic ways:
1. Site reliability is still a regular issue (my perception is this is due to both infrastructure problem and show stopping application bugs).
2. Bad UX practices that get implemented that are documented all over this thread. This is a mostly new thing that seems to have started in the past few years.
3. Continuously underdeveloping or cutting back moderator tools and 3rd party integrations/applications.
I am not judging the individuals that work at reddit, but the sum of their parts do not meet the expectations that most other sites of their popularity meet.
This is, of course, from the eyes of someone who uses reddit - not someone selling ads on reddit.
> I am not judging the individuals that work at reddit
I'm sure you don't mean to, but as an FYI, when you say:
> It amazes me the kind of sheer incompetency their product team has demonstrated
It does sound like you're judging the individuals.
I totally agree with everything you said in this post, I just think the way to couch it is not by seeming to attack the competency of people who have business pressures / goals. Just my two cents.
Their product team have probably made exactly what they were instructed to ... I've severely cut back since the recent "you must use our app" UX took over, it's pretty terrible.
#visits isn't what matters when judging competency, amount of revenue/spending for the quality is. How much revenue do they have? They have only less than 1% of the valuation of Google
In my mind, they fail their users in three distinct and pretty basic ways:
1. Site reliability is still a regular issue (my perception is this is due to both infrastructure problem and show stopping application bugs).
2. Bad UX practices that get implemented that are documented all over this thread. This is a mostly new thing that seems to have started in the past few years.
3. Continuously underdeveloping or cutting back moderator tools and 3rd party integrations/applications.
I am not judging the individuals that work at reddit, but the sum of their parts do not meet the expectations that most other sites of their popularity meet.
This is, of course, from the eyes of someone who uses reddit - not someone selling ads on reddit.