r/technology • u/Dilpickle2113 • 10h ago

Social Media YouTube is testing hiding the dislike button entirely and users aren’t happy

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-is-testing-hiding-the-dislike-button-entirely-and-users-arent-happy-3420822/
24k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

905

u/rokatoro 10h ago

Even that's getting worse. My home page is full off newish 0 upvote threads full of rage and usually written by AI

264

u/airfryerfuntime 9h ago edited 8h ago

Turn off the suggested feed.

I still use RIF, but with the official app, I noticed all the algorithm driven slop reduced by a lot when I turned off suggested.

Edit: to the people asking about RIF, you can get it running with a patcher like Revanced or Morphe. I have it running through Revanced because I haven't changed it over to Morphe yet. For the longest time, it was pretty broken, with YouTube links and imgur albums not working, but that has been fixed through Revanced. https://github.com/MojiRS/revanced-rif-patches. The Morphe patcher is more limited and hasn't fixed YouTube links yet, I don't believe.

131

u/Caleth 9h ago

Old.reddit.com and Reddit Enhancement Suite.

Keep that puppy going as long as possible all the "improvements" they've made to reddit don't get passed along keeping it clean and efficient.

it is a 900% better experience that the current nu reddit layout.

31

u/Koru03 8h ago

I, and many people like me, will absolutely drop reddit when they finally break old reddit. The new shit is unusable by comparison.

11

u/Caleth 8h ago

100% I'm mentally prepping myself to leave.

6

u/psmgx 5h ago

yeah it's coming. i'm gone when it does, but at this point just feels like a matter of time.

3

u/Caleth 4h ago

Because it is. The Enshitification train that leads to the line-must-go-up-ville can't end anywhere else.

11

u/Sugioh 7h ago

Yep. This is my final red line. Old reddit is the only thing that keeps the site usable.

8

u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

Is there any better place where nerds go? Maybe where the average age is above 14 and I don't have to read "bro. bro bro. BROOOO" in every thread?

9

u/Sugioh 6h ago

Sadly, not that I'm really aware of. There's the fediverse, but it's still pretty awkward to use (at least for me) and lacks a lot of the hyper-niche small communities served by subreddits that I love.

If reddit goes too far we may see a mass migration, but there aren't a lot of promising competitors waiting in the wings currently.

2

u/elebrin 6h ago

If you are after articles, Substack has some decent stuff worth following, but you have to go find stuff to subscribe to specifically and there is still a lot of trash. The beginnings of a decent platform exist, however.

1

u/diablette 19m ago

Substack doesn't let you filter out paid content. Halfway through an article - bam - paywall. And every individual blogger wants 4.99+ a month.

1

u/the_post_of_tom_joad 7h ago

the metaverse is waiting /s

4

u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

I already want to drop it. The juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore. The conversations are just Youtube level comments. Facebook boomer posts are highly upvoted. The same repeated jokes over and over. The same repeated reaction gifs over and over. Any thread that you'd hope would have some topical discussion, additional information, etc. just has a million try-hard "comedians" with the same predictable schlock.

3

u/4x4Mimo 2h ago

Subreddits worth subbing to seem to have increasingly less activity these days too. There's a higher and higher percentage of drama and crap that's taken over.

2

u/Nearby_Mouse_6698 4h ago

I’m feeling this too. Conversation and unique perspectives from people all over is so interesting to me . I feel like it’s just bots causing culture war nonsense or political discord . It’s not new but it feels so much worse across platforms these days.

61

u/eyebrows360 8h ago

We can't even see comment histories for some accounts, so it does look like they're trying to phase it out still, but I too will be holding on as long as possible.

The insane reduction in information density in the "new" UI, with all the fucking social-media-boilerplate whitespace and huge borders and padding everywhere, is just terrible.

27

u/FUCKTHISWEBSITEBANME 8h ago

It's intended for mobile, for the average social media user. Reddit is just normal social media now, for the average idiot.

15

u/Magickarpet76 8h ago

Which is why the normal braindead social media bullshit comments are becoming more prevalent.

“THIS LMAO 😂😂😂” /s

8

u/Aellope13 7h ago

I still might prefer that to the ‘Narwhal bacons at midnight’ days.

17

u/FUCKTHISWEBSITEBANME 7h ago

Idk man sometimes this site just makes me miss the cringe dork days. I genuinely hope they ban me so I can just read this shit without being tempted to reply. They changed it so that to use old.reddit you have to have an account, which is why I have an account again. I deleted my account years ago specifically so I wouldn't be tempted to get into stupid arguments with idiots, and now I'm back to getting into stupid arguments with the biggest idiots possible, and there's a good chance they're not even people.

4

u/elebrin 6h ago

I vastly preferred those days. Was it goofy? Sure, but it had a soul.

3

u/East_Sorbet_8388 5h ago

At least that hints at the possibility of a personality.

2

u/I_am_Andrew_Ryan 4h ago

At least in those days people cared about spelling and formatting

4

u/Marshall_Lawson 7h ago

it has been since before new.reddit

3

u/RedAero 4h ago

The internet, reddit absolutely included, turned to shit when the aforementioned "average social media users" (read: morons) arrived in droves with their smartphones. Literally every problem of the internet, and caused by the internet, can be solved by removing it from ubiquitous mobile devices and restricting it to bona fide personal computers. No laptops. If you can move it, no internet.

Why? Because when "the internet" is "on the computer", it means you have to leave it behind whenever you do anything Real. It doesn't follow you around, because it can't; you leave your asinine comment, you turn the thing off, and until you turn it back on and decide to return to the same website there is no way for it to reach you. Every problem since ~2016 can be traced to people allowing - nay, demanding! - the internet follow them around 24/7, leading to them blurring the line between what's real and what's virtual. It's been an absolute catastrophe.

A couple of years ago it dawned on me that when I reply some BS to some halfwit's reddit comment, they - in all likelihood being a smartphone-using troglodyte - get an immediate, loud notice on their person, wherever they are, whatever they are doing. Meaning I literally have the power to annoy people who I've never met, who I'll never interact with again, all because they were stupid enough to allow a website to become an app and decided to allow it to intrude upon their consciousness for literally no benefit whatsoever.

By contrast, if someone replies to this comment all that'll happen is that a small icon in the top right corner will turn orange. I will only notice when - if! - I visit this site again. In the meantime, there is no way for this shithole to manifest itself in my life. Why some people decide to do the opposite I will never understand.

If you're a reddit user on "the app", let this be a reminder to you that this is a website. You visit websites using a browser, when and if you want to do so, and then you leave them. There is no reason to let this dump exist in the background of your life.

2

u/Marshall_Lawson 3h ago

this is p much why, even though i do use reddit on my phone, i don't use the app and hell no i don't let it give me notifications. the site still waits until i go back and check it to let me know if i got replies. 

you might be onto something about leaving the internet behind when you go outside though, lol. 

3

u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

Yeah the days of this being a nerd site are looooooooooooong gone. Like many years gone. It got worse, I think, after they removed /r/all. But the introduction of New Reddit, destruction of 3rd party APIs, and more just continued the destruction after the shift in the userbase. I can't believe how many comments are "Bro is like xxx" or "bruuuuuuuuuh" and such low effort shit.

7

u/B_dorf 7h ago

I remember when using an emoji would get you downvoted to oblivion!

2

u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

I tried out the new Digg right at its re-launch and it was essentially dead. But looks like there's some activity now, I might give that a shot.

2

u/RedAero 4h ago

/r/all was "removed" (it wasn't it's still there) last year, this site went to shit a decade ago.

1

u/Bladelink 6h ago

Me on mobile currently, browsing old.reddit.com: 🤔

18

u/Agret 8h ago

They actually made it a Reddit setting that you can hide your activity from everyone. The official app & modern website won't show you the history for those users either.

3

u/the_post_of_tom_joad 7h ago

Furthermore i was told new accounts have histories hidden by default.

7

u/Keltarrant 7h ago

I hate it, a subreddit I frequent is getting a lot more traction recently and I notice a lot of accounts named "Word_Word####" or "WordWord####", it reads like bots but is impossible to confirm. Only reason I think its bad actors is I don't notice nearly as many accounts with that naming convention on any other sub I go to (r/classicwow)

11

u/what_the_purple_fuck 5h ago

that name format *could* mean bots, but all it *actually* means is that it's someone who accepted whatever default system-generated name Reddit suggested when they first created the account.

a surprising amount of real human people didn't realize they had the ability to edit their username when they signed up, and after that they're stuck with whatever they've got unless they start over again.

3

u/psmgx 5h ago

word_word#### is the generic default name

could be real users with a throwaway. no way in hell am I posting anything truly spicy on here without one.

but also means bot, or could. or random offshore spammer's 331st account.

7

u/AnalogiPod 7h ago

You cant see the comment histories due to the privacy settings on their account. You used to not be able to but you now can set it so people can't view your history on their profile. Had a dude following me across subs for a while and had to turn it on for a like a week but I feel like comment history being available is how Reddit should be so I reversed it.

2

u/eyebrows360 5h ago

Oh, didn't know that!

Yeah that's flippin' madness

1

u/Alpha_Hunting 5h ago

Can I ask why you feel like comment history should be available on Reddit? I instinctively make myself private on any and everything I ever use if possible.

3

u/RedAero 4h ago

It's an anonymous site. It's private by virtue of not requiring your real name.

2

u/AnalogiPod 5h ago

It was that way for a long time, with the autonomy of Reddit it can give you a better idea of who you're talking to, with post history shown you can tell more easily if you're arguing with a bot, or someone who drinks their own pee. It has gotten to a point where if someone's post history is hidden I assume they either post in embarrassing subs or are a bot. I also understand the want to be private, I hate to say but I think knowing your whole post history is out there makes people less likely to share personal info and that is honestly better for privacy. The old system really reinforced that 'If you don't want it out there don't post it' mentality that was more prevalent in the old internet. I have my photography IG linked on my page and one of my old cars posted here so IK I am not anonymous on this account.

2

u/Alpha_Hunting 4h ago

I've been here for over 10 years now and rarely comment. I've felt more comfortable taking part in conversations now that it's possible to be private. Probably I'm scared of the internet and all the random angry people always finding a way to argue. In other words, I'm not as brave as most redditors have been that made this site great. Despite it, I also like the way it was, for the reasons you pointed out and also because it's more interesting to see the person behind the post.

4

u/what_the_purple_fuck 8h ago

the padding—and the very stupid and irksome changes to text formatting/markdown—is what finally spurred me to start using Morphe. it only works on Android devices, but if you have an Android I highly recommend setting it up: morphe.software

3

u/Caleth 8h ago

Yes. Ars Technica did something similar but they at least offered a filter that redensifies the pages.

New Reddit could sadly learn something from them here. That's not the only issue I have with it, but that's a fucking massive one. The "new" Facebook layout, shoving suggested content, and their non linear feed enforcement also made me ditch them about a decade ago.

Every time I'm forced to interface with a web 3.0 UX I want to scream. Give me data give me details, give me access. I don't want Apple like sterility.

3

u/the_post_of_tom_joad 7h ago

Comment histories being gone is the most vile of the changes they made (to me). How the hell can one see if the person you're takin to is an astro-turfer? Ppl are sayin they can tell bots n such but like... the best tool for gauging people's character is gone...

1

u/darthjoey91 7h ago

That's users blocking others from viewing their histories. You also can't see those users' histories on sh.reddit or the app.

1

u/DockLazy 4h ago

You can still see their history if you google "u/namehere".

3

u/ThimeeX 8h ago

Reddit signals ominous upcoming “changes” for old.reddit.com

3

u/Caleth 8h ago

As I said to someone else I'm already mentally prepping for when I'm leaving. I'll sell my account for the couple shillings it'll earn me to avoid temptation and move on.

I've left Facebook and other social media platforms I can learn to live with Bluesky or Mastodon or something else. Digg and Fark still exist if I really need something.

3

u/No_Tangerine2720 8h ago

Reddit is removing features from old reddit presumably to push you to their garbage app

2

u/Caleth 8h ago

And when it gets bad enough I will leave.

Right now they haven't tipped across that line, but I'm not going to move to new Reddit it is demonstrable ass. It sucks on nearly every level. Hell Reddit as it is now even on old.reddit is getting notably worse for content by the week.

I'm only on here for a handful of subs and habit. You make my habit painful enough I'll find a new platform. I was here before the Digg migration and I'll happily leave because there's nearly nothing here that resembles what I saw 15 years ago.

I left Facebook, and other places I can find a new place beyond reddit even if it means I need to learn how to live with Bluesky or Mastodon being lesser services.

1

u/airfryerfuntime 8h ago

It's not that, they just don't want AI companies scrapping comments without paying. It's why they now required you to be logged in if you want to surf old.reddit.

3

u/mrk240 3h ago

The All page is still full of shit though.

It's always 1 or a combo of the following.

  1. Someone with 500k post karma and 3 comment karma.

  2. A <1 month old account reposting shit that has been posted numerous times before.

  3. A subreddit that is a varient of some other sub, like all those fucking stupid fucking/mildly/this is interesting subs.

  4. Someone clearly posting with an agenda to reinforce an echo chamber reddit hive mind thought.

I've blocked so many uses and subs my All page will have 10 posts but the order would be 2,4,6,7,10,15,18,20

2

u/Peylix 8h ago

Yup

I'm holding on to old reddit + RES until it's no more. Same for my patched Boost app. Holding on to both for dear life.

2

u/Caleth 8h ago

Only thing keeping me posting is old.reddit and RES. Once those are toast I'm out. Maybe before then too depending on their behavior. I nearly left during the API issue, but none of the other platforms had good useful stuff yet. Maybe 18 months later they've grown enough that I can stomach them.

2

u/crustyrobots 7h ago

Nu-Reddit is still such ugly ass. If old. ever goes away Im going away too. This site is just Digg'n itself

1

u/ryancnap 7h ago

This + boost on Android instead of the horrible default app

1

u/IClop2Fluttershy4206 7h ago

new accounts and inactive ones cannot use old reddit anymore

10

u/lmpervious 8h ago

Turn off the suggested feed.

We need a law where all social media needs to offer this. I think that’s very realistic to pass, and ideally also to have it off by default.

People being fed the same information from one perspective over and over is not healthy for our society. When people hear something 100 times and see everyone else agreeing with it, almost anyone in that situation will believe it, even if they are a skeptical person and believe they won’t fall for misinformation. That’s why we see people living in completely different realities.

14

u/Exia777 9h ago edited 7h ago

Does RIF still work? I thought it died with the 3rd party API costing money change

Is there a fork/maintainer you could point me towards, I miss having a nice, sterile mobile client...

Edit: thanks to all the responses + OP, it has been 3 years since I've used a mobile client ;D

9

u/july280 9h ago edited 8h ago

It can be patched with Morphe so it works, but it's broken in multiple ways, just barely somewhat usable now. Maybe there is a new patch that has fixed those issues though I'm not sure tbh

Other comments mention Revanced - that is fine but Morphe is generally recommended over Revanced these days. edit: apparently revanced now has better RIF patches so good to check it out!

/r/morpheapp
/r/patcheddit
/r/revancedapp if u want to try revanced

3

u/_senpo_ 8h ago

what issues have you noticed? for me it's loading imgur albums but other than that seems to work like it did

4

u/july280 8h ago

In fairness I guess it's not as bad as I make it sound. The imgur thing is annoying because for me it crashes the whole app when I open an imgur album. Also it's kinda annoying to me that images in comments don't load inline, although that may be a bonus to some people. I certainly still prefer RIF to the official app! :)

4

u/airfryerfuntime 8h ago

https://github.com/MojiRS/revanced-rif-patches

You have to use Revanced for these patches to work, but they did fix imgur links and added inline image functionality.

2

u/AXEL-1973 9h ago

You can't get it from the app stores anymore, but you can manually install it as a third party app. I was doing that for a few months initially when the API smackdown hit, but it was buggy. Its probably significantly better by now though.

2

u/Linked713 9h ago

I use RIF with morphe to patch it. it has a little tutorial to be able to get it working but no, you do not have to pay anything. Needless to say that it is android only.

1

u/HAc0reRD 2h ago

Try out Artemis too, different dev from Apollo but it’s the same idea. I like it.

1

u/TuPieces 9h ago

You can use all the old apps by installing them through an app called revanced manager

21

u/Adlerson 9h ago

This may be a stupid question, but how do I turn off the suggested feed...?

43

u/6thseer 9h ago

Settings > Preferences > Show recommendations in home feed toggle! Edit: Preferences not Profile

12

u/Borderline-Bullshark 8h ago

This just removes suggested posts, I think the real issue here is the home feed sort that can’t be changed in the app so it defaults and shows many new posts rather than the already curated and voted on posts of hot or top.

2

u/RedAero 4h ago

The hot sort has been deprecated. Frankly, I have no idea how people can bear to use "best", because it's 50% week-old shit that I've already seen and there's no point commenting on at this point, or brand new stuff which probably won't go anywhere. Hot wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good.

2

u/Borderline-Bullshark 4h ago

I’ve used my browser for my homepage lots because I can sort by hot.

Ever since the Apollo Reddit app went away my Reddit usage has plummeted.

1

u/thelifeofafangirl 8h ago

Where is this? I think they removed it.

3

u/6thseer 8h ago

Mmm if you're on desktop you can get there from your profile icon, might be different on mobile but I don't have the app so I can't confirm

5

u/Vrazel106 9h ago

Try red reader app or relay for reddit instead

2

u/Lord_of_Sword 8h ago

Always check your settings/preferences page first.

1

u/thelifeofafangirl 8h ago

I think they removed that feature.

1

u/Lorcogoth 9h ago

I have the issue that it keeps trying to put me back on "suggested for you" instead of the stuff I am actually following.

1

u/MyronBlayze 2h ago

How in the world do you turn off suggested feed? Every other month they toggle on the ability to switch between suggested and following, and whenever they toggle it off again I get stuck in suggested slop

1

u/HAc0reRD 2h ago

Try out Artemis too, different dev from Apollo but it’s the same idea. I like it.

12

u/Vid-Master 9h ago

yea and the subreddit name is like SuperGreenNews123

4

u/Inevitable-Ad6647 9h ago

old.reddit.com/r/all is the only way and occasionally hitting the specific subs I care about. Honestly even that they've widdled away at and I'm losing interest. Reddit has always been more intellectual than other platforms but /u/spez will end that or die trying, I'm sure of it.

3

u/thelifeofafangirl 8h ago

Yeah this website has become almost unusable 

2

u/Vrazel106 9h ago

I stopped using the official app and get a lot less shit shoved in my face

2

u/shoulda-known-better 9h ago

Use your feed not the suggested one!! Makes a big difference

1

u/DrMobius0 9h ago

My home page only has subreddits I follow

1

u/DrAstralis 9h ago

As the us election aproaches I've noticed a HUGE upswing in man bad / woman bad / morality yes/no? rage bait culture war bullshit.

1

u/n3rv 8h ago

Sort by top. You know the one Reddit doesn’t want us using.

1

u/Disastrous_Visit9319 8h ago

At some point they changed the way sorting by "best" works too and it's significantly worse now. It used to favor newer posts a bit but now it'll straight up put an hour old post with 4 upvotes next to a 6 hour post with 5k upvotes. It's terrible.

1

u/Frewdy1 8h ago

And all the right wing bot-driven “meme” subs. 

1

u/IAmAGenusAMA 7h ago

Half the posts in my home feed are several days old, and it isn't even small subs. Right now there is a 6 day old /r/AskReddit post sitting in the 3rd spot. It's maddening.

1

u/ThrowAwayAccountAMZN 4h ago

I've noticed that some subreddits also have it set to show 1-2 "controversial/low voted" comments first even though the sort order is set to Top/Best. Likely to push engagement. Or it's a bug. But with the Reddit app it could be malicious or a bug or both.

1

u/LandMooseReject 1h ago

"Best" sorting is... not. Brand new posts and 3 day old posts.

1

u/Actual_Noodle 42m ago

Comments algo has gotten worse too. Tons of 0/1 upvote comments.

Yes, someone has to see the new comments, but when I sort by “best” every other comment shouldn’t be a 1 upvote comment with 10 replies to it. That’s what the controversial sort is for