[zetanor]

I'd agree on /r/FlockSurveillance/ specifically, but if Reddit itself does not qualify as "mainstream", then what does? Just FANG?

[ViktorRay]

Reddit is filled with very vocal terminally online people. Their views and actions are not representative of normal human beings.

[nitwit005]

Try doing a search for something like "Average US online time". Those are normal people. Normal people are terminally online.

[overfeed]

> Reddit is filled with very vocal terminally online people.

Reddit went mainstream many years ago, hence the marketing dollars spent there on astroturfing, and brands acquiring pet moderators. The posters/commenters/readers follow power-laws like any online/offline community.

[imperio59]

Its top 100 or so subreddits are moderated by the same ~10 or so individuals who impose their ideological views on the subs and delete posts or ban anyone who dares challenge them.

A great example of how community moderation inevitably slides a platform to one side or the other of the political spectrum.

I honestly don't think mods on reddit should be allowed to moderate more than 1 or 2 of these top sub-reddits, this would at least force some semblance of diversity of thought on the platform.

[friendzis]

Reddit is at the core forum platform, therefore it's as misleading to attribute whatever is happening at any one [group of] subreddit to the whole of Reddit as it is misleading to do the same with closed Facebook groups.

Remember forums of old. Larger sites with daily visitors in the thousands already had nearly isolated topic silos within the forum. The effect is even stronger here.

[philipallstar]

Facebook alone is far more mainstream than Reddit, I would say. Thousands of times more.

[rob]

We can just look at both's recent reports:

Reddit: 121 million "daily active unique users"

Source: https://investor.redditinc.com/news-events/news-releases/new...

Facebook: 3.58 billion "family daily active people"

Source: https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-deta...

---

I'd definitely consider both "mainstream".

(I know plenty non-tech and "normal" people who use reddit.)

[Forgeties79]

Roughly 6x the users and 7x the traffic. “Thousands” is a bit dramatic. Reddit is a massively popular site now, pretty sure it’s among the top 10 most visited in the world.

[swed420]

Maybe ten years ago, but that's a huge exaggeration today.

[nindalf]

You've identified the problem. It's never "reddit", it's a specific subreddit. It really depends on the size of the subreddit. Smaller subreddits can easily get riled up, and also create a sealed echo chamber by banning people left and right. But I wouldn't worry about a sub unless it was really big.

For example: I'd say HBO should worry about what the game of thrones related subs are saying about their latest show (which is good, shoutout) but only as a vibe check. The normies will always outnumber the kind of people who go to a subreddit to discuss their favourite show. Normal people just watch and forget.

[timmg]

My guess is that it is more: the people that are concerned are posting about it. And those that aren't, aren't.

So you are just seeing a biased subset of the (relatively) mainstream reddit.

[sigwinch]

It might be that the demographics of Reddit skew toward low economic relevance but high unique views.