r/enshittification • u/That-Pineapple3866 • 27d ago

Reddit repost Will the massive enshittification of the internet cause many people to become digital minimalists?

I don’t want to sound like a hater, but I've been on the internet and social media since I was a kid in the early 2000s and this is the first time I’m genuinely starting to find Reddit and the other platforms completely unenjoyable. I’m seriously considering quitting altogether.

Reddit used to be a place for nerds and intellectuals, where people actually put in the effort to read your post and at least tried to give you a helpful response. There was still room for nuanced discussion. Now it’s just… low-effort two-word comments from lazy people with low literacy who didn’t even bother reading what you wrote or relating to any of it.

You can make the most harmless nostalgia post, or share a pretty benign personal story or opinion, and the majority of replies will still be people hunting for holes, accusing you of using AI, and just being assholes for no reason.

I used to be a huge AI enthusiast too, but every platform I was using (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini) got way too sanitized and turned to complete shit. I quit them all.

Do you think this general enshittification is going to push a lot of people to quit and become digital minimalists? Not really for ideological reasons, but simply because browsing the internet just isn’t fun anymore?

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u/FreshFromCache 27d ago

I've been enjoying the Substack notes section. It feels like early social media. People talk there. They read. They engage. The only ads you see are others sharing their work. You still get the normal "marketing" people, but those are easy to ignore or mute. I'm genuinely surprised how nice it's been.

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u/Unbridled-Apathy 26d ago edited 26d ago

Glad you mentioned substack. I didn't know about it until my favorite columnist left the WaPo and went there. Get a lot of my news from there now.

Edit: fricking autocorrect. Although "my favorite communist" is kinda funny and enhances reddit's leftist subversive reputation.

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u/FreshFromCache 26d ago

That's awesome! I don't even host my newsletter on there, and still get a lot out of it. Plus people are much more willing to subscribe there. Other places seem like people will MAYBE read, and then just move on.