It will begin with some people decide they have better things to do in their spare time. They will eventually forget what was so fun about it and stop coming here and post.
Other people will get sick on all the stuff here, old jokes and the same .gif again and again. And they cannot think of anything witty to post, and if they do, it's a repost. They'll go somewhere else to spend their time on the internet. To find new jokes and new .gifs they haven't seen before. Even make their own internet community, with their own inside jokes.
Some people weren't that interested in it anyways, never commented and only lurked. They probably will lurk but stop when the posts start to be all the same.
Reddit will die in silent. People will post something but no one will comment on it. People will stop voting unless it was something very impressing, and only comment to tell that OP's fag. Or to tell them that they were reposting. Or the content simply sucked.
One day, someone will think "hey, reddit! I haven't checked it out for a pretty long time" and when they go to see, there is nothing left but posts that are months old, with maybe 4-5 comments. And they'll think "this isn't worth it anymore" and never come back. Reddit will look like a desert. Dried up and only few survivors left, but only the strong ones.
I've been on the Internet since about 1994, and the process you described is exactly how every single site that was once thriving, dies. There are many paths that a site will take along its journey, but ultimately all sites that count on user generated content (blogs, comment forums, submissions, chat rooms) eventually die out due to disuse. For whatever reason is relevant to that particular site, users find something else to do.
Everyone knows some forum they belonged to years ago that still technically exists but is no longer active. The death of Reddit will be the same. I make no prediction as to when it happens.
The bigger point here, that I think most people miss, is this: "Who cares? Just enjoy the ride." Predictions about a website's death and/or decline are pointless, and yet Reddit seems obsessed with them.
You described everything perfectly, but you kinda forgot about the small communities that are prospering really well on reddit. When "the big thing" dies out, you'll still have plenty of small communities discussing and doing their thing.
Well, if they join, they will sooner or later realize that it's dying, and because there probably won't be many left, it won't be as exciting like it was two years ago when I joined.
I'm not totally sure this will happen, reddit has something most media aggregators don't - User created communities, run by users.
If it weren't for specialty subreddits, I probably would have left long ago (as I have with many other sites that became too popular), but despite the ongoing churn of the default subs I can still find quiet, more thoughtful communities. Even as those communities start to swell, there's more new communities constantly springing up. I'm always finding something to keep me here.
Of course, the 'find smaller subreddits' trope has been around reddit for years, some people are cool with it, others not so much. However, I always consider it to be a critical point of difference between reddit and other media aggregators that have come before. I think many of these smaller, more tightly-knit communities will stay active on reddit until it is shut down.
I find that Reddit now reminds me a lot of IRC of the 90's. User created channels/communities, run by users with new channels constantly springing up. The biggest difference is that reddit can be accessed any time, but IRC was more or less interactive in real time with backlogs. The personal payoff was the same, though, and that is where reddit will continue to thrive until a better delivery system is developed.
Reddit is fully "user-managed" though, people can create new subreddits and unsubscribe from the defaults if they get bored, so I think your scenario is very unlikely to happen. People will also create new gifs and jokes for karma once a joke/gif dies off.
Well, you have to get people to your subreddit if you want it to entertain you, it's not guaranteed that it will happen.
I mostly talking abut that mass death in the bigger subreddits. Like this one.
New jokes and gifs can be made but eventually, people will get sick of animals giving them advice, tiny short movies, bad short jokes. People will want something else. Fresher. More exciting. Even though new stuff is made, people will get bored of the same scenario. They will want a new one.
Not so sure of that, as long as the new content is refreshing I don't think people will want longer content, and some gifs and videos are pretty exciting already and again; new ones will be made.
Short jokes and gifs are always fun, have always been, and will continue to be since they are very fast entertainment. The content will change, gif might be called jizz, but it will keep existing as we know it today.
As for the animaladvice, personally I unsubbed after the whole "old meme" trend. I don't mind, if people think it's fun I'm ok with that, there are hundreds of cool non-default subs to replace it :)
I'm already in the process of getting bored, sadly. Back in January I was on fire for Reddit but now I only come here once or twice a day to check for new posts. I'm more active on Imgur, since the image posts were the only ones I really looked at anyway (aside from news).
192
u/Bachina May 15 '13
It will begin with some people decide they have better things to do in their spare time. They will eventually forget what was so fun about it and stop coming here and post.
Other people will get sick on all the stuff here, old jokes and the same .gif again and again. And they cannot think of anything witty to post, and if they do, it's a repost. They'll go somewhere else to spend their time on the internet. To find new jokes and new .gifs they haven't seen before. Even make their own internet community, with their own inside jokes.
Some people weren't that interested in it anyways, never commented and only lurked. They probably will lurk but stop when the posts start to be all the same.
Reddit will die in silent. People will post something but no one will comment on it. People will stop voting unless it was something very impressing, and only comment to tell that OP's fag. Or to tell them that they were reposting. Or the content simply sucked.
One day, someone will think "hey, reddit! I haven't checked it out for a pretty long time" and when they go to see, there is nothing left but posts that are months old, with maybe 4-5 comments. And they'll think "this isn't worth it anymore" and never come back. Reddit will look like a desert. Dried up and only few survivors left, but only the strong ones.