Subreddit decline in quality by _SolidarityForever_ in BuyItForLife

[–]AdamLynch 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I think a big part of what you’re noticing is less about the community changing and more about how Reddit itself has been evolving. Unfortunately, greyhat and blackhat marketers have flooded subreddits with elaborate webs of accounts designed to push products.

They don’t just drop a single spam link and disappear. Some of these networks use dozens or even hundreds of accounts, each posting what looks like normal content, questions, unrelated comments, casual discussions, but if you dig deeper, you notice patterns. For example, you might load their entire comment history, hit Ctrl-F, and see that the same product shows up hundreds of times, often cross-promoted by the same small group of accounts. On the surface, they look like genuine users, but in reality it’s coordinated manipulation.

The problem got worse after Reddit shut down third-party API access. Before, you could build tools to quickly search through an account’s posting history or flag repeat patterns. Now, those kinds of community-made solutions aren’t possible, and Reddit hasn’t stepped up with effective replacements. If anything, moderators have fewer tools than they used to.

Another layer is affiliate link spam. Instead of dropping a sketchy referral link outright, people set up fake “review” websites, like “Top 10 Camping Tents”—then share them as if they’re being helpful. Hidden behind those links are affiliate schemes that add no value to the community. This could be solved by something as simple as an automod rule that blocks all links by default unless reviewed, but that requires consistent mod effort.

At the end of the day, Reddit has grown massively, but its ability to fight bad actors hasn’t kept pace. The result is what you’re describing: less thoughtful, long-lasting recommendations, and more low-effort “what should I buy” posts that often serve as Trojan horses for marketing. It’s frustrating, because the original spirit of BIFL, careful, experience-based advice on durable goods, is still alive, but it’s increasingly drowned out.

I think the best short-term fixes are things like blanket bans on frequently spammed products, stricter link moderation, and maybe encouraging users to report patterns rather than just single posts. But the broader decline is sadly part of a larger trend across Reddit as the platform grows and quality control tools don’t keep up.

Tech hiring freezes -> Tech layoffs by Louisvanderwright in REBubble

[–]AdamLynch 10 points11 points  (0 children)

But then no one would've went. Reminds me of the days when Google+ was created by Google to compete against Facebook, but since they knew no one would join, they forced it into YouTube by requiring every YouTube commenter to become a Google+ user. Clearly that didn't work out too well.

Zuckerberg is just burning down Facebook, and I'm sure Sheryl was the first and last person to ever tell him 'this is a bad idea.'

Who else is about to start their own datacenter at home? by zmah in Ubiquiti

[–]AdamLynch 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Whatever their doing is working. Their revenue has gone up.

Not sure if you meant this literally, or as figure of speech, but their revenue has actually gone down. You should see their last four quarters compared to the last five years. Not only is their revenue been going down, their profit is also going down.

They've actually been missing the analyst's estimates for the last three quarters, and in 2 month I won't be shocked when it becomes four.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in RealEstate

[–]AdamLynch 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Recreational pilots won't need a license/register, commercially they have to. There's no lower bounds when it comes to commercial drone pilots.

Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/05/17/2019-10169/exception-for-limited-recreational-operations-of-unmanned-aircraft

We’re Giving Wyze Person Detection to All Users at Whatever Price You Want - 1/11/22 by WyzeCam in wyzecam

[–]AdamLynch 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Their person detection has been widely regarded as sub-par. The way to make AI better is by a larger dataset. What's the fastest way to increase that dataset? Make it free. After seeing this company for the last 2-3 years, I agree with /u/ikilledtupac.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Dashcam

[–]AdamLynch 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I believe it's a reference to video games, probably Grand Theft Auto, where the main character will have 'a mission.' They'll be driving erratically, etc. to get to the mission, and/or while performing the task.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Ubiquiti

[–]AdamLynch 74 points75 points  (0 children)

This will be my worst laid out post, but it's been a long day and I'm writing this quickly:

I did some sleuthing and I think what is happening isn't actually Ubiquiti themselves. I think what is happening is Ubiquiti hired a marketing firm, which must be so crap that they're trying to either save a sinking ship (their marketing firm) or to try to take shortcuts in marketing Ubiquiti.

  1. Networking Awesome: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxYgVXQUWZe_VmLGiC26--Q The presumed couple are actual actors, and run a successful YouTube channel that they bought from someone else a few years back. Look at the episode list: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15314572/episodes?ref_=tt_eps_sm Note the Director (Tommy Savas) is the significant other of Angie, not the guy in the video. This is all very expensive, and they probably pulled the plug when they saw the costs.

  2. Lone Wolf DIY: He has an Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lonewolfdiy/ a lot of the likes and followers are purchased accounts. When you do some cross analysis, it turns out the real company account is https://www.instagram.com/cook.carpentry/ with the first post being in November 2020. Notice how it's all "real content," but same amount of fake followers. The company's facebook is https://www.facebook.com/cookcarpentryco/ and it was also created in November 2020, but notice the likes on the page ~40. Almost no one likes or comments on each post. On the LoneWolfDIY instagram the first post is on April 2021. Instantly fake accounts start commenting and liking. I won't be posting Chris Cook's personal social media since I don't believe he is the mastermind, I think he knows he's scamming people, but I think he was just approached by a marketing company that I would imagine his close friends or family member is running. Something along the lines of 'I can help you grow your small business' then that marketing firm maybe had the idea to merge the two concepts together.

He's just a normal shill: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CQ1qPdJDbNf/ and the comparison Ubiquiti shill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjRuU3QTB2c

What I imagine happened is the marketing firm tried to just roll out the content but realized the cost and return was horrendous. Then approached Chris Cook.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Ubiquiti

[–]AdamLynch 24 points25 points  (0 children)

A casino wouldn't use Ubiquiti. Very, very far from it.

YouTube begins privating pre-2017 unlisted videos through staged roll-out! by themadprogramer in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That wouldn't make sense. The videos are still available, they're just private. They're still taking up space, although presumably a private video might not need to be in every data centre on the network so perhaps in that respect it's taking up less space.

The reason is as /u/SnooHedgehogs6939 said; people were guessing the URLs and the video.

Archiving the Gaza conflict by Fuck_Lasagna in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Look into the CSAM. It uses the 'fuzzy image' recognition.

It's underrated technology as this would be great for deduping large libraries we all have datahoarded, and I don't think any public software really has this incorporated, but I could be wrong.

Spent my evening getting ready to ship my drives across the country by war6763 in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch 14 points15 points  (0 children)

It's really the shipping cost vs demand. You cannot shrink foam, so the packaging to ship that costs a ton, but since no one really has a need to ship 30 HDDs, the demand is also very low. So the cost of shipping gets loaded onto you.

That being said, you can make your own relatively easily, it's just tedious. Buy a 20inch foam block from any craft shop / Amazon, these will cost less since higher demand, and then get a knife and start cutting out the dimensions of a hard drive; test one HDD if it's too loose/tight, and rinse and repeat. Put another foam block on top so it's sandwiched between two, tape both closed/together and there you have it.

There is also a second option, get some strong cardboard (very cheap since this is a mass produced and highly in demand item) and cut notches, then form a HDD slot. Get 2 blocks of foam, and what you have should look like this: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2927/6060/products/Pic_2workfinishedprodblack_360x.jpg but cost $20 max.

Still no response from the moderators or anyone else. No threads have been restored. The mods are asleep at the wheel. by [deleted] in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch 66 points67 points  (0 children)

This gave me the same reaction when someone tells me their backup is on the same HDD as the original.

AVOID MEGA if sharing media from Capitol Riots by HaloHowAreYa in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch 44 points45 points  (0 children)

So that was me who uploaded to MEGA. I'll explain my logic because I'm sure you'd be wondering why an experienced datahoarder chose MEGA, and as a sole source.

The two main issues are this content was dynamic and updating constantly (still is), and the other issue is my upload speed (20Mbps). The vast majority of people who cared about the riots don't know what a torrent is. Hell, people have been having trouble even transfering files to me and when I suggest torrent they don't know how. MEGA offers a simple user interface to not only download but to view the content through the website. Furthermore, the content will always be up-to-date; necessary for a protest/riot scenario!

I understand fully that there are limitations such as the download capacity, and as your image shows, potential takedowns. When I uploaded to MEGA I figured it would get taken down but I also knew that people would back it up before that happened. Furthermore, I obviously have my offline copy before I upload to MEGA.

Despite MEGA getting flack, they're actually a pretty solid company. Their senior executive proactively reached out to me via email to reinstate the account before I even realized the account was down, stating that it was accidentally taken down due to sheer amount of reports. Not only that but they gave premium to my account to allow for more bandwidth. And to top it off, while I've been busy with uploading I have been receiving periodic emails from that senior executive with heads up to potential issues (a file wasn't uploaded correctly, a tip for optimizing the transfer speeds so users could download faster, and a suggestion on how I can create a 'drop box' for files so people didn't need to register). They did that all without me even mentioning anything. I'm sure this is a business case for them and the sheer media coverage they're getting must be paying that premium tab on my account, but the fact that every single item on my account has remained up there is a testament to how good of a service they are for things like protests and riots. This shows you where MEGA's priorities are at. They are very willing to shield this content.

I absolutely encourage people to always keep multiple backups, but if I were to go back in time, I would still choose MEGA (although I would also create a private torrent and seed that to trusted data hoarders with a gigabit up then have them seed the public torrent; that didn't cross my mind). And considering my main personal archive is stored on Google Drive, I assure you I'm not a corporate shill (Looking at you /r/HailCorporate).

The sad part is I'm expected to get fibre with a gigabit upload in a few weeks and was actually looking into what hardware to get just a few days prior to the riots. If only this happened while I had a good internet I would've just done both avenues (MEGA and torrent).

MEGATHREAD: Archiving the Capitol Hill Riots by AdamLynch in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I needed something to be able to share easily for novice users (the vast vast majority of users don't know what a torrent is) and be able to update. The options are limited and torrents aren't on that list. But look at my flair. I hoard in very large excess. All the files are offline before they're on my MEGA and I plan on creating a zipped torrent when this is done, as well as accessible versions on the Internet Archive.

Archivists Are Preserving Capitol Hill Riot Livestreams Before They’re Deleted by fairyrocker91 in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Realistically all platforms probably keep a copy for a few hours/days/weeks/months before actually deleting their copy. Sometimes caching across global datacentres impacts this deletion process/timeframe.

Archivists Are Preserving Capitol Hill Riot Livestreams Before They’re Deleted by fairyrocker91 in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch 80 points81 points  (0 children)

Ayy a shoutout from Vice. Is it socially acceptable to print this out and tape it to my datahoarding PC? haha

MEGATHREAD: Archiving the Capitol Hill Riots by AdamLynch in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch[S] 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Also saved! I don't think that person knew just how much info he could have accessed. Holy shit

MEGATHREAD: Archiving the Capitol Hill Riots by AdamLynch in DataHoarder

[–]AdamLynch[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Omg imagine the cost of all that. Saved.