Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
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Today, let’s talk about the Reddit protests that temporarily took down the site on Monday — and how, after years of working successfully to devolve power to its user base, the company wound up regretting it.
For most of its existence, Reddit has felt like an underachiever relative to its potential. A chaotic corporate history, long periods of inattention to harassment and hate speech, and slow growth compared to its peers have at times made it easy to dismiss. Sure, nerds all seem to love it, and for some searches it has been the only site that could make Google feel usable. But while Reddit remains…
