I’m not sure if this is new, but when I clicked on the /r/pics protest post link from the frontpage here, I was redirected to this: https://old.reddit.com/premium
I’m not sure if this is well-known or not that they’re pushing it now, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it, especially on old.reddit.
Same here.
I remember when individual website forums were the absolute best way to find answers and connect with people of like-minded interests. The system wasn’t perfect but it at least meant that problems from one forum/community would not spill over into another.
Reddit then came along and basically became the forum of forums and replaced a lot of those communities. Having all those communities in a single place did have some benefits. One for example is that it allowed obscure communities to form by the single fact that there were so many communities all gathered in a single place. Unfortunately we all know what happened there.
I’m really hoping the fediverse suceeds and helps us retain a lot of the benefit of a place like Reddit while at the same time shielding the community from a single entity/person exerting control over everything.
I have seen the same issiue with individual, niche forums: going down because of one person. It was just a matter of time for that to happen with a bigger site.