It's almost if the idea of karma was the birth and death of reddit. As it started out, the way to get karma was to submit interesting articles and insightful comments. Reddit grew and grew, and adviceanimals and funny quickly became its backbone. Especially as of late it feels like everyone is in it for the karma, people are afraid to post their real opinions even on subs that are supposed to be thought provoking due to the fear of downvotes. Adviceanimals wasn't much to begin with, but funny is starting to feel like forwards from Grandpa and just all reposts. Pics feels like people desperately trying to rake up karma via selling anyone around them most of the time. Karmaconspiracy truly isn't far from the truth anymore. That being said I have hope for Hubski... I'm not quite ready to leave reddit 100%, but in the near future I will for many reasons: Most notably there is no downvote so people will be less afraid to voice real opinions. As my second post I just wanted to say I have hope for my future here :)
I agree with you there, there is definitely a mad crawl to get karma and keep it. I think even I can say I'm guilty of that, or have been in the past. When I first joined Reddit I honestly didn't care about Karma, browsed around and did whatever I felt like, mostly comments. Then, once I got my first "good", high karma post (a rage comic nonetheless, shudder) I got hooked. I was more active and browsed for ages just to accumulate comment karma and to a lesser extent link karma. I never "whored out" per se, and never lied for karma, but I did try and capitalise on puns, memes and more rage comic crap once or twice. Anyway, as that time elapsed I got tired of doing stuff for karma. I like to browse smaller subs and contribute to the discussion, but even there you get flooded by downvotes for sharing an opinion. I once got downvoted just because I said I thought cloning was ethical but suggesting that some people might not give clones equal rights. Apparently the whole of Reddit (and the world) are super liberal rights givers, because the mere suggestion that some people do not want others as equals solicited many downvotes. That was on a science-sub. I can't even get discussion there. So yeah, I hope I'll leave Reddit at somepoint. I still browse and comment now, but Hubski is a place to chill and have some discussion. Funny thing is, it's like Reddit is my drug and Hubski is my rehab. Eventually I'll quit but it's hard to go cold turkey for the time being. Well done on your second post. I haven't been here long either but I hope you like it as much as I do so far!