And when you are looking to solve a problem, particularly one in an area you are not an expert in, it’s just so good. Niche subs have a wealth of information, help and offers of direct messaging to help solve problems. When you hit a helpful sub it’s infectious too, and you find yourself passing on the support you received when you see someone struggling.
I used to live in Stack Overflow for help, but the closed and shut down questions just kills things. ‘Duplicate of...,’ ‘Off-topic,’ ‘Needs details or clarity,’ ‘Needs more focus,’ or ‘Opinion-based‘. I wasn’t even postings, as I was sure that the septic tone would become focused on me.
I've been hearing this for at least a decade. Same for Twitter. Seems to never work for me. And yet an un-curated FB feed is more enjoyable to me, which makes me a rube in some many folks' eyes.
I do think a lot of it comes down to one's tolerance for internet n00bs, popularity by upvotes rather than personal connection, an respect for influencers -- whether in the intellectual, professional, or stylistic realm.
For me the fire hose of trending topics was too much, even with the occasionally fantastic post among them. So I rarely go there.
Then there are the really large communities covering subjects that interest me. I do subscribe to them but rarely interact because it's still a fire hose - responses to comments are really sensitive to the time of day and since I'm at least half to a full day off the timezone of the average community member, trying to interact is futile.
Then there are the smaller communities, usually tech for me. There is no longer that fire hose, and individuals are genuinely interested in learning something new, or sharing something new, often created by them. Add a number of this type of community and your daily feed becomes transformative.
