The platforms are not dead, but the etiquette that mostly defined them is very much dead, very similar to the Eternal September, thanks to social media style engagement creeping its way into everything.
Reddit is a good example for this; It has all the functionality to write well formatted posts, with no character limit, and easy insertion of links.
But how many Reddit users actually make use of that functionality to that full extend? Only a minority, and for that they often get told to "Cut down on the wall of text/gish gallop" because anything that's longer than a Tweet is nowadays considered something bad.
A huge factor for that his how most people nowadays browse the web; On their phone, which does not lend itself well to read or write long-style text content, so most Reddit comments boil down to 1-2 sentence jokes and other random emotional garbage based on ad hominem because everything is about them dopamine kick upvotes.
> Only a minority, and for that they often get told to "Cut down on the wall of text/gish gallop" because anything that's longer than a Tweet is nowadays considered something bad.
tl; dr. was a thing long before Reddit.
I have nothing against long-form writing, but most people lack the writing and editing skills needed to make more than a few sentences enjoyable to read.
But there is quite a difference between TL;DR and accusing people of wall of text/gish gallop.
TL;DR is is an admittance that somebody couldn't be bothered to read something long, that's fair enough because they admit it's their choice.
While accusing other people of wall of text/gish gallop is something very different; There the blame isn't put on the person who can't be bothered to read long text, and instead is wholesale put on the person that put in the effort to write the long text.
The consequence is that fewer people write long form text, fewer people put in a lot of work into writing such texts, so overall we end up with less of these texts, which is a loss for everybody as the online discourse continues to become even more shallow and anti-intellectual.
Reddit is a good example for this; It has all the functionality to write well formatted posts, with no character limit, and easy insertion of links.
But how many Reddit users actually make use of that functionality to that full extend? Only a minority, and for that they often get told to "Cut down on the wall of text/gish gallop" because anything that's longer than a Tweet is nowadays considered something bad.
A huge factor for that his how most people nowadays browse the web; On their phone, which does not lend itself well to read or write long-style text content, so most Reddit comments boil down to 1-2 sentence jokes and other random emotional garbage based on ad hominem because everything is about them dopamine kick upvotes.