I think it's less about one subreddit and more about the articulate expression of a feeling that has been gnawing at many of us for some time. I've loved Reddit for years, and before that I enjoyed smaller forums. They all had some problems, but generally provided a place for intelligent, unfiltered discussion.

It's the same thing I used to love about online gaming. The internet was like the Wild West and a Parisian cafe and an 18th century British coffee house rolled into one. The relative lack of regulation and standards along with minimal corporatization made it a wonderful place to expand your mind and engage with other human beings. But as days go by and larger sites suck up more and more of the user base, the Internet is starting to feel more like a shopping mall. Reddit felt like a holdover from the "old" days for a long time, but it (literally) got bought out, and it's starting to show. Some of the great posts now and then maintained the illusion that it was still a great community, a place where you could really interact and benefit from it. I guess what today's post did for me was shatter the illusion I'd sort of desperately been holding onto, the idea that I could get back that feeling from years ago.