Should You Trust Reddit Reviews in 2024

s31 October 9, 2024 privacy 0

“VPN review reddit” – you’ve probably typed it into Google at some point in the last couple of years.

Who can blame you? Reddit is hailed as the last trustworthy place on the internet. The only place you can find honest reviews and advice on any topic imaginable – including VPNs.

Meanwhile, Google is being flooded with AI spam, thrash content, and misleading review websites that never use the products they recommend. Every “independent” review website seems to be secretly owned by the same six companies.

No wonder everyone is switching to Reddit for reviews.

But not so fast. Reddit is a social network. And like every social network, it’s easily compromised by shady operators. Also, it’s a company, and like every company, it must make a profit – especially since it’s gone public.

So, before you give up on review websites, sit back as I take you on a journey through 2024 Reddit, a mess of spammers, shady marketplaces, questionable data practices, and compromised incentives.

Why trust us?

I know what you’re thinking. We’re a VPN review website. So, obviously we’re biased.

But did you know we’ve been reviewing VPNs since 2014? Plus, out of the 100s we’ve tested over the years, we recommend less than 10. Not to mention the antiviruses, password managers, private email providers, privacy browsers, and other privacy software we test and review.

That’s because we’re not just here to make a buck off you. As our website name – ProPrivacy – suggests, we care deeply about protecting online privacy and taking back control of our data. Helping you do the same.

So, yes, we like to think we’re more trustworthy than an anonymous Redditor called “BobaFettsButtPlug” (a real account that got shut down for spamming Reddit with VPN affiliate links*). And after you read about all the shady stuff happening on Reddit, I think you’ll agree.

*An affiliate link is a code used to track links from a website to a company’s product pages. Companies use these codes to pay commissions to website publishers, influencers, and marketers to promote their products.

Perceived pros and cons of Reddit reviews

Before we dig into Reddit and everything wrong with it in 2024, let’s take a quick look at why everyone seems to depend on it for reviews, and the dangers of doing so.

Pros

No financial incentive: Reddit users all supposedly contribute out of the goodness of their hearts, with no reward for recommending a product and no way to monetize their contributions.
Strict moderation: Anyone who breaks a subreddit’s rules regarding promoting products and inserting affiliate links is meant to be kicked out.
Diverse opinions: Reddit users supposedly come from every possible demographic, although most are young men who highly regard their own opinions.
Up-to-date advice: Reddit posts and replies are faster than any website publishing schedule. You get real-time recommendations based on real user experiences.
Anonymity: With hidden identities, Redditors can give unfiltered, raw, honest opinions without worrying about backlash.

Cons

Too big to moderate: There were over 130,000 subreddits in 2024, all depending on volunteer moderators. Monitoring and removing all the spam and scams across the site is impossible.
Anonymity: It’s almost impossible to figure out a typical Redditor’s identity, so there’s no knowing the motivation behind their recommendations.
Lack of expertise: Your typical Redditor probably doesn’t understand how VPNs work. They base their opinions on limited usage.
Compromised accounts and subreddits: As you’ll soon see, there’s a massive market for popular subreddits and accounts with a big presence on the site.
Sponsored content: Marketers and brands are increasingly relying on Reddit to promote their products via sponsored posts or profiles they own.

VPN subreddits are full of affiliate spam

Now that Reddit is the most trusted place on the internet (according to some), marketers are flooding it with spam content masquerading as legit posts.

If you don’t understand how internet marketing works in 2024, you might not spot a spam post or comment from a genuine recommendation. But here’s a quick guide:

The original post is formatted like a blog post on a website.
The English is exceptionally formatted.
It contains links that open up to a VPN’s deal page.
The VPN’s deal page URL contains terms like “affiliate”, “offer”, and “id”.
The post has lots of positive comments about individual VPNs with additional links to their deal pages.

Here are two examples of affiliate spam in popular VPN subreddits (both were top results on Google):

You can see more examples of top-ranking spam here, here, here, here, and here.

Occasionally, Reddit spots this spam and shuts down an account or subreddit, such as the now-defunct r/VPN_Review:

However, Reddit relies on users to moderate and report such content. Most casual visitors to the website aren’t even aware this is happening, never mind interested in logging in to report an account or subreddit. And as we’re about to learn, many accounts and subreddits aren’t what they seem…

Subreddits for sale

Since the internet’s earliest days, marketers have been using shady marketplaces to buy and sell assets and manipulate what you see online.

Here are two popular examples I’ve seen in my career:

Buying “aged” Google profiles with lots of reviews so you can boost local business listings on Google Maps with fake reviews.
Paying people to post positive or negative reviews on TripAdvisor can help a business climb the rankings – or destroy its reputation.

Reddit is not immune to this.

There’s a thriving market for trading subreddits and profiles. Some websites are dedicated to creating Reddit profiles “out of the box” for marketers or spammers. You can even buy “upvotes” packages.

The people plying this trade don’t shy away from the shadiness. One of the most popular forums is called “Black Hat World.” Black Hats being the bad guys in old movies.

Here’s a tiny sample of Reddit posts I found on Black Hat World’s forums:

Here’s a single day of trading Reddit “assets” on Swapd:

Similar offers are available on shoddily assembled websites like SmediaBots, CheapAccounts, and UpvoteCaster.

As a regular Reddit user, it’s impossible to know if a subreddit you’re using, or an account you’re trusting, has been sold on one of these marketplaces.

That’s the problem with anonymous forums. You never know who’s behind the username – if it’s a legitimate person or a spammer trying to manipulate you. You can try reporting them, but if they own the subreddit, what difference will that make?

On a site as sprawling as Reddit, this trade can easily fly under the radar of moderators and admins.

Reddit goes public

Here’s a crazy fact for you: in its 20-year history, Reddit has not made a profit.

That’s right, “The front page of the Internet,” one of the most visited websites in the world, can’t figure out a profitable business model. This didn’t stop the company from going public and listing on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2024.

Why does this matter? Reddit now has a new boss to answer to – Wall Street. And Wall Street is impatient. Shareholders will demand quarterly earnings reports with numbers constantly going up – never down, even a little dip.

That means Reddit needs to start squeezing more revenue out of its primary asset – Redditors (that’s you, by the way).

We’re already seeing the impact of this pressure play out.

In April 2023, as it was probably preparing to go public, Reddit changed its API rules to screw moderators and developers who built apps to improve the site by charging them more for access. This resulted in a “revolt” by moderators of many popular subreddits. Reddit eventually overcame the revolt by waiting out moderators or kicking them off their subreddits.

In February 2024, one month before going public, Reddit inked a deal with Google to train its AI models on user data. For $60 million a year, Google can mine subreddits for data, feeding this into its LLM without permission from the people contributing to those subreddits.

In May 2024, Reddit inked another AI deal – this time with OpenAI. The value and mechanics of this deal haven’t been made public, but it’s clear Reddit has put its users up for sale to the highest bidders.

All this has happened in Reddit’s first three months as a public company. Expect the trend to continue, as it scrambles to squeeze every possible dollar from users.

Oh, and I’ve not even mentioned its ad business.

Still trust Reddit in 2024?

I’ve thrown a lot of new information at you.

Your head might be spinning. You’re probably thinking, “Can I trust anything I read online?”

I’m not sure what to tell you. At the end of the day, you have a choice. To protect your privacy online, you can trust experts who’ve spent more than a decade testing the top cybersecurity products on the market – or you can trust BobaFettsButtPlug.

Up to you.

Should You Trust Reddit Reviews in 2024