For me, it’s a few things.
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A way to burn time that doesn’t feel like a digital sugar rush.
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Support, camaraderie, and kindness, primarily from /r/stopdrinking.
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Niche stuff, like ideas for local hiking and backpacking trips, propaganda posters, and kayaking info.
Tech support that isn’t an advert (Reddit was a goldmine for more interesting hardware)
Cool stats/maths things to share with my students
Snek and Fox pictures to get me through my marking sane(ish)
Wanted to thank you for number 2. It sounds silly, but my physics teacher in high school would always pull up an invention of the week. Everyone loved it.
Talking about hardware is such a nightmare on Reddit these days that I completely avoid it. There’s a never ending crowd of people/astroterfers/fanbois posting confidently about shit they have no clue about and are often completely wrong. Their arguments usually boil down to their feels and not objective facts at all.
Apart from the couple of occasional subject matter experts that you see pop up occasionally the tech subs are a write-off now.