
Reddit has become a guide to personal finance - prostoalex
https://qz.com/1707479/reddit-has-become-a-guide-to-personal-finance/
======
xelhark
I think a much bigger point can be summarized with this sentence from the
article:

> Seven of the top ten results are trying to sell you something, which really
> makes you question the objectivity of the advice.

This is true when searching for pretty much everything in Google nowadays,
that's why if you're looking for any info, searching on reddit usually yields
much more objective and generally better results.

~~~
semicolonandson
I just finished listening to an engaging series of podcasts by Michael Lewis
(author of Flash Boys, The Big Short etc.) about the loss of referees in our
society. It's called Against the Rules:
[https://atrpodcast.com/](https://atrpodcast.com/)

Much of reddit still has functioning referees in the form of its moderators,
but I'm seeing signs of it cracking — e.g. when I researched the backgrounds
of certain moderators I found out that they produced content in some space and
would allow their own stuff to get posted while blocking other people's
submissions.

~~~
rgg_32
I’m wondering how long it will take for large companies to realize that people
are gradually adapting and starting to look for information on sites other
than Google search bar.

Today, Google results are a big problem in the sense discussed in the article,
there are no more sources of information that can be trusted like in the old
days. Some days I reflect with myself trying to figure out how it can be
solved…I hope someone ends up finding a solution.

~~~
basch
I still for the most part would put site:reddit.com or
site:news.ycombinator.com into the google search bar. Mostly out of muscle
memory, habit, and speed. If I need to use other tools to find something, its
because google has failed.

On a similar note, Google deranking Wikipedia (which used to be the first
result for like half of my searches) makes it so much less useful. I now need
to add wikipedia to my searches.

~~~
wlesieutre
With DuckDuckGo as your default search, you can use "!w" to direct a search to
Wikipedia, "!g" to send it to google, "!gi" for google images, "!a" for
amazon, "!ais" for archive.is, and a lot of other options.

If you're using search as a shortcut to get to some other service, it can be
nice to go straight there instead of sifting through whatever garbage has been
SEOed to the top of Google.

~~~
gibspaulding
Perhaps more relevant to the GP, you can use !r to search reddit and !hn to
search HN:)

~~~
wlesieutre
Those are two examples where I might not do it because the built-in search on
reddit and HN are worse at finding things than searching the same site through
Google. For wikipedia search though, no reason to put that through Google.

------
tiew9Vii
Must admit, reddit got me caring more about my finances.

It seems not many people are taught about money properly. I certainly wasn’t
and non of my friends where.

I’ve always been good in that I never spent what I didn’t have and lived
within my means. What savings I did have where in a zero interest current
account though!

Following the finance Reddit’s at least put me in the right path. 6-12 months
cash savings now in a high interest account, now have a pension plan, putting
money in to ETF’s until I have enough in the ETF’s I’m willing to by some
individual stocks which may not be as stable as the ETFs I have.

As someone who’s been a senior dev for 10+ years doing well but stuck in a rut
I’m also finding the various cscareers Reddit’s useful about the job market.
Seeing people’s salaries, negotiations, what jobs to look for, what companies
to look for etc etc.

~~~
mlrtime
Do you mind sharing the subreddits?

~~~
swarnie_
/r/wallstreetbets

~~~
WA
Don’t know who downvoted you, but as someone who joined WSB two months ago, it
is mind blowing. Yes, these are bets. You are likely to blow it all. But imho
it gives perspective to the topic of personal finance. Even if it’s just to
understand one’s own limits. Valuable sub.

~~~
wincy
If you’re following Nassim Taleb’s 80/20 rule, and have 80% of your money in
bonds and 20% in high risk options, it can certainly pay off.

~~~
swarnie_
Please go to investing or personal finance, you're worse then OP.

------
JackMorgan
Reddit is truly amazing, such that I've mostly replaced my usage of hackernews
with it. I have serious issues with anxiety, and the inability for me to
filter out content related to "current news" aka "clickbait fear mongering"
means when I surf hackernews for too long I'll be upset for hours afterwards
as I'm riled up with current events rewritten as FUD.

Reddit can be filtered by subreddit, so I've got a view with no FUD. Also as a
personal finance hobbyest, I can sub to finance, personalfinance,
financialindependence, and economics without having stories of police
overreach or failures in the justice system written to scare people.

Also as a painter, there's another 10 subs I can subscribe to basically make
my feed a walk through a museum.

Absolutely fantastic micro culture and I'm thrilled to have found it!

~~~
AdmiralGinge
I kind of went the other way, I prefer the discussions on HN. Any subreddit
that gets over 100K (and arguably fewer) subscribers just becomes a cesspit.

Take /r/ukpolitics for example, back in the day an anarcho-syndicalist could
have a debate with a die-hard Thatcherite and while it'd be fairly heated,
people tended to know their shit and I'd generally come away feeling like I
learned something after reading the board for an hour or so. After 2015 (and
even more so after the EU referendum) the subscriber count exploded and now
it's a complete echo chamber. Try making an argument that the EU isn't some
sort of Star Trekkian utopia or that Scottish independence might cause a lot
of economic problems on that board and you'll get downvoted out of sight
within maybe half an hour. It's very, very black and white now, the board is
so fast that it's all about quick, karma-farming content rather than actual
political debate.

I don't know why this seems to be a problem unique to Reddit. HN doesn't seem
to have the same issue (at least not to the point it dominates the character
of the platform), despite it being essentially a clone of old-school Reddit.
It's a problem I'd be interested in knowing more about because I'm working on
a platform with user-generated content. It's currently using a very naive
"rank by votes, exclude old or heavily downvoted posts" approach but I fear
this approach could lead to the same problem as Reddit.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
The discussion by actually passionate people gets drowned out when subs get
too large. It becomes difficult to discuss things beyond an elementary level,
as newcomers may not have the experience with a topic that longer subscribers
would have.

If you look at old HN threads, it feels more intellectually curious than
today. But HN today is still very good. I wouldn't compare HN of today vs. 5
years ago, to say, what's happened to /r/financialindependence over a similar
timeframe.

------
waylandsmithers
I would personally advise against taking advice from Reddit beyond simply
basic answers about various financial products and maths.

My problem with larger communities on Reddit is that prevailing opinions seem
to emerge, and anything that questions or disagrees with them gets downvoted
to hell. On the personal finance subreddits these include ideas like "You
should always have 18 months of expenses saved" and "Any more than $10,000 for
your wedding is a reckless and gross waste of money" and "Look how smart I am
for having a mega-backdoor roth ira instead of a regular 401k like all the
idiot sheeple."

I still think having a relationship with a financial advisor you trust is
better than taking advice from strangers on the internet.

~~~
Humdeee
Financial literacy is pure garlic to every common vampire financial advisor.

I have a couple friends right now that do not want wage raises because "it
will knock them into the next tax bracket". Believe me, I've tried to explain
how the simple concept of income and taxes work.

I trusted my financial advisor years ago when I started my career. It took me
a couple years to realize I was the product, not his client with his best
interest in mind. Strangers, especially from more disciplined subs and without
skin in the (your own) game, have been more valuable many, many times over.

Everyone who takes what is said literally and in verbatim would be a fool.
Validate what is said as it applies within your own context.

~~~
iso1210
Dunno about the US, but in the UK there are a few wage points where a small
rise can lead to a reduction in net income. Specifically moving into the
higher tax bracket, which removes £200 off their personal allowance if they
were using the pooling allowance option -- i.e. a £100 tax rise could lead to
£46 extra income but £201 extra outgoing, a net reduction of £155

There are more perverse options with housing, childcare and income benefits
being removed which I believe can lead to a negative income.

In the US the Benefit Cliff is real:

"There is this issue of the benefits cliffs, where some programs are designed
so just a very marginal increase in earnings can result in a loss of a very
important benefit. And a lot of states, unfortunately, have structured their
childcare subsidies programs that way," explains Skinner.

"Typically, pay rises, income rises, but at some point you lose eligibility
for a subsidies all together and it's an abrupt reduction in that family's
resources," Skinner says.

[https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jul/20/benefits-
cliff...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jul/20/benefits-cliff-
minimum-wage-increase-backfire-poverty)

~~~
magduf
Does the US not have marginal tax brackets? That seems really odd and dumb.
The benefit cliff you cite is real, but for actual income taxes, there's no
such thing as a reduction in income from higher earnings. Going to a higher
tax bracket just means you pay higher taxes on money over a certain threshold.
So if bracket A is 20% under $50k, and bracket B is 30% over $50k, if you make
$51k, you'll pay 20% of 50k, plus 30% of 1k. It's never disadvantageous to
make more money (except if you're on government benefits as mentioned, where
there are some weird effects).

Strangely, a lot of people don't understand this at all.

~~~
BlargMcLarg
The Netherlands has this issue as well, points of income where your marginal
gain is negative, ergo losing net money when making more gross money due to
losing benefits. There are also indirect problems such as losing access to
certain services (cheaper housing being one). Obviously, this shouldn't be the
case. Making more money gross should result in equal-or-more money net,
without disadvantages, otherwise the incentive is gone.

~~~
sobani
The first table (image) in this post
[https://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/1735517](https://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/1735517)
shows this issue.

It's in Dutch, but the most important columns are the first (gross income),
the second to last (net income, including benefits) and the last (effective
tax rate on the 1000 gross income increase).

Note the last column tells us that making 1000 gross extra will increase your
net income about 100 between 32K and 31K gross income. Going from 31K to 32K
will even make you lose money.

------
prawn
People incentivised by karma systems seem to create better information sources
than when they’re incentivised by money. Think about how often you turn to
Stack Overflow, Reddit, forums (Whirlpool in Australia) over AdSense/affiliate
blogs. The latter are almost always biased and essentially misleading.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>People incentivised by karma systems seem to create better information
sources than when they’re incentivised by money.

People are incentivized by karma to create popular advice. Sometimes this
overlaps with good or better advice but not always.

Anyone who's got in depth knowledge of any particular field has probably seen
this in action when that field comes up.

In my observation detail/nuance and ability to accurately handle non-typical
situations tend to promptly go out the window when you try to start making
advice on anything complex popular.

~~~
Nasrudith
To be fair I think detail and nuance aren't generally well transmitted period.
Like the proverbial lie getting halfway around the world before the truth gets
its shoes on. Say for a given chemical Y "Y is harmless." and "Y is
responsible for all diseases in modern society!" are both way faster than "Y
has a biological halflife of two weeks and is safe below certain thresholds.
Spray it on crops but wash it off before consuming to avoid problems."
regardless of the truth of any of the three statements.

------
rubidium
Another great source I’ve enjoyed using is
[https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php](https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php)
.

This of course presupposes choosing that particular investment strategy, but
the opportunity to ask anonymous, detailed financial questions and get
thoughtful responses and ideas is great!

~~~
jumbopapa
The Bogleheads wiki should really be the first stop for financial questions.
It's a fanatic resource and I found the answers/content to be higher quality
than Reddit.

------
joaodlf
Yes! I have learned tremendously about personal finance from
ukpersonalfinance.

For anyone based in the UK, please go and read the content at
[https://ukpersonal.finance/](https://ukpersonal.finance/), it is invaluable
for your future. Financial literacy for the millennial generation is my #1
recommendation for general life improvement. It doesn't matter what situation
you are in: in debt; with lots of savings; lack of credit options; etc... You
will learn tremendously and can genuinely improve so many aspects of your
life.

~~~
dharma1
Seconded. You get generally quite well-informed discussion on
/r/UKPersonalFinance, no pushing products or shallow reviews which is what you
get if you try to Google same type of content.

Also the discussion is two way, so you get to ask questions without paying
hundreds to an IFA. In some instances you probably should speak to an IFA (or
an accountant) for a holistic overview of your particular situation, but
redditers are quite quick to point that out too.

~~~
tron27
One of the most valuable things I've seen is that the users on
UKPersonalFinance are also not afraid to tell people when they're doing (or
planning to do) a stupid thing. On the flip side of that, you'll generally get
a good response if you are planning to do a stupid (within reason) thing but
have yourself sorted out, followed the flowchart, got your emergency fund
sorted and are paying off your dept. It's a good place for balance between
getting yourself financially stable and enjoying the money you have.

------
omarchowdhury
Anonymous people over the web have become guides to personal finance, reddit
just facilitates that. The same advice was available during the "blogging/RSS
era".

~~~
TulliusCicero
Yes, the advantage of Reddit is that you can more easily see the group
consensus on an issue, as well as differing opinions (as long as those
differing opinions aren't considered so extreme/wrong that they get heavily
downvoted, which is certainly possible).

~~~
tonyedgecombe
The group consensus seems to be to get the largest mortgage your bank will
give you, buy an oversized car on a 7 year contract plan and fritter the rest
on beer and takeaways. The best financial advice is usually drowned out by the
consensus.

~~~
TulliusCicero
What? This is absolutely the opposite of the consensus advice you'll get
somewhere like r/personalfinance.

It sounds like you're completely ignorant of the subs in question, and just
spouting off whatever comes to mind.

~~~
michaelt
I think tonyedgecombe is pointing out that relying on 'group consensus' is not
a golden bullet, as the consensus revealed preference of the _national
population_ conflicts with the consensus advice of _subreddits ' self-selected
populations_

~~~
TulliusCicero
Bit of a useless point then, isn't it? Of course group consensus of people who
care about finance is going to be more useful to finance discussions than
group consensus of the general population. And it's the former that we were
discussing anyway.

Not to mention what they're describing isn't a group consensus on financial
advice, it's just the stereotype of lowest common denominator behavior. It's
like suggesting that there's a group consensus that playing the lotto is sound
financial wisdom just because a large number of people do participate in it.

------
djhworld
UK folk should head to
[https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/)

I've always been interested in personal finance, but this community has helped
me learn new things and everyone is very supportive.

~~~
freetonik
Europe in general
[https://reddit.com/r/eupersonalfinance/](https://reddit.com/r/eupersonalfinance/)

~~~
Double_a_92
Or if your goal is retiring early:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EuropeFIRE/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EuropeFIRE/)

Seems like a more familiar community to me.

------
SXX
This remind me of famous:

> When the shoeshine boys talk stocks it was a great sell signal in 1929

[https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archiv...](https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/04/15/211503/index.htm)

~~~
h1srf
2020 edition: when the news is quoting /r/wallstreetbets it might be a sell
signal

~~~
fokinsean
Or when a popular twitch streamer asks which "stonks" to buy.

[https://i.imgur.com/V8zRG5C.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/V8zRG5C.jpg)

------
akrymski
As the web matures around several core destinations, I find that Googling
becomes increasingly less valuable. If you want to shop you go straight to
Amazon. If you want advice you go to Reddit. Dev query? Stackoverflow. etc.
The long tail of web-pages that Google used to be so great it is becoming
increasingly irrelevant.

------
Quequau
I use Reddit a lot and I find some of the finance focused subreddits to be
really repellent. I don't know if this is because, while I have a degree in
economics, I'm not an investor or that I just have a low tolerance for some of
the conduct that frequently shows up in those communities.

I really like /r/povertyfinance though clearly those folks are often going
through way, way more trying circumstances I am. I guess I'd be more
interested in finances for the alienated precariat.

~~~
Kneecaps07
I agree. If it were up to /r/personalfinance, everyone would have three credit
cards and that's all they would ever use and it would solve every financial
problem ever. They fail to realize that many people (myself included!!) are
just not equipped for credit cards and it can cause huge problems.

~~~
auiya
What does "just not equipped for credit cards" mean?

~~~
cheese4242
Likely means that they have difficulty paying off the balance every month and
incur interest charges.

Because most credit cards offer some sort of cash back/reward for every dollar
spent, they are great if you can pay off the balance 100% of the time.

However, if you get hit with interest charges even once, it can wipe out any
benefit you gained from the cash back/reward bonus. In such cases those people
might be better off using a debit card or other means.

------
willart4food
If you want to see the future of Social Networks, look no further than Reddit.
Reddit is the Future of Social Networks.

The Next Social network, the one what will eat Facebook's lunch, just like
Facebook ate MySpace's lunch, will not be people-to-people based, but it will
be People-to-topic and topic-to-topic based; media-rich and mobile-friendly.

And no, it won't be Reddit, too much Legacy crap with Reddit and not enough
novelty.

Clayton Christensen would agree.

~~~
Double_a_92
Agree. I either want to talk to a community for each of my interests (on a
subreddit or a dedicated forum) OR to a small group of close friends or family
(messengers). Only rarely would I want to broadcast generic information /
entertainment to everyone I know (facebook).

One platform I'm missing is one where I could (anonymously) talk to strangers
in my area. To discuss or ask about locally relevant things, or just see what
people that aren't my friends think. The apps that already exist seem to be
always targeted at students.

~~~
bronco21016
While not anonymous, Nextdoor seems to really fill the space of local
discussion. It has a lot of people from my town active on it, YMMV.

Unfortunately, my town is going through some crap times politically and it
makes it really hard to not spend time on Nextdoor just becoming enraged.

~~~
scarface74
As long as you define “discussion” as “I just saw this suspicious looking
Black guy breaking into someone’s house. He opened someone’s garage using a
garage door opener and unlocked the door using their key. He must have
murdered the owner, stole the car, and taken their keys.”

------
cowsandmilk
I can’t help but question what he’s actually learned when his links don’t
actually explain a topic. He says he learned about mega backdoor IRAs, but
then links to a thread about regular backdoor IRAs. I’m not sure he does know
what differentiates a “mega” from a regular backdoor.

~~~
beatgammit
People get terminology wrong in niches like this all the time, especially when
the terminology is so similar.

The fact that the OP even knows that a backdoor Roth IRA exists (much less a
"mega" backdoor IRA) puts this person leagues above the average person, who
probably doesn't even know the difference between a Roth IRA and a traditional
IRA, much less what an IRA even is.

Honestly, I trust sources like OP mentioned more than most financial advisors
because advisors tend to pitch a product instead of conveying information.
Schools aren't doing it, so that basically leaves communities like this.

------
clircle
I have found a very enjoyable way to browse reddit: through RSS. I make RSS
feeds of the top weekly posts in the three subreddits that I follow and
subscribe to those. I use hnrss for reading HN, of course.

------
fooker
Here is an experiment you can try today.

Pick a topic which you are an expert in, then look at highly upvoted comments
about that topic in a large subreddit.

------
ausbah
reddit appears to me to have a lot of crap with the few nuggets in the rough.
subs like personalfinance seems to be on net helpful for people, but "cousin"
subs like investing are cesspits of grifters and ill informed maniacs

~~~
snowwrestler
Sub-reddit quality on Reddit has a high correlation with how actively the sub-
reddit is moderated.

~~~
jcims
And the quality of that moderation. Any experience with heavy-handed
moderation is incredibly frustrating.

While I wouldn't call it a predictor because there are many many counter-
examples, my favorite subreddits are generally between 10k and 100k subs. Much
less and they are a ghost town, much more and you start getting too many
drive-by assholes.

~~~
snowwrestler
/r/askscience is a good example of where pretty heavy moderation has protected
the high quality of the comments.

~~~
jcims
Funny you mention that. Its sister subreddit /r/science is my example of
something that has frustrated me greatly in the past. Most of the stories are
something I'm trying to learn about, not an expert in, and I've found it very
frustrating to try to engage. So if i see anything interesting there, i'll
find somewhere else to talk about it.

------
balls187
I too recently started using reddit for personal finance r/investing.

I was lucky in that my mom instilled the need to put money away for
retirement, which I did as soon as I graduated college. On the flip side, both
my parents were secretive about their finances. It was until now, as I am
ensuring I am aware of my parents wishes through their golden years, that we
are having honest discussions about money.

The benefit I see is that many of the subs promote transparency. My college
friends and I also discuss openly our savings and investing strategies.

My financial goals are:

1) be able to live near my current lifestyle at retirement

2) Ensure both my children have money should they suffer a catastrophic loss
near middle age, as my parents did for me.

------
sna1l
I would say the meta point to this article is that in general finding unbiased
information nowadays is much harder.

I was just lamenting with some friends about how much Amazon search has
declined in quality in the past few years. You essentially have to do your
research elsewhere (Wirecutter, etc), and then try to find an authentic
version of that on Amazon.

------
divbzero
For me the most useful advice has come in the form of “How should I spend my
money?” Reddit has an excellent detailed flowchart [1] that echoes a
simplified version that fits on an index card [2].

[1]:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/4gdlu9/how...](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/4gdlu9/how_to_prioritize_spending_your_money_a_flowchart/)

[2]:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/01/08/46...](https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/01/08/462250239/when-
an-index-card-of-financial-tips-isnt-enough-this-book-is-there)

------
LatteLazy
Reddit is a weird mix of mechanical-turk-search-engine and social media lite.
It doesn't do anything except facilitate people doing things...

To be clear, I'm not criticising reddit. I'm just saying, reddit isn't doing
this, reddit is a tool for people to do this.

~~~
ace32229
Facilitating people doing things isn't valuable?

~~~
LatteLazy
Edited to clarify.

------
Tycho
Here's a simple personal finance question that seems very hard to answer:
should you overpay your mortgage, or put more money towards retirement?

The well informed answers you tend to see on sites like MoneySavingExpert seem
to converge on putting money towards retirement. They cite things like
difference in interest rates and tax relief. But I feel the analysis is too
one-dimensional, and there's actually a myriad of utility considerations and
possible future scenarios. It might be impossible to answer well but I feel
someone should turn it into an optimization problem (in the engineering
sense).

~~~
throw0101a
We get this question a lot in /r/PersonalFinanceCanada/ and the 'towards
retirement' answer is the "mathematically correct" one because most mortgage
rates are <3% but equity returns are >5%.

However, in Canada, if you put money into your RRSP, which is a tax-deferral
account, you get a refund: so a popular option is to save for retirement and
use your tax refund for your mortgage.

Lastly, the other thing generally mentioned is the observation that some
people are just uncomfortable with debt 'hanging over them'. So if it helps
you sleep at night, there's nothing wrong with paying it down, as long as you
recognize that there is a "financially better" option.

~~~
Tycho
Yes there is the psychological utility consideration of not having debt
hanging over you. But in a less subjective sense aren't there also
considerations of risk of ruin and optionality? If you have no mortgage to pay
off, you are free to do a lot of things you could not do otherwise (including
buying more property to get rental income). If you have a lot of debt, you are
in a leveraged position where some bad luck could bankrupt you.

Then there's stuff like, just cause you have a lot of money in your retirement
account, doesn't mean you can actually consume it all, depending on the rules
of your country.

~~~
throw0101a
> _If you have no mortgage to pay off, you are free to do a lot of things you
> could not do otherwise (including buying more property to get rental
> income)._

Except that you have to use some of your income _now_ to pay down your
mortgage so that you have better cash flow _later_. So that means _right now_
you have less cash flow.

The decision is: use cash flow _now for mortgage_ to get more financial space
later, or use cash flow _now for other things_ but have less space later.

TL; DR: Pay now or pay later.

~~~
Tycho
But the overpayment is optional, you can stop it at any time if it becomes
inconvenient. Whereas as long as your mortgage balance is outstanding you are
legally required to make the monthly payments.

------
say_it_as_it_is
Taking advice from someone on social media is very risky. There's no reason to
trust that whomever is giving the advice is an authority on the subject at
hand. Not a lawyer, not a doctor, not a financial professional, just a hobby
programmer with really strong opinions, not a partner in a VC fund but talking
as if I were, etc.

On the other hand, doing something professionally also doesn't imply
expertise. My god have I paid for doing business with alleged professionals.

~~~
magduf
>There's no reason to trust that whomever is giving the advice is an authority
on the subject at hand.

>My god have I paid for doing business with alleged professionals.

This is the problem with getting advice from "financial professionals". Unless
you're paying them a lot of money, a financial advisor is giving you advice
that's going to benefit him, not you. Basically, they're salespeople; why else
would they give you free advice? Even if you are paying them, that's no
guarantee they're competent. After all, if they're so brilliant with managing
money and investments, then why are they doing a comparatively low-paid office
job for a salary?

Professionals are rarely experts in their field; they're just people who
managed to find someone to do work full-time in that field. You'll usually get
much better advice from amateurs who are very passionate about that as a
hobby. For instance, cars: would you get better repair advice from a
professional mechanic who works on all kinds of different cars, and whose
hobby is fishing, or from an internet forum full of people who own and love
your model of car, and collectively know all the common problems with that
exact year/model, plus where to get the best parts? Would, for instance, some
average professional mechanic know that the engine mount on your Volvo can be
replaced with one from a particular Ford for much less money? I seriously
doubt it.

------
Areibman
This isn't limited to personal finance either. I find that asking an open
ended question to Google typically results in irrelevant results, discussions
that are too precise to be useful (StackExchange), or just plain unhelpful
(Quora). But appending "Reddit" to the end of my query almost always produces
a relevant thread.

Most web forums haven't figured out SEO or how to persist quality threads
(TripAdvisor). Reddit is filling in that gap.

------
m23khan
I absolutely love reddit - a massive collection of discussion forums on very
specific topics and most seem to be moderated by individual(s).

I can find topic related to all my interests - finance, economy, devops,
machine learning, politics, sports, specific country and even things like
walmart and costco.

Although effectiveness of advice can vary depending on topic (people are
pretty opinionated on certain subreddits) but overall, it is a great community
effort.

~~~
bluntfang
>most seem to be moderated by individual(s).

How can you tell the difference between an individual and a corporate shill
account to a degree that you can make this statement?

~~~
beatgammit
My general rule of thumb:

\- > 1M subscribers - most definitely filled with shills \- > 100k subscribers
- probably lots of shills \- < 50k subscribers - probably not many shills

I try to avoid big subs and stick mostly to smaller subs.

------
Vysero
Personally, I would rather ask questions on the Personal Finance & Money
community at Stack Exchange, and watch videos on YouTube but to each their
own.

------
galkk
> Traditional publications that offer financial advice, such as the Financial
> Times or the Wall Street Journal, communicate authority, trust, and
> centuries of accumulated wisdom. Though they are objective and accurate,
> these sources often lack the relatability of an answer on Reddit.

objective and accurate... FT and WSJ.

------
fierarul
Sadly Reddit is locking down the personal finance subreddit behind their app
so they can monetize it better. I find this article to have interesting timing
as the readership on that subreddit must be going way down nowadays.

~~~
ZekeSulastin
... what? I can get to it from the website and Apollo perfectly well.

~~~
fierarul
I must be in the bad A/B bucket because I see 'This community is available in
the app' and haven't been able to use Reddit a lot on mobile for weeks /
months?

Google gives me this article about the new trend:
[https://reclaimthenet.org/this-community-is-available-in-
the...](https://reclaimthenet.org/this-community-is-available-in-the-app/)

~~~
0xffff2
Based on that article, I'm guessing this is only a thing in the new mobile
site. There are a somewhat ridiculous number of ways to browse reddit these
days (desktop new/old, mobile new/old, app at least) and they all seem to
offer a different set of features. I've used i.reddit.com on mobile for many
years now and it hasn't been impacted by any of the nonsense that reddit has
been pushing lately (yet).

~~~
fierarul
I know that if I spend extra time I can edit the URL but honestly this reddit
block has allowed me to just stop browsing reddit unless absolutely necessary.
A positive thing in a way...

------
m3kw9
Reddit and such communities can act like filters for the web. A lot of people
are really good at searching google for info and know when something is likely
BS and that filter gets captured on forums like Reddit.

------
MadWombat
Reddit seems like an odd choice, but there is the personal finance stack
exchange site
[https://money.stackexchange.com/](https://money.stackexchange.com/)

------
sub7
Sifting through bullshit on the internet is a 21st century skill.

------
k__
frugal_jerk is well worth reading.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/frugal_jerk/](https://www.reddit.com/r/frugal_jerk/)

------
darksaints
As long as they're not taking advice from /r/WallStreetBets, this is a good
thing. Financial advice from financial institutions is a plague on our
society.

------
simongray
r/personalfinance has 14 million subscribers!? I did not expect the subject to
have that kind of extreme popularity.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Wasn't it made some sort of "default sub" a while back?

------
Scoundreller
I miss fatwallet...

------
jhn1618
Almost the current internet is f __ked, unfortunately to say it after 30 years
of existence.

------
walrus01
/r/wallstreetbets is to finance as Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop are to
professional, rigorously scientific medical advice.

~~~
christophilus
80% of the stuff on /r/securityanalysis is actually top notch. Reddit is a
combination of dumpster fires and brilliance.

~~~
Proziam
It's remarkable how true that is of almost all forums that have been around a
while. There are dead serious experts on every subject to be found on _4chan_
for example. Reddit is no different, but each subreddit is basically a tiny
little kingdom and not all of them are run well (the LoL subreddit, for
example, is a nightmare due to corporate moderation from Riot).

~~~
leetcrew
good lord. why would you ever voluntarily become responsible for moderating
discussion about your game on a third-party platform?

~~~
Proziam
Never underestimate the power of the human ego or the almighty dollar. It's
just unfortunate that in many cases these motivators get used for corrupt
purposes.

EDIT - Since not everyone is familiar with the RIOT games example.

In the case of RIOT, they use it to control external discussion about their
game and manage PR. Since the LoL subreddit is the largest hub for LoL related
discussion in the western world, it's worth it to them to play kingmaker with
the moderators (and they've given those mods the same power over Valorant now
as well) and place them into jobs, or just outright pay them.

Of course, this turns into corruption because the mods have straight up banned
credible journalists from the space, as well push discussion into
uncomfortable directions. (Hating on certain people is not allowed, hating on
others totally is.)

------
levosmetalo
What's wrong with that? I find many people are more comfortable to share
private information and seek advice anonymously on the internet than face to
face.

And in this anonymous stranger setting, many people are actually more inclined
to give a good/harsh/honest advice than in face-to-face conversations.

~~~
TulliusCicero
As shown in the article, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's a very
good thing.

