The irony for me is that Google had a Reddit before Reddit was a thing, it was called Orkut and it was glorious. You could create communities based on whatever the heck you wanted and connect with friends and strangers alike through any twist on any topic you could think of.
But Google being Google, it didn't see the potential because Orkut didn't achieve global dominance (despite being the social media platform in places like Brazil and India at the time). Google's obsession with AI-fying the crap out of its business will likely end up being its downfall now that it's proving to be increasingly ineffective against the SEO-motivated players, who now have an enormously diverse toolkit to game the coveted first SERPs, from black hat to downright paying right into Google's pockets to get their way.
But Google being Google, it didn't see the potential because Orkut didn't achieve global dominance (despite being the social media platform in places like Brazil and India at the time). Google's obsession with AI-fying the crap out of its business will likely end up being its downfall now that it's proving to be increasingly ineffective against the SEO-motivated players, who now have an enormously diverse toolkit to game the coveted first SERPs, from black hat to downright paying right into Google's pockets to get their way.