Isn't there the reddit archive project?

Agreed, I feel like the social part of reddit is pretty easily replaceable but the amount of niche and specialised information was incredible

Agreed, although I do love that their own search engine was complete dogshit. That said, many of the posts I found really useful were at least five years old, sometimes as old as 12. In some ways it may be good for the knowledge base to update a bit. Actually, are Lemmy posts searchable the same way as Reddit?

I also do this, but even before the recent turmoil I started losing confidence and trust. Brands know about this trick and they know how much consumers trust honest reviews by real people.

Generative AI like ChatGPT makes it easier than ever to flood subs with search-engine friendly posts and comments how awesome product X is...

Here’s the thing, as much as I’m going to miss the convenience, I’m willing to suffer thru discomfort for not having that information readily available. LLMs now paired with web searches should be able to serve such content, and in the interim, I want something like Lemmy, a decentralized collection of instances with user generated content to grow, so that a single asshole ceo cannot ruin it for everybody else, particularly when the content in question is user generated and managed.

Absolutely the best way to get answers to specific things. Avoids any paid blogs and questionable answers. Not to mention perfect for getting actual recommendations and reviews on things.