Astroturfing on Reddit and the dead internet

Reddit used to be a good source to find real recommendations. Well, not anymore. Years ago, I used to append "reddit" to my search queries to find real discussions about products. If you search for managed Postgres on Reddit, you may stumble on posts like this: If you look at the profile of the person who created it, their posting history is usually private: u/xxx likes to keep their posts hidden, but check out their stats to learn more about them. But when you do some research and look at their other posts from Reddit dumps to find their real identity, you see this: By diving deeper, you notice that there are around 10 accounts that constantly ask about managed Postgres or recommend a specific provider. They are all connected to the same company.[......]