I noticed the "eternal September" happening in years prior, as Reddit became more acceptable to the wider public and as a smartphone app rather than a forum host mostly for techies.
And with those "normies" came the low-effort posts that totally ignored things like stickied posts, subreddit rules, and the overall culture of the community (or site.) Take a look at /r/roms, for example. The sidebar, the top announcement sticky, the rules, and the automod on every single post says "here is where they are" and what is most of the subreddit? "How do I find game" - same thing for BuildaPC, or Tech Support, or Linux.
Then the mods have to remove the low effort posts and get called names, or they get upset that the resources they've taken time to make available to the community are ignored for the 500th time and blow up, just to get called more names or even censured by the admins.
The only way to win is to not play. And that's why I use a combination of HN and an RSS reader now.
It definitely started years ago, probably around the time I really started using it. I visit /r/games sometimes and they have stickies around what you have been playing or game suggestions and without fail someone doesn't even read the topic at hand and just posts a random question.
Apps were mostly bad at showing sidebars too, they wanted to streamline the main view. They were there but I think a lot of users didn't know.
Anecdotally I seem to notice a trend on how grammatical/spelling corrections are received. If people generally accept them in good grace as a chance to improve, discussion quality can be decent. If they take it as a personal attack, or other people pile on (often with the classic "no one cares") ... well that's Reddit these days usually.
And with those "normies" came the low-effort posts that totally ignored things like stickied posts, subreddit rules, and the overall culture of the community (or site.) Take a look at /r/roms, for example. The sidebar, the top announcement sticky, the rules, and the automod on every single post says "here is where they are" and what is most of the subreddit? "How do I find game" - same thing for BuildaPC, or Tech Support, or Linux.
Then the mods have to remove the low effort posts and get called names, or they get upset that the resources they've taken time to make available to the community are ignored for the 500th time and blow up, just to get called more names or even censured by the admins.
The only way to win is to not play. And that's why I use a combination of HN and an RSS reader now.