I’d think random was probably both cheap to inplement (once you have a database, ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1 is easy) and great for engagement (encourages repeated gacha-pull behaviour looking for an interesting new sub).
I wonder if it portends a degradation of the subreddit concept as a whole-- why let people navigate to a focused section directly when they should be looking at an algorithmic feed that delivers “almost what you’re looking for” in a way that maximizes scrolling.
I’d think random was probably both cheap to inplement (once you have a database, ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1 is easy) and great for engagement (encourages repeated gacha-pull behaviour looking for an interesting new sub).
I wonder if it portends a degradation of the subreddit concept as a whole-- why let people navigate to a focused section directly when they should be looking at an algorithmic feed that delivers “almost what you’re looking for” in a way that maximizes scrolling.