‘What became so popular it ended up being ruined for everyone?’ – 22 things that were a victim of their own success

Have you ever loved something while it was under the radar and then ended up disliking it once everybody else discovered it? You aren’t alone. Remember when eBay was full of genuine people selling great items for cheap? Now you have to wade through all sorts of promoted listings and cheap knockoffs to find what you want.

Over on the AskReddit page user ShittalkyCaps asked:

What became so popular it ended up being ruined for everyone?

And plenty of people chimed in with their thoughts on things that went down the pan when everybody jumped on the bandwagon:

1.

‘Subscriptions. Companies weaponised them and put them into appliances and other places where they have no business existing. They’re obviously not popular with customers, but manufacturers seem to love them.’
–BookLuvr7

2.

‘Social Media. All of it.’
–RMST1912

3.

‘Cheap cuts of meat, like chicken wings and skirt steak. Now they’re too expensive for cheap meals.’
–Dragon_wryter

4.

‘Craigslist and Facebook marketplace. Trying to buy or sell something now you have to wade through tons of scammers , flakes and lowballers. Almost every vehicle is a reconditioned title and a scam. and then the people who always ask ‘Is this available?’ and then never say anything after.’
–Itchy_Pudding_9940

5.

‘Thrifting. It used to be a cheap way to find quality items. Now thanks to resellers thrift stores are charging damned near close to retail prices.’
–Disastrous-Bee-1557

6.

‘There’s an old swimming hole in my city. People have been swimming there for over 200 years. There are stories about it and once photography became a thing, tons of photos. There are signs at the site talking about the history of the swimming hole and photos at our city’s museum.

And with an influx of people moving here, the site became super popular, crowded, and littered. So the city shut it down. And the locals are big mad about it. Last town hall meeting, it was a main point of contention and one of our local litter-clean-up groups offered to go out every Monday and pick up trash, just so locals (and the poor) could have their free swimming spot again. The city said they would consider it.’
–FiendishCurry

7.

‘AirBnB. I used to get a room and stay with a nice family that would talk, tell me about the local area, and often invited me to join them for meals. Now, it’s often just a house owned by some distant investor with a bunch of rooms rented out to random people. Also, getting a place for myself is usually way expensive when you include all the bs fees.’
-SwingingtotheBeat

8.

‘Game of Thrones, it made the creators’ heads so big they forgot to keep working on the show.’
–hospitalbedside

9.

‘No one else has said it yet but fan fiction. The commercialisation of certain works by people looking to make a quick buck brings the whole scene into potential legal trouble, but also plenty of people within fan fiction are just unbelievably pretentious about the whole thing. Half of them act like they’re gonna be the next Tolkien or something, or they obsess over engagement.

It’s why I don’t even look at the big sites. My main fandom has a dedicated site and that’s the go-to.’
–RipCurl69Reddit

10.

‘YouTube. No commercials on every single video, actual authenticity, easy to find new content and creators, no constant douchbaggery. Now, you search for something you will find the same videos promoted with the same douchebags that jump on any trend.’
-gopeepants

11.

‘Fandoms in general. Between toxic positivity where you aren’t supposed to criticise anything, and gatekeeping where if you don’t have encyclopedic knowledge of every little thing, ‘you’re not a real fan’ like its some kind of competition, I rarely engage with fans of most of my favourite nerdy stuff anymore. I still try every now and then but am quickly reminded that the worst so called ‘fans’ are always the loudest.’
–Inevitable-Flan-7390