It depends on the subreddits you subscribe to. Communities with a single place to interact will vary depending on time of day and topic. One day you get upvotes, the next you get downvotes for the same kind of thing.
Hacker News is Hacker News. Reddit is the communities you subscribe to. A negative view of Reddit as a whole makes no sense. The defaults and other big subreddits only reflect society at large, so any problem you have with Reddit is really with society.
/r/slatestarcodex, /r/pics, and /r/DaystromInstitute have nothing in common other than the platform.
>A negative view of Reddit as a whole makes no sense
I tend to think of "reddit" when used generally as meaning r/all for an account that isn't signed in. You won't find many "red-tribe" beliefs here, so I don't think you can say it reflects society at large. Anecdotally, I'd say the subreddit that most consistently gets something that looks a little like red tribe beliefs to the front page is r/unpopularopinion. Reddit is definitely not an even cross section of America.
If voter turnout is to be taken as a measure, red/blue tribes aren't representative of society. Voters (at least in the US) are a highly-motivated minority with firm opinions. Turnout peaks in Presidential elections, but still barely breaks 50%. Most people don't even pay attention until the debates start.
Consistent Voter Tribe people don't believe me when I tell them the most popular prime time cable news program barely has enough viewers to fill a few large stadiums. What you see on /r/all reflects the interests of people who watch TV shows with tens of millions of viewers, not the minority of people extremely tuned in to politics.
This is why I stopped watching cable news and following most political media. I realized they gave me a twisted view of how popular my opinions are.
Reddit, the company, actively bans the "red tribe" and promotes the "blue tribe". They've chosen not to welcome society at large, but to push their own political views through selective censorship.
Hacker News is Hacker News. Reddit is the communities you subscribe to. A negative view of Reddit as a whole makes no sense. The defaults and other big subreddits only reflect society at large, so any problem you have with Reddit is really with society.
/r/slatestarcodex, /r/pics, and /r/DaystromInstitute have nothing in common other than the platform.