hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout today, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! Thanks!
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thread cycled! new thread is over here, folks
AskHistorians is taking the approach of “blackout for two days, then read-only moving forward indefinitely.” I think that’s a good approach as it still removes the functionality of the subreddit while reminding people of what they’re missing out on due to the admins’ actions.
I know there are bigger subs, but AskHistorians is an absolute jewel in Reddit’s crown. For all the dumpster fire subs that raise controversy and drag Reddit’s image down, AskHistorians is the one sub that could always be pointed to as a sub with an inarguably positive impact. It’s also a sub in a unique position because its moderators are probably the hardest for Reddit to replace, because many of them are the historians that answer the questions, or have personal relationships with those that do. In addition most of the historians aren’t really Redditors, participating only on AskHistorians. Removing the current mod team and replacing them would absolutely 100% kill the sub forever.
Not that I have any faith in Reddit to do the right thing. I just think it’s interesting to realize just how different of a position AskHistorians in than the rest of the subreddits, being at the same time more impactful than their subscriber numbers show, while being fragile enough to be permanently broken if handled poorly. They are also one of the only mod teams I’ve see who have issued a list of actionable goals that Reddit can address.
Also it’s interesting to see that their participation in the blackout is almost entirely on Spez’s head. That’s some damn fine CEOing there, Lou.
The askhistorians subreddit and it’s mod team are absolute gems, I was able to attend one of their talks at a conference and it was honestly one of the best presentations I’ve seen at these types of events. It is giant loss to the academic community to have them shut down tbh, and I hope they are able to migrate and keep their audience.
But then again knowing Reddit, if they migrate u/spez will probably allow Holocaust deniers to take up the space or something.
I hope one of the archive projects (archiveTeam or others) has backed up r/askhistorians past posts and comments, just in case.
Oh, I hope so as well, that sub is absolutely precious. When people talked about nuking their account(which I get it) it was for post like those that I feared for.
Not to worry, every post and comment on reddit has been archived, and is freely available as a 2tb torrent on Academic Torrents.
Is there an easy way to access this? I wanted to point out to some older reddit posts.
I’ve checked both Reddit and Lemmy since I created my Lemmy account yesterday. Reddit has lost a number of subreddits I used to read and the feed seems decidedly less interesting overall. Although the equivalents to all the subreddits I used don’t necessarily exist here, there is some good information here (particularly IT-related) and I think the overall feel of the community here is better - people seem (so far at least) largely pretty reasonable and there aren’t the armies of contrarians or downvoters just wanting to spread their anger at the world to everyone else. So, overall, win some, lose some, and if I end up just here instead of Reddit, I think any losses there will be offset by gains here. Which if you think about it makes Lemmy look pretty good, given that it is (a) relatively new; (b) volunteer-run and funded; © much, much smaller than Reddit.
People say Lemmy is too complicated for most people, well that’s probably a good thing as it naturally filters out the people who only want to incite anger for upvotes. There’s no love on Reddits main subreddits anymore
Also it’s not that hard to understand anyway.
In terms of complexity, becoming conversant enough in how Lemmy works to do basic things feels on par with IRC. The expectations about how easy it is to hop on a service and start using it have shifted significantly because of the centralization of the past couple of decades, but the evidence available from comparing the tone of Reddit to here suggests the speed bump is helpful.
I disagree, it’s easy to say that a barrier to entry is good because it keeps out trolls and those that just want to insight hate, but really those people will find a way when anything gets popular enough to bother with. Meanwhile, that same barrier prevents a lot of underserved people joining in and they’re left to deal with the same toxic people we’re trying to avoid ourselves.
The centralised services didn’t succeed because they were centralised, they succeeded because they lowered the barrier to entry drastically. It’s a lot easier to do that when you’re centralised, but that’s something we’ll have to overcome if we want this community and others like it to succeed. Otherwise we’ll just slowly die inside our own echo chamber.
Agree and disagree … when we say “people shouldn’t have to learn anything to use a technology,” that shifts any focus on better education to dumber services.
I think it’s not necessarily just dumber or more impatient people who can be soft-locked out by this, though. People who are too short on time to put a lot into hobbies (e.g. single mom working two jobs, and others with very busy irl lives) or learning a new unfamiliar system may also be left out, or older people with a anxieties or self-defeating beliefs about their ability to learn. And remembering here also that we are used to learning new internet systems, but that’s a skill in itself even though it feels easy to us.
Leaving people on platforms that have ad-drive, hate-elevating algorithms also has consequences for all of us when it comes to politics and conspiracy spread.
Technology is a tool, and the tool should be as intuitive to a human newly encountering it as possivle, imo. If people make the same mistakes or have the same confusion with something again and again, it means the system is badly designed for humans, not that the humans are dumb.
You’re right Lemmy is going to take a bit to get used to, but the kicker for me (and maybe a lot of people) is going to be at the end of the month when the 3rd party apps shut down. I’m either going to have to get used to something new either way, whether it be Lemmy or the official Reddit app and my understanding is that the official app is littered with ads and promotions that no one cares about so I probably won’t even bother.
Yeah. I’m not willing to use the official Reddit app. I tried for a day, and it was terrible. Using Lemmy with Jerboa feels natural, because the interface is very similar to the app I used for Reddit - Boost. There are communities I will miss, but it’s nice to actually see the fediverse start to grow, and participate in it. It’s hard to change from being a lurker to actually commenting, but the community feels more tight-knit.
They’re going to start adding ads targeted to comments and posts by keywords used in those comments/posts, too. Which obviously sounds horrendous.
I’m old and easily bamboozled by all this newfangled tech, and at first the whole fediverse thing was overwhelming. But eventually I realized it was not too different than an MMO’s multiple servers, and the idea of cross-realm and connected realms, and it functions not that much differently than a network mesh. You have multiple stand-alone nodes that are capable of cross-communications, so participate in a shared experience, and if one of the nodes goes down, the network will work around it.
It’s really not complicated once you give yourself time to think. And as long as the interface allows for the aggregation of random tidbits of data as we were accustomed to with Reddit, how the technology feeds that is not something the average user needs to worry about.
The only real difference between Reddit and Lemmy is that there is a bit more “hard wiring” that needs to be done by the user in order to set up a custom feed on Lemmy, but other than that, the user experience isn’t dreadfully different once the dust settles.
I appreciate talking to people from all walks, though. If a community wants to filter people it should be explicit and on purpose.
I’ve been really enjoying the Mlem client on iOS as well. Definitely still has a long way to go but it’s a wonderful start
Mlem is awesome, been really fun to engage and grow with this new community
Where do you find the key to activate it on TestFlight?
This iOS App Store link should automatically handle that: https://testflight.apple.com/join/xQfmkJhc
Appreciate it. Thanks!
No problem! Fair warning, it crashes pretty frequently for me so I’m mostly sticking with the browser for now. Also it expands every post in your feed, so you need to scroll through the introduction post stickied to the top of lemmy.world every time you reload the app.
I’m going to keep checking the app out though since it’s a nice start and is clearly gonna improve.
I’m really hoping that lemmy can see a larger uptick in engagement. I know I should be the change I want to see in the world. However the thing I miss the most is pointless arguments in the comments section. :D
Well I think it’s stupid and pointless that you miss pointless arguments. Are we doing it right?
Well I think it’s stupid and pointless that you miss pointless arguments. Are we doing it right?
Ohh for sure!
What you just want substance in your life? No debates over if Captain Picard could kick Luke Skywalkers ass? Everyone knows it’s Picard all the way. :D
To me Reddit was always the comments and less about the news story. The pulse of what was happening in your country, or town, or hobby, etc. I’m sure that will happen here on Lemmy too in time.
Did you just say Pickard can kick Skywalkers ass? Luke is a jedi. And a trained knight who has fought many battles.
Pickard is a desk jockey who sits in a fancy chair. It’s not even close.
Sure, the enterprise can best the falcon, but in a 1v1, there is zero chance of Pickard taking out Luke
I think you’re underestimating Picard. Like, not only was the man a wild punk in his youth before Starfleet straightened him out, but it’s shown throughout the series that he’s more than capable of bluffing opponents with access to things like literal time travel.
If nothing else, if he fights Luke, he’s not going to fight on Luke’s terms if he can help it.
Bluffing isn’t going to stop a lightsabre through the face.
In all honesty, I’m probably over estimating Pickard. Luke can force choke him from across the room while Pickard is doing his fancy speech
You mean the same Luke Skywalker who threw his lightsaber away while confronting the most powerful men in the galaxy on board their planet-killing superweapon? And also tried to talk down the ruthless crime lord who had both his sister and her boyfriend as hostages? :P
There’s no need to get into a fight when you can call for a site to site transport an intransigent Jedi into a hard vacuum.
“Mr. Worf, please facilitate Mr. Skywalker coming to a more complete understanding as to the relativity of his position by transporting his lower spine two feet to the left.”
We haven’t established the parameters of this fight well. If outside/friend help is not allowed, Skywalker wins. If outside help is allowed: Picard wins
Also it is canon now that jedi can survive a hard vacuum for a moment at least, per Leia in The Last Jedi (iirc). But Picard is definitely smarter so he’d find a way I think. Probably.
Hard vacuum is survivable for a short amount of time, but The Force won’t really help Luke if he’s half a light minute away from the closest breathable atmosphere.
No you don’t.
That’s not an argument. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
No it’s not.
Yes it is.
Sorry, is this the five minute course or the full half-hour?
An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
What IT related communities have you found? Keeping up with tech news was one of my primary reasons for keeping in Reddit. I’ve found a few things here, but not a ton. I’ll gladly take any suggestions
I don’t care about fixing Reddit and I don’t care about teaching Reddit a lesson. I don’t care if the site buckles or continues to hold on and grow while they regulalry downgrade their service as they have been doing for the 10 years I’ve been an active user. No protest of anything Reddit has done has ever caused Reddit to reconsider what they’re doing. Reddit does not care about anything because it’s not a person. It’s a business entity which will attempt by any means to maximise profit. Having a functional website or having human users or moderation at all are not strictly necessary to secure investment or generate ad revenue. Doing what investors want them to do, regardless of the actual effect it may have long-term, is what will get them investment now. That is more important to Reddit than everything else put together. There’s no mastermind, no one’s at the wheel, no idiot is unilaterally making decisions like a king. There’s only the inevitable consequences of the collective decisions of businesspeople participating in corporate capitalism.
The main reason I don’t care is that I don’t have to care anymore. The Fediverse has been a breath of fresh air after a very long time.
No reason to go back and every reason not to. The Fediverse is my home now.
I don’t care about fixing reddit either, I don’t care if it lives or dies, not anymore, tho it wouldn’t be bad IMO teaching the CEO a lesson in humility.
Hard to teach humility to a dude who is surrounded by institutional investors funneling millions into his pockets.
But yeah I hope this is ruining his sleep
Not sure he is able to learn.
Right? This was always bound to happen. The only way it wouldn’t be innevitable would require Reddit be a non-profit or co-op or equivalent. Which it certainly isn’t.
I also agree, the sudden breath into the fediverse (I’ve been poking my head in since I ran a nextcloud instance and they had a plugin for the fediverse called nextcloud social.). This place isn’t just a handful of OSS developers and enthusiasts anymore, but something starting to resemble a community of all types.
It reminds me of when Reddit was good, way back in like 2010 (for me) - but it feels more consequential now!
no idiot is unilaterally making decisions like a king.
Every decision is made by one person or a party of people specifically saying “Yes” to it. Whether they are “idiot[s]” is up for debate, but every single event involving anything artificial is decided by a person/people, not merely a faceless system.
No protest of anything Reddit has done has ever caused Reddit to reconsider what they’re doing
To be fair, they did fire that pedo mod they hired. Eventually.
I’m glad to see there’s been more of a push for previously ‘48 hours only’ subreddits to move to an indefinite blackout - but I wish that more of them had committed earlier. That leaked internal email shows exactly what I already expected; they just see the protesting Redditors as a bunch of whiny babies who they expect to give up after a couple days and forget the whole thing.
I’m not giving up. 11 year account deleted. I might read stuff on Reddit from time to time, but it will be without an account, in a private tab, through a vpn, with an ad blocker on.
hang on, what leaked internal email, do you know where I can find that?
i want to call complete BS on them making it out like the Redditors protesting would physically assault the staff. Guess that’s probably a reasonable thing now though. People are whacked in the head.
I thought that was quite an escalation also. But maybe their health & safety committee reccomended it. Probably just trying to make the workers feel embattled and unsafe so they would avoid engaging with the issues and stay to reddits side. Its a PUA kind of doublespeak; spez is the one actually making the threat. But in a way it seems to come from us.
To be a fly on the wall at the water cooler. Please reddit workers, leak a zoom call.
I wonder if things are as tense as was shown in that video from reddit HQ.
was hovering over the link like “is this going to be a rick roll or something?”
so I click it and YES this is literally what I was imagining. not the rick roll, the previous comment. fucking brilliant. in the comments it says it is the last post to /r/videos
a lot of people mentioning ./ and digg here. on ./ there was this “first post” joke. it was very boring even at that time IMHO. but now is the moment to be thinking about “last post” if you are a person who has “last post” powers.
It at least seems like an attempt to push an “us” vs. “them” mentality.
Seems on brand after the CEO doubled down on falsely accusing the Apollo dev of blackmail, even though the Apollo dev posted the recordings proving otherwise.
Yep. That was the point I became what he calls a ”whiny “ person and deleted my account.
He wasn’t content on slandering the Apollo Dev, now he’s slandering all of us
i like the part where he implies that redditors are so deranged they will physically assault his employees.
there are also a lot of subreddits that went readonly. which doesn’t hurt much. when the first google result for something is a functional readonly reddit page, reddit has succeeded. When the first result I click is a message about the issue we’re facing that is much worse for reddit.
At the same time, the couple of subs posting the images and only the images are causing /r/all to have some anti-reddit commentary.
Either way, r/all doesnt look that different. Ok, normal-reddit-for-thing isnt on the front page, instead smaller-reddit-for-thing is there.
I’m sure moderators will plan more, but I think it’s going to be difficult to maintain coordination and whether I like it or not, I get reddits approach to just ignore this.
It’s functional for the users, but not for Reddit who wants more data/engagement.
But yeah, the smaller reddit thingy is true. r/thesims4 was open when r/sims4 was not.
This is a sub that could really benefit from just leaving reddit entirely anyways. Potentially being able to have more open discussions centered around piracy would make the content of that sub so much better.
That. Being able to actually post links to websites.
Is the exclamation mark command meant to trigger a link? It doesn’t do anything for me. My “home” lemmy is lemm.ee if that makes a difference.
Lots of Fediverse stuff works like you might know email to work, i.e.
thing@place.com, no matter where your email is hosted, you can send and receive messages from other hosts.In this Case, the
piracycommunity, within thelemmy.dbzer0.comdomain, you should be able to copy-paste the !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com, or any community like it, into the search bar of your home lemmy server and be able to subscribe.Unless it’s blocked…
I’m not sure how to make a link to communities so that it works for everyone sorry. But yeah the ! Does indicate a community usually
this is a great interview with Christian, fyi, for people who haven’t seen it yet
He is MUCH more diplomatic and polite than I would be.
Then again, he’s Canadian and I’m an American lol
Smart of him not to set the bridge on fire before he’s made it all the way across.
True, though I kind of want to watch the bridge burn at this point. Reddit deserves it.
I mean, he doesn’t have to light the match, the bridge is already aflame. He’s just pointing out he’s not holding the match.
Nova Scotian, even. He could have gone full on Trailer Park Boys on them but went more sort of Mr Dressup route.
Great article, thanks for sharing. It’s a real shame that Reddit seems so determined to just force all the changes through and have no dialogue with the community.
Props to The Verge and David Pierce for his coverage of the redditing in general. I have been critical of the Verge and Patel in the past, but since the big site changes I have been forced to admit that the changes have been for the better.
It looks like the URL you shared contains trackers. Here’s a shorter, cleaned-up URL:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759180/reddit-protest-private-apollo-christian-selig-subreddit
Spez has told Reddit staff that the Reddit blackout “will pass”.
He’s right, it will. And that’s the problem.
A two day blackout means nothing to Spez and Reddit. What it tells them is “we can treat the userbase and developers like shit and they’ll still use our platform for the other 363 days of the year”.
The only thing that will force Reddit to the negotiating table is blacking out indefinitely. Not a single protesting subreddit opens back up until they realise what made the company so attractive to investors in the first place.
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I think lemmy is pretty much at the number of users now where it can self propagate. I dont care what happens to reddit past this point, as long as lemmy stays active
Agree. It is not about negotiating. The point is we need a open Forum platform. Usenet use to be that platform, and it got shutdown basically by ISPs that did not want the cost and hassle. Then everything fragmented into separate websites, then it re-consolidated around one commercial platform for each segment. I.E. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Youtube, Instagram, … That is the fundamental problem. The Fediverse frankly is the only thing I have seen to at least makes a credible try to change that. ALL of these should be decentralized or federated, one or the other.
Other point I would make, Forums have a lot less network effect then friends networks like Facebook. My point is that less scale is required.
There are a couple of subreddits that will go blackout indefinitely. I think r/video is one of them, and it’s quite big. This can be annoying for the platform.
As others mentioned, if any worthwhile subreddit goes dark, then the mods will be replaced and it’ll be brought back.
Creating some noise works only if anyone is listening and willing to respond and enact change. Absolutely not in this scenario. The sad reality is the vocal ones are in the minority in the grand scheme of things. The 50k people leaving is, probably, pocket change and aren’t the ones that the platform is geared towards nowadays.
They can, and probably will, replace the mods I wager
But a bunch of people will be permanently gone by then I hope
Excellent, I can only hope more join them.
Being out for a few days or a week could be enough for a disapera to form and go elsewhere. For me, I am finding Lemmy and Mastodon are more usable. If even 1% go to Lemmy or Masatadon, a critical mass might be established and people will stay.
Blacking out indefinitely won’t change a thing. Reddit has before and will again, if threatened this way, re-open shuttered subs if they believe it is valuable for their bottom line.
Not to mention, it doesn’t feel like the blackout did anything either. I opened up r/all on Sync just now and it didn’t feel any different than it did a week ago besides a bunch of posts that say that Reddit is killing 3rd-party apps.
Yeah, I noticed the same. All it really showed me was how many subs didn’t black out…
Some subs went into restricted posting mode and made it so the only post in the past 2 days is that Reddit is killing 3rd-party apps. I’m not sure how you are expecting r/all to actually look. Even if every major subs closed their doors forever, as long as there is any activity on the site r/all will be populated.
This is just my personal opinion. The 2 day blackout for me, never meant for people to pack their bags and leave Reddit entirely. It’s not a very easy task to do, and honestly, there is still lots of contents and friends back in reddit. Reddit can be sure that lots of people will simply come back, and spez will grinning while working his way to his beloved IPO.
However, the 2 day blackout has opened a new world of alternatives to Reddit. Now people know other places and other communities that can replace Reddit as a whole. Yes, Reddit will still be an influential website. Yes, Reddit will still be money driven. Yes, spez will not budge. But we can.
To me, Reddit will not crash, burn and crushed to ash. But rather, it’s either went the FB way, relying to lots of ads and ~~older demographics ~~ low-literacy to sustain, or simply becoming Myspace or Digg, a distant memory that’s only in name.
Just my 1/2 cents.
Edit: changed some inacurrate words
Yeah I wouldn’t have ever signed up for lemmy if this api thing hadn’t come about. This is my first fediverse experience. I was pissed at reddit, but now I don’t care about reddit one way or another. Lemmy has gained enough users to sustain itself even if there is no more mass migration. There is an active community here that will help lemmy grow organically over time.
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relying to lots of ads and
older demographicslow-literacy masses to sustainFIFY
Among the “older demographics” there are the most “nerdy” people, those born when personal computers and the internet didn’t exist, those growing up together with technology, used to a world when corporations didn’t destroy the good of sharing knowledge.
Those are the people most likely to rebel to what reddit is doing and find their way out if it, because they know it’s possible, because they’ve seen it before.
Youngest people are used to how the world is nowadays because it’s all they’ve seen, but they can be shown the difference if they’re willing to listen.
Low-literacy masses are those who don’t listen because they don’t care, people of that sort exist in every age “range” and are unfortunately the majority of content “consumers”, that’s why Facebook(/Instagram/WhatsApp) doesn’t die, and Reddit won’t either most probably.
Exactly, I’m ‘older’ but I grew up with the internet in the 90s and know what it was before it turned into a monetized cesspool of corporate trash.
Yep, I kind of forgot the exact word for it, I used “older demographic” because im my local FB community, quite a number of toxics (and teaching people to be toxic) are more often than not, poor role models. I also forgot that outside of my country, there are early internet nerdys that lived throughout basically the age of Internet. So my choice of words are quite incorrrect, but yep they are precisely what you said, low-literacy.
And yes, FB, Twitter and Reddit will most likely thrive and live, by catering to those people instead of the nerdy, hobbyist group of people that once graced Reddit.
I can’t help but shudder at the thought that Reddit will be yet another Twitter or Facebook.
I’m trying to figure out what kind of blackout you’re talking about. I open up (oh my God, I feel like a heretic) Reddit and guess what? Hardly anything has changed on Reddit. My feed is still there. Yes, a grand total of five ever-fronting subs stopped working, ten more subs took a formal vote, and… it’s still the same. Every social network goes the way of monetizing content. I first joined Reddit in 2015, at the time it was an incomprehensible pseudo-social network with an awkward interface. It took almost 18 years before Reddit became usable. But blackout is still a long way off. While kbin/lemmy is consolidated by the thought of blackout, but people can’t stay in suspense for long.
It’s still refreshing to see how many subreddits ended up joining the blackout. Over 8000 joined, including some big ones, and (as of posting) 6800 are still either private or restricted.
Reddit relies on user generated content, so it if the few users who actually generate entertaining stuff take their business elsewhere it will go the way of Myspace and DIgg. Because there is already a Facebook for old people.
So, apparently the mod purge started, one of the mods of /r/tumblr confirms getting booted out of the mod team and opening the sub
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Missed it, same thing?
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Not surprised in the least that they’re purging mods here, but I’m a little surprised they’re doing it during these 48 hours. Seems like it’d be a better move to at least wait until the protest ends before cracking down on delinquent subs/mods. Not that reddit has done anything to suggest that they’d act intelligently in this.
Saw that coming.
But r/tumblr is currently private
Sadly, most of my subs don’t really care about the Reddit drama, and I can’t find anything replacing them here. But at the same time… I kinda realized I don’t really miss them, and overall getting away from Reddit feels like a good thing for my mental health. For now, I think my lights stay out at Reddit, and it will be replaced by a mix and match of lemmy stuff and old school forums. And maybe discord for some special live events.
So while the blackout and all that happened leading up to it didn’t really change my Reddit experience, it changed my overall feeling about Reddit as a platform. Let’s see how this will hold up.
That’s my situation as well. Out of curiosity I went into reddit today to see how different it would look. It’s close to the same. A lot of the subs I go to are in the “Yeah it sucks but we’re small so we won’t make a dent so fuck it…” other subs like /r/games with their BS excuse of “we support it but don’t want to do anything about it”. Overall, kind of the same. Kind of makes me sad
All you can do is be the change you want to see and work on starting competing communities. Before long things will settle out.
Wherever you go, there you are.
There is only one sub I use that has not attempted to do anything about the API issue. They stickied a post forwarded to an explanation of what is happening in support of the blackout, but it is an important time period for us so no one was going to allow a full shut down. It’s one of the few non-toxic places to discuss our fandom. Beyond that sub, the others don’t matter much to me.
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I posted this on Kbin too, but I thought people might find it interesting here as well. I feel like maybe younger/shorter term users, and other people really don’t fully understand what’s going on with Reddit, and how it’s been building to a crescendo for a while.
tl;dr: This shift in Reddit has been coming for awhile, and was heralded years ago by fundamental changes they made to how users engage with their platform, most specifically by turning “/r/all” into “/r/onlywhatwewantyoutosee”.
I was a Reddit user for 12 years and change. I pre-date the Digg migration, and honestly I thought the years after that were its peak. There were warning signs that it was going downhill at many points in time, but I think the moment that really signaled Reddit was never going to return to what made it popular and successful is when they removed NSFW subs from /r/all…even though they’d rolled out /r/popular a year or two prior, supposedly for that purpose.
It’s not because of the restriction of NSFW subs in and of itself, it’s the implications/precedents that were set for the service as a whole. At that point, it became crystal clear that Reddit wanted to make sure the vast majority of users would be stuck with reddit recommended content only, and from there out it’s felt more like user manipulation for maximum advertising. Think about it - probably 50% of the most popular posts are either thinly veiled ads, or posts LOADED with ads that Reddit is surely getting clickshare revenue for linking to. Then there’s the sponsored posts hidden in with the normal posts, and the banner ads inserted between those.
The point of /r/all was to show everything, in real time, as it was growing in popularity. That’s how people discover things they like that they didn’t know existed - but finding those things, means spending less time in the controlled environment engaging with the content they most want you to engage with, and making them less revenue as a result. When /r/all turns into “/r/onlywhatcorporatewantsyoutosee”, there’s really no going back or improving. This API bullshit is just the next iteration of that same long term strategy - control what users see and interact with by forcing them to stay in their tightly controlled environment
NSFW posts weren’t the primary reason why /r/all got limits. /r/all was littered with hate and bigotry and general garbage. If /r/all had been left alone, Reddit would have continued on the path to becoming Voat.
Not modifying, to some degree, what subreddits appear on /r/all would have made trying to remove the bigotry off the site that much harder. (It will never completely go away; the site is too huge at this point.) While they should have used the idea of quarantines long before they started out with flat-out removal of these subs, these weren’t just “[racist slur] are dumb” type of stuff. These were subs that outright called for the violence and death of people who weren’t them. These were places for racists and bigots who had no qualm about doxxing people with hopes that bad things would happen to them.
You can argue “Well, then, ban the people who do that kind of thing!” Sometimes when the pool gets full of scum, you have to recognize the point where spot cleaning isn’t the cure and you have to drain the pool to stop the scum from gathering.
You’re not wrong at all on that, however, the quarantining and banning of hate communities happened before the removal of any and all NSFW subs from /r/all. The hate groups were largely getting restricted well before that. I realize they’re two sides of a similar coin - but there were different motives behind the shifts. Recall also, that most of those groups getting quarantined and banned were not NSFW communities.
Nobody was using boobs or twerk videos for hate speech. A 4K/60FPS version of that gif of Alexandra Daddario wasn’t being used to advocate violence against political figures. That later shift was done purely for user control of content. Reddit (probably) isn’t getting click shares off of imgur reposts of daddarios boobs. If they’re not standing to gain, they lose every time someone leaves the front page and goes to a sub page to explore more. They also get fewer eyes on their paid content if people are turned off from using /r/all because they don’t want to see said boobs. That particular move was a dollars and cents content control move only.
Controlling the cattle has become the overwhelming purpose of the Haves.
The other side to all commercial social apps is driving engagement, and as you said driving ads and cash generation. These both are harmful to users. Driving engagement seems to be a more subtle thing, but more harmful of the two as it is kind of corrosive. So commercial social apps are just bad.
The blackout is definitely having an impact on Reddit traffic, especially the level of commenting on posts. Look at https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/ and the posts and comments per minute. The comments are usually up to the top or above the number of posts and they are way down. Posts overall are way down as well.
Hmmm the effect is not as dramatic as I was anticipating. Am I reading this right? Say the daily average in comments/minute is around 5k: seems the average today is around 4k. A 20% dip only. Not much compared to 50+% of the subreddits going dark :(
Yes, but most of the traffic is from people going to the front page and seeing /all (this is what I read yesterday, I am assuming it is correct). My guess is most visitors who use Reddit’s apps or go in through the browser are not participating in the blackout, or maybe don’t care, so there will still be a large number of posts. The people supporting the blackout likely make up a large percentage of users who comment on new posts, and that is way down. I’m seeing a lot of posts, but far fewer comments on those posts.
It’s unclear how useful aggregate post and comment totals are in terms of measuring the effect of the blackout on content.
I feel comfortable saying that 80% of Reddit content on my subscribed subreddits has no impact on my day or understanding of life. Thus, the question becomes what 20% has been lost.
Yes, good point. I really feel something like this is more of a building surge, rather than a tsunami. A lot of us leaving is not going to sink them in the near term, but they will slowly see an erosion of quality posts and more importantly quality comments. I’ve heard they really want to monetize access to all the conversations for data harvesting, and if the overall quality of that drops, the whole thing is worth a lot less.
That’s why the blackout really needs to be indefinite.
I agree. Let’s see if the mods have the stomach to keep the subreddit’s dark indefinitely. I also wonder if Reddit will just take over the larger subs and install new mods?
I see it ending up like Facebook
One thing to note that noticable amount of Reddit traffic is actually bots and they’re not taking time off. Be it legit bots or bots farming karma to peddle corporate ads later.
Also remember that the 50% figure (and all figures on that page) are only taking into account the top 1000 SFW and 500 NSFW subreddits. So while it may appear that 50% of them are dark, a lot of the more medium subs may be staying open
This website seems to be down for me right now, dunno where else we can see comments and posts numbers. All the other blackout trackers seem to just be tracking #subreddits
It seems to be up for me, but I imagine it is getting a lot of traffic.
deleted by creator
We absolutely must ship what we said we would.
Nothing new, but shows that there is absolutely no attempt to find a compromise. I won’t be coming back on Wednesday.
What a drama queen. No one has suggested anything more violent than harsh language.
After slandering the Apollo Dev, Steve now starts to slander the entire userbase.
But please continue to mod unpaid and unappreciated!
Did he just imply people will protest by assaulting someone wearing a reddit logo?!
Correct, when you think he can’t sink lower he starts to Digg
To be fair, he isn’t wrong.
I cannot see another blackout happening. I think a sizeable chunk of Reddit’s moderators would go back if it otherwise meant losing power and influence on one of the largest social media sites.
Of course a lengthier or indefinite blackout of most of Reddit’s communities would cause major disruption.
Relay for android gave in to Reddit’s demands … thoughts?
I think this is a bad sign for everyone protesting the changes… a major app giving in makes the rest of the apps look bad for complaining imo https://www.androidpolice.com/popular-android-reddit-app-may-survive-absurd-api-pricing/
Smart idea.
Reddit will jack the prices again when they see fit.
Reddit also wins with this pricing because they are gonna pocket the cash.
I think that a forced paid subscription will probably kill it anyway long term, who in their right mind would pay a subscription to access Reddit?
Also don’t forget that thes app owners themselves are running a business and probably make a bunch of money from their apps that they don’t want to see evaporate with the changes.
Another good point he made is about how he’s calculating this. He’s projecting current usage into the sub model.
But he’s probably very right that casuals will probably leave and power users will probably pay. So it’s the Spotify problem, your power users use you more costing you more but they don’t pay more so you start going in the red. Considering relay is not a VC backed app or anything like that. One miscalculation and one bad month and you could see thousands of dollars in surprise costs.
Edit: the Android app for Lemmy is having problems at the moment and comments are being weird.
The Internet was supposed to be better, but it turned into another set of monthly bills. And caving in to Reddit’s gouging sets a dangerous precedent, because it normalizes the smearing of devs that brought us here.
We kinda proved we can manufacture scarcity even where there is none.
We are literally slashing unsold sneakers before throwing them in a landfill, criminalizing dumpster diving and handouts of expiring food.
I didn’t know api changes means 3rd party apps no longer can show nsfw content. Nobody’s going to pay a subscription and not be able to see stuff that they can see on the official app. Looks like reddit is giving all 3rd party app developers a shitty deal whichever way you cut it.
I don’t know how to feel about this, that’s the app I use and was mad about losing… I already bought the paid version a long time ago but now it’s moving to a subscription model so I guess that doesn’t count anymore…
The base subscription could cost $2 per month, with an extra $1 for message notifications to account for the additional API calls that such polling incurs.
I just had a Rollercoaster of emotions. I was sad and angry to see relay go be sure it’s been with me for idk how long (more than 10 years? Has it been that long?). But then losing relay would severely cut my reddit time and lemmy being a lot smaller meant that I could potentially kick this habit. So was kind of excited.
Then I read your message that relay is not going and I’m like “fuck! My addiction will never be cured!” Then saw its a subscription model and now I’m really conflicted.
I’m in the same boat. It was my go-to app, and at first, I was happy that it will stay open - but during the last few days, I realized more and more… I don’t care anymore. Not about relay, but about reddit itself.
I’ve uninstalled relay on sunday - and never missed it on my phone. I just stopped wasting time and did better things with my time. At this point in time, I can’t see myself putting out $2 a month just to get angry at ragebait again.
I can’t blame him if he wants his app to survive. I used the pro version for years and would happily payed the planed subscription. But because the vast majority, if not all of the money goes to Reddit I just can’t bring myself to do it. I hope his calculations are correct and if they are not, I hope he doesn’t falls into dept.
I can’t blame the 3P Devs for dealing with this situation as they see fit. It feels like shooting the messenger …
Boo.
