this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023
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You overestimate how many people use third-party apps. They are the (very) vocal minority. They may represent a majority of the content submitted, but there's an arbitrary number of web users who don't have an account (hi) in addition to all the casual users who just use the app.
Yes it's vocal minority, but that local minority is the reason why silent majority have content that keeps them on reddit.
Not just content creation, but moderation / free labour
Yes, it's also important, but lack of high quality content will hit way earlier.
I don't think this is the death of Reddit, but I do think it's the dumbing down of Reddit. A lot of the power users that spend all day interacting and posting are going to be the ones leaving. Reddit will turn from a social community back into a simple link aggregator with people posting articles and having the same discussions over and over again in the comments.
That's basically what it is already on many of the largest subs. Hell they even recycle/repost the same content every 6 months or so
I swear askreddit's questions are automated at this point.
You are not wrong, but Reddit will never be the same. This whole IPO business is effectively the death of Reddit as we know it, to be replaced with a mediocre TikTok clone. It takes strong leadership among execs and ownership for profit-driven corporation to stay the course and remain successful.
Reddit has neither. Just a legacy and incumbency.
I think the key thing that will screw them is violating the trust of the volunteer moderator force that basically makes reddit what it is. I don't think reddit appreciates how much of their business relies on a completely volunteer, unpaid workforce.
If the mods decide to quit en masse and and either stop moderating or turn subreddits private on their way out then reddit is done for.
Yeah. Though the third party users are probably are the heaviest users so probably have an outsized impact on the content of various subreddits. So no, I don't think the lack of 3rd party clients and those users will kill Reddit, anymore than its killed twitter or Tumblr shennanigans has killed tumblr. That said I did just join today, and I do actually wonder given the death of 3rd party clients and the IPO when reddit will try to squash NSFW subreddits and posts. Thats the kind of thing I'd expect as they IPO and chase advertisers.
Average third party user creates more content than average redditor. Most mods use third party applications. That makes it different from Tumblr, where only nsfw communities were killed, so rare people that were there not for porn weren't affected. On Twitter, it's Twitters administration that moderates Twitter. On Reddit - it's users who does it. And as i've said, most of them use third party apps. That's how it's different.