I was actually somewhat ok with going back to certain Reddit communities (although NOT just mindless scrolling) after the blackout. There's a lot of communities where (I thought) there's literally no alternatives.
Then came his latest wave of interviews attacking people that did their jobs for them (mods, Devs making a usable mobile app) and making insane hypocritical statements about "democracy" (everyone would gladly kick you out given the chance) and "landed gentry" (dude, if the mods are the out of touch landed gentry, that would make you the out of touch king, right?)
Why is he still giving interviews? Not like I even care about the company but seriously what good can he possibly do at this point, every day thousands more people leave for good.
Anyway, I seriously don't think I can use Reddit with a clear conscience, at all, anymore, at least for now. Every time I interact with the site (even with adblock) I can't help but think the entire time I am helping this millionaire megalomaniac's company keep continuing on.
I guess there's always the chance the board is letting him self destruct to offer him as the sacrificial lamb.
I honestly don't know if this will last in terms of me not using reddit at all, but every day this idiot opens his mouth is another day I'm not using reddit and another day I'm searching for and interacting with alternatives.
There is a lot of doublespeak going on, if you pay attention. He keeps referring to 3rd party apps as "competitors" where they really are alternate paths to interact with the platform and provide the content he relies on to sell ads over. He keeps referring to the protesting mods as "not wanting to moderate" when really they are trying to make known how much they rely on third-party tools and how difficult he is making their volunteer job.
It's like he's forgotten why they started the site in the first place. I wonder what Aaron would have thought of all this?
Spez started the site to make money. This was always true - a completely typical reason to start a company. When there was no community in the early days - he made fake accounts, and fake conversations to generate traffic to attract attention. So Spez is someone that’s always used dishonesty to get what he wants.
Aaron joined the site because he saw it’s potential as a tool for civic engagement and political awareness. He left when he saw what Reddit was becoming… or really - what it always had been: a tool to extract wealth from its unknowing volunteers.
Aaron and Spez weren’t friends. They were business partners for a very short period of time. To the best of my knowledge, that’s all there is to it.
I speculate that Aaron would feel unfazed by what Reddit looks like today… because it’s expected. The founders are people that make the Forbes 30 Under 30, marry world famous pro athletes, and are worth tens of millions of dollars. They’re divorced from reality.
I would hope that open and decentralized online spaces like Lemmy reflect the sort of values & ideas Aaron spent his life advocating for.
Additional important details: spez built Reddit and sold it off to Condé Nast because he thought it was a stupid little project that would soon be eclipsed and he wanted his payout.
He spent a few years traveling and then expressed regret at having sold it because it was becoming much bigger than he imagined.
He was rehired after Ellen Pao's very similar attacks on the user base.
Every morning he wakes up, looks in the mirror and thinks "if I'd just stuck with Reddit instead of selling it I'd be Jack Dorsey (of Twitter) right now. A real billionaire instead of a mere multi-millionaire. I invented the front page of the internet! It's a top twenty website! Why can't I buy an island? Like, a good one."
That's where he's coming from. And he currently thinks if he acts like Elon Musk he can be as rich as him.
Unironically, Ellen Pao was the best CEO Reddit's ever had.
She made a lot of difficult and fair choices for the future health of the company.
Reddit needed to be cleaned if they wanted to attract a larger audience and increase ad revenue. Heck, that was her job - and I believe banning hate subreddits was appropriate. There was expected blowback, but I suspect that'd be smoothed over in time.
The mistake was dismissing Victoria. That completely destroyed the beloved AMA format. It also coincided with the infamous Rampart disaster. 10-15 answered softball questions, and Harrelson treated it like another press junket. I mean, why wouldn't he?
There was no Reddit ambassador to explain how the format works, what makes it successful and why it's important for the success of what they're promoting.
More importantly, it validated Reddit's belief that Pao was not fit to lead Reddit, because she didn't understand it. Much of the community thought she was only brought aboard to placate accusations of sexism in the organization. It didn't help.
And still, Pao was big enough to admit when she's wrong: We screwed up. Not just on July 2, but also over the past several years. We haven’t communicated well, and we have surprised moderators and the community with big changes. We have apologized and made promises to you, the moderators and the community, over many years, but time and again, we haven’t delivered on them. When you’ve had feedback or requests, we haven’t always been responsive. The mods and the community have lost trust in me and in us, the administrators of reddit.
What do you think the odds of a narcissist like u/Spez ever holding himself the least bit accountable? If he's not fired, he won't.
But ya know what? Fine. Let him follow in Elon's footsteps and see what happens.