Reddit mods are organizing blackouts to protest against API changes : technology

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 years ago (4 children)

More power to the protest, but I am skeptical that it will do much good. I think reddit has strayed so far from its original mission and values that today it is nothing like the platform the reddit founders originally envisioned.

I think the reddit executives have probably already run the numbers on this and don't care if every single user & mod who uses 3rd party apps and the API walks away from their platform. At this point they only care about the IPO and what they need to do to increase shareholder value after the IPO.

They may even see the exodus as a positive. They may think of these power users and API-utilizing mods as a drag on their bandwidth and worse, they are users who seldom if ever see any ads and increase their ad-viewing numbers.

Will the quality of reddit content suffer? I think it very likely will. It's already been going downhill for a while now.

However, the executives mostly don't care about content quality, either. As long as the free content they get from their users doesn't stray into illegal and controversial waters, they are happy. If the content is mediocre memes and cat photos, they are quite happy with that. The goal is to serve as many ads up to as many users per hour as possible. They are banking on millions of "casuals" to stick around and scroll through the content and see those ads. Content quality is way down the list of their concerns.

My guess is the suits are are no longer interested in an "engagement" platform in the same way that Twitter and Facebook try to be (in their own ham-fisted and evil social-engineering ways). At this stage of the game, reddit just wants to be a mindless app that bored people can scroll while in the doctor's waiting room, the airport, in the bathroom, or wherever they are and need to kill time.

Have the reddit suits made a miscalculation here? Will the exodus make reddit another "not cool anymore" type of platform like Digg that almost everyone abandons? Will the mass exodus only leave bots and karma farmers behind to talk to each other? Maybe, I don't know. It's hard to predict that kind of thing. But I think the execs are willing to roll the dice on this because short-term profits are all they care about since they will be going public. If the bots and karma farmers fool the people buying ads, reddit will just roll with that.

(You'd hope anyone buying ads on reddit would check to make sure their investment is actually increasing their sales...but there's a lot of poorly managed businesses out there).

Either way....for those of us who enjoyed old reddit (and Digg before that, and Usenet before that) I think the path forward is a new platform such as this one.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don’t think it’s been clearly voiced enough, but there are thousands of sub moderation bots that do things like automatically flag hate speech for mod review that will all just stop working. Some of the larger, older subs have entire ecosystems of content tagging and linking that will break. An example is putting the name of a tv show in braces [TNGS01E13] and getting a link to that episode’s wiki as a comment reply. It dramatically improves the Reddit experience, but isn’t worth the outrageous cost to keep going.

Overnight, Reddit would turn into a (more) poorly moderated nightmare.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Sounds like this move will make Reddit worse in every way possible, which is a pretty impressive feat IMO.

Most (or all?) 3rd party apps will disappear. You’ll miss out on all the cool features that actually made Reddit useable.
You’ll have to see the ads again if you use the default app.
Accessing your curated multireddits will be harder. Just try the default app and you’ll see what I mean.
The UI will be full of trash such as “news” and “discover new subs”.
Lots of users will be gone. There will be less quality conversation and quality posts. This means that you will find fewer things worth reading.
Regulating bot spam and other sorts of trash might (or will?) be harder and less efficient. You’ll be seeing more stuff you don’t want to see.

If all of this comes true, Reddit would earn the ”most hostile move towards your users in hopes of an easy cash grab” -award of the year.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@Hamartiogonic @CaptainCarrot I've got my fingers crossed that Lemmy will take off, assuming Reddit doesn't change their stance.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago

Problem for reddit is, the people contributing through posts or comments are the ones most likely take offence to the new API pricing, and losing those people will be exponentially more hurtful for reddit than losing your average redditor. The proportion of people commenting, posting and upvoting is incredibly small compared to the total user number

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago

My first reply here, and that's why I've gone ahead and branched out into different directions before things go dark. I missed out on Digg, but at the time I had gone from Usenet to various boards, and when some of them began to get quieter or stale looked around and found Reddit, soon after the Digg migration. I don't know if it's Lemmy or some other that will/can take up the need for a collective aggregate service, but this has potential and I like the distributed idea. With improved UI for the novice it could turn into the next Reddit without some of the baggage (and probably its own issues).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

I feel like Tik tok has accelerated this mentality among a lot of the social media sites

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Let it implode. Pass the popcorn!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

hereitcomes.png

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I deleted my almost 11 year old account and moved here because of this. I used there shitty app for way too long and after switching to Apollo i suddenly saw all the old subreddits I subscribed too become more prominent in my feed. On there app if felt like I was getting fed rage bait.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

I tried to use Reddit over old.reddit and I was OK with it for a while, but I gave up when topics with barely any engagement would show up at the "top" in my feed and I would get suggestions from other subreddits that I wasn't a part of.

I can adapt to a UI given time and I did like some aspects of their new layout. I'm not on board with desperately trying to fill my feed with "something new" every time I visit the site though because sometimes I want to follow up on a topic from earlier. It just kept burying things and I switched back to old.reddit after maybe six months of trying the new one.

For the sake of the app developers, I hope Reddit reverses course, sets a more reasonable cost, or the devs find ways to hook into something like Lemmy so they can keep doing what they do best. That said, I'm happy to have found a much better community in the whole process :)

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (3 children)

It's good to see the subreddits fight a bit, but the internet of today is not the liquid ever changing space it was 10 or 15 years ago. Websites like reddit facebook and twitter are full on mainstream. Their userbase is huge many of which lurkers who dont pay attention or engage with a lot of the content.

Reddit especially is so compartmentalized that they helped kill off message boards and are essentially a series of small esoteric forums into themselves. At the end of the day there is a lot of value in being able to get pretty much any hobby and find a little active community for it and that really cant be replicated elsewhere. Much like how Facebook has been controversial for years the exodus did nothing because for a lot of people facebook is the internet. Twitter is a cesspool and even the mainstream is clowning on it, and yet it still lives and thrives.

There will be a bit of an exodus, but many of those people will likely begrudgingly go back home to reddit, and even for those that go away forever there are enough users that wont notice or care. Heck look at the new reddit/reddit mobile fiasco. A lot of noise and lots of "Im never going to use anything else". In spite of that you see tons of people with avatars and newreddit style profiles, and you see lots screenshots shared showing the official app and people outright surprised that there even are alternatives when they complain about it. Reddit is too big to fail.

That said enough people will leave and seek alternatives to finally kickstart alternatives in a serious way. I know Ive taken a look at lemmy in the past a few times but upon exploring found instances with double digit monthly user counts that were mostly dead. I dont mind a smaller site and in fact reddit got too big a long time ago, but it needs to be semi active and Im not interesting enough to do it myself. The threats alone have added quite a few users already.

Reddit wont die it will burn on, but the embers it sheds thanks to these events will finally ignite other alternatives.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)

The fact that we’re having a conversation like this on Lemmy, proves to me that Lemmy is ready. There are enough users already that I can make the switch today.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

@Hamartiogonic @lemillionsocks same, though i hace to look at "all" to do it and i have never once opened r/all on reddit. I bet that will no longer be needed in time

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@lemillionsocks @anji I think that's a bit pessimistic. Reddit is nowhere near a Facebook or even a twitter, and its owners seem to have forgotten it got where it is now when digg's owner lost the curators. I doubt it'll die as quickly as some predict but I also don't think it'll survive unharmed. The truth is probably in between.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A quick google search(so take this number with a grain of salt) tells me that reddit has 52 million daily active users and 430 million monthly active users monthly active users.

Reddit is BIG. Really big. And websites just dont die or pop up the way they used to because of how theyre designed and because of how the current era of the internet has matured.

That said I wouldnt call my take pessimistic. Reddit has gotten too big and there is an appetite for many users to leave for greener pastures but there just wasnt enough momentum to breath more life and activity into the alternatives. New reddit will chug on but enough people will leave that alternatives will sprout and grow. Whether that is Lemmy or something else it's hard to say this early on, but it means that reddit alternatives will have enough users to thrive.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@lemillionsocks now look at the size of twitter and the size of the hole its new owner put in it and tell us that can't happen to reddit because of size?

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (3 children)

They can pitch a fit and protest all they want, but the only real way to get traction is to show there is a viable alternative. Want to renegotiate your Oracle license fees? Run a credible fraction of your enterprise on PostgreSQL. Want to get WotC to stop screwing 3rd party publishers with a new license? Start playing pathfinder. These are only two examples that I've experienced. Twitter will never improve as long as people keep using it. If reddit API users (3rd party apps) shift 5 to 20 % of use to Lemmy, you'll see API pricing drop incredibly fast.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago

The blackouts may encourage users to go elsewhere, and going elsewhere may help move the needle on this issue. But, the only thing that's going to stop reddit from going down the path it's on is stopping the IPO. Let's face it, any short-term victories will eventually be overcome by shareholder interests.

Plus, protestors leaving the site might actually help reddit at this point. Redditors are notoriously cantankerous and difficult to advertise to. But, it's becoming less so as mainstream users flock in. As protestors leave the site, the userbase becomes increasingly saturated with apathetic users who are willing to put up with more.

And let's be honest. Reddit has a lot of users who feel entitled to entertainment enough to get angry, but addicted enough to put up with it. Look at just about any fandom

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

I am kind of surprised that people are "addicted" to WotC at all - D&D always was one of the least recurring cost sort of thing I ever did. I think I played 2e for 6 years with 3 books. 3e for 6 years with 15 books, of which half or more were third party. But once you have the core books, it's hard to see what more one needs? I remember in the old days Dragon Magazine would give more extra content than you'd need, and the net must certainly now provide all the house rules discussion etc one could ever need.

And to show how curmudgeonly I am, I think D&D peaked with 3.5e anyway. 2e to 3e had obvious benefits. 3e to 3.5e refined things if you cared that much. But 4e sucked and 5e is still overly simplified IMHO vs 3.5e. It still feels too much like "just play a video game" then. Yes, I'm butthurt about what they did with skills.

Anyway, maybe this is indicative of how much we've fallen from DIY stuff in the masses. We used to be able to modify stuff we bought to let us do more and new stuff compared to how it came. Now it's not thought of, the companies try to make it illegial, or it's seen as the new "nerdyness" of being a "maker" I guess. But for a fricken game or finding a different website? For entertainment? I just don't know how or why people can't handle going to a new site it seems.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Such a blackout could help accomplish that goal though.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The blackout must be accompanied from a viable alternative easily presented. I just learned about lemmy and I’m trying to see if I can have a place here. I don’t plan on leaving Reddit forever but you never know, and this api fiasco has at least shown me alternatives I never knew existed.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lemmy is good, it's still rough around the edges but still useable, its not bad at all, the influx of people overload the servers tho, but it will certainly improve, and the current app (Jerboa for Android) is not as good as the popular Reddit clients for the moment, but it's definitely better than the Reddit official app.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I kind of hope redreader either switches to lemmy or helps improve Jerboa.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

/u/whupazz has RedReader connecting to Lemmy via a api translation gateway he is building: https://imgur.com/a/IF5HYGz

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I've been testing lemmy and it's been working great so far. It only requires some fixes and influx of users.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I have more posts than I know what to do with. I have subscribed to a lot of communities from a lot of different instances so it's a lot of activity.

I recommend everyone to do this and then later turn off some if it becomes too much. But being able to see most of the posts and contribute there will help Lemmy take off. :)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm going to do exactly that right now. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think it would actually be a better user default to be included in the most popular communities so they see a lot of posts. Otherwise if you subscribe to a instance with not many of their own communities, you will think there is nothing going on.

I was thinking to write a guide for this. Users need to go to search, pick All instances and then search on something. But that's not easy to know on day one.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

A ELI5 guide for lemmy is sorely needed. I can now see the amazing potential, but it took me some time to wrap my head around how it works. A simple guide for beginners so they have a start point is much required.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Apparently, the substance and quality of thought Redditors post may be a disposable commodity. That is eyeballs on ads may be secondary to our function as generators of natural language as grist for training artificial intelligence—with third-party apps a civilian casualty in a bigger war for the almighty dollar.

According to https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/reddit-sparks-outrage-after-a-popular-app-developer-said-it-wants-him-to-pay-20-million-a-year-for-data-access/ar-AA1c06d9:

Part of the motivation for Reddit’s plan involves the surging popularity of artificial intelligence.

Large language models such as ChatGPT are developed using training data, which in many cases is sourced from content found across the internet. Reddit should not be expected to provide that data to “some of the largest companies in the world for free,” CEO Steve Huffman told the New York Times in a recent interview.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

I have been using reddit for about 5 years and have always used the Infinity 3rd party app. I liked it because I didn't have to have an account and it wasn't as buggy. It will be a shame if it has to be discontinued.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

Honestly, I appreciate the protests, but this whole kerfuffle got me to realize how much I... don't like reddit anymore? There are certain communities that I'll stick around for (shoutout to /r/BravoRealHousewives), but I've already set up an RSS server for news and I'm probably going to unsub from a LOT of the more general ones. Too many bots, too much negativity, etc.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (21 children)

Its nice that Reddit is promoting Lemmy like this. I just wish they would give us more time to optimize the code so that it can handle all the new users. For now it looks like many Lemmy instances will be completely overloaded from Monday, but lets see.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

Lemmy only has a day or two of the blackout to grab users from reddit, I really hoped someone would prepare servers for the participating subreddits or something like that. It seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity to gain some traction.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So far, Lemmy > Reddit. Was able to easily find equivalent communities and honestly, I enjoy it. :)

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I hope this protest has a positive effect, but cynically I'm pretty sure it's going to make a small splash, and then fizzle. Any popular subs that go dark too long well get sudo'd back online I'm sure.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

My pipe dream is, instead of a black out, all the users come together and spam NSFW content on all the major subs to hopefully piss off their advertisers. Collaboration on that scale will probably never happen though.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

If you really want to hit them, just make a concerted effort to request GDPR data for your user. It's perfectly legal, it costs them time and money, and it may also actually benefit you to know what kind of data reddit collects about you.

At some point, it may even become a nice tool, say if someone creates a way to import that data into e.g. the fediverse or tilde or something similar.

For anyone interested, this is the page: https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request. Just log in, select GDPR and request data for your "full time at Reddit".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

Doing it now, what a beautiful suggestion, kind stranger

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This is why the protest is limited to 48 hours at first, because that's the known "safe" duration. See what happened to r/news a couple years ago.

The two-day blackout isn't the goal, and it isn't the end. Should things reach the 14th with no sign of Reddit choosing to fix what they've broken, we'll use the community and buzz we've built between then and now as a tool for further action.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (8 children)

Was thinking perhaps subreddits could just stop moderating and auto approve everything en masse... that would create a spam hell more beautiful than anything we would have seen before...

Unmarked NSFW stuff highly upvoted on the front page, crypto bullshit in every sub, every subreddit doing a "If this gets 2 times X votes, I post again" making the frontpage useless. It would be total anarchy and cause Reddit to implode on itself before you can say "What Snoo".

I doubt this will happen in reality because people actually care about preserving their subreddits. Anyway enough pipedreaming.

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