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Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

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Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#21

Post by cxx »

sorahn wrote: post #7

My outcome was the shutdown of Apollo, rather than the blackout. I no longer read Reddit on my phone. (Except for a link or two clicked from something else, but even then I go to `old.reddit` instead to read the comments). That was really where I wasted the most time on it. It’s kind of a relief. I think I was too “lazy” to stop on my own because Apollo was so comfortable to use.

Apollo's shutdown was a blessing in disguise, I was addicted to Reddit and wasted hours on it before going to sleep. Thanks to that event I no longer browse or even feel the need to see what's going on, it's like quitting smoking, I literally feel better and relieved that I quit. I don't think I would've been able to stop on my own either, Apollo made it too easy.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#22

Post by rchaud »

All the 3rd party client apps are dead, but the RES extension still works for now.

In terms of outcomes, Reddit appears to have made their mobile website less user-hostile. Dismissing the "download app" modal still has to be done, but after that the experience is OK. Funnily enough, there are not that many ads on the official site, because Reddit seemingly doesn't have many advertisers to begin with.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#23

Post by rchaud »

h2odragon wrote: post #3

Had as much impact as a fart in a hurricane. May a bit more: there were a few news stories about it, so it wasn't totally silent; but I kinda doubt the people it was meant to impact were at all distressed.

If it had such a minimal impact, downloads of the official app should be exploding. Haven't heard anything suggesting that to be the case.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#24

Post by 7373737373 »

okdood64 wrote: post #20
7373737373 wrote: post #12

Reddit feels pretty dead nowadays in comparison. Or at least it is mostly dead to me.

What subreddits did you frequent that now feel dead?

Many of those I frequented are now privated, many have been banned for having no moderators, discussion quality has become abysmal (i'm very glad that HN has collectively managed to resist reddit-style "humor" comment chains so far), the frontpage/default subreddits are full of politics, bots, karma farmers, sob stories and ragebait.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#25

Post by rchaud »

paradox460 wrote: post #15
TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> feels a bit more quiet than it used to for me. The site as a whole feels a bit less active - i.e. not as active as it used to be.

And what activity there is, is tepid and bland, the same low effort crap you'd see on Facebook or YouTube comments The soul is dead, the body is alive

I've seen this happening for the city/state subreddits. Maybe the regulars stopped posting, because now it just reads like a Facebook group, constant fear mongering.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#26

Post by rchaud »

slashtab wrote: post #17
CM30 wrote: post #4

Depends on the community. Some subreddits I used to go to migrated off the platform or closed down entirely, but many others just reopened with new staff and proceeded as usual. Not sure if activity was affected sitewide, though it feels a bit more quiet than it used to for me.

iirc there was a report in the Verge that overall content quality has fallen. r/all has mostly short trending tiktok video, earlier it used to be niche interesting topic, you wouldn't find anywhere else. I started using tildes.net which is invite only interesting community. https://tildes.net/register?code=QF8KC-GAWKJ-K6WQ6 https://tildes.net/register?code=F67V6-483W1-ADFS0

r/all was formulaic upvote-bait for a couple of years before recent events. It was only readable with a robust subreddit blocklist.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#27

Post by fdgjgbdfhgb »

Anecdotally, I mostly stopped using it, except for sport news and live threads.

The subreddit I moderate (100k subs) saw no lasting impact on traffic. We participated in the blackout for 2 or 3 days and then carried on as normal.

To be fair, it is a sub for a TV show, so the traffic is very seasonal. The blackout happened in the off-season, and now that the show is back we have a lot of traffic again.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#29

Post by globular-toast »

rchaud wrote: post #22

All the 3rd party client apps are dead, but the RES extension still works for now. In terms of outcomes, Reddit appears to have made their mobile website less user-hostile. Dismissing the "download app" modal still has to be done, but after that the experience is OK. Funnily enough, there are not that many ads on the official site, because Reddit seemingly doesn't have many advertisers to begin with.

I used to use Reddit Sync. I uninstalled it when the API change happened. I don't miss it. But a while later I wondered if anything was still discussed on the subreddit and it seemed that people had found a workaround and were continuing to use the app. Not sure if it's still possible or possible with other apps.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#30

Post by nunez »

my guess: mission accomplished from reddit's perspective. they lost more than they did during the ellen pao blackout but gained enough users to make up the difference, have more paid subscribers than they did previously and are probably saving a ton of money from all of the API traffic from the 3p clients that were kicked out.

lemmy is more popular than voat.co (shut down in 2020) but still far from a reddit alternative.

(I deleted my 12-year-old account and all of the posts/comments I made with it, and I use the site much less than I used to.)

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