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Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

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Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#381

Post by Merad »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #206
zeroego wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the person who was in charge of the redesign. This may sound unbelievable, but she was not a reddit user prior to working at reddit or being put in charge of the redesign. Really nice person, but they did a terrible job.

Everyone here is shitting on it, but to me it looks like it accomplished exactly what reddit wanted, and was wildly successful at doing so. Reddit very successfully moved away from being the techy nerd basement dweller site to becoming a trendy young "normie" people site. Dumb everything down to shoot for the lowest common denominator, maximizing the size of your target demographic. So hiring someone who probably lov…

> Reddit very successfully moved away from being the techy nerd basement dweller site to becoming a trendy young "normie" people site.

Didn't that transition happen in the early 2010s? When I was in grad school a decade ago basically everyone I knew (which included many "normies") was scrolling through reddit when they were bored. I don't think the dumbing down really started until new reddit was introduced, which was 5-6 years ago IIRC.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#382

Post by bmarquez »

macrael wrote: post #356

It is so disheartening that Musk's callous and destructive management of Twitter is becoming a template/excuse for shitty choices at other companies. We exist in a culture and Twitter has lurched the Overton window in a direction that makes everything worse for all of us.

Facebook and Instagram started the enshittification process long before Twitter did. And Reddit even hired Ellen Pao as a scapegoat to push through unpopular decisions.

Reddit was heading in this direction long before Musk was involved.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#383

Post by bmarquez »

p_j_w wrote: post #380
stronglikedan wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is a better experience than ever for the users, and leaner than ever which is better for the company. There was a short learning curve for all involved (those who were left and those who were brought on), but they've ironed out those kinks long ago.

>Twitter is a better experience than ever for the users The fact that I was getting notifications on my phone to look at a tweet from a Blue Checkmark that I didn't follow says otherwise.

To be fair, I had this same issue pre-Elon. You have to go into your settings and turn off everything except "Related to you and your tweets"

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#384

Post by lapcat »

interestica wrote: post #255
lapcat wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The headline of the submission lacks meaning and provides no information. You would have to click into the link to realize wha the discussion is about. Nonetheless: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > My point is that this article sets up a different (and valid) discussion Different? No. The…

> Nonetheless: "Please submit the original source. What's the 'original' source? One developer's specific problem with the Reddit API policy change? > The discussion is the basically same as before. Disagree. For one, it's active and on the main page. And, easier to jump in. > No, that's actually contrary to HN policy: That's for reposts. Our thread here is arguing whether or not it's a repost/dupe. I believe it is n…

Postmortem: The HN moderators marked this one as a [dupe] too.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#385

Post by lubesGordi »

danudey wrote: post #316
tremere wrote: post #8

Reddit is past its expiration date anyway and I'm surprised no one has created a challenger site. Perhaps this was due to Reddit's friendliness toward programmatic access but it seems they are taking that away. This is a good opportunity to create a new community, and essentially take back messaging from the corporations (let's be real about what reddit is) and put it back into the hands of the people.

Let's be clear though: this is exactly what happened. Digg was the place to go, and then they fucked it up and everyone migrated to Reddit. Now Reddit is fucking it up, and even if everyone migrates somewhere else, that new somewhere else is going to fuck it up too once they get to the point of "we need to be profitable at all costs". What we actually need is some way to convince users to pay for the services they us…

My recollection of the great migration to reddit was because Digg was crashing. That's probably the only reason Reddit has stayed up as long as it has, it's back end eng has held up. I'm open to being schooled here.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#386

Post by vehemenz »

samtho wrote: post #378
vehemenz wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the toothpaste is out of the tube on creating good communities like the Reddit of yesteryear. Between lowering the barrier to entry (and average age) with phones, astroturfing and bots, and the overall impossibility of moderation, I just don't see it happening anymore. We need to go back to purposely small communities.

I don’t think the lowering of the average age is necessary one of the problems, but the fact that some of the new users are posing this problem is a symptom of a bigger one. They tend to comprise of many of the armchair-experts because a good deal of them learned very early to value engagement and good messaging over accuracy. Part of this has to do with the gauges of success. Other first generation of this appeared…

I'd agree that age by itself isn't a problem. It's the correlates. Younger people are more likely to be using the mobile app, where the engagement is lower quality. They are less likely to have completed their formal education, let alone to have attended college. They are more likely to practice an intolerant form of politics and activism, which makes discussion on certain subjects nearly impossible outside of niche subs.

> Both of these indicators of engagement are inherently flawed because they incentivize quantity over quality.

The karma system has other arguably worse side effects. It incentivizes people to downvote things they disagree with and upvote things they agree with. I'd wager many of Reddit's longtime users think this is the point of karma, rather than a signifier of a post's effort and/or quality.

I agree that the incentive structure needs to change if Reddit or any competitor can remain viable places for discussion.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#387

Post by bentcorner »

danudey wrote: post #312
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but that symbiosis community stuff is for when you're still growing. Once you're big, it's time to pull up that ladder, put on the corporate mask, and start cranking that ad revenue at all costs. You've got a million rubes doomscrolling past your homogenous r/funny - i mean, r/all - slurry who don't know the difference between an ad and a real post. People who care about things like UX and quality posts are a mi…

I don't understand why they don't either mandate ad display on third-party apps, or waive API fees for third-party apps that show ads in an approved manner. I'm sure there's a reason, but I'd rather be able to use Apollo even if it shows ads as well than to use the official app.

I've always kind of wondered why reddit (and other social media sites like twitter) don't send ads in api calls.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#388

Post by lubesGordi »

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #350
tremere wrote: post #8

Reddit is past its expiration date anyway and I'm surprised no one has created a challenger site. Perhaps this was due to Reddit's friendliness toward programmatic access but it seems they are taking that away. This is a good opportunity to create a new community, and essentially take back messaging from the corporations (let's be real about what reddit is) and put it back into the hands of the people.

There was a little website called ruqqus that emerged for a while. It was mostly people fleeing reddit so it quickly filled with "far right" and "far left" extremes, but that kinda made it interesting. However after only a few months of having to moderate the creator noped out because no human should have to see the things a moderator of a public web forum would have to see. Its going to be a tough road for anyone wh…

Before the migration from Digg, reddit was full of libertarians. Actually, same with Digg, in 2003.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#389

Post by rglullis »

plagiarist wrote: post #377
rglullis wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, that is the problem right there: the things that are "beyond what's available everywhere else" are financed with ads, data mining, or both. I am talking about how much you would pay to have basic access to service. The reason that people don't pay is that everyone wants to add conditions to justify their financial support, and this is why we all end up in the mess we are all in. Now, let me try again: go to http…

Ah, you're irritable because it's personal to you. Yes, people place conditions on what they are willing to purchase, that's... how it works? Why do I even want to be on Mastodon, let alone pay to be on it, let alone pay someone who is rent-seeking on top of a platform and content they aren't responsible for? Can't I get access to the social network direct from the source, for free?

> Can't I get access to the social network direct from the source, for free?

For free? No, you can't.

- You (or someone else) will have to develop the software. The source code doesn't just show up magically on github.

- You (or someone else) will have to test the software, triage bugs, help with documentation, etc.

- You (or someone else) will have to pay for the servers.

- You (or someone else) will have to do content moderation

None of these things are free. TANSTAAFL. If you are using it, it will cost you something, it's up to you if you want to pay with your money, your time, or your data.

Re: Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases

#390

Post by slantaclaus »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #303
slantaclaus wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has become toxic. Deleting the app off my phone has really helped with my emotional health

Reddit is sprawling. There are thousands of non-political subreddits. Yeah, if you are following the default feed and reading r/politics, or any of the drama subreddits, you are going to have a bad time. Are you curious about what information is being sent through your house between 10KHz and 6GHz? Curious what your water meter is broadcasting to the neighborhood? https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/ Feel like some short…

I feel like all of Reddit has become political, even the niche forums. It’s all the same moaning and groaning
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