Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reddit Strike Has Started

reddark.untone.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 1001 posts

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#551

Post by themagician »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #518
themagician wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the content is also modded by a small subset of mods—literally dozens. You've got maybe a hundred mods who are "power mods" that control the vast majority of large subreddits, and these are the ones "protesting". They don't own the subreddits. They have no rights to them, but they like to pretend that they do. Their moderation has, in many ways, become oppressive to the userbase. You don't hear about it becau…

Disagree with this for lots of reasons: 1. First, look at the incentive structure for being a mod of a large subreddit: it's a ton of work, with people constantly bitching at you, for no compensation. The vast majority of people with a life are not going to want to do this. So of course it appeals to people who can power trip off it, and I can't see those dynamics really changing. I do think that reddit should change…

The power trip is enough for most people. And for the right subs, brands approach you with outrageous offers. It can EASILY make you six figures *a month. When I read, it was much smaller. Years ago when reddit it was much smaller and I was working for an agency. We paid $60,000 just for 2-3 months of “posting support”. It amounted to something like 12 posts. I know first hand how much some mods get compensated. And this wasn’t even a major subreddit.

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#552

Post by _djo_ »

asveikau wrote: post #541
tomcam wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Twitter rapidly decaying? I am a daily, but very light user so I may not be observing the trends as well as you.

I don't know if this is true, but I heard that recently, searching Twitter for "cats" led you to videos of cats being mutilated. The story continued that Elon had fired the entire team devoted to preventing such outcomes. https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-removes-autocomplete... Somehow hearing this story made me picture my daughter, 10, searching for cat videos.

Yes, it’s accurate. I tested it at the time and was shown that video. It was later fixed for ‘cats’, but it took a while.

There have been other examples beyond that cat video too, that just got a lot of attention.

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#553

Post by cipheredStones »

jimmytucson wrote: post #144

For the uninitiated, $2.52/month is what it would cost users to browse Reddit with Apollo under the current API pricing. RIF would be just $0.73/month[1]. For comparison, Reddit Premium is $5.99/month[2]. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/comment/... [2] https://www.reddit.com/premium

Per the Apollo developer's post, a huge amount of the problem is existing subscriptions already sold for $10/year, which are now massive costs - and negative on net if there's even four months left on them. Not that having the price of your app suddenly quadruple from $10/year to $40/year because of API fees would be a small problem on its own!

https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_w... ("Why not just increase the price of Apollo" section)

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#554

Post by AlexandrB »

themagician wrote: post #401
OldManRyan wrote: post #314

There's a good number of people saying this strike is meaningless and reddit's API change will only affect a tiny % of users. I want to explain why I believe they are wrong. Engagement is a power curve. Most content is created by a small subset of users. I think it is a fair to say that if you use and especially pay for third party tools, whether that be a client or something like RES, you are more than likely a powe…

Most of the content is also modded by a small subset of mods—literally dozens. You've got maybe a hundred mods who are "power mods" that control the vast majority of large subreddits, and these are the ones "protesting". They don't own the subreddits. They have no rights to them, but they like to pretend that they do. Their moderation has, in many ways, become oppressive to the userbase. You don't hear about it becau…

> The very nature of the site is self moderating. Let people post what they want and vote on it.

This only works (mostly) for legal content. Unfortunately a lot of illegal content would be highly popular and upvoted if not moderated. It also doesn't really work when a subset of users engage with the system in bad faith or leverage bots.

Paid moderation is expensive - even if offshored - and I'm surprised that Reddit is willing to risk having to take on increased moderation costs. There's no way the lost potential revenue from 3rd party app users is enough to make up for that.

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#555

Post by shagie »

michaelmrose wrote: post #158
dingusdew wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fediverse has places like https://kbin.social/ or there are instances of Lemmy, ( https://join-lemmy.org/instances ) but most people will want to avoid the "main" lemmy instances for places like https://beehaw.org/ The main lemmy instance is under heavy load and its admins definitely have their own political slant, and if you're not comfortable with that (most aren't) it's best to find a different one or make you…

> its admins definitely have their own political slant, and if you're not comfortable with that (most aren't) it's best to find a different one or make your own instance. From casual use alone this isn't clear to me can you explain?

The admins of the main instance have displayed a distinctly pro-authoritarian and anti-US stance. The pejorative for this ideology is "tankie" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie ).

Searching for that pejorative and Lemmy will find discussions about it with links (though not links to Lemmy itself since those sites are poorly indexed by Google).

This came most recently to visibility with the comments on an NPR article posted to Lemmy about China tightening access to Tiananmen square and Hong Kong detentions in /c/worldnews a week ago.

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#556

Post by jonchurch_ »

shagie wrote: post #493
_djo_ wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is. Why wouldn’t it be? Third party apps benefit the platform, especially in the early days. They result in more content from power users and easier moderation, so they contribute to revenue and aren’t only a cost. They generally have extremely low overheads though, with nearly all being the work of just one or two developers. The profit they bring in is minuscule compared to what Reddit is looking to achieve…

At "just a couple hundred thousand per year" and a $5/month subscription for "Apollo Ultra Monthly"... ( https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apollo-for-reddit/id979274575 ). Apple's cut of that is 30% for the first year and 15% for all following years. https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_ca... > Even if I only kept subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost…

The price of Apollo according to their website [1] is $1.50/month subscription for their highest tier (Ultra), or a $5 one time payment for their secondary tier (Pro).

[1] https://apolloapp.io/pro-ultra/

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#557

Post by grecy »

jacksnipe wrote: post #429
arthens wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indefinitely until reddit picks new moderators and reopen them. No way they'll allow major subs closing down.

Mods are not fungible. It’s tempting to feel that they are, but they have an enormous influence on their communities.

I agree with you at heart, but that's like saying the head of a hospital or the head union guy dictate what the experience of being in a hospital or shop floor are like.

That is absolutely true, but in the interest of making money the owners will replace them in a heartbeat. Sure, the vibe will change, some existing users will move on, but there are always, always new users to hook.

Reddit are not even paying these mods pennies, they couldn't care less about them and getting rid of them to find ones who are more "compliant".

EDIT: Redditor for 14 years 99,665 post karma 97,633 comment karma

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#558

Post by mvdtnz »

_b wrote: post #139

I think a "down-vote everything" strike could be highly successful. As long as enough users participate, it could cripple subs whose moderators didn't choose to participate. And it is fitting. Reddit is trying to charge its users for content and data created for free by its users, so why shouldn't users make that data junk for awhile to make a statement?

Yeah nothing shows Reddit who's boss like checks notes aggressively engaging with their product.

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#559

Post by belinder »

rchaud wrote: post #300
TX81Z wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The age of adtech as the dominant technology revenue model is drawing to a close and Reddit missed out on the golden age. Trying to make ads work now, when it’s clear the future is subscriptions and the like, is just dumb.

Only Google and FB figured out ads, and they were planet-scale companies. Twitter pulled in ad revenue but couldn't make a profit. Reddit's audience is extremely hostile to ads, and they've never managed to attract big advertisers anyway.

Amazon?

Re: Reddit Strike Has Started

#560

Post by BrotherBisquick »

TX81Z wrote: post #293
cragfar wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 99% manufactured drama by the power mods wanting to be able to keep modding 100+ subreddits with their 3rd party tools and AI companies wanting to mine reddit data for free. The fact that Spez has let them do it for this long has probably put him in the hot seat.

The fact that he isn’t keeping his free labor force happy is the problem. Other companies put hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of staff into moderation. This moron has people doing that FOR FREE and he’s pissing them off. Seriously, do you have any clue how much just YouTube alone spends on content moderation? Or Facebook? These are absolutely massive investments.

The powers that be have deemed that they don't care what the "free labor force" wants or thinks. They care about the experience of the users, not the experience of the rulers of petty internet fiefdoms.

Reddit has indicated that it wants to pay for content moderation. So be it. Who are you to tell them how they run their company?

Maybe when we move away from "volunteers" then the "volunteers" can get real jobs that pay real money! It'll be good for them.

Post reply on HN