I scrubbed and deleted my account. I’m done. They will have to make major changes in their trajectory for me to consider making a new account. It’s even less about the API changes than the way that they treated Christian Selig, a CEO throwing an indie dev in the mud like he did is disgusting and doesn’t give me hope for the site improving for anyone other than investors and advertisers.
Reddit Strike Has Started
821–830 of 1001 posts
Re: Reddit Strike Has Started
#822Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You'd need a bunch of dangs to mod every conceivable interest group, like soccer and German politics. People forget that reddit was popular and succeeded during the digg migration because it was pro free speech and minimally moderated. It was one of the reasons people migrated to reddit instead of here. The first 10 years of reddit, the community and the company prided themselves on being a "free speech platform."…
> it was not censored like HN! I don't feel like HN is censored. Does anyone think HN is censored? dang steps in mostly with technical edits or to break up a particularly nasty fight once in a while, can this really be called censorship? of course, you can take a karma hit from other people, but reddit always had that as well.
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Re: Reddit Strike Has Started
#823Earlier quoted context omitted.
Twitter too! When I worked there they jokingly referred to the head of product as the defense against the dark arts teacher, in that every year or so they'd disappear mysteriously and there'd be a new one. Most of Twitter's successes came from watching what users were actually doing and supporting that (e.g., at mentions, retweets, quote tweets). Many of their failures have been trying to graft on something irrelevan…
I think there's a fundamental conflict, in that these network effect businesses are terrible as for-profit businesses. They're of great value to those who use them, and indirectly to society as a whole. Yet there's no good way to monetize them (nor does there need to be monetization), and trying to do so damages the functionality of the network. Both Twitter and Reddit would likely be better off (from the POV of the…
>I think there's a fundamental conflict, in that these network effect businesses are terrible as for-profit businesses.
All of the BigTech companies are built on network effects and two sided markets
Re: Reddit Strike Has Started
#824If we think we don't care about Reddit because we don't use the site, we should probably care. The future of Reddit may have a wide-ranging impact on the future of the Internet as a whole. Will content be created and consumed in walled gardens, or easily linked? Will AI-generated content flood forums and stifle meaningful discussion? Will moderation become an AI task instead of a human task?
The Reddit protest does not stand alone and is not caused by u/spez or Reddit management or whatever. There is a vastly broader context here. What will be the lasting effects of a migration away from Reddit, or of a management change, or of a structural change in how this and other websites are administered?
I couldn't care less about Reddit because I don't use it and don't like the posts and discussion on there. At the same time, I do care, because I know many of the Reddit users and moderators are also probably going to end up here, and for the above reasons.
Re: Reddit Strike Has Started
#825I am here for the first time because of the reddit strike.
Re: Reddit Strike Has Started
#826Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is Facebook not a network effect business? It’s not only wildly profitable but bigger than those two combined. Twitter and Reddit are just run by incompetents who can’t figure out how to advertise anything relevant.
Twitter and Reddit are messageboards. Like Hacker News. Every time they do something controversial, someone thinks Usenet needs to be reincarnated. Trying to monetize that at scale is hardddd. Facebook has got groups, yes. But they have instagram. Messenger. Whatsapp. They have my friends and family. They have my photos going back 10 years. Facebook is personal to many people. I don't see Twitter and Facebook being i…
> Trying to monetize that at scale is hardddd.
Good thing nobody is asking for that.
Re: Reddit Strike Has Started
#827There'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…
If management has shown themselves to be adversarial in this case because they think the power users aren't correct, a 2 day strike isn't going to do much to convince them otherwise.
This would have to be a month or more. And I think that's the real threat - the 2 day is a shot across the bow, if it impacts statistics I think it will likely be extended until management cries uncle.
If I were management I'd do everything in my power to make this strike look like it failed (since the alternative to actually preventing the strike by negotiation seems to have been scrapped or unconsidered).
Re: Reddit Strike Has Started
#828There'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…
Have a look at the link being discussed. Subreddits all the way down to 5K+ subreddits are going dark. It's all across the board.
Re: Reddit Strike Has Started
#829Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they hadn't blatantly tried to slander him personally and had given a reasonable price or timeline for the price changes, people wouldn't be nearly as upset. All of this has left a sour taste in their mouths. They also see the writing on the wall; they'll shut down old.reddit.com, push more ads via the official app, and continue to milk as much money as possible. The claim that it's not profitable seems kind of cr…
I can answer your last question. Very few reddit users (as a % of the whole) actually subscribe to advertiser-valuable subreddits. Any targeted ads on Reddit have tiny tiny inventories. The rest of the ad inventory is more or less anonymous and gives very poor roi to spend ads against. That's why Reddit has a total revenue of like $100m vs $50b+ for facebook.
I mod a sub with high advertiser value. Just checked without ad block. Reddit it showing completely untargeted irrelevant ads to the userbase.
Maybe they're doing some sophisticated tracking of users by interest and showing relevant ads there but somehow I doubt it.
Re: Reddit Strike Has Started
#830There'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…
And now I want to explain why you're wrong. The vast majority of people who are visiting subreddits are doing so because they're actively seeking out the material being presented to them. These people are subscribers to the subreddits. Subreddits that "go dark" are not blocked for everyone. Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit. So this giant display of enlightened ass…
I can no longer access subreddits I have been subscribed to. They are also no longer listed in my subscriptions.
Private subreddits are indeed invitation only