21–30 of 158 posts
This sounds ridiculous even to me, but it’s a strange feeling to see the death of Reddit. It’s the only quasi-social network I’ve used for a decade, and there are many communities that I feel at home in. It’s almost like grief, or feeling untethered somehow.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The stupidest part of all of this is all Reddit's problems are self inflicted. Reddit the company produces almost nothing. Reddit the users make the site what it is. The users submit all the content, make all the comments, and moderate the site. Reddit's executives however seem to think they are somehow critical to Reddit's existence and utility. If they all got replaced tomorrow with competent people no one would fu…
Well to be fair, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else for all these users to go, right? So the executives do provide something.
It’s the network effects that made Reddit valuable: the people, communities, 3rd-party clients, platform integrations, etc.
Most of these things are fairly portable, so I think Reddit execs are mainly gambling in users not wanting to bother with finding a new place to gather.
I have to wonder why they didn’t just start off charging reasonable prices for the API and dial things up over time. Crummy either way, but less likely to alienate literally everyone they depend on to make the system work.
Incredibly impressive to see the community unite with nearly 80% of the subreddits blacked out.
Not sure I would consider mods unilaterally shutting down their forums and hiding information that was contributed by millions of other people a triumph for the wider community. Speaking as somebody who only ever visits Reddit when a thread appears in a search result and occasionally replies if the mods didn't implement a policy of automatically deleting posts from outsiders, now the information I need is not there,…
Voting wise, all communities I’ve seen were pretty overwhelmingly in favor.
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but if Reddit doesn't backtrack what's the endgame here? I've seen multiple subs indicate they intend to fully shutdown if the API changes continue, but for the popular ones what's to stop Reddit from just appointing new mods and starting the sub back up?
This current 'movement' is extremely organic and decentralized. A couple power mods started rallying the troops, and the movement went viral among mods over the course of about 2 weeks. There is very little direct coordination between subreddit mods, and it is mostly people deciding on the fly to make big decisions.
TLDR, nobody is really thinking much about the concerns that you are pointing out.
Its certainly something that people have thought about, very minimally, but the current counterargument to the idea of reddit just replacing mods is twofold.
argument 1: "They can't replace all of us!"
IE, subs are all run by an army of volunteer mods and mods think that they have a lot of bargaining power here.
argument 2: "I don't care. Let all of reddit burn to the ground!"
Quite frankly, a lot of people on reddit have gotten very worked up about this situation, and do not care about the consequences. If they get replaced, or reddit drops the hammer, they are fine with the consequences and will just leave.
But, the most important thing to note is absence of the following argument.
Argument 3 that doesn't exist: "We have a coordinated plan, back plan, and backup backup plans as for what to do about this, in communication with all the other mods"
That would be the smart way to do this, but unfortunately for the mods involved in it, this isn't what is happening. For better or for worse this is a viral outrage movement with nobody in charge.
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but if Reddit doesn't backtrack what's the endgame here? I've seen multiple subs indicate they intend to fully shutdown if the API changes continue, but for the popular ones what's to stop Reddit from just appointing new mods and starting the sub back up?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well to be fair, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else for all these users to go, right? So the executives do provide something.
Reddit has about as much technical complexity in its core product as Twitter—both can be trivially cloned. Alternatives exist. It’s the network effects that made Reddit valuable: the people, communities, 3rd-party clients, platform integrations, etc. Most of these things are fairly portable, so I think Reddit execs are mainly gambling in users not wanting to bother with finding a new place to gather. I have to wonder…
This sounds ridiculous even to me, but it’s a strange feeling to see the death of Reddit. It’s the only quasi-social network I’ve used for a decade, and there are many communities that I feel at home in. It’s almost like grief, or feeling untethered somehow.
It's definitely surreal. Will apathy help Reddit to succeed? Will users and communities end this protest and go back to business as usual? Will Reddit buckle under pressure and go back on the API changes? Is this the beginning of the end? Or will Reddit drastically change because of this and it will be unrecognisable in the years to come? It's an interesting time.
Maybe. It's hard to get back to business as usual when your usual client just stops working. We'll see how people adapt. I'm not sure I want to install the official reddit app.
Switching apps may as well switch sites too.. I've already got Jerboa installed, trying to see if content picks up there enough for it to remain interesting. Definitely some growing pains right now.
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but if Reddit doesn't backtrack what's the endgame here? I've seen multiple subs indicate they intend to fully shutdown if the API changes continue, but for the popular ones what's to stop Reddit from just appointing new mods and starting the sub back up?
That's what I'd do. Most subreddit mods are easily replaceable. And in many subreddits, the people who are mods aren't necessarily the best suited for the job. They often got there through luck, bootlicking, etc. It isn't a meritocracy.
Incredibly impressive to see the community unite with nearly 80% of the subreddits blacked out.
Not sure I would consider mods unilaterally shutting down their forums and hiding information that was contributed by millions of other people a triumph for the wider community. Speaking as somebody who only ever visits Reddit when a thread appears in a search result and occasionally replies if the mods didn't implement a policy of automatically deleting posts from outsiders, now the information I need is not there,…
This sounds ridiculous even to me, but it’s a strange feeling to see the death of Reddit. It’s the only quasi-social network I’ve used for a decade, and there are many communities that I feel at home in. It’s almost like grief, or feeling untethered somehow.
I don’t think anyone is claiming it’s the death of Reddit. They are going dark for 2 days, then it will be business as usual.
/u/spez mentioned in the shitshow that was his AMA, that there would be moderation tools provided by Reddit, but nothing in that direction has ever been shown.
So yes, maybe until the end of June it will be as usual, but afterward many parts of the platform will be unusable with the amount of spam and missing moderation.