Reddit Strike Has Started

I know that is a minefield of issues regarding access and moderation and it would make it a frequent election day financial harassment target but it would be nice to have something that is publicly funded, ad free, and not vulnerable to deep pockets stealing the entire system from the people.

That is indeed the point of principles. If you drop your principles as soon as the going gets tough, then they weren't actually principles to begin with.

> Many of them have no intention of ever giving anyone who disagrees with them the same offer.

Letting your opponents define your own principles is another mistake that unprincipled people often make.

Principles are important not because they help you defeat your enemies. They matter in and of themselves.

Something that is used to fight your enemies is called a strategy or a tactic. Thats completely different from a principle.

If you want to say that you don't care about principles at all, and are willing to do anything and everything that is the most effective to defeat your enemies no matter what it is, just say that instead of talking about principles or morals or values.

That way at least we'd be on the same page as to what the conversation is about.

Without a very clear statement of demands -- what it would take to end the action -- that everyone (or at least majority) of those participating understand and agree too -- it makes this even less effective as a form of pressure.

Those planning on going away "unless the issue is adequately addressed", what does that mean? Completely ending and reverting all plans to charge for API? That's not what they say, they say "adequately addressed", so that probably isnt' consensus (and probably isn't winnable? Or reasonable?). Making the charges some kind of reasonable... so every mod just decides on their own if any change announced is "adequate" or not?

What makes a boycott most likely to be effective as a pressure tactic is if the target knows exactly what they have to do to end the boycott, and has some confidence that if they do it the boycott will indeed end.

Now, whether this is actually winnable here (and via this tactic) is another question, but you might as well do your best if you're trying it.

I feel like at least some of the people participating in this boycott are just sick of reddit (and the internet, and society) and would be just as happy to see it burn though.

There's very little discussion of strategy and tactics in this thread -- how we can actually win, when organizing collectively for collective demands. If we want to be able to win, it's a good thing to think and talk about, not just react instinctively.