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Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

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Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#91

Post by MuffinFlavored »

throitallaway wrote: post #78
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the blackout is only for two days then they're right Yeah... I don't know the tradeoffs at play but 2 days is... extremely insignificant / probably a bad decision by all of the moderators? It sends a message sure but, it's a bunch of "whiny reddit mods" versus C-level executives in a "help us make API more affordable versus help us not lose a ton of money offering generous free API hosting/usage" negotiation. Ho…

> Why should they foot the bill for the API calls? So they have to crack down on some 3rd party apps we all took for granted and kill a few apps off. Sucks but at the end of the day, will it really matter in 6 months? This would be all fine and well if their official app weren't garbage. They do everything in their power to push you to the mobile app, but they seemingly haven't improved it since its inception.

> This would be all fine and well if their official app weren't garbage

It's not garbage. I've used it for years. It's fine. Try not being dramatic online / feeding into the narrative that so and so app is garbage or not / parroting other things people say / being picky.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#92

Post by mulmen »

perfectstorm wrote: post #37

can someone help me understand what's the core of the issue is? is it because they are now charging for APIs which used to be free? i hope that's the not the issue because that's not a sustainable business. third party apps can grow revenue using Reddit's contents and Reddit don't see a penny from them. if the issue is the amount Reddit charge per call, why can't those third party apps charge their users more based o…

This has been discussed at length but I will summarize for you. Reddit is charging exorbitant fees for API access and they gave an unreasonably short time to adapt. 30 days is not enough time to completely change the business model of an app, so 3p apps are shutting down. Customers have already paid for annual subscriptions to Apollo for example so the app has to keep supporting those customers or refund them. But they will cost millions just in the first year with the new API fees. The business can't survive like that, so it has to shut down.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#93

Post by MuffinFlavored »

jamcrimer wrote: post #90
nequo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the 2 day blackout does is it nudges people to explore alternatives. With this, Reddit management has lowered the barriers to exit. When the next boycott comes, migration for many subreddits will be easier.

but we're already commenting on the only good reddit alternative... :)

You won't be talking about stocks or NBA / NFL / NHL on HackerNews (for good reason :))

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#94

Post by BoorishBears »

Goronmon wrote: post #51
BoorishBears wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They don't deserve to have the power to shut down sources of useful information because a company had a spat with some extremely rich app developers. Why shouldn't the moderators have that power? They are the ones maintaining the subreddits they control. If the users don't like them having that power, they are free to move to a different subreddit with moderators they agree with. Nothing is stopping them.

That's what they're doing, the issue is all the content that was already written.

Years of content on interest specific subreddits and ages of communal knowledge locked away at the whims of some insanely tiny minority is indefensible.

-

When people posted the content in the first place, there was an implicit assumption that the moderators wouldn't throw a tantrum and hide away their content.

And it's not like there weren't other options: they could have walked away. Left the subs unmoderated and make Reddit deal with the fallout.

Instead the moderators decided to craft extra powers by weaponizing access to content they didn't make.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#95

Post by neals »

Moved from Digg to Reddit back in the day. Used to love it, now it's more of a habit. Also, if you really look at it, it's just 9gag with extra's that I don't use. The way down is here, time for something new.

I've been trying mastodon but it doesn't scratch any itches, I just want to read other peoples comments and thoughts and learn from them. I actually don't even comment myself that much.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#96

Post by willis936 »

98codes wrote: post #46
TheFreim wrote: post #9

If the blackout is only for two days then they're right, but if they continue indefinitely it could force a change (reddit is currently unusable since all but one sub I enjoy is gone, if it was gone indefinitely then reddit would be indefinitely out of the picture for me).

The only thing they care about is bottom line, and this, "Huffman says the blackout hasn’t had “significant revenue impact”," is key. To lose 95.8% of your site (judged by the 8467 out of 8838 subreddits gone dark) and not have a revenue impact at all raises some questions, primarily if there are any revenue streams based on usage, or only on monthly subscriptions and non-view-based ad contracts?

CEO caught lying multiple times this week, known to abuse admin powers to manipulate narrative, and completely failing to understand the entity he is in charge of says there is no significant impact from the blackout. Nothing to see here, move along.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#97

Post by xyst »

TheFreim wrote: post #18

I don't understand why reddit didn't respond to the initial criticism by decreasing the pricing/demands and just slowly implementing what they want over time. Doing it all at once seemed like a silly move.

Probably VCs or board pushing CEO to make hasty decisions. Profit over everything else.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#98

Post by krisoft »

perfectstorm wrote: post #37

can someone help me understand what's the core of the issue is? is it because they are now charging for APIs which used to be free? i hope that's the not the issue because that's not a sustainable business. third party apps can grow revenue using Reddit's contents and Reddit don't see a penny from them. if the issue is the amount Reddit charge per call, why can't those third party apps charge their users more based o…

> if the issue is the amount Reddit charge per call, why can't those third party apps charge their users more based on the API charge?

As a first approximation yes, the issue is the amount Reddit charges per call. The perception is that they are way overcharging for the calls, because the real message is that they don't want 3rd party apps to exist anymore.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#99

Post by Night_Thastus »

evouga wrote: post #45
Night_Thastus wrote: post #22

In the end, this "blackout" will do about as much as a change.org petition. Even if some subreddits choose to extend the time period (even indefinitely) Reddit has no reason to really care - most of them are so small they don't 'move the needle'. I appreciate that the decision Reddit is making and their justification both seem poor. But the response seems like people are missing where and how Reddit makes its money.

Leading up to the blackout, there were multiple threads on Reddit asking for alternatives to visit instead. None of those threads received any non-joke replies. The only thing that will make Reddit change course is serious competition. Probably not even that, since as long as the exodus happens after the IPO, it's the public that will be left holding the bag and not the investors.

Only the smallest number of users really, truly care about any of this.

The vast majority, 99%+ just use the site casually and don't follow any of this drama. They will use the site regardless of what goes on.

Even among those who are disgruntled, many of them will just come back to Reddit anyways, because it's large enough that it has a huge chunk of content that those alternative simply don't have.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#100

Post by MisterBastahrd »

ugjka wrote: post #17
QuarterRoy wrote: post #5

I think he went about this completely in the wrong way and comes off as arrogant but on this I agree. Many subs that didn’t go dark still seem to have plenty of participants and people need their digital crack. I don’t see this being a digg moment for Reddit.

The problem isn't that no one can create a Reddit clone, the problem is that no one can scale like Reddit and do it at continuous loss just to be dominant

The problem with reddit clones is that every single freaking one I've seen featured on HN over the past few days has absolutely no idea of what it takes to run a proper social media platform. We abandoned tagging-as-categories two generations back. Active moderators are always better than hivemind moderation. They're so hellbent on trying to find a use case for monetizing their halfassed "build reddit in 24 hours" clones that they don't actually think about how to make the user experience better. Why the hell is the one guy working on a disbursement algorithm when his UI looks like shit and his site is unnavigable? Because he's a hobbyist, not an entrepreneur.
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