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Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

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Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#241

Post by paulcole »

harryf wrote: post #139
moskie wrote: post #76

We (the internet community) made such a terrible mistake with social media. We formed connections and communities and friendships on sites like Facebook and Twitter and Reddit, but those companies need to make money, so those connections are only allowed to exist as long as they are part of a profitable system. How awful it is to reduce human connection to that. To think that I am only allowed to maintain certain soc…

What gives me hope is if you ever take a break from social media you realize how worthless it all is. It really doesn’t hurt to disengage. For similar reasons it’s possible for new networks to show up which disrupt the old, such as TikTok. The point is as individuals we are way less dependent on social media than we imagine.

I’m assuming you’ve talked yourself into believing HN isn’t social media?

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#242

Post by tester457 »

tinus_hn wrote: post #167
mtc010170 wrote: post #84

Watch out folks - critical discussions about Reddit seem to be getting flagged as flame bait. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36347400 Idk why. We should be able to have a civilized, intellectually curious discussion about this. The future of Reddit (and its implications for the future of the Internet) is pretty on-topic to me for HN. @dang can we get a stance on this?

It’s quite possible that people are just flagging these stories because it’s not interesting enough to facilitate 20 discussions without it turning into threads with 500 comments rehashing the same arguments. Reddit might be a big deal to you but many people over here just don’t care and they don’t want to see topic after topic about a site they don’t care about. And it’s going to have the same impact on the ‘future…

In this more mature internet, a demise of reddit would be more impactful.

"Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts" [1]

Digg never had this influence, nor a decade plus of useful threads with information not found anywhere else.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36319392

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#243

Post by mandmandam »

vxNsr wrote: post #112
mandmandam wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! And they're so incredibly cheap to run, in the scheme of things. They're TEXT and LINKS ffs. Even Snapchat, which deals in video, costs about $2.50 per user per year to run. Honestly, we're some set of dopes to let people like Zuck and Huffman build yachts and apocalypse bunkers, with bloody advertising money, all for the genius idea of sharing text and links on the internet.

At scale that’s relatively expensive though, $2.5x1billion is still 2.5 billion dollars. That money needs to come from somewhere…

Pedantically, that's not how cost per user works. Whether you have a billion users or 3, $2.50 / user is $2.50 per user.

And that infrastructure costs the same whether you riddle the platform with advertising and influence, or leave it pristine. In fact, leaving it pristine costs far far less to society, all things considered.

Anyway, 'at scale', $2.5 bn is a drop in the ocean. There are thousands of people who could pay that all on their own. The global economy is 100 trillion dollars (as of 2021). And there's this thing called taxation, which sorts out public goods and services (such as communication) at scale.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#244

Post by Avamander »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #171
minhazm wrote: post #117

Reddit has handled this pretty terribly but I also think people are being unreasonable. This is no different than me creating a third party YouTube client, charging for it and displaying no ads. Why would YouTube allow me to do that? And why should Reddit allow third party apps to do that? Reddit screwed up in the first place allowing third party apps that they have zero control over to build a full frontend replacem…

I agree. Reddit has behaved very badly, but the kneejerk people demanding a cheaper than opportunity cost API have distanced themselves from sanity. It's one thing to say that one thinks reddit is making a miscalculation against its own financial interests, but it's an extreme form of selfishness to demand that someone else sacrifice earnings to provide perpetual unfettered platform access to things that were put on…

> but it's an extreme form of selfishness to demand that someone else sacrifice earnings to provide perpetual unfettered platform access to things that were put on the platform of posters' own accord without coercion.

In that same sentence you highlight why it's not selfish. Reddit wants content and moderation, they're not paying shit for it. It's only a fair trade for people to keep their tools and clients in exchange.

I've said this before but yea, Reddit can do both all by themselves as well. Not sure how profitable that'd be though.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#245

Post by gruez »

Havoc wrote: post #135
CincinnatiMan wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are likely hundreds if not thousands of users who would be willing to become mods of each of the subreddits that are still in private mode. I know I would mod some of the subs I find useful.

They can sure try. Getting a mod team that gels well and keeps the community functional is non trivial though in my experience especially for tricky subs like politics Dropping a couple randoms in is at best a roll of the dice I personally wouldn’t want that roll across a large number of subs if I were ceo but I’m not so maybe we’ll get to see how that plays out

>They can sure try. Getting a mod team that gels well and keeps the community functional is non trivial though in my experience especially for tricky subs like politics

Are the current mods of /r/politics even doing that good of a job?

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#246

Post by satvikpendem »

jarfil wrote: post #211
satvikpendem wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can anyone sincerely believe that being a user, even a mod, on another platform by a corporate entity lets them have their own space? I mean, of course the company owns everything one does or publishes on said platform. There is no trust because the premise is faulty in the first place. The fact that people actually believed that is not really the problem of the platform, there is always inherent platform risk.

It is an issue of trust precisely because a third party controls the platform. If mods actually owned the infrastructure for their spaces, there would be no trust involved, they'd just own it. In this case, mods trusted the company making a promise about the platform, breaking that promise breaks the trust in the company, and makes the platform risk plain to see for all.

One should never trust a corporation, who only acts in the interest of money, is my point. That they even trusted them in the first place is a gross misjudgment. It's not about what words a corporation utters, it's about what actions it takes that determines its value.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#247

Post by 1ark »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #168
moskie wrote: post #76

We (the internet community) made such a terrible mistake with social media. We formed connections and communities and friendships on sites like Facebook and Twitter and Reddit, but those companies need to make money, so those connections are only allowed to exist as long as they are part of a profitable system. How awful it is to reduce human connection to that. To think that I am only allowed to maintain certain soc…

Where's the non-profit foundation to replace them? Has someone already started it?

Signal, Session, Berty, Jami, and Nostr are some I can think of from the top of my head.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#248

Post by accoil »

iguana_lawyer wrote: post #4
donutshop wrote: post #3

What's the end game here for reddit? There's no way this would end well.

Why does it need to end well?

I don't think that was a preference. I read it more as a statement about how Reddit's actions seem to be going against their own interest, and their motives are unknown....

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#249

Post by sillysaurusx »

ryanmerket wrote: post #173
jjulius wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP already highlighted the dishonesty, it's here: > if they are no longer interested in moderating that community The mods, as GP stated, are interested in moderating that community, they just disagree with Reddit's changes. They wouldn't be taking the path of shuttering their subs in protest if they didn't give a damn. That is absolutely dishonesty on the part of Reddit.

[flagged]

> Who is being dishonest?

Steve Huffman is a liar. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36246529

It's painful to post a comment that otherwise reads as low-quality flamebait. But I tried to defend his actions, and was dragged to the conclusion that he tried to damage Christian's reputation by making up a lie. He even acknowledged it was false during a phone conversation with Christian, then continued to tell the lie publicly.

It shattered my faith in him, and to a lesser degree in YC's "don't be evil" philosophy.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#250

Post by plandis »

paulddraper wrote: post #95
concinds wrote: post #74

The dishonesty continues. > if they are no longer interested in moderating that community They're still interested. They're just protesting your policies. > [if] at least one mod [...] wants to keep the community going, we will respect their decisions and remove those who no longer want to moderate from the mod team. This one takes the cake. They're dangling a carrot: hey, any low-ranked mod interested in taking over…

Doesn't seem dishonest to me. Reddit cares more about having an open subreddit then the mods do. This was the obvious conclusion

Why should I trust the CEO who was just recently caught in a lie about blackmail despite evidence to the contrary and in the past has straight up edited people’s comments without any notification that Reddit is responsible for the edits?
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