With the direction they're going, they'll just get rid of volunteer moderators entirely and instead lean on contract moderator farms like Facebook etc. It's a more expensive option for sure but it gives them the most power and the least pushback against further revenue raising measures.
Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
611–620 of 1001 posts
Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
#612This is so sad honestly. Like wtf is going on, no apology, no good will, doubling down on the complete moral suicide of Reddit. To push an app no-one ever liked, you know that, but whatever. No-one likes “new” Reddit either, you know that, but whatever. Who’s even gonna use the site after this? Social media zombie sheeple is all that's going to be left. Congrats on your dumb little site, from the front-page of the In…
Im not a fan of how reddit is handling the situation, but: > To push an app no-one ever liked, you know that, but whatever. No-one likes “new” Reddit either, you know that, but whatever. Who’s even gonna use the site after this? Is just not true at all unless you have actual stats to back that up. A ton of people disagree with that take. The site has grown a massive amount since the new design was released in 2018. S…
Apollo is also ios-only
Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
#613Smelled this one coming miles away. Next, they'll hand over fan-built communities to the entities that own the IPs they're dedicated to. Eg. r/starwars to Disney, r/startrek to Viacom/Paramount, etc. Then, old.reddit.com will stop working spontaneously, just like how they toyed with killing mobile browser access to force users to download the app, which they probably will eventually. That's going to be the final push…
Ironically when the problems with bots allegedly writing unfavorable opinions came up, bots were quite a rare occurrence. When I look at some of the defaults now, it reads like the simplest AI generated flavor text that is tuned to the ever same topics. Brain dead market research output without any information.
You really notice this if you compare it to more specialized subs. Even if they are very active with thousands of users, the style of communication is different. It isn't trivial to detect bots, but I think some particular subs might be very infested. Another reason to perhaps scrap API access before someone takes a closer look.
This strategy of decline seems to be inevitable. When they distanced themselves from Swartz and did away with their principles to satisfy some other interests, it was the start of some form of decline, even if the official business numbers look different.
There are business numbers that show an increase in usage, but as a user you cannot feel that at all. On the contrary, it feels like it is moving in a different direction. Perhaps they changed their budgeting somehow to boost their revenue... Or some really rich clients bought a massive amount of reddit goodies.
Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
#614It’s fun to consider this from his perspective. He has essentially pushed all-in on this and now he has no way of backing out. If this is all about getting ready for IPO, then he can’t back out, because that would show potential future investors that he is not in control of policy changes, and that means that when shareholders want to crank up the money making machine, they can’t. At the same time, he needs to show t…
They've lost the retail investors, that alone could moved the needle on an IPO. Just look at what r/wallstreetbets did with GME.
Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
This wouldn't solve the problem of their API being used to scrape Reddit to train LLMs.
Then have different terms for different purposes. Charge LLM trainers and request that 3rd party apps show ads.
How would Reddit be able to tell the difference?
Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But Christian took this very personally, and he decided to take his toys and go home. I mean wouldn't you? He's built an app that brings him a decent income, he can work on it full time, he based his career on that application. What reaction would you expect out of f.e. youtubers when youtube made it suddenly unable for them to sustain themselves? I mean basing your life/income/business on another business is never…
Im not sure what I would do. But I do know that if I reacted similarly, by posting all of the private meetings and communications to the public web, where I knew a hornet's nest would be stirred up (his subreddit obviously), I can't expect much of a relationship with reddit to survive after the fact. I can understand how he feels, but he had to know that this would happen. > I think he has all the rights to be angry…
To be fair from what I understand he only posted the private conversation because Huffman was intentionally lying about him to a large audience and he was forced to defend himself. I'm not saying he's handled this amazingly but Reddit absolutely dug their own hole in this case.
I don't think even Alastair Campbell could teach them effective crisis management.
Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
#617Personally, I couldn't care less about Reddit itself, but what's really annoying is that half of my Google searches end up in temporarily closed subreddits. Reddit has become some sort of a Stack Overflow lately - I hope all that knowledge will be moved somewhere else.
So I would go as far to say as the only thing that was keeping Google useful to me was Reddit. I'd use Google to search Reddit and find info I need.
I honestly think this incident is a lot more major than people realize. A major, major, major part of the internet is being vaporized for almost no good reason at all.
It's pretty insane when you think about it.
Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
#618This is so sad honestly. Like wtf is going on, no apology, no good will, doubling down on the complete moral suicide of Reddit. To push an app no-one ever liked, you know that, but whatever. No-one likes “new” Reddit either, you know that, but whatever. Who’s even gonna use the site after this? Social media zombie sheeple is all that's going to be left. Congrats on your dumb little site, from the front-page of the In…
Im not a fan of how reddit is handling the situation, but: > To push an app no-one ever liked, you know that, but whatever. No-one likes “new” Reddit either, you know that, but whatever. Who’s even gonna use the site after this? Is just not true at all unless you have actual stats to back that up. A ton of people disagree with that take. The site has grown a massive amount since the new design was released in 2018. S…
I get what you're saying, and somewhat agree, but Reddit has shown they're willing to fill their own communities with bot posts to pad their numbers. What makes you think they're not buying reviews?
Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did Reddit forget why they were popular in the first place? Remember the Digg redesign? Seems like every Reddit update has been user-hostile in a way that was much worse than the Digg stuff.
Being popular isn't their primary goal. (I'm not saying I like the changes or think they are good, I'm just saying that you aren't analyzing their motivations if you focus on popularity)
Very true, I've seen the same phenomenon at other startups firsthand, when business leaders are eager to burn unlimited amounts of user goodwill to make number go up.
Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
#620It’s fun to consider this from his perspective. He has essentially pushed all-in on this and now he has no way of backing out. If this is all about getting ready for IPO, then he can’t back out, because that would show potential future investors that he is not in control of policy changes, and that means that when shareholders want to crank up the money making machine, they can’t. At the same time, he needs to show t…
As a user, all he's done is prove to me that he will cave instantly to shareholder pressure. There aren't even any public shareholders asking for more money now and he's already cranking the money-making lever. How am I to expect the site to become better in the future when infinite growth is expected? Why would I put my time in this site over another?
And that’s the bet on his side. He has reached a point where he believes the users’ options are non-competitive, so the way he sees it, users doesn’t have any choice. It’s his way or no way. The average user doesn’t care, they just want to have fun. Which might also be why he is okay with changing all the mods, because those are the people like you and I that care and will take up the fight.