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Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

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Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#281

Post by [deleted] »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #223
tensor wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a right yes, but they will also rightly suffer from their approach. I not only participated in the blackout, but because of the CEOs arrogant comments about how valuable my data is and how they deserve to sell it, while destroying the tools I value and use, I also deleted all of my valuable data from reddit and after handing off the one sub I moderated I left the platform forever. I think reddit is a wonder…

I'm a blogger and freelance writer. I've spent years saying that programmers make good money, then expect slave labor from writers and content developers. If the only way people will "allow" a valuable service to live is as their bitch, the entire internet is welcome to go die in a fire while we dream up some new answer for the future of this world.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#282

Post by JumpCrisscross »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #223
tensor wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a right yes, but they will also rightly suffer from their approach. I not only participated in the blackout, but because of the CEOs arrogant comments about how valuable my data is and how they deserve to sell it, while destroying the tools I value and use, I also deleted all of my valuable data from reddit and after handing off the one sub I moderated I left the platform forever. I think reddit is a wonder…

I'm a blogger and freelance writer. I've spent years saying that programmers make good money, then expect slave labor from writers and content developers. If the only way people will "allow" a valuable service to live is as their bitch, the entire internet is welcome to go die in a fire while we dream up some new answer for the future of this world.

> blogger and freelance writer

Reddit’s writers and content producers, i.e. users, are still unpaid. They’re just also being used to train LLMs aimed at reducing the number of independent bloggers and writers.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#284

Post by sixothree »

dv35z wrote: post #156
sixothree wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it is YouTube 100%. I really just used Reddit as a way to kill time. Now I just watch makers doing their thing.

Care to share strong recommendations? Interested in maker spaces, agile, entrepreneurship & prototyping.

I'm going to hit up my history and looks like it's mostly just the basics when it comes to "general" makers.

BPS Space, Simone Giertz, Stuff Made Here, DIY Perks, Aaed Musa, This does not compute, rctestflight, Tom Stanton, lftkryo, upir, Nerdtronic, Design Prototype Test

And then just stuff I like - Adrian's Digital Basement, Cathode Ray Dude, Retro Recipes, Tim Traveller, Dave's Garage

https://www.youtube.com/@BPSspace

https://www.youtube.com/@simonegiertz

https://www.youtube.com/@StuffMadeHere

https://www.youtube.com/@DIYPerks

https://www.youtube.com/@aaedmusa

https://www.youtube.com/@ThisDoesNotCompute

https://www.youtube.com/@rctestflight

https://www.youtube.com/@TomStantonEngineering

https://www.youtube.com/@lftkryo

https://www.youtube.com/@upir_upir

https://www.youtube.com/@Nerdtronic

https://www.youtube.com/@DesignPrototypeTest

https://www.youtube.com/@adriansdigitalbasement

https://www.youtube.com/@CathodeRayDude

https://www.youtube.com/@RetroRecipes

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTimTraveller

https://www.youtube.com/@DavesGarage

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#285

Post by rglullis »

lawgimenez wrote: post #229
arp242 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That data seems wrong. I don't use Reddit much, but I checked the data aginast some smaller subs I sometimes check, and according to those charts they have just a few comments per day, but I know for a fact that's wrong. It's wrong for all subs I checked. For example: https://subredditstats.com/r/thethickofit Just 3 comments for Nov 22, 8 for Nov 23. But how does that square with the existence of this thread from Nob…

My sub has around ~2K subscribers and still growing, ~200-300 new subscribers every month.

Why are you there, though? Can't you grow your community in any platform that is less user hostile?

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#286

Post by DoreenMichele »

opportune wrote: post #278
DoreenMichele wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia indicates it's still a private company. My recollection is they are failing to hit figures that would make for an attractive buy out or IPO.

They grew their employee count massively (400->2000) as their revenue grew over the past few years though. Part of that is, yeah, you have to spend money to make money. But I know for a fact not all of those employees were doing ad sales or direct monetization. You can speculate as to why they hired so many people: pandemic tech hiring FOMO, looking more attractive to investors, empire building, not being willing to…

Yeah, just fire most of the staff. It worked so well for Twitter.

I don't know the details. I didn't follow it that closely. I don't care that much.

I've read that the business decision that sparked the blackout had something to do with trying to make money. They're a business, not a charity.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. People want endless amounts of free shit. The people who don't want reddit unless it's both free and takes their orders are people I don't personally sympathize with.

I don't really expect to argue this further. I've already argued it way more than I really care to.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#287

Post by lawgimenez »

rglullis wrote: post #285
lawgimenez wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sub has around ~2K subscribers and still growing, ~200-300 new subscribers every month.

Why are you there, though? Can't you grow your community in any platform that is less user hostile?

I am from a Facebook obsessed country, I think Reddit is a good alternative. The discussions are healthy though I’m surprised.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#288

Post by redserk »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #212
DoreenMichele wrote: post #202

Reddit has a right and a need to figure out monetization. This was part of that effort and it was likely painful but Reddit is dead anyway if it never figures out monetization. I didn't participate in the blackout. I felt the mods were wrong to take that approach. I did go to bat for blind mods. They need better mod tools than they have. That comment is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36232441 Hopefully Re…

Since you run a few subs maybe you know: if modding has gotten harder since the API switch, why don’t mods just bring in more mods to help?

Not the person you’re responding to, but team coordination is a very difficult task as you add people.

It’s difficult enough getting 8 developers on the exact same page when writing code, now imagine trying to moderate to a ruleset with a much greater degree of ambiguity.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#289

Post by weeblewobble »

kmlevitt wrote: post #199
kmeisthax wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is absurdly conspiratorial, there is a grain of truth to it: early on in Reddit's history, the admins created fake accounts and posted on them to boost engagement[0]. More recently, after the blackout and user exodus, /r/de noticed a bunch of new German-language copies of popular English-language subs being created with a bunch of autotranslated comments[1]. So Reddit's administration is not above creating…

It's one thing to add stories to a startup website and created the illusion of a couple dozen users instead of just zero. But all these years later Reddit has millions and millions of unique users per month and is still one of the top ten most visited websites in the US and has been for many years, beat out only by google/meta properties and wikipedia etc. You can fake "activity" internally but it's harder to fake st…

It’s also facially absurd to anyone uses Reddit beyond scrolling the front page.

Some malicious actor is fabricating 100 comments a day about the nitty gritty of the New York Times crossword?

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#290

Post by Syntonicles »

sixothree wrote: post #136
candiddevmike wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you switch to?

For me it is YouTube 100%. I really just used Reddit as a way to kill time. Now I just watch makers doing their thing.

I am heavily addicted to YouTube now that I've curtailed my Reddit use. I get a tremendous amount of value, educationally and professionally. The trouble is that there's no good content filter in place, and a couple of mindless clicks later and I'm in a tidal wave of imbecilic, mind rotting, dopamine-inducing distractions.
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