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We're joining the Reddit blackout from June 12th to 14th

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Re: We're joining the Reddit blackout from June 12th to 14th

#11

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #3
braza wrote: post #2

Personally I feel bad for all those folks that moderates/contributes in Reddit and at Stack Overflow. Imagine pour hundreds of hours for the sake of enjoyment, sharing or nurturing a community and due to some market circumstances not having a saying in any decision. To be honest, seeing those movements from those companies makes me feel that the future of open communities (but some how walled) it’s bleak.

Honestly, I don't. There is a lot of talk of the price being unreasonable. Realistically, it's rather reasonable. The problem only comes in when these apps have failed to monetize subscriptions. In some cases, these apps are monetized by ads and therefore directly competing with Reddit for the ad buy. Seriously, I am meant to feel bad that someone who decided to directly compete with a company is now being charged mo…

Reddit is a pretty terrible product and it's not cheap of people to decide that it only makes sense to use if free.

Ideally we all would have realized Twitter and Reddit aren't worth our time, but if it's facing that they're not worth our money that gets us to break our habit of settling for them as time wasters, that's cool too.

Re: We're joining the Reddit blackout from June 12th to 14th

#13

Post by gioo »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #3
braza wrote: post #2

Personally I feel bad for all those folks that moderates/contributes in Reddit and at Stack Overflow. Imagine pour hundreds of hours for the sake of enjoyment, sharing or nurturing a community and due to some market circumstances not having a saying in any decision. To be honest, seeing those movements from those companies makes me feel that the future of open communities (but some how walled) it’s bleak.

Honestly, I don't. There is a lot of talk of the price being unreasonable. Realistically, it's rather reasonable. The problem only comes in when these apps have failed to monetize subscriptions. In some cases, these apps are monetized by ads and therefore directly competing with Reddit for the ad buy. Seriously, I am meant to feel bad that someone who decided to directly compete with a company is now being charged mo…

Remember that not all 3rd party clients are/were developed for-profit, there are plenty which are open-source, have no monetization or ads, and are gonna be hit by this change too.

>This isn't about Reddit being greedy.

This is Reddit being greedy. They are asking $2.50 a user per month, while the revenue they make from someone using the first party reddit app on average is just $0.12 per month. [0] Add this the restriction on NSFW content served from the API, and it's clear reddit is just straight up trying to kill 3rd party apps.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_ca...

Re: We're joining the Reddit blackout from June 12th to 14th

#15

Post by 1letterunixname »

braza wrote: post #2

Personally I feel bad for all those folks that moderates/contributes in Reddit and at Stack Overflow. Imagine pour hundreds of hours for the sake of enjoyment, sharing or nurturing a community and due to some market circumstances not having a saying in any decision. To be honest, seeing those movements from those companies makes me feel that the future of open communities (but some how walled) it’s bleak.

This is the failure of wishful thinking of users and of a mainstream culture that condones corporate takeover of all areas of the commonwealth (common good).

The best move is to not play with corporations and to move towards well-run nonprofits and social ventures that can deliver a useful utility. There aren't many existent examples of this.

Re: We're joining the Reddit blackout from June 12th to 14th

#18

Post by voxelghost »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #5
Raicuparta wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you don't know much about the subject, and didn't read too deeply into it. Third party apps are only a part of the problem (which you're also misrepresenting), and not the one referenced in the comment you answered to. I suggest following the links in the post to understand the full depth of the problem.

I've read deeply into the problem. And I've come to the conclusion the problem is cheap reddit users who don't want to pay for software. There are complaints that the offical app isn't accessible. Ok, pay for accessible software or complain enough to Reddit to fix their app. There are laws I believe to force them to have an accessible app. Mods use tools to moderate. Ok. You want to have a little hobby of moderating…

    Mods use tools to moderate. Ok. You want to have a little hobby of moderating a community. Fair enough, pay for your hobby. If not. Let Reddit fix the spam problem when it becomes a problem, because it will become a problem and Reddit will be forced to fix it because the users will hate it and it'll harm growth. If not, pay for the software to do your little hobby.
Actually, I think this is one point where Reddit could score some good will points by letting moderators use the API for free to access the communities they moderate.

Re: We're joining the Reddit blackout from June 12th to 14th

#19

Post by midoridensha »

lockhouse wrote: post #16

It amazes me how little Reddit's leadership understand about their own history. Reddit essentially took off because Digg screwed the pooch so hard with their redesign and just general mismanagement of their community.

"Those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it."

Personally, I'm looking forward to Reddit going the way of Digg.

Re: We're joining the Reddit blackout from June 12th to 14th

#20

Post by johnnyanmac »

braza wrote: post #2

Personally I feel bad for all those folks that moderates/contributes in Reddit and at Stack Overflow. Imagine pour hundreds of hours for the sake of enjoyment, sharing or nurturing a community and due to some market circumstances not having a saying in any decision. To be honest, seeing those movements from those companies makes me feel that the future of open communities (but some how walled) it’s bleak.

This is at least the 3rd blackout being planned en masse, and while I hate being pessimistic: I don't think much will be done here if history serves. Most people will stay and be unaware, some (maybe many) contributors will leave, we will probably get one or two winds on some alternatives that then get overrun by unsavory folk that makes it unwelcoming to anyone who cares about their personal reputation, and the dust settles with not much change overall.

But yea, that's why I never did any real "passion work" up to this point, even if I've been interested. If I'm going out of my way for that, it has to at the bare minimum be portfolio work for a job, or to garner community reputation to leverage for a future project that is paid.

It's a cynical way to look at what should just be done for the sake of others. Some would call it "clout chasing" and they aren't entirely wrong (not entirely right either, but there's similarities). But you always gotta look out for yourself first. From my decades here, the Internet sure won't. Quite the contrary; it's extraordinary how quickly communities can turn on something if you brush it the wrong way.

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