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Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

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Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#121

Post by dotnet00 »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #13

To the people who've been in this situation, what would you do in Huffman's shoes? From my fairly naïve perspective it looks like he's doing a pretty poor job managing this crisis but am I overestimating the trouble he's in? At some point he'll either be forced to back down or replace the mods of the big subs with people willing to cross the picket line, I don't see why he doesn't just pull the plaster off now either…

I'd take a step back, apologize for the Apollo stunt, delay the API pricing by a few months to improve the first party app and, since reddit ultimately does want to kill 3rd parties, offer to buy out the tools and popular apps at some reasonable price (or maybe offer to contract them for whatever changes may be needed to make the tools official).

I think being honest about their goal would've reduced a lot of the backlash. The issue is that they're claiming to be working with the community when it's blatantly obvious that they aren't.

Ideally they'd just go to more reasonable/free API pricing though.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#122

Post by zamalek »

bastijn wrote: post #63
prox wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spez seems like the latest outed manchild amongst CEOs.

That awkward moment you realize Reddit is in a better position to win this war because people like us just want to have a digital place to spend time, not fight a war. Truth be told I don't care much about all of this, I just want my subs back or replaced so I can mindlessly scroll them. Wasn't using a third party app, but if I was I'd probably feel unhappy for a week before I simply switch and don't think back.

I would agree with you were this drama not consistently hitting the frontpage on Reddit. If the users who wouldn't turn back aren't a majority, they are still a significant fraction. That's not good news for the IPO Reddit is hoping for.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#123

Post by DSMan195276 »

depereo wrote: post #74
xyst wrote: post #50

Good. This works out for everybody except the brain dead C-level executives that tried to bully indie app developers. - regular people get a break from their echo chambers - VOLUNTEER mods get a break - journalists get their news article The only loser here is the corporation side. Significant loss of value from decreased user activity. Subsequent loss of revenue. Inability to extract as much value from the users dat…

I added reddit.com to my ublock filters - it was kind of an automatic click a few times a day and it's been a nice way to break the habit so strongly. I've got friends doing the same, and our microcommunity has formed around another platform already, after collectively losing reddit. It was so clearly a half-assed, badly thought out policy. No mention of mod tools. No mention of accessibility tools. No mention of res…

The last part is really what gets me. How could they possibly get that far along with the plan of "charge for the API" without doing a basic analysis of all the stuff people currently use the API for? That really gives an indicating of where their focus is.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#124

Post by bastijn »

wvenable wrote: post #101
bastijn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That awkward moment you realize Reddit is in a better position to win this war because people like us just want to have a digital place to spend time, not fight a war. Truth be told I don't care much about all of this, I just want my subs back or replaced so I can mindlessly scroll them. Wasn't using a third party app, but if I was I'd probably feel unhappy for a week before I simply switch and don't think back.

I've been actively avoiding Reddit during this protest and I just signed up to a Lemmy instance. The UI isn't great but the communities are already pretty hopping. I need to subscribe to a few more things but it seems to handle the fix for now. I'm never using Reddit's awful app -- it's just not how I like to use Reddit. I'm an old.reddit.com kind of person.

The point is for any that is like you my guess is there are 2 more like me. Or 20, or 200. Never checked how much people use 3rd party apps vs. total users.

Honest question, what is so bad about the Reddit app that you would give up browsing the content you like?

I experience little ads, and if I would be annoyed by it I would probably find ways to get rid of it (pi-hole style). I'm OK with how the app displays comments, I can fold them etc. Don't need much more.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#125

Post by donmcronald »

erellsworth wrote: post #43
ThomW wrote: post #18

... until they just take over the moderation of their largest communities and this whole thing ends. I mean what's so magical about the moderation of something like r/videos other than the mods being free labor for Reddit?

I think you underestimate the value of that free labor. Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrut…

> Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrutiny for the kinds of content they allow on their platform. I doubt they'd want to go there.

Oh. Wow. I never thought about that. Does anyone know if section 230 of the DMCA shields Reddit from liability as-is?

>Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers.

And it would be a policy nightmare. Right now, most sub-reddits are flexible in terms of what they'll tolerate. At best I think they could have a single moderation policy applied across all sub-reddits they pay to moderate. Would that work?

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#126

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

xyst wrote: post #50

Good. This works out for everybody except the brain dead C-level executives that tried to bully indie app developers. - regular people get a break from their echo chambers - VOLUNTEER mods get a break - journalists get their news article The only loser here is the corporation side. Significant loss of value from decreased user activity. Subsequent loss of revenue. Inability to extract as much value from the users dat…

> The only loser here is the corporation side.

I'm not convinced they lose out either. The front page doesn't really feel different than it did before. There are a handful of "Reddit is killing third-party applications (and itself). Read more in the comments" posts, but I'm kinda blind to them the same way I'm blind to ads as I scroll past. Otherwise it just feels like any other day on reddit.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#127

Post by Hunter_Barrett »

SecurityMinded wrote: post #112

I am unable to understand this bruhaha about reddit as I am an occasional user of this website and mostly in lurking mode. Was there a promise made to those 3rd party app authors and users that their access would be perpetual, not to be taken away from them, no matter what ? I don't think any for-profit company makes such promises. If you play in someone's walled garden, you should be ready to see them change the rul…

The two biggest issues I've heard brought up (other than the fact that apps like Apollo just work better than the official app and don't have ads) is that moderation tools are dependent upon third-party apps, and third-party apps are more accessible for people with disabilities than the official reddit app.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#128

Post by plsbenice34 »

OldManRyan wrote: post #90
depereo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I added reddit.com to my ublock filters - it was kind of an automatic click a few times a day and it's been a nice way to break the habit so strongly. I've got friends doing the same, and our microcommunity has formed around another platform already, after collectively losing reddit. It was so clearly a half-assed, badly thought out policy. No mention of mod tools. No mention of accessibility tools. No mention of res…

I also added reddit to my ublock filters. Amazing how I never realized how often I go on autopilot and type reddit.com/r/whateversubreddit. If anyone else wants to do it, just add ||reddit.com^$all to your filters in ublock origin.

Thanks, i just did it too since you made it easier to know how

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#129

Post by blibble »

erellsworth wrote: post #43
ThomW wrote: post #18

... until they just take over the moderation of their largest communities and this whole thing ends. I mean what's so magical about the moderation of something like r/videos other than the mods being free labor for Reddit?

I think you underestimate the value of that free labor. Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrut…

if they takeover a few of the higher value subs the majority of moderators will likely fall into line

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#130

Post by 634636346 »

thewataccount wrote: post #59
erellsworth wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the value of that free labor. Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrut…

I support the blackouts but > Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. They don't need to. Aww (36m), music(32m), videos(26m), futurology(18m), me_irl, and abrupt chaos are some of the biggest ones, if they seize just those 6 then they've reclaimed most of the r/popular anyway.

> futurology(18m),

I had no idea futurology was that big. I remember years ago when it used to be a singularity/life-extension/transhumanist subreddit, and then it got brigaded by climate change activists, to the point that most of the articles on the front page were about clean energy, rising sea levels, and recycling. Also a lot of doomer types actually bemoaning life extension outright, because of the usual nonsense about "where will we put ALL THE PEOPLE" and "Drump will live FOREVER." I stopped checking it out years ago, but it serves as a case study of how entryists co-opt and destroy online communities.

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