ELI5: Why can't reddit just unblackout whatever subs they want?
Small subs wouldn't matter, big subs would stink.
Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
221–230 of 485 posts
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 nonsen…
lol good luck getting to the singularity when food scarcity hits riot levels and the coasts are flooding. The future we get is the future we deserve, not the one we fantasize about.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#223Good. 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…
If they forcibly replace mods, Reddit is dead.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#224That's great news. I'm always cheering for the little guy. I love capitalism but I also love people flexing on people that try to abuse their customers.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#225I bit the bullet yesterday and just called it quits.
I was there for a very long time (before it was even “launched” officially).
So I do it with a heavy heart, but I don't think there’s any way of going back for them now. Its been a downward trend for literally years at this point.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've often wondered why people use Reddit for stuff like this since the information and conversation management and organizational tools seem vastly inferior to most any pre-Reddit forum software. My current working theory is largely that internet search is just broken. It's easier to search for subreddit once you're on Reddit than to wade out into the sea of SEO crap and try to find a live, reliable format on the br…
Everyone uses Reddit because everyone uses Reddit. Most people old enough to remember forums agree that forums were a dramatically better solution, but they're generally dead now (with some exceptions). Discourse is almost entirely Reddit or Facebook these days.
I can't agree that forums is dramatically better. I know/remember the feeling when you opens thread in forum with title that you are interested in just to see 200+ pages of slowly ongoing flamewar and spam.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Although I do foresee Reddit “super mods” forcibly removing the blackout through their backend, removing mod status from the “rebels” and inserting their own friendly mods until they can find replacements. I agree this is likely, which will extend the negative reactions further and alienate even more users. Unless Reddit execs do a 180 in the very near future I think the platform will be forever crippled. Large net…
Where will reddit get enough mods to police the hundreds (thousands?) of subreddits each with tens of thousands of members that are rebelling against the API changes? Blocking/firing the existing mods would make the site descend into chaos.
I don't know... I've been on there on and off all day, and it's honestly better today than it has been for a long, long time.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Reddit can't afford to pay the employees they already have out of the revenue they make. That's ostensibly the reason why they raised prices on the API in the first place. Losing all that free labour is absolutely the last thing they want at this juncture. But even ignoring that, suppose all >15M subreddit suddenly get salaried mods. Don't you think the mods of e.g. a 13M subreddit would want a piece of the cake too,…
> Reddit can't afford to pay the employees they already have out of the revenue they make, that's ostensibly the reason why they raised prices on the API in the first place.
I'm sure there'd be plenty of volunteers who already manage several of the big 20M+ subs that didn't go dark. We're only talking about 6 subs, and they aren't that complex.
> Don't you think the mods of e.g. a 13M subreddit would want a piece of the cake too, and would strike to get it?
They don't matter nearly as much. The top few are what make up the home page with a few others just sprinkled in. And again I highly doubt reddit would need to pay mods.
Again we're only talking about 6 subs. Not even double digits. There's already groups of subs that mod many, many large subreddits.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#229Earlier 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…
> 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…
> Does anyone know if section 230 of the DMCA shields Reddit from liability as-is?
It does. (And 230 isn't part of the DMCA, it's the only surviving bit of the CDA).
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are not enough volunteers to handle the load. Companies depend on free labor to moderate things and will never be able to afford the actual cost of doing business without that free labor. I currently moderate 2 subs (down from 5). I'm looking to offload those 2 without having them get banned for being unmoderated (again).
You say this, but it’s only a matter of time until we get AI moderation.
I can't wait to make a seemingly-innocuous post on some subreddit, only to have that post removed for "failing to meet community guidelines" and receive absolutely zero intelligible response from the AI moderators.
To be fair, that's still possible (and sometimes the case) with human moderators, though I find that experience to be exceptionally rare, and the remedy (just don't use that subreddit) easier to perform. At least if the mods of some sub go haywire, users can always create another sub. With widespread use of AI moderation, there'd be nowhere to go to escape.