Reddit Gone Dark

[atomheartbevo 89659]

43 minutes ago, gurt said:

I also agree with all of this.  Reddit as a company has always been an unserious, poorly managed mess (much like Twitter in all its iterations.  Elon is destroying it but it was never going to survive with Jack at the helm either).  It grew in spite of its founders and subsequent leadership. 

It grew because usenet stagnated.

That's what reddit ultimately is to me.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

I’m just gonna go back to mIRC. If only I could remember all the commands.

[immamac 42847]

4 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I've ditched all but affiliate ads at this point on my sites, and I don't load the default advertising javascript, I'm loading some small images with HTML. I also do a few sponsorships from some companies.

I've also started in heavily on SubStack with a paid newsletter (thanks Elon, for pushing me to get off twitter and find better social media/newsletters).

Much better web experience.

 

This is the way

[Celery Man 20944]

Past ads, if you rely on volunteers to maintain your product and they all use third party tooling, you need to address the root cause of that (what is missing in your official tooling) before you kill the third party apps. At least, if you expect to continue to have volunteers maintain your product.

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

1 hour ago, ConferenceRoom said:

Apollo is shuttering on 6/30 and as soon as old.reddit gets shitcanned, I'm out. 

Pretty much this.  Been using Apollo for what feels like a long time, sad to see it go.   Been on reddit a long time, and kept trimming down the subreddits I follow to basically hobbies, dad jokes, and some regional subreddits.   That stated, I've been feeling like for some time it has been something I needed to basically quit wasting time on.  

However, I find some of the best 'how to' and adivce/reviews on products is typically found searching reddit.  Will miss that.

During all the talk of the API issue this article by Cory Doctorow got posted a few times:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

It is a long but good read on why everything internet related goes to shit eventually.

 

[chainsaw 9867]

seems like we're seeing enshittification everywhere not just online.

[HonkeyVape 107]

16 minutes ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Pretty much this.  Been using Apollo for what feels like a long time, sad to see it go.   Been on reddit a long time, and kept trimming down the subreddits I follow to basically hobbies, dad jokes, and some regional subreddits.   That stated, I've been feeling like for some time it has been something I needed to basically quit wasting time on.  

However, I find some of the best 'how to' and adivce/reviews on products is typically found searching reddit.  Will miss that.

During all the talk of the API issue this article by Cory Doctorow got posted a few times:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

It is a long but good read on why everything internet related goes to shit eventually.

 

I was wondering about this, as far as a boycott backfiring (or, maybe just working really well to damage valuation pre-IPO), in that how much of reddit is a bad habit and muscle memory and once jolted from that, maybe people realize this was a waste of time that their life is better not reading what neckbeards have to say about any given topic?

[HRSchenker 2268]

I have a perspective both as a mod and a user. Like @Rimbo mentioned, I'm also someone who left Digg for reddit after they destroyed how we accessed content. Ads don't bother me one bit but if you're going to make it more difficult for me to access content and communicate then I'm gone. I get all of the comments about how the API is structured, opportunity costs for Apollo & RIF, etc. Trust me I get it. I just don't give a shit about it. This protest will do nothing for third party apps and I've come to accept it. I will become a desktop-only user which will cut 95% of my reddit time per day.

I have no loyalties to any social media conglomerate. I cut Digg out like a skin cancer and I'll do it again. 

[Brisketexan 105123]

20 minutes ago, HRSchenker said:

I have a perspective both as a mod and a user. Like @Rimbo mentioned, I'm also someone who left Digg for reddit after they destroyed how we accessed content. Ads don't bother me one bit but if you're going to make it more difficult for me to access content and communicate then I'm gone. I get all of the comments about how the API is structured, opportunity costs for Apollo & RIF, etc. Trust me I get it. I just don't give a shit about it. This protest will do nothing for third party apps and I've come to accept it. I will become a desktop-only user which will cut 95% of my reddit time per day.

I have no loyalties to any social media conglomerate. I cut Digg out like a skin cancer and I'll do it again. 

So.....I ain't techie, like, at all.  So, I'm trying to grasp the big picture.  Is this right/what do I have wrong?

1 -- Reddit is heading for IPO.  To do that, needs to improve revenue position.  Thus, Reddit is going to start charging for API access, with API being a basic element of the Reddit interface for users.

2 -- That API access charge is going to be so expensive, that it will functionally kill all third party apps, and that functionality on Reddit.

3 -- Reddit will thus become much less user-friendly, and will likely lose eyeballs, maybe a lot of them.

4 -- Brisket is confused as to how pissing off your users and causing their eyeballs to head elsewhere is a great business move, but I am apparently not able to figure out all kinds of shit these days that sure seems counter-intuitive. 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

The more important question is, how will the IPO affect all the NSFW content? Asking for me.

[HonkeyVape 107]

18 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

So.....I ain't techie, like, at all.  So, I'm trying to grasp the big picture.  Is this right/what do I have wrong?

1 -- Reddit is heading for IPO.  To do that, needs to improve revenue position.  Thus, Reddit is going to start charging for API access, with API being a basic element of the Reddit interface for users.

2 -- That API access charge is going to be so expensive, that it will functionally kill all third party apps, and that functionality on Reddit.

3 -- Reddit will thus become much less user-friendly, and will likely lose eyeballs, maybe a lot of them.

4 -- Brisket is confused as to how pissing off your users and causing their eyeballs to head elsewhere is a great business move, but I am apparently not able to figure out all kinds of shit these days that sure seems counter-intuitive. 

I think this is right, from what I've read.

I think the "risk" or "bet" that management and bankers are making is that the good (revenue spike) will outweigh the bad (loss of users/content) until the IPO and then they can figure out how to fix the UI/UX after everyone (management, shareholders, bankers) cash out. As risks and bets are wont to do, they could be wrong and this could backfire (e.g. boycott right now, etc.).

For what it's worth, I read that the Apollo CEO "threatened" Reddit CEO on a call with a veiled threat to damage reddit and also made a vague threat of "buy me (Apollo) for $10mm or else". Apollo CEO has denied this.

ETA link for above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36245721#:~:text=Then yesterday%2C moderators told me,He's threatening us."

Edited June 12, 2023 by HonkeyVape

[chainsaw 9867]

19 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

So.....I ain't techie, like, at all.  So, I'm trying to grasp the big picture.  Is this right/what do I have wrong?

1 -- Reddit is heading for IPO.  To do that, needs to improve revenue position.  Thus, Reddit is going to start charging for API access, with API being a basic element of the Reddit interface for users.

2 -- That API access charge is going to be so expensive, that it will functionally kill all third party apps, and that functionality on Reddit.

3 -- Reddit will thus become much less user-friendly, and will likely lose eyeballs, maybe a lot of them.

4 -- Brisket is confused as to how pissing off your users and causing their eyeballs to head elsewhere is a great business move, but I am apparently not able to figure out all kinds of shit these days that sure seems counter-intuitive. 

You're missing something important at step 3. It's not only a form ("user-friendly") problem. It's also a substance problem because those APIs are also important for the volunteer mods who use them to do their jobs. So:

 

3A -- the moderators can't (or won't) do their jobs anymore

3B -- the submissions and discussions will get worse

3C -- what little content remains is going to be un-engaging, scammy, spammy, botty, and mostly inappropriate

3D -- whatever good content left behind on reddit will be hard to find

3E -- TLDR; party's over. It's going to play out basically exactly how it did on the old site.

Edited June 12, 2023 by chainsaw

[HonkeyVape 107]

2 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

You're missing something important at step 3. It's not only a form ("user-friendly") problem. It's also a substance problem because those APIs are also important for the volunteer mods who use them to do their jobs. So:

 

3A -- the moderators can't (or won't) do their jobs anymore

3B -- the submissions and discussions will get worse

3C -- what little content remains is going to be un-engaging, scammy, spammy, botty, and mostly inappropriate

3D -- whatever good content left behind on reddit will be hard to find

3E -- TLDR; party's over. It's going to play out basically exactly how it did on the old site.

Which then brings back up the discussion of using free labor/volunteer labor for mods versus paying for moderation like every other social media has to do.

You can't have it both ways, I think reddit is finding out.

[chainsaw 9867]

Just now, HonkeyVape said:

Which then brings back up the discussion of using free labor/volunteer labor for mods versus paying for moderation like every other social media has to do.

You can't have it both ways, I think reddit is finding out.

They fucked up on two fronts.

1) Hilariously unrealistically short amount of notice about the switch, something like 30 days. Even if anyone could and were inclined to pay, they would have to move mountains behind the scenes to optimize their code such that it doesn't run up the bill. That's not easy to do without breaking things, even if you had like 180 days.

2) Demanding Dr. Evil in Austin Powers 2-like fees for the API, to the point where it would add $20M annually to overhead. No sane person is going to pay those rates.

If they'd intended to approach this with third party developers in good faith I think the timing and the price point would be incredibly different. Nobody ever expected the API to be free, but I believe there was a way to price it so that Reddit could be profitable and so that third party developers can also survive. Since that hasn't happened, the community they spent like 15 years building will collapse.

[Brisketexan 105123]

10 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

You're missing something important at step 3. It's not only a form ("user-friendly") problem. It's also a substance problem because those APIs are also important for the volunteer mods who use them to do their jobs. So:

 

3A -- the moderators can't (or won't) do their jobs anymore

3B -- the submissions and discussions will get worse

3C -- what little content remains is going to be un-engaging, scammy, spammy, botty, and mostly inappropriate

3D -- whatever good content left behind on reddit will be hard to find

3E -- TLDR; party's over. It's going to play out basically exactly how it did on the old site.

Interesting.  So how/why do mods use APIs to do their jobs?  I can understand the effects you listed, I just don't understand the function to which you refer.

[HRSchenker 2268]

13 minutes ago, HonkeyVape said:

I think this is right, from what I've read.

I think the "risk" or "bet" that management and bankers are making is that the good (revenue spike) will outweigh the bad (loss of users/content) until the IPO and then they can figure out how to fix the UI/UX after everyone (management, shareholders, bankers) cash out. As risks and bets are wont to do, they could be wrong and this could backfire (e.g. boycott right now, etc.).

For what it's worth, I read that the Apollo CEO "threatened" Reddit CEO on a call with a veiled threat to damage reddit and also made a vague threat of "buy me (Apollo) for $10mm or else". Apollo CEO has denied this.

ETA link for above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36245721#:~:text=Then yesterday%2C moderators told me,He's threatening us."

I don't know why he denied it since he posted the audio of the phone call where he told them he'd go away for $10 million lol 

[chainsaw 9867]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

Interesting.  So how/why do mods use APIs to do their jobs?  I can understand the effects you listed, I just don't understand the function to which you refer.

I don't know all the specifics or the latest and greatest but the tools monitor the forum and send notifications any time something significant that warrants moderator attention has happened. That functionality all depends on the API, of course.

In terms of non-passive functionality, I can easily imagine circumstances where maybe you have a bunch of russian bots attempting to brigade your community, and without an app (based on the API) that can quickly show you who's who you're going to have a hard time breaking out the ban hammer.

I'm sure someone else here can elaborate further on what it takes to moderate an active online community, but I know for damn sure it's real work and if anyone got used to doing it a certain way with certain tools they aren't going to appreciate having to revert to doing anything manually or using Reddit's shitty interface.

It's almost like asking lawyers not to use computers or the internet, and instead to use typewriters and dusty-ass libraries.
 

[Celery Man 20944]

46 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Interesting.  So how/why do mods use APIs to do their jobs?  I can understand the effects you listed, I just don't understand the function to which you refer.

 

API powers any application that is using “Reddit”, whether that is the official Reddit app or a third party app. Official Reddit app is dogshit and is especially so for power users like mods, and now the third party apps that have the features to enable moderators to do their thing (as well as people with accessibility issues, etc) can’t operate.

[gurt 748]

1 hour ago, chainsaw said:

You're missing something important at step 3. It's not only a form ("user-friendly") problem. It's also a substance problem because those APIs are also important for the volunteer mods who use them to do their jobs. So:

 

3A -- the moderators can't (or won't) do their jobs anymore

3B -- the submissions and discussions will get worse

3C -- what little content remains is going to be un-engaging, scammy, spammy, botty, and mostly inappropriate

3D -- whatever good content left behind on reddit will be hard to find

3E -- TLDR; party's over. It's going to play out basically exactly how it did on the old site.

Based on Huffman's post a lot of the mod tool issues will be remediated.  Granted, he hasn't really earned the right to take him at his word, so we'll see.

[gurt 748]

I personally don't think this will amount to that much.  Frankly I think too many people are addicted (myself included) and there won't be a large drop off of people who have the willpower to stay away just bc they have to use a worse mobile app.

[chainsaw 9867]

6 minutes ago, gurt said:

Based on Huffman's post a lot of the mod tool issues will be remediated.  Granted, he hasn't really earned the right to take him at his word, so we'll see.

You talking about this part?
 

Quote

We know many communities rely on tools like RES, ContextMod, Toolbox, etc., and these tools will continue to have free access to the Data API.

If so that might help but as you say there's a trust problem and saying "Data API" instead of something unambiguously broader strikes me as weaselly

[Rimbo 25924]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Interesting.  So how/why do mods use APIs to do their jobs?  I can understand the effects you listed, I just don't understand the function to which you refer.

The "why" is simply because Reddit doesn't provide those tools out of the box. Neither does it provide screen-reader capabilities for the blind, which third party apps do.

[NoName 16351]

3 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

So, it boils down to users not wanting to see ads which is main/only source of income for reddit?

negative. it boils down to me wanting to access a link aggregator with an app that isn't shit and that is customizable to work in the way i want it to work.

reddit could have done lots of things to add ads to the API. but they didn't. they have had literally 17 years to come up with good apps and haven't. hell for the first ~11 years of existence they didn't have mobile apps at all (05-14) - then they bought the largest iOS app (AlienBlue), rolled out their own app and killed AB.

i purchased the app i use now on both android and ios before they had an official app. i have been around there for 12+ years on my current account and lurked under another username for a while before that.

-

reddit made $500m in revenue last year and STILL were not profitable.

here is their growth rate by year:

not sure where they are now but they were about the same in 2021 vs 2020 i believe.

they have never really had a good way to make money. they have said that it is <5% of their total traffic from third party apps. if that 5% makes or breaks their company...then they are in trouble. they were going to charge the largest 3rd party app on iOS, which IIRC has like 1.5m active users? and would have required him to pay more than $20m / year to access API that has been free for 17 (!) years.

this is worth a read: https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/

also keep in mind they themselves said that they didn't want to be like twitter with their API costs:

pricing:

why he's shutting it down:

timeline:

this is a step back for many long term users, for every mod of any subreddit of any size, for anyone who needs accessibility help (blind, etc) - and it probably won't make a difference.

that's ok, a ton of users are leaving, mods are pissed, it was handled horribly, Spez showed yet again for the Nth time he has no business being in charge of a publicly traded company (or any other) and suddenly I am going to have a ton more time on my hands.

tl;dr - it's not about the ads. i pay for the app i use and would pay a monthly fee to reddit in order to keep using it but instead they want to funnel everyone to their truly dreadful official app. instead, many users including me won't ever use the service again.

keep in mind, their entire business model is built on free labor - links/content posted by users for free to their service, moderated by users who do it for free and accessed by mobile apps that they do not pay a dime to develop. running off any power users when you are a link aggregator has a much larger impact than twitter did if i was some guy with a ton of followers who suddenly stopped posting or some kind of prolific mod that kept a subreddit reasonable. IMO, they need power users more than any website/service on the internet.

Edited June 12, 2023 by NoName

[NoName 16351]

3 hours ago, Blotto said:

Agreed. This is all driven by the upcoming IPO. The last round of funding was completed at ~$10B valuation, so presumably those investors will want a profitable exit, which would be tough based on their current revenue estimates $450M (primarily from advertising). So rather than accept that they might have to IPO at a suboptimal valuation, they hatched this plan to juice revenues.

If I was asking questions on their IPO roadshow, I would ask the CEO how it is that Reddit now employs close to 3000 people and their UI and content management tools suck so bad that power users prefer to use 3rd party front ends like Apollo, which are created by one or a handful of people. This is a "problem" of their own creation. Imo, they should figure out how to maximize the value of their content as a data source for AI engine training perspective, and get that money from the AI companies that stand to make bank (Google, ChatGPT, etc...). 

I'm probably on reddit daily and while not a power user, find it one of the more interesting sites online. If it goes tits up tomorrow, I'll just migrate to whatever replaces it, and something else always does. 

the IPO is what is driving everything. Fidelity (who led their last round of funding) cut their stake's value at the start of this month and the investment is down by 41% since the last round in Aug 2021.

[NoName 16351]

2 hours ago, HonkeyVape said:

I was wondering about this, as far as a boycott backfiring (or, maybe just working really well to damage valuation pre-IPO), in that how much of reddit is a bad habit and muscle memory and once jolted from that, maybe people realize this was a waste of time that their life is better not reading what neckbeards have to say about any given topic?

guess we found the guy who never went beyond the default subs the one time he tried reddit in 2017 before going back to ifunny

[hayden_horn 11362]

4 hours ago, immamac said:

I'm actually trying to figure out how to get rid of traditional display ads entirely and monetize surly. It's much harder and the value has to be there for the spnsor/partner but I do think there is a way to do it at scale without display ads. (banners, siderails, etc) 

you figure it out, and you can write your own check, man, because you just solved the cold fusion problem of 21st century advertising. 

it's amazing to me that we are trying to use an advertising model that is essentially more than a century old, predates even television, in the modern era, even FOR radio, much less the goddamn internet. 

all the metrics are fucked and stupid, i what i think.

[satyanash 14484]

5 hours ago, Hefeweizen said:

I quit using Reddit, the website sucks and third party apps are the only way to make it usable.  It joined Twitter in being deleted from my phone which frees up more time that I used to waste.

Reddit is a single entity, but I've always interacted with it as a bunch of separate communities, in that I only ever subscribe to/view/post to certain specific ones. I almost never go to /r/all which is generally a trashfire - 'outrage-mongering clickbait' is a term I've heard that accurately describes the content of most of the political subreddits. Old Reddit + RES/toolbox + uBlock Origin is how I've always interacted with Reddit via desktop, and I never really understood the switch to the newer Facebook-ified layout.

There used to be a great Reddit compact layout for mobile users, but it was axed a few months ago because it didn't give Reddit adequate space to display ads. That really sucked. Presumably most of the Reddit compact users were old people (like me 😆) and old people generally don't download apps... so IDK if Reddit thought that decision through very well.

Edited June 12, 2023 by satyanash

[totallynotabuttpirate 5398]

3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

.....Annoying if you worked in the next office over, as you'd hear everything they were looking at, and a lot of them seemed to prefer their text to be sped up.  Hilarious when they got porn spam though.

 

[G650 14254]

2 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

I will become a desktop-only user

 

I honestly didn't realize there was any other kind.

 

Reddit is very good for news on niche interests, I follow the r/peleton sub for pro cycling and r/formula1, but reddit has never in it's history been like say Twitter, which is probably the most useful current news aggregator out. The signal to noise ratio on reddit in general has always been dogshit, you could never use it for real time updates on things so using an app for it seems counterintuitive.

[NoName 16351]

9 minutes ago, satyanash said:

There used to be a great Reddit compact layout for mobile users, but it was axed a few months because it didn't give Reddit adequate space to display ads. That really sucked.

i.reddit.com i believe, which was killed after they said that they wouldn't kill it. evidently it still works on desktop but forward you to new reddit if you have a mobile user agent.

also, sounds now you can use some combo of old and compact together as long as they don't kill old.reddit

example: https://old.reddit.com/r/news.compact

[Celery Man 20944]

Twitter (in the before times) was good scrolling for some distraction and some "what is happening right now". Reddit is not good scrolling for news updates (in my experience) but is for general... "i have selected dozens of a la carte subjects that I'm interested in and will find interesting links/discussions/arguments about those things".

Of course the most normie Reddit experience is this 

 

[G650 14254]

4 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Twitter (in the before times) was good scrolling for some distraction and some "what is happening right now". Reddit is not good scrolling for news updates (in my experience) but is for general... "i have selected dozens of a la carte subjects that I'm interested in and will find interesting links/discussions/arguments about those things".

Precisely.

[atomheartbevo 89659]

2 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

I have a perspective both as a mod and a user. Like @Rimbo mentioned, I'm also someone who left Digg for reddit after they destroyed how we accessed content. Ads don't bother me one bit but if you're going to make it more difficult for me to access content and communicate then I'm gone. I get all of the comments about how the API is structured, opportunity costs for Apollo & RIF, etc. Trust me I get it. I just don't give a shit about it. This protest will do nothing for third party apps and I've come to accept it. I will become a desktop-only user which will cut 95% of my reddit time per day.

I have no loyalties to any social media conglomerate. I cut Digg out like a skin cancer and I'll do it again. 

I'm also both a mod and a user and president for the hair club for men and on the one hand, the demographics of the subs I help mod are not the ones using 3rd-party clients, etc., a lot as they usually found reddit through a web search and usually pop in for specific info. Reddit is a website that helps them out for the most part, and not a social media platform like we think of it.

On the other hand, the people in my subs, well the only reason they are on reddit is because what they used in the past was shut down in one form or another (sometimes archived in place, sometimes deleted), or moderation stopped for those forums and spam filled up the forums, so in theory they won't be as affected as the hardcore users,and they've also already bounced between platforms so moving again would not be a annoyance.

I'm being vague as hell because I don't want to dox myself, but as a mod, I've been careful to keep my personal "projects" that relate to the subs separate (as in people don't know  that websites that are occasionally mentioned, or that are listed in the FAQ/sidebar are mine).  BUT, If things go to complete shit though, I can throw forums up on one of my sites within a few hours and take on a chunk of the people in the subs I help moderate if they bail.

And yeah, that's flying in the face of some of the reddit rules, but I can't recall the last time a paid employee helped us or talked to us.

Reddit is fucking lucky nobody else has a similar site or can build one that can scale up quickly - Facebook/Meta, etc. are not interested in running a massive forum.

[MoJames 8244]

[Celery Man 20944]

ahb is being humble, he was a mod for r/antiwork during a period of rapid growth before taking a break for personal reasons

Edited June 12, 2023 by Celery Man

[atomheartbevo 89659]

24 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

ahb is being humble, he was a mod for r/antiwork during a period of rapid growth before taking a break for personal reasons

/thestorm or whatever.  I came up with JFK still being alive for decades after Dallas, and JFK Jr hiding in plain site, and Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks stealing the fluids of children to stay young looking.

[Hefeweizen 5320]

I will miss the following subreddits:

\ohlympics

\nostalgiafapping

\askhistorians

\montereybay

\10s

\patientgamers

 

And that’s about it.  Tennis porn and games.

[Rimbo 25924]

3 hours ago, gurt said:

Based on Huffman's post a lot of the mod tool issues will be remediated.  Granted, he hasn't really earned the right to take him at his word, so we'll see.

they've claimed that before

[Rimbo 25924]

2 hours ago, gurt said:

I personally don't think this will amount to that much.  Frankly I think too many people are addicted (myself included) and there won't be a large drop off of people who have the willpower to stay away just bc they have to use a worse mobile app.

I think it'll be hard to say. The people most harmed by this are the people who by and large made the best content on the site.

[atomheartbevo 89659]

27 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

I think it'll be hard to say. The people most harmed by this are the people who by and large made the best content on the site.

I think so as well, or rather that it's too early.  I think it'll be everything that happens during and after this current issue(s) the IPO, etc. that decides how things play out. They still have time to right the ship - make the right movies and they'll keep most people (but people will be extremely wary of them going forward), but I think they have an extremely narrow window to get their shit together.

Usenet, that I mentioned earlier, is a shitty example, mainly because it's decentralized and can't easily be changed, which is also why it's been on life support for years/decades.  But for a long time, it had a massive reach/influence as kind of a general BBS/town square where you could find hyper-specific forums, much like with reddit.

And Google has maintained Google Groups, which is both a gateway into usenet, as well as its own forum with plenty of special-interest groups, so ironically, Google actually has something that currently exists, that could be used to jumpstart a reddit replacement at-scale.  And it's got mailing lists, notifications, etc., in addition to its group functionality.

The co-founder/CEO of reddit was born in the 80s, so in theory he should be familiar with GeoCities, MySpace, etc., as well as the recent example of Musk fucking around and driving away a shitload of people, followed by multiple replacement/alternatives popping up that will further divide/eat at twitter. And he would be familiar with Digg, del.icio.us, probably Slashdot (no way he was not reading Slashdot 20 years ago).

[chainsaw 9867]

I'm just waiting to see where the good communities end up. Like any good bar, while management and staff play an important role, ultimately the patrons are what makes or breaks a place.

[Blotto 23498]

56 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I think so as well, or rather that it's too early.  I think it'll be everything that happens during and after this current issue(s) the IPO, etc. that decides how things play out. They still have time to right the ship - make the right movies and they'll keep most people (but people will be extremely wary of them going forward), but I think they have an extremely narrow window to get their shit together.

.

.

.

The co-founder/CEO of reddit was born in the 80s, so in theory he should be familiar with GeoCities, MySpace, etc., as well as the recent example of Musk fucking around and driving away a shitload of people, followed by multiple replacement/alternatives popping up that will further divide/eat at twitter. And he would be familiar with Digg, del.icio.us, probably Slashdot (no way he was not reading Slashdot 20 years ago).

If the crunchbase can be believed, Reddit has raised $1.3 billion to date. I wasn't aware of this until I was just reading about company history, but Reddit was originally sold to Conde Nast for $10-$20 Million a year after it launched in 2006. Both founders left a couple of years later and then returned after mismanagement in 15/16. So while Huffman is the CEO of the company and probably has enough options to make taking the collateral damage worth his while, he doesnt have the founder "pull" that is typical in pre-IPO scenarios. Advanced Publications (parent company of Conde Naste) is the largest shareholder, and they and the VCs are probably calling the shots here. Which means "give us a revenue story so we can IPO this bitch and dump it on retail investors. If you dont agree, go fuck yourself and we'll find a CEO that does."

[MNLonghornFUKM 8817]

Probably the biggest nothing burger of my life because I visit about 5 subs, 3 of them are dark.

This is so dumb but the sun will rise tomorrow. And the next day. Maybe some Reddit users Will go look at it

[burntorangebongos 10710]

8 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

So, it boils down to users not wanting to see ads which is main/only source of income for reddit?

No, it is also that they won't allow 3rd party apps like those used by blind people to have a site read out loud to them. In the service dogs reddit group, they were saying it is discriminating against these 3rd party service type apps and the reddit app doesn't have the features to allow the blind to use it so it will effectively keep them out of the subreddits that are meant to pair service dogs with disabled people. It completely fucks them over.

[Michael Knight 12977]

If they aren't careful Reddit will go the rest of Digg

 

https://reddark.untone.uk

[Captain Ron 12876]

3 hours ago, NoName said:

they have never really had a good way to make money. they have said that it is <5% of their total traffic from third party apps. if that 5% makes or breaks their company...then they are in trouble. they were going to charge the largest 3rd party app on iOS, which IIRC has like 1.5m active users? and would have required him to pay more than $20m / year to access API that has been free for 17 (!) years.

 

keep in mind, their entire business model is built on free labor - links/content posted by users for free to their service, moderated by users who do it for free and accessed by mobile apps that they do not pay a dime to develop. running off any power users when you are a link aggregator has a much larger impact than twitter did if i was some guy with a ton of followers who suddenly stopped posting or some kind of prolific mod that kept a subreddit reasonable. IMO, they need power users more than any website/service on the internet.

This is probably the crux of the problems with sites like Twitter and Reddit - they are taking a site/service/product that has been free for a long time and turning them into pay services. What did they think was going to happen?

For good or ill, the internet seems to have been founded on a free via advertising model. Back when sites could have figured out that the better way to monetize these sites would have been make them subscription based in some way (even if through micro-subscriptions), then we aren't where we are that everyone expects their sites to be free.

How does this end? Who knows. I am not a huge reddit user. I know the site, I find some good information there (like how to repurpose my Slingbox after the shutdown to still work via my own servers), but I am not the core user. But I can say this, I have watched tons of sites crash, almost overnight (I remember Digg), I am curious to see what happens to Reddit now.

[Rimbo 25924]

1 hour ago, Captain Ron said:

For good or ill, the internet seems to have been founded on a free via advertising model.

um... no. Not even remotely.

The Internet was founded as a paid-for-by-taxes public service.

[Sawbonz 27551]

I expected Reddit Gone Dark to be something different 

[Stinkpalm 687]

13 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

I joined reddit years ago in and used to post there somewhat regularly.  The site has gotten worse over the years, along with the rest of the internet, but it was never that great to begin with.  They used to have truly terrible subreddits that were extremely popular.  

This blackout will accomplish nothing.  Admins can just replace mods whenever they want, and there is an endless supply of folks who will do the job.  The internet is controlled by corporations and PR firms.  This is why there is virtually no original content any more, and whatever you read is almost certainly talking points designed to get you to buy products or vote a certain way.   

I hear 8badmofo is tanned, rested, and ready

[Bama Chick 28596]

I just want my r/PedroPascal and
r/LoveIslandUK subs back please!

I need my daily dose of hot Pedro gifs and I need to discuss the drama from tonight’s episode of “Love Island UK”, damnit!!!