Exactly as the title says, do you guys think Reddit will buckle and at least be more reasonable or maybe even reverse their current decisions?
Edit: if not lemmy to the moon 🚀
No. They are trying to finalize an IPO. No amount of anything is going to stop them from this cash grab.
Short term, I agree with you. Long term, for me it’s a virtual certainty that Huffman is fired as CEO of Reddit within one year of an IPO. At that point, the community and content may have deteriorated so much that a new CEO sees value in re-opening the API and third-party apps, probably with some kind of revenue share/ad delivery aspect, and maybe with a (sensible) fee for the biggest users.
EDIT: having just discovered Manifold Markets (thanks @lixus98 !) I’ve created a market for this: https://manifold.markets/IE/will-steve-huffman-be-fired-or-resi
The IPO will catch on fire, burn up and fall over into the swamp. The last thing you need in the 11th hour of an IPO is bad press and protests.
The move overall smacks of desperation. The investors aren’t blind. Spez is openly calling out that they’re not profitable, on the eve of the IPO.
Honestly, all things considered in his rock solid stance I’m expecting more of a fire sale.
I don’t think they’ll cave in, and honestly I don’t care what they do.
People like us made reddit what it is, and we can make a home somewhere else one way or the other.
It’s time we take the internet as a whole back from the billionaires and their soulless venture capital firms anyway.
Make internet nerdy again, I always say.
I completely agree!
The less algorithms the better
Their MBAs already crunched the numbers and included users like us in the “acceptable loss” category
They would rather you all be gone to be replaced with casuals who can be more profitable
I’m not convinced it’ll completely back down but I suspect there is a chance they’ll lower the pricing structure to a more ‘reasonable’ amount.
If I put my tinfoil hat on I’d say this was the plan from the start;
- Announce something ludicrous
- Get the users a bit fired up
- Backtrack to what you’d always planned
- Play it all off like “See, we listen to you guys, aren’t we good?”
I just can’t see that being the plan with how heavily spez burned bridges with some of the app devs.
Accusing the Apollo dev of blackmail then doubling down once caught in the lie pretty much guarantees Apollo won’t continue with any pricing level.
That seems to be the way it works with a lot of platforms and products.
I think it depends on how successful the blackout is, because truthfully, most Reddit users probably don’t care about 3rd party apps, and just want to continue using Reddit, but if their favorite communities shut down indefinitely, I think there’s a chance.
But Spez also seems dead set on their plan, so only time will tell. But on the bright side, if it doesn’t we’ll see tons of new faces here
Agreed that most Reddit users don’t care about 3rd party apps. They are also more likely just to be lurkers and not interact with the content as much, besides up and downvoting.
So if a larger number of the power users leave, Reddit’s content could become more stale and just turn people off from going to the site.
Of course this is all very hypothetical and I don’t have stats to back any of this up. It’s just a hunch.
As a long time reddit lurker, I care very much that RIF is dead :/
They might not care about the 3rd party apps themselves, but having massive functioning communities would be near impossible using only the official moderating tools. The quality of the website is going to diminish a lot. A lot of niche communities have only a handful of spare time moderators that benefit greatly from the 3rd party api. It’s not possible to say the exact scope of problems until the day comes, but by most accounts it’s going to be a massive hit.
The quality of the website is going to diminish a lot.
Even still, people will hold on and reminisce of the good old days for another 10 years. The impact will be notable, but you can’t save them all.
I forgot the sub, but I saw one that did a poll and it was only around 20% of their users who used a third party app. It surprised me because for a long time there wasn’t even an official Reddit mobile app, so I figured most people would have settled on a third party app years ago. Plus they’re so much better.
Anyway, my hope is that Reddit is more vulnerable to a user revolt than most social media sites because the loud voices that do most of the posting are exactly the people who are most upset about what’s going on now. I certainly remember how a vocal group of users turned the tide against the Digg all those years ago.
The content became stale years ago imo.
don’t have stats to back any of this up
But look how fast Mr Trump’s network - truth? Truthier? - dried up. I forget why, but I’m assuming that after each hillbilly is done virtue-signaling then there’s little left to do but get off the site or plan a cou-- oh, now I remember.
Valid point, I wonder how the quality of posts will be if power users leave… and then you got the moderation site of things too. Will be interesting to see how it all turns out.
My guess is that it’ll still exist, but worse overall. Less content, less quality content, less engagement, more shitposts. It’ll live on as a shell of what it used to be.
I hope you’re right but I think most people will go on and use it. If they quit for the next couple of days, they will go back after a while.
Does anybody have the numbers for twitter? How many people stayed away?
I am a former redditor (and mostly lurker) who never used a third party app for Reddit. I still quit. Have hope.
When on pc I exclusively used the new reddit format (so not old.reddit) and was used to it. But on the phone it was only Apollo for years, and I mostly consumed reddit on my phone. I was considering ditching reddit mainly because of how they’ve now (most likely successfully) tried to muscle out 3rd party app developers in order to force mobile users on their own app; but now sifting through kbin here the conversations and the topics seem much more genuine than reddit as well. I think you kind of start to become desensitized to the bot network and hivemind with time, so it’s a nicely refreshing experience really.
This is how I feel, too. I spent a long time on reddit searching for places with genuine, meaningful conversation, and Reddit had it more compared to other social media, but it’s clear that fediverse exceeds in providing that space.
Very much this take. I came to Reddit because it mostly housed the communities/topics I cared about. I can’t in good faith continue using a platform that has decided it is worth more than the users who provide content for it.
If you post about your disdain for Reddit’s handling of the situation on a mainstream subreddit you get downvoted and spammed with “official app isn’t that bad” replies.
The sad truth is: only power users care about 3rd Party Apps and those make up for a very small percentage of the userbase.
Reddit doesn’t care about us.
The sad truth is: only power users care about 3rd Party Apps and those make up for a very small percentage of the userbase.
Maybe a small percentage of the overall userbase, *but *a huge percentage of the mods (who do most of the janitorial work that keeps the place mostly clean of spam and other miscreants so it’s usable) use those 3rd party apps.
That’s what I’m hoping for. We’ll see come June 15th how the blackout really affected the site, and on July 1st if content creators / mods / power users where really committed to the cause.
It will definitely get worse and worse, users that don’t like this will simply go to other websites/forums, however many will remain on reddit.
I have over the years bought licenses for three different third party reddit apps, so yes it does matter to me. The same way it did when all five third party Twitter apps that I owned licenses for went dark.
I like to support apps that make my life easier, and I hate seeing ads.
Even then, I am really curious if someone at Reddit Inc crunched the numbers about the amount of power users that use 3rd party apps.
Or even the people who are maybe not power users but just people who are not lurkers.
For some reason and it is just a hunch, I feel that they are more or less desperate for the userbase that used 3rd party applications mainly.
I mean they say that is an “insignificant” amount that use 3rd party apps. If that was true then they would not go in “this” hard on the crackdown I assume.
Really, we don’t even need a full on reddit collapse to have success. What is needed is enough traffic for the fediverse so it can evolve and grow into something even better than reddit/twitter/etc are now. At least imo.
Just like what happened with Digg back in the day
Honestly can’t say I care at this point. I rather want Reddit to burn to the ground so that we get some real improvements on other platforms. From the admins to the mods to the users, the platform is just so rotten at this point that it takes most of the fun out of it.
Eh. The more bad decisions they make, the better it will be for the Fediverse. And with the way things are with corpos across the board, I prefer that at this point.
Agreed. They showed their hand. Better for everyone if they just double down. Rip off the bandaid.
The things that happened first with Twitter and now with Reddit, proved to me that it’s pointless to put trust in closed-source. So even if they decide to revert changes (which they won’t do), I lost my trust already. Why do I have to rely on them if alternatives are available?
Decentralization and FOSS are the solution. They have their problems. True, but they solve many BS in social media.
Hell will freeze over before they change course. “It’s all in the game.” to quote one of my favourite series ever.
There you go giving a fuck when it ain’t your turn to give a fuck.
It doesn’t really matter. Spez burned all the bridges with the main 3PA devs. None of them will want to invest time and effort again for a company that treats them like this and could change its mind again on a whim.
This is the important part, I think: Spez showed that he will grind up his marketing partners - as 3PA devs are - into today’s lunch … and likely hope there’s more to eat tomorrow.
Maybe, but there’s a lot of profit to be made in making third party apps
Only just a little, to try to get back valuable users without disappointing shareholders, probably with some vague and fake promise.
In any case, the AMA has caused a permanent trust damage for many users
Reddit only really exists because of three things: 1) the company that pays the server bills; 2) the users who ADD content; 3) the moderators who curate their communities, fight spam, etc., etc. The demographics of 2) and 3) are HEAVILY skewed towards third-party apps, especially 3). By blocking third-party apps there will almost certainly be a significant decrease in content creation, and a definite decrease in the quality of moderation. Both of these will hurt Reddit, especially in the long-term. Spez has played his hand really poorly here, and has overestimated the switching costs to other platforms. I’m already feeling at home on Lemmy and kbin, if and hopefully when the communities get repopulated, it’s going to be just fine.
I really doubt there’s anything the user base could do to change the company’s path. There are millions of people that will continue to use their product regardless of bad UI and even worse PR. It’s not what the average reddit user is concerned with. The lowest common denominator just wants an outlet to consume media, and Reddit can still deliver that.
My personal opinion on all of this - Reddit will continue to grow and change, and it will get worse and worse for longtime users who remember the earlier years. I’m happy to abandon ship now so that it’s no longer my problem at least.
Sorry for the downer reply lol
Reddit will continue to grow and change, and it will get worse and worse for longtime users who remember the earlier years. I’m happy to abandon ship now so that it’s no longer my problem at least.
Exactly how I feel. I don’t think this will have a huge effect on the overall number of people on Reddit, but I certainly do think it will have a large effect on the moderation quality, and overall content/discussion quality. Reddit is, and has been, on its way to joining the homogenized social media group, that a lot of us were on Reddit to avoid.
Honestly I think the AMA showed that they are not backing down. Spez answered like 14 total questions on an AMA with 30k comments the last I checked. They don’t seem to care, and I don’t see there being a significant number of people actually leaving reddit either, the alternatives just don’t fix the problems people are having with reddit. If you use a 3rd party app because it has more features, are you going to leave the platform for another platform that only has one 3rd party app?
If you use a 3rd party app because it has more features, are you going to leave the platform for another platform that only has one 3rd party app?
We’re here, aren’t we?
Reddit has done many shady, anti-user, and blatantly corporate things over the years, but effectively killing off the way I’ve interfaced with Reddit for over a decade is the biggest and final nail, of many, in the coffin of Reddit’s death to me. Rest in Piss.
I agree. I found it easier to transition because I follow mostly smaller tech subreddits that already had a presence here, or quickly started one. I only posted 70 comments total and almost nothing recently. I am more concerned about the power users, mods, and people who need things like screen readers not being able to make the jump. In my opinion Lemmy needs those users more than lurkers.
I feel it. I followed a lot of innocuous bullshit, random stuff, and most of my comments followed suit. It’s been a long while since I felt like I could have a conversation on most parts of Reddit. There are some niche communities, and things that don’t work well without a lot of users, that I’ll miss, but I’m mostly glad to be not spending so much time on Reddit.
I do hope that the open-source nature of Lemmy, and the fediverse in general, will foster a better relationship between developers/admins and users/mods, and more development towards what the mods and users want and need out of the platform. I do have optimism for the future of such an open platform, although I do remember a time when Reddit’s software was open-source too.
I can’t personally speak for the accessibility issue, so I don’t know if it’s a problem here, but open-source should definitely help with that too.
although I do remember a time when Reddit’s software was open-source too.
Reddit used the MIT license which is dogshit. It not only allows people to steal your work and not contribute back, but it also allows you to revoke the Open Source nature at any time.
Lemmy uses AGPL, which is pretty much the best pro-Open Source license out there. It is copyright violation to run a modified Lemmy instance and decline sharing the source code.
Edit: and just following up on this, it’s thanks to AGPL that Truth Social had to release their source code too.
Well that’s good to know, thanks for the info. I’m a garbage programmer so I’m not familiar with the nuances of open-source licenses, and have only ever used MIT, because it was the most permissive and I never wrote anything worth stealing or that I really gave a shit about lmao.
For me personally. I don’t use a 3rd party app because it has “more” features. I use it because it has an option for me to use reddit in an almost barebone way possible.
It is like old.reddit converted into an mobile application. It is how I like to consume that type of content.
On my screen it is 10 posts, small thumbnail on the side and no noise.
If Reddit itself had an option for the mobile app that would give me the same experience than indeed we wouldn’t be here (yet).
But the whole social media type feed style crap is just not how I want to consume that content.
Implicit in the question is the hope that Reddit will buckle so we can all happily go back there. However this whole debacle has opened people’s eyes to a better, brighter future for the internet, where not all is controlled by large corporations. So even if Reddit does buckle, many will stick around at Lemmy. Not because Lemmy’s content is better (it will be eventually, although now it remains a bit sparse) but because the whole ethos is superior.
