I really do like KBin and Lemmy and the fediverse on the whole, but development is still young and the userbase still growing. KBin is still basically early access, and Lemmy is buggy. I spent alot of time in reddit and I’m feeling the pain of trying to ween myself from it. Just wanted to here community perspectives and see how other’s are taking it.
For me, I feel a bit of a sore hollow spot for what reddit used to be and watching it implode is not fun for me.
I have a small business and about 20-30% of my traffic/sales came from Reddit. That’s completely disappeared. I’ve seen a huge impact on my business already
One of my conversations as this blew up was with some guy who sold WW2 memoriabilia and promoted his stuff on a small sub. He was kind of confused as to why the main WW2 sub had become inaccessible.
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It looks like it’s restricted still, though not private.
Anyway, I imagine that there are other people in a similar boat.
Ouch. Yeah I still spend $0 in advertising. All my business comes from satisfied customers and word-of-mouth referrals (the way I believe it should be - I loath paid advertisements forced upon people). At one point I a few years back I was one of the top 500,000 websites in the world (Alexa verified).
I’ve taken multiple hits over the years when other platforms (like Youtube) swept through their content and eliminated unpaid “ads” as they see it. I have no clue what the future will hold, and extremely thankful that I have a few distribution partners helping keeping me afloat during these slow times. Maybe the federation’s content will be logged by google and my site will regain it’s popularity.
Best thing you can do to help us small businesses is to give a shout out wherever appropriate (not spam, naturally). Just remind people that XYZ business or brand exists is extremely beneficial and worth more than any paid advertising.
I can’t relate but damn that sucks I’m sorry you’re dealing with this.
Yeah, Reddit has been pulling unsponsored ad content for the past year. I’ve been struggling with sales since I don’t pay for advertising - all my business comes from word of mouth referrals. Same thing happened in 2018 when Youtube swept through and erased a bunch of content.
Fortunately I run a tight ship with minimal overhead so as long as I get some business weekly I can keep the ‘doors’ open. But damn it’s been tough the past 14 months both with the recession and the changes to Reddit. But that’s fine - the slow time gives me a chance to get back to what I enjoy - innovating cool new widgets for the market.
If you want to help us small businesses (all of us are struggling right now), just remember to leave an honest review or mention the business/brand online. A simple word of mouth referral is worth infinitely more than a paid advertisement.