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submitted 2 years ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout today, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! Thanks!

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[-] poohbear@toons.zone 104 points 2 years ago

Yeah, don't hold your breath for a Lemmy/kbin port of Apollo:

The amount of work it would take to port all the API endpoints over to Lemmy or Kbin or something, that would be a gargantuan amount of work that I’m not sure I have the capacity for. And then just the complexity of making it work. Long term, it’s a big question mark for me that, at this stage, I’m not sure I’m totally interested in pursuing. But it’s also one of those things where I completely wish it the best. And if something that was decentralized kind of became the norm, I think that would definitely be a win for everybody.

[-] ImpeccableMithril@beehaw.org 45 points 2 years ago

Great interview from Christian there, it really is so frustrating that Reddit is and has been so hostile towards him. :(

[-] spoonful@beehaw.org 27 points 2 years ago

Can you imagine the dumbasses at Reddit corporate thinking they could turn him into a villain? lol

The leadership is so incredibly dumb that it almost feels like sabotage.

[-] LemmyAtem@beehaw.org 29 points 2 years ago

Honestly, it was probably intentional. People shit on spez (rightfully) but he's doing his job perfectly. He's looking like an incompetent man child, and finger pointing at a third party using an obviously and probably intentionally weak narrative. He's put all the focus on himself and how stupid he looks. He's a punching bag, and in the mean time everyone at the corporate level that actually enacted these changes and is forcing this platform shift is remaining a) anonymous and b) out of the crosshairs.

[-] comicallycluttered@beehaw.org 19 points 2 years ago

Ah, the business world.

Fucks over Ellen Pao so that all hatred is directed at her, discovers a few years later that corporate can do the same to him.

surprisedpikachu

Although, I think he hasn't actually learned this yet and still believes he's doing a great job. His comments a few years ago about how he "sees [himself] as a leader, rather than a slave" speak to his arrogance (and also his weird philosophies; I'm pretty sure this is a dude who unironically considers himself a real life Hank Rearden... shiver).

It'll actually be really funny if they just knock him out of the way just before the IPO. CEO makes bad decisions and proves to be a liability. IPO not looking as profitable. Get rid of CEO to gain trust from investors? Launch IPO. Take the money and run. Of course, the decisions were on them as well, but of course they'll claim no credit for it.

I'm sure he has contingencies in place, but still. It would be a hilarious end to his tenure if something like that happened.

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[-] TheiaTheMoonMaker@beehaw.org 86 points 2 years ago

AskHistorians is taking the approach of “blackout for two days, then read-only moving forward indefinitely.” I think that’s a good approach as it still removes the functionality of the subreddit while reminding people of what they’re missing out on due to the admins’ actions.

I know there are bigger subs, but AskHistorians is an absolute jewel in Reddit’s crown. For all the dumpster fire subs that raise controversy and drag Reddit’s image down, AskHistorians is the one sub that could always be pointed to as a sub with an inarguably positive impact. It’s also a sub in a unique position because its moderators are probably the hardest for Reddit to replace, because many of them are the historians that answer the questions, or have personal relationships with those that do. In addition most of the historians aren’t really Redditors, participating only on AskHistorians. Removing the current mod team and replacing them would absolutely 100% kill the sub forever.

Not that I have any faith in Reddit to do the right thing. I just think it’s interesting to realize just how different of a position AskHistorians in than the rest of the subreddits, being at the same time more impactful than their subscriber numbers show, while being fragile enough to be permanently broken if handled poorly. They are also one of the only mod teams I’ve see who have issued a list of actionable goals that Reddit can address.

Also it’s interesting to see that their participation in the blackout is almost entirely on Spez’s head. That’s some damn fine CEOing there, Lou.

[-] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 33 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The askhistorians subreddit and it's mod team are absolute gems, I was able to attend one of their talks at a conference and it was honestly one of the best presentations I've seen at these types of events. It is giant loss to the academic community to have them shut down tbh, and I hope they are able to migrate and keep their audience.

But then again knowing Reddit, if they migrate u/spez will probably allow Holocaust deniers to take up the space or something.

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[-] sphere_au@reddthat.com 79 points 2 years ago

I've checked both Reddit and Lemmy since I created my Lemmy account yesterday. Reddit has lost a number of subreddits I used to read and the feed seems decidedly less interesting overall. Although the equivalents to all the subreddits I used don't necessarily exist here, there is some good information here (particularly IT-related) and I think the overall feel of the community here is better - people seem (so far at least) largely pretty reasonable and there aren't the armies of contrarians or downvoters just wanting to spread their anger at the world to everyone else. So, overall, win some, lose some, and if I end up just here instead of Reddit, I think any losses there will be offset by gains here. Which if you think about it makes Lemmy look pretty good, given that it is (a) relatively new; (b) volunteer-run and funded; (c) much, much smaller than Reddit.

[-] Senseibu@feddit.uk 71 points 2 years ago

People say Lemmy is too complicated for most people, well that’s probably a good thing as it naturally filters out the people who only want to incite anger for upvotes. There’s no love on Reddits main subreddits anymore

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 28 points 2 years ago

In terms of complexity, becoming conversant enough in how Lemmy works to do basic things feels on par with IRC. The expectations about how easy it is to hop on a service and start using it have shifted significantly because of the centralization of the past couple of decades, but the evidence available from comparing the tone of Reddit to here suggests the speed bump is helpful.

[-] Kushan@beehaw.org 24 points 2 years ago

I disagree, it's easy to say that a barrier to entry is good because it keeps out trolls and those that just want to insight hate, but really those people will find a way when anything gets popular enough to bother with. Meanwhile, that same barrier prevents a lot of underserved people joining in and they're left to deal with the same toxic people we're trying to avoid ourselves.

The centralised services didn't succeed because they were centralised, they succeeded because they lowered the barrier to entry drastically. It's a lot easier to do that when you're centralised, but that's something we'll have to overcome if we want this community and others like it to succeed. Otherwise we'll just slowly die inside our own echo chamber.

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[-] weedwhacking@beehaw.org 26 points 2 years ago

I’ve been really enjoying the Mlem client on iOS as well. Definitely still has a long way to go but it’s a wonderful start

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[-] Woofcat@lemmy.ca 20 points 2 years ago

I'm really hoping that lemmy can see a larger uptick in engagement. I know I should be the change I want to see in the world. However the thing I miss the most is pointless arguments in the comments section. :D

[-] Csynthare@dataterm.digital 31 points 2 years ago
[-] MrJukes@lemmy.one 24 points 2 years ago

That's not an argument. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.

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[-] briongloid@aussie.zone 73 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'm surprised how quickly I've adapted to fediverse, Mastodon just didn't fill-in for twitter in the way that the lemmy instances have, once I learned how they work together.

Now that I have gotten over the first hump, it feels new and exciting enough to make up for the lack of diverse content. I really think lemmy/kbin can be the ones that push forward an interoperable internet.

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[-] poohbear@toons.zone 71 points 2 years ago

The Verge: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well. The most important things we can do right now are stay focused, adapt to challenges, and keep moving forward. We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail.

That's an absolutely tone deaf response from spez. The talking points are exactly what I expected and I'm not surprised, but man, whoever's running PR at Reddit is really dropping the ball.

If they do IPO, anyone who buys into it wholeheartedly deserves the deep losses the company will incur long term - it seems no-one on Reddit's leadership team, or anyone egging the company to float, understands what makes their own product tick.

[-] PascalSausage@beehaw.org 24 points 2 years ago

Is he wrong though?

We all know that users are going to come flooding back as soon as the closed subs open again. Reddit has been through controversy after controversy and has only grown in size. The truth is that most people on Reddit don't really care about third party apps, a lot didn't even know they existed before the Apollo dev spilled the tea on his conversations with Reddit. Spez knows this and is counting on it.

For this protest to have any teeth at all, the protesting subs need to stay blacked out indefinitely until Reddit starts negotiating realistically, or they start hemorrhaging users to alternative platforms.

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[-] Kwakigra@beehaw.org 58 points 2 years ago

I don't care about fixing Reddit and I don't care about teaching Reddit a lesson. I don't care if the site buckles or continues to hold on and grow while they regulalry downgrade their service as they have been doing for the 10 years I've been an active user. No protest of anything Reddit has done has ever caused Reddit to reconsider what they're doing. Reddit does not care about anything because it's not a person. It's a business entity which will attempt by any means to maximise profit. Having a functional website or having human users or moderation at all are not strictly necessary to secure investment or generate ad revenue. Doing what investors want them to do, regardless of the actual effect it may have long-term, is what will get them investment now. That is more important to Reddit than everything else put together. There's no mastermind, no one's at the wheel, no idiot is unilaterally making decisions like a king. There's only the inevitable consequences of the collective decisions of businesspeople participating in corporate capitalism.

The main reason I don't care is that I don't have to care anymore. The Fediverse has been a breath of fresh air after a very long time.

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[-] andrew@lemmy.munsell.io 52 points 2 years ago

/r/ModCoord thread working on extending the blackout beyond tomorrow, as a response to Steve's email: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/148ks6u/indefinite_blackout_next_steps_polling_your/

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[-] Damaniel@lemmy.world 50 points 2 years ago

I'm glad to see there's been more of a push for previously '48 hours only' subreddits to move to an indefinite blackout - but I wish that more of them had committed earlier. That leaked internal email shows exactly what I already expected; they just see the protesting Redditors as a bunch of whiny babies who they expect to give up after a couple days and forget the whole thing.

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[-] PascalSausage@beehaw.org 35 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Spez has told Reddit staff that the blackout “will pass”.

He’s right, it will. And that’s the problem.

A two day blackout means nothing to Spez and Reddit. What it tells them is “we can treat the userbase and developers like shit and they’ll still use our platform for the other 363 days of the year”.

The only thing that will force Reddit to the negotiating table is blacking out indefinitely. Not a single protesting subreddit opens back up until they realise what made the company so attractive to investors in the first place.

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[-] dvdnet90@lemmy.world 34 points 2 years ago
[-] alyaza@beehaw.org 25 points 2 years ago

this is a great interview with Christian, fyi, for people who haven't seen it yet

[-] HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org 23 points 2 years ago

He is MUCH more diplomatic and polite than I would be.

Then again, he’s Canadian and I’m an American lol

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[-] jherazob@beehaw.org 33 points 2 years ago
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[-] Dan_Rachevaski@beehaw.org 31 points 2 years ago

This is just my personal opinion. The 2 day blackout for me, never meant for people to pack their bags and leave Reddit entirely. It's not a very easy task to do, and honestly, there is still lots of contents and friends back in reddit. Reddit can be sure that lots of people will simply come back, and spez will grinning while working his way to his beloved IPO.

However, the 2 day blackout has opened a new world of alternatives to Reddit. Now people know other places and other communities that can replace Reddit as a whole. Yes, Reddit will still be an influential website. Yes, Reddit will still be money driven. Yes, spez will not budge. But we can.

To me, Reddit will not crash, burn and crushed to ash. But rather, it's either went the FB way, relying to lots of ads and older demographics to sustain, or simply becoming Myspace or Digg, a distant memory that's only in name.

Just my 1/2 cents.

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[-] LemmyAtem@beehaw.org 31 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I posted this on Kbin too, but I thought people might find it interesting here as well. I feel like maybe younger/shorter term users, and other people really don't fully understand what's going on with Reddit, and how it's been building to a crescendo for a while.

tl;dr: This shift in Reddit has been coming for awhile, and was heralded years ago by fundamental changes they made to how users engage with their platform.

I was a Reddit user for 12 years and change. I pre-date the Digg migration, and honestly I thought the years after that were its peak. There were warning signs that it was going downhill at many points in time, but I think the moment that really signaled Reddit was never going to return to what made it popular and successful is when they removed NSFW subs from /r/all...even though they'd rolled out /r/popular a year or two prior, supposedly for that purpose.

It's not because of the restriction of NSFW subs in and of itself, it's the implications/precedents that were set for the service as a whole. At that point, it became crystal clear that Reddit wanted to make sure the vast majority of users would be stuck with reddit recommended content only, and from there out it's felt more like user manipulation for maximum advertising. Think about it - probably 50% of the most popular posts are either thinly veiled ads, or posts LOADED with ads that Reddit is surely getting clickshare revenue for linking to. Then there's the sponsored posts hidden in with the normal posts, and the banner ads inserted between those.

The point of /r/all was to show everything, in real time, as it was growing in popularity. That's how people discover things they like that they didn't know existed - but finding those things, means spending less time in the controlled environment engaging with the content they most want you to engage with, and making them less revenue as a result. When /r/all turns into "/r/onlywhatcorporatewantsyoutosee", there's really no going back or improving. This API bullshit is just the next iteration of that same long term strategy - control what users see and interact with by forcing them to stay in their tightly controlled environment

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[-] uthredii@beehaw.org 31 points 2 years ago

r/piracy with a message to us lemmy:

[-] that_one_guy@beehaw.org 28 points 2 years ago

This is a sub that could really benefit from just leaving reddit entirely anyways. Potentially being able to have more open discussions centered around piracy would make the content of that sub so much better.

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[-] lackthought 31 points 2 years ago

I just used Power Delete Suite to remove all my comments and submissions

https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite

I am just a drop in the ocean, but I won't be going back to reddit now that's I've discovered the fediverse

this feels like the internet I fell in love with back in the mid 90s with smaller communities and no corporations trying to control what I interact with

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[-] skepticalifornia@beehaw.org 30 points 2 years ago

The blackout is definitely having an impact on Reddit traffic, especially the level of commenting on posts. Look at https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/ and the posts and comments per minute. The comments are usually up to the top or above the number of posts and they are way down. Posts overall are way down as well.

[-] dirac_field@lemmy.one 19 points 2 years ago

Hmmm the effect is not as dramatic as I was anticipating. Am I reading this right? Say the daily average in comments/minute is around 5k: seems the average today is around 4k. A 20% dip only. Not much compared to 50+% of the subreddits going dark :(

[-] skepticalifornia@beehaw.org 19 points 2 years ago

Yes, but most of the traffic is from people going to the front page and seeing /all (this is what I read yesterday, I am assuming it is correct). My guess is most visitors who use Reddit's apps or go in through the browser are not participating in the blackout, or maybe don't care, so there will still be a large number of posts. The people supporting the blackout likely make up a large percentage of users who comment on new posts, and that is way down. I'm seeing a lot of posts, but far fewer comments on those posts.

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[-] confusedwiseman@beehaw.org 25 points 2 years ago

This has been absolutely wild. Sadly, it's not that surprising and the corporate speak is strong. While Reddit likely won't change, the "type" of users that will leave over this is the kind of users that made Reddit the community it is today. These are all likely active members from Fark, Slashdot, Digg, and others.

Good news though, we've got a group of people that are experienced in making fantastic communities. I'll bet we'll do it again. We'll see how this goes with the Fedditverse/Threadverse via Lemmy/kbin. I'm sure we'll figure this community/magazine thing out soon enough.

Sometimes all we can control is how we react to the situation.

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[-] esty@lemmy.ca 22 points 2 years ago

Relay for android gave in to Reddit's demands ... thoughts?

I think this is a bad sign for everyone protesting the changes... a major app giving in makes the rest of the apps look bad for complaining imo https://www.androidpolice.com/popular-android-reddit-app-may-survive-absurd-api-pricing/

[-] BlackCoffee@beehaw.org 23 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The relay creator did the math and came to the conclusion that an subscription model might maybe work but it would be to tight. It reads as the person is saying that it is unfeasonable.

Even if the apps would comply;

  • Reddit will jack the prices again when they see fit.
  • Reddit also wins with this pricing because they are gonna pocket the cash.

Reddit will limit 'Recommend' and NFSW content to its official app. >

And ohw yeah you are gonna get less content for your subscription. It is all in bad faith.

[-] Hellebert@beehaw.org 21 points 2 years ago

I think that a forced paid subscription will probably kill it anyway long term, who in their right mind would pay a subscription to access Reddit?

Also don't forget that thes app owners themselves are running a business and probably make a bunch of money from their apps that they don't want to see evaporate with the changes.

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[-] sprightlycompanion@beehaw.org 21 points 2 years ago

Thinking about sticking to Lemmy for most things and using my Reddit alt account just as a porn aggregator. Who's with me?!

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this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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