Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Saying you are going on a hunger strike but then announcing you'll only go on it for two days made it a long shot that other subs would push for longer.
Any idea how only a 48 hour black out even got started instead of longer? Who proposed only 48 hours to make it catch on as that short of a protest.
I think the reaction on the site itself also suffered from the AMA getting hard buried.
Which was stupid. People should have upvoted the post in the AMA sub which was just a link to the AMA on the Reddit sub. It wasn't even pinned. And even if you did find it, until they did a summary you couldn't see his responses because also buried (understandably)
That said, yes, I agree with you and the adjacent poster - the upside is alternative platforms got a huge boost, and even if a lot of the influx doesn't stay, it's still a huge boost.
I'm watching the Active last month from the Lemmy stats and see that the spike didn't yet turn into a needle.
there's room on the internet for more than one link aggregator - even if reddit returns and is bigger and badder than ever, I still wont use it. that platform is dead to me now
The blackout is just what reddit will look like after the 30th onwards
But on the other hand, look at how much the lemmy and kbin user base has grown. The blackouts had a significant impact in increasing lemmy adoption and usage.
Prior to the announced blackouts, I had no idea Lemmy even existed. Now here I am running my own instance.
Also, advertisers Reddit sells to have halted their campaigns until “next week.”
I think while on the surface it might feel underwhelming, it had more impact than you think. And now mods are discussing extending the blackout too.
What comes after the blackout is the exodus. So in time, Reddit will decline and people would hear more about Lemmy as the network effect grows, Lemmy can come out pretty strong.
The question is basically, how many mods and power users moved to other platforms. It was clear that Reddit would not die over night or that the Fediverse would be able to take on all the users of Reddit.
But without much of the volunteer labour, Reddit will enter a slow death spiral of worse and worse subreddits and the remaining users will slowly leave as a result.
I'm still on Reddit and don't plan to leave, but it's always nice to be on alternative sites like Lemmy. Half of the subreddits I read are still shut down, and there is debate on some subreddits on whether or not to stay shut down. It seems like most average users don't care about the API changes and some are wondering what the big deal is.
Have you ever added the word Reddit to a web search so you could find an answer online a lot of digging?
Stuff like that I imagine got hit hard. There will always be core communities that either stay up or are easy replicate but I imagine they'll be losing a lot of smaller communities.
This is just about the only thing I use Reddit for anymore.
Actually been dramatic for Lemmy. Users went from a little under 50K to a little over 125K total users. I do not know how that is not dramatic. It is not about Reddit really, it is about how many of these users will stay here.
To be honest, I'm happy with how it went. I am excited to be off of Reddit and part of the Fediverse now. I never expected Reddit to fail, but I think there will be a drastic decrease in quality content.
What I'm most happy about is that the Fediverse so far seems to be mostly actually pretty good people (though I've been largely chilling in kbin since the blackout started -- it only just turned on federation). Most past attempts to abandon reddit only saw the most toxic, horrible people leave. Sites like Voat were never an option because the users were awful. It's nice that so far, I haven't really seen any of that. In fact, it feels the opposite, with the people who left reddit being disproportionately great people, with the toxic people being more likely to stay on reddit.
I wonder if it'll last? I hope so. I wanted to leave reddit in the past but never felt like there was anywhere comparable to go that wasn't shit.
I will echo this. I was skeptical that any reddit alternative wouldn't just be deplorables. I've browsed some sites with the most unbelievably racist stuff spewed. Pleased with kbin for now.
Kbin has been really great, everyone here is a lot more civil. I remember when reddit was like that prior to digg v3. And then eternal September. It took a while before reddit got to where it is now with almost everyone with any expertise on the website. But I think for the most part, decent people and decent communities are more fulfilling.
There's a decent chance it will. The fediverse is—generally speaking—a fairly friendly and welcoming place. That's in part to it's decentralized nature and individual moderation tools. Bad actors can be blocked on an individual level (I just blocked /u/donaldtrump last night because I do not want to see stupid parody accounts and just like that he's gone) as well as on an instance level for anyone not following the rules.
Each instance has their own rules about how to behave, so the bigots and whatnot get booted if they cause problems. Eventually they find an equally terrible server that will have them and once they start up again, that instance can be defederated, which is basically like cutting off the bridge to their island… no way to communicate. Eventually they end up alone or with equally terrible people on other instances.
That's not to say that the fediverse doesn't have it's share of problems or is perfect, but we're working hard to try and keep this a decent place to be.
There are several points to be made:
The Old Reddit, whatever it means, is long gone forever. Aaron is gone. Spez does not care. No apologies or retracting will be made and that's it.
Reddit must have calculated that there are enough 'casual' crowd (not a long timer, does not use or care about 3rd party apps or the old interface, comes for the quick laughs and watches ads) so they could withstand whatever pressure the 'hard-core' crowd (long timer, uses and cares about old UI and API changes, does not generate ad views in general, spends long hours in site) generates.
Reddit must have also considered the possibility of the second crowd simply going away. I suspect Spez or the investors simply does not give a damn about it. Ad revenues are everything and there's a loud minority that threatens to leave? Why should they care, after all? All they see is a potential for "more" growth.
What they do and must care is the eventual entrance of a sizeable competition that eats into their revenues - less visitors mean less ad revenues. Lemmy and Fediverse, as much as I love it and will keep using it, is not that threat - yet.
What will probably happen is that the wider internet will label the riot (as of now) a massive failure, laugh at the "bravery" of slacktivism or whatever the latest meme can be slapped at.
Despite that, it should mark the emerging of a sustainable group of Reddit-like communities that could, in one day, become the competition Digg never thought they would face.
No, I don't think Lemmy is perfect. I do have an issue with the dev's political stance. But as long as they don't become the Spez of what was supposed to be the Federation, and the software and the protocol and the community can sustain and rule themselves, things might be alright.
Reddit will eventually die, like many other internet websites. Perhaps not now. They won't go out in a spectacular way the Digg v4 happened, but simply wither away like Facebook. But we have another home, and it's all that matters.
It went about as expected, IMO. 90% of redditors just don't care that much - even if they agreed with the blackout in principle, most of them were likely just waiting patiently for their favourite subs to reopen so they could go back to browsing as usual. A quick browse through some of my subscribed (and still open) subs revealed a lot of commenters weren't even clear about what was going on.
But it has had the effect of essentially kickstarting a community here which seems to be taking shape nicely and there's finally a (small but growing fast) alternative to reddit - which didn't really exist before. I can see the following months and years seeing a gradual shift in user base from reddit to here.
Reddit's not going to die overnight; that was never going to happen. But it's possible it's the beginning of the end of their empire and the slow decline to the ranks of the remember-that-website-whatever-happened-to-that club. Time will tell I guess.
I think Reddit has become too mainstream to die. I think it will simply continue to become mainstream, perhaps eventually become more like Twitter in terms of userbase. and the next generation of niche forums will be born, and therefor the next Reddit. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe reddit will 'never die.'
Possible it'll go the direction of Neopets and stuff. Still around, but not what it once was.
Even Digg is still around. But I think most people agree that it is "dead." Reddit will probably end up the same.
Hell, even MySpace is still around.
Your MySpace is dope bro!
Alternatively, it could go in the direction of facebook - still around and packed full of everybody's racist great aunts, romance scammers, and weed dealers.
It will be like Facebook, once massive, now where genx parents get their ads and warn others to get off their porch
As a Gen-X parent, I've abhorred the look and feel of Facebook even from the beginning. When I first made an account I got connected with old high school people and thought it was pretty neat. But then I tried to share some thoughts for discussion like one would do on a BBS/forum/Reddit, and realized that wasn't what it was for. That was the last I posted. I know I'm in a minority and people who love it have a need for sharing everything they do, but that isn't me.
There's a saying I like: "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." I don't think this means that a person can only be one of those, but that in discussions there is a level of thinking going on with the category. I prefer the first one more, and even Reddit had places where you aren't going to find that...but it had some, and I enjoyed my time there.
Oh, and get off my lawn. You too, boomers. Everyone get off the damn lawn!
The difference that I see between reddit and twitter is that reddit hasn't been purchased to be the plaything of a billionaire. This matters because unlike facebook and google, reddit and twitter aren't profitable. That means that reddit doesn't have to pockets to buy up competitors, lobby for beneficial regulations, focus on expanding overseas, or move into making hardware.
Yet. It hasn't been bought up yet, but they really really wish they were. Reddit has flipped to profits only mode already and they're never going to change now. Being bought out during
IPO isn't going up change that either, only intensify it
Reddit is just the plaything of anonymous billionaires that's the whole reason they want the IPO at all costs because they can't cash out without it, even if it is less than they had hoped for.
I have had at least a dozen instances where I have done a Google search for a problem, and clicked a Reddit link without thinking, only to get hit with a private message. I do have an unusual number of problems per day (software dev who seems to spend their evenings trying stupid technical stuff), but I guarantee the impact is not seen on Reddit, but in the many users who never get there.
If you need these infos, you can find reddit mirrors and reddit dumps on torrent
Where? Removeddit and unddit need access to reddit to work. And where are the torrent dumps you're referring to?
The torrent dumps they are referring to are probably the pushshift dumps which can be found on here but they're a good bit complicated to use efficiently and are mostly text/link dumps only. I'd love to know if there are other torrents though which offer more readability or similar.
edit: also the filesizes are HUGE unpacked. The sizes shown on the page are the COMPRESSED sizes and I haven't yet tried unpacking a file newer than 2009.
I didn't go and check things out. But I gotta say, before I was an only Reddit user. Now I don't expect to totally forgo Reddit forever, but I now know there are alternatives and it is a nicer community so far here.
At least here I'm not getting spammed with bots and "Satan Gets Us" ads.
Same. I won't let go of Reddit completely until more of the people in my favorite subs migrate and rebuild their communities here, if they do so at all. But Lemmy and Mastodon will become my new main social hubs either way.
I had a lot of hope in the lead-up to the initial 2 day blackout, but after seeing literally zero coverage about this across other media platforms I now know there will be no backpedaling on the API changes. The best we can hope for is affecting their income from ads a tiny bit.
For me it's been pretty great. Lemmy and the fediverse kinda remind me of reddit circa 2007 or 2008 before the eternal September. I'm going to enjoy this for as long as it lasts.
I never expected the site to just shut down and be in flames from a 2 day partial shut down. I'm pretty happy with the communities that have popped up and discussion about alternative sites.
There's been a heap of discussion on alternatives and without the blackout I wouldn't of even found great sites like kbin.
I expect that come the 1st July when third party apps stop working, we'll get another wave of annoyance and hopefully can use that to help people flee
I know that come the 1st if nothing has changed I'll be purging all my old comments and deleting my accounts.
If we really want to deal a blow to Reddit, we have to do what happened to Facebook. Get your parents to join Reddit!
Oh god.
You have to remember that the internet in general has short term memory but surprising good memory at other things. It was good to see people actually get together for a few days and see that there are still subreddits that stayed dark. I know people are still leaving after these apps start to close down as well.
It's hard to fight EVERY corporation, but I feel like the amount of people that have been burned by Twitter will have that lingering thought in people's mind with Reddit as well.
Only time will tell, but I hope that people continue to fight these greedy CEOs that think that they can literally get away with literally anything...
A private subreddit isn’t going to bubble up to the top. It’s bound to happen.
I think a better option is to let subreddits stay open and simply push their migration agenda to the top of the algorithm naturally. It might be telling their community to move to discord, fediverse, or something else.
This is probably the better solution, keeping these subreddits open but focusing on where people can migrate to and the plan going forward. If enough people migrate over and can help populate the main subreddits like news / tech / gaming, it'll make these federated sites feel more active (and in turn a more viable place for people to switch to eventually since people want to see engagement)
I'm not sure what you were expecting to see? /r/all was never going to look obviously different, there's just too many people on Reddit. 99.99% of Redditors could leave and the remaining 0.01% would still be enough to churn out a passable couple of pages of content on /r/all.
Plus the people who care about the situation are exactly the people who aren't currently participating on Reddit, so it's hardly surprising that no-one is really taking about it there.