Technology
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
A nice summary of why everyone is so angry, by Christian Selig:
https://mas.to/@christianselig@mastodon.social/110572053161618054
Redditinc.com's fact(oid)s about the API changes.
Includes such BS as
100,000+ active communities
Technically true. But it's estimated that between 1/3 and 1/2 are NSFW. That is, the subs they don't want shown at their (mythical) IPO.
Supporting these apps is not free for Reddit; they incur both infrastructure and significant opportunity costs.
Technically true. But so does the official app, and web browsers. API calls are not some sort of special magic that causes extra wear on the systems. If the users never had the third party apps they'd be using something else, causing the same traffic and usage - or using nothing at all.
Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use from our API.
Again, third party apps are no more of a drain on data use than anything else. It's been proven, but Spez keeps pushing this lie.
Many other platforms have chosen to stop supporting apps like these altogether.
Objection! Facts not in evidence.
more than 98% of apps do not pay and will continue to access the Data API for free so long as apps are not monetized [...].
Emphasis mine. This is the real story.
Our pricing is based on usage levels comparable to our own costs
Either this is an outright lie or Spez is admitting that the official Reddit app is an inefficient, data monching, piece of garbage.
We're working to improve the mobile mod experience
Spez has been promising rainbows for years but all we ever get is poop. Or just the smell of poop. That the mobile apps were released without proper moderator tools tells you what he thinks of moderators.
We have a unique system of checks and balances, and we respect the communities right to protest.
Clearly a lie, given that Spez is going to change the rules to force out moderators who choose to follow their sub's wishes to protest.
r/nottheonion is asking users to vote, including a fun option that encourages people to take Tuesdays off
The "fun option" is an official means of joining the protest. Can he stop lying for 10 seconds?
We conducted an accessibility audit with an external consultant and have been working on improving accessibility on the site and in our apps.
Yes, much smarter than actually TALKING TO YOUR OWN USERS AND SEEING WHAT THEY WANT. Oh, they want what you refuse to do? Gee, what a surprise!
Nothing says ableism more than telling people with disabilities that they have no agency in how or if they get accommodations. (Sadly, the ADA does not apply to Reddit as a website.)
In summary, Spez needs to be fired. Preferably out of a cannon, into the sun.
Yes, but if you fire a spez from a canon into the sun, but no one can see him enter the sun, then does he actually get harmed? No one knows, especially if he never returns!
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/16/23763661/reddit-rif-is-fun-developer-ceo-steve-huffman
RIF developer pushing back on Huffman's claims that RIF didn't want to work with Reddit by releasing emails.
inb4 spez rants about him releasing private email conversations.
https://mastodon.social/@robotdeathsquad/110543755195398954
Every time you hear the Reddit CEO talking about how they need to become profitable, remember they raised $250m and then spent the last couple years building this: https://nft.reddit.com
Yeah they've been completely inept for years.
Something I’ve seen pointed out is that if Reddit ultimately does shift to a more “democratic” model of voting mods in and out, that could easily be abused by bot farms or for nefarious purposes. Everything about the future direction the site is heading sounds bleak and barely what it once was.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/15/reddit-blackout-third-party-apps/
Loving the Reddit dumpster fire thumbnail image they included. Mostly covering TheVerge's Huffman interview and pointing out how dumb he sounds as CEO.
Just wondering how long it takes til Reddit strips mods and forcibly reopens certain protesting subs
All according to plan, I fear. They’d ideally have all subreddits under the management of their cadre of “power mods”
I think for every forced takeover he'll get 100 more subs going dark in protest.
I created this addon for Firefox to redirect all reddit pages to archive.org.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reddit-to-wayback-machine/
(I'd need to update to MV3 to port it to chrome, and I don't know yet how have this functionality without webRequest)
@alyaza
I stopped using reddit, don't want to participate in this crime. There's high possibility that reddit will not change direction, it's better give a chance to alternatives and learn something new.
The people who refuse to learn something new and stay on reddit, like the people who jumped ship from Twitter to BlueSky instead of Mastodon, are exactly the kind of dim-bulbs the corporate suite want. They're more concerned with usability than freedom from corporate influence. They're more than happy to lose general autonomy and have corporations dictating how they interact with the world because, and let me emphasize this, they are too fucking lazy and pathetic to learn to do anything on their own. They are god damned babies looking for someone to hold their hand through life.
Boo Boo Bear speaking truth to power.
I do believe corporations rob us of our dignity and independence.
One could say that the people support mastodon are too fucking lazy and pathetic to bother building a system with good UX. The choice is not in fact, "freedom" or "usability." It's very easy to have both, but mastodon supporters don't seem to care. You are not owed anything, and no most people will not bother with some janky software.
If you want to change the world on a lager scale, do better, don't blame others.
Nah. There's an old maxim that states if you make something idiot-proof, they'll just come out with a dumber idiot. The hell with them. Let's build something smart. If they want in, they can smarten up.
too fucking lazy and pathetic to bother building a system with good UX
do better, don’t blame others.
You are not owed anything.
Make up your mind. You're not owed a "good UX" from people who do this for you for free. Sorry you need hand holding to figure this shit out.
The opposite of "not interested in your jank software" is not "thinking they are owed improved software." It's called using alternatives, or even not using anything at all. Honestly aggressive insulting attitudes like yours are one of the big reasons I personally have no interest in mastodon.
I sure hope kbin/lemmy is not overrun with the arrogant tech bro vibe. It's gross.
No, really, I want to know how lost you are here.
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I'm posting from Lemmy to a Beehaw thread, that just happened to mention Mastodon... This thread isn't directly on Mastodon. People leaving for BlueSky over Mastodon is just a reference point.
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Making the choice that "usability matters" means you're willing to shack up with Jack Dorsey and his horrible politics over a community.
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You don't even know what a fucking techbro is. Steve Huffman, the goober who ran half us off of reddit, is a techbro. Someone who only got into tech for money. I'm not sure if you've been paying attention but the people who are producing Free Open Source Software like Lemmy, Kbin, and Mastodon aren't in it to make money and are in it to create communities.
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How is it insulting to say that the people who, once again are creating the place you are posting as a free service and not seeing remuneration, don't owe it to anyone to spend their lives on usability when they are primarily a programmer and not user interface specialist? Like you yourself said, they don't actually owe you that.
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Further, how is it insulting to say that people who don't want to learn something because it isn't immediately easy to use are lazy or unwilling to learn? Do you have any idea how many corporate pieces of shitty software with bad UI and usability I have been forced to and learned to use in my lifetime? Way too fucking many, and these are pieces of software private companies pay a fucking mint for.
I really think you need to lower your expectations from admins programming a free piece of software in their spare time and paying for server costs with donations. Also, seriously, figure out what a "techbro" is, it's not the people giving you free shit with no ads who have decided not to enshittify their services to get more money while fucking over users.
Find a map, because you're lost.
Well said. Bravo! I could not have said that better myself. I'm sorry to say you just described my mom. She's a google addict who always tells me that she'd rather have usability over privacy. She actually told me once that "she doesn't need privacy because she's got nothing to hide."
She signs up to hundreds of services with the same gmail and decades old password, I try to get her to use Tutanota or Proton or any number of password managers out there but she's technologically illiterate and says it's too complicated. I looked her up on Have I Been Pwned? and she had 17 data breaches on her account and 23 on an old one.
It's so frustrating, she was willing to put her entire digital identity into the hands of corporations that time after time abuse and sell that data or in her case leak info in data breaches all because she's to lazy to learn to randomize handles and use a password manager. I understand what you're talking about man because I live with one and it frustrates me.
Yup, that's honestly the history of the world — people giving their autonomy and independence and concern for what's really going on in the world away to authorities for ease, comfort, convenience and just out of habit, then being surprised when those authorities turn around and begin taking advantage of them. It's the eternal struggle against apathy.
I never stopped using RSS. I follow many sites and blogs using The Old Reader in my desktop browser, with Reeder piggybacking off its OPML file on my phone and iPad.
TOR was designed specifically with compatibility with Google Reader in mind and shares many of the old keyboard shortcuts. It also has rudimentary social features that are in no way in-your-face (good thing, too, because I never really saw the point of them).
That looks pretty good. I've been enjoying Inoreader for a little while, but I might have to take TOR around the block.
If they want their subs back so badly, let them take them. They can deal with moderation (or finding any decent mods at all) on their own.
Good luck with that, Reddit admins. lol.
Judging by the newsprint from today; it feels like spez is still lost in his own delusion.
Right now he's at the bargaining stage; trying to find out if he can weasel his way out of this shit. Fuck him. He dug his own career's grave there. I've already established a community here on lemmy.