An esoteric battle over API fees and access is highlighting a power struggle between corporate overlords and unpaid moderators. It's worth understanding, and it's worth fighting for.
Just looking at Redditor's reaction to this is telling me the battle is already lost. Most seem to be completely done and just want their cat videos back. It's clear that the normies who invaded the site and proceeded to make it worse are completely content with what is happening so long as their addiction is fed. As far as I'm concerned, they can have the site.
HOWEVER. Maybe its a sign that all of the people who were in favor of the protest actually did leave and the only ones who are left are those who don't give a shit about it or don't support it.
Well, there are also apparently some alt-right goons who want Reddit to burn for shutting down their old favorite hate forums, and they're stirring up shit too.
I like those normies. It makes reddit feel a little more representative of the real world instead of the exclusive domain of cloistered nerds (I say that as a cloistered nerd). I’m here because federation is a better long term option for social media. I hope we can lure the normies over here too one day.
Yeah you can't exactly take the subset of redditors still using the site during the blackout as representative of how redditors feel about it - anybody with any concern about it is not crossing the picket line.
The number of comments per minute seems to have gone back to pre-blackout levels today. I think unfortunately there are just way fewer of us than I'd hoped.
Not all mods or are sold on Lemmy though, same with Redditors in general. Even on r/RedditAlternatives I see so many posts and comments saying Lemmy will never take off because it’s not user friendly enough, too complicated, etc. I find it pretty disheartening honestly. Of course a platform in its infancy will have bumps and hurdles to sort out. The fact that they’re dismissing Lemmy so quickly is just saddening.
But I feel we’ve already had a promising start. As QOL changes arrive and UI slowly improves I think we’ll see more and more people trickling in. Just gotta pray the spark doesn’t fizzle out before then.