Megathread for Reddit Blackouts and News - Day 2
Megathread for Reddit Blackouts and News - Day 2
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!
364 comments
-
-
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.
-
He should opensource it, then. Someone else will do it.
-
I’m pretty he just wants to go take a week long nap before answering any more questions.
-
Surprised nobody's written a bridge between the Reddit API and ActivityPub to be honest, it would make any Reddit client you want work with the Fediverse.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I hope one of the archive projects (archiveTeam or others) has backed up r/askhistorians past posts and comments, just in case.
-
Oh, I hope so as well, that sub is absolutely precious. When people talked about nuking their account(which I get it) it was for post like those that I feared for.
-
Not to worry, every post and comment on reddit has been archived, and is freely available as a 2tb torrent on Academic Torrents.
-
-
-
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.
-
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
Also it’s not that hard to understand anyway.
-
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.
-
You're right Lemmy is going to take a bit to get used to, but the kicker for me (and maybe a lot of people) is going to be at the end of the month when the 3rd party apps shut down. I'm either going to have to get used to something new either way, whether it be Lemmy or the official Reddit app and my understanding is that the official app is littered with ads and promotions that no one cares about so I probably won't even bother.
-
I appreciate talking to people from all walks, though. If a community wants to filter people it should be explicit and on purpose.
-
I’m old and easily bamboozled by all this newfangled tech, and at first the whole fediverse thing was overwhelming. But eventually I realized it was not too different than an MMO’s multiple servers, and the idea of cross-realm and connected realms, and it functions not that much differently than a network mesh. You have multiple stand-alone nodes that are capable of cross-communications, so participate in a shared experience, and if one of the nodes goes down, the network will work around it.
It’s really not complicated once you give yourself time to think. And as long as the interface allows for the aggregation of random tidbits of data as we were accustomed to with Reddit, how the technology feeds that is not something the average user needs to worry about.
The only real difference between Reddit and Lemmy is that there is a bit more “hard wiring” that needs to be done by the user in order to set up a custom feed on Lemmy, but other than that, the user experience isn’t dreadfully different once the dust settles.
-
-
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
-
What IT related communities have you found? Keeping up with tech news was one of my primary reasons for keeping in Reddit. I’ve found a few things here, but not a ton. I’ll gladly take any suggestions
-
-
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.
-
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.
-
so - as one of those people who really didn't know much about the 3rd party apps or even what the protest/blackout was, I was wishing for an alternative for quite some time now. Reddit has become an echo chamber where you're downvoted for having your own opinion, no matter how vanilla the "dissenting" opinion is. The trolliing and constant arguing gets old after awhile, and I don't think the current state of reddit is what the original intent of the platform ever was. This, for me, was why I gravitated toward Beehaw specifically. I'm not going back to Reddit. It reminds me of a playground full of bullies, itching for an argument. This platform is so much more my speed. And I feel like there are a pretty decent amount of people here who are in the same mind... for us, the alternative is welcome and Spez can wait til he retires for us to return because it's not happening.
-
Wrong? No. But leadership is about communication and diplomacy as much as strategy. Short term gameplay aside, it doesn't take much effort to pretend to attempt to placate power users and it doesn't cost anything besides pride to do so. At least Reddit had a half-decent communication strategy with the Boston Bomber debacle - can't say the same with this one.
In any case, whilst you won't get the r/funny's of Reddit going private forever, you do have some big ones like r/iphone saying they're blacking out indefinitely.
It's pretty myopic of the leadership team to think that you shouldn't at least attempt to make an user relations play here.
-
-
it seems no-one on Reddit’s leadership team, or anyone egging the company to float, understands what makes their own product tick.
Which is good news for us because even if this does blow over they will fuck up again and every time it happens we'll profit from it in new users. Spez's problem isn't that his dream is unattainable, his problem is that the person having that dream is him.
-
I'm pretty sure his dream is just to make increasingly absurd amounts of money, every year more than the last: Line Go Up, forever. That dream is attainable in the short term, but utterly unattainable in the long term on a planet with finite resources.
He's just in it for the $$$, regardless of how, not for any of the things that're good about reddit. Someone who cared about reddit for any other reason wouldn't do this to it.
-
-
At this point I'm convinced there's no one running PR, it's just Spez and his admin lackeys coming up with random stuff Musk-style.
-
It’s definitely a weird response, since it’s directed at employees I would have expected him to try to be reassuring without downplaying or even really mentioning the blackout.
Should have been easy to just say something bland like “we believe in the changes we are making and how they will make our company better. “
-
That's an absolutely tone deaf response from spez.
Tone deafness is spez's speciality.
-
Everything passes. Including reddit. waves hands this is all just temporary.
Type O Negative - Everything Dies has surprisingly fitting lyrics for the search of people for a place to stay.
-
I wasn't familiar with the band and for whatever reason based on the names I had thought it was going to be either an indie pop or a folk punk song.
I was not expecting I LIKE VITAMIIIIIIIIIINS to be growled at me like that, I had a good laugh.
-
-
-
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.
-
No reason to go back and every reason not to. The Fediverse is my home now.
-
Right? This was always bound to happen. The only way it wouldn't be innevitable would require Reddit be a non-profit or co-op or equivalent. Which it certainly isn't.
I also agree, the sudden breath into the fediverse (I've been poking my head in since I ran a nextcloud instance and they had a plugin for the fediverse called nextcloud social.). This place isn't just a handful of OSS developers and enthusiasts anymore, but something starting to resemble a community of all types.
It reminds me of when Reddit was good, way back in like 2010 (for me) - but it feels more consequential now!
-
I don't care about fixing reddit either, I don't care if it lives or dies, not anymore, tho it wouldn't be bad IMO teaching the CEO a lesson in humility.
-
Hard to teach humility to a dude who is surrounded by institutional investors funneling millions into his pockets.
But yeah I hope this is ruining his sleep
-
Not sure he is able to learn.
-
-
no idiot is unilaterally making decisions like a king.
Every decision is made by one person or a party of people specifically saying "Yes" to it. Whether they are "idiot[s]" is up for debate, but every single event involving anything artificial is decided by a person/people, not merely a faceless system.
-
No protest of anything Reddit has done has ever caused Reddit to reconsider what they’re doing
To be fair, they did fire that pedo mod they hired. Eventually.
-
-
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.
-
Presumably it's only going to get better over time. I was afraid I'd lose this part of the internet when Reddit went full corpo, but to be honest the quality of discussion on Lemmy makes up for the diminished content.
-
I agree, the inherit fragmentation in the fediverse architecture has a certain negative impact on the microblogging experience for me (but I still won’t go back to a centralized platform ever again), but for Lemmy/kbin it fits perfectly. Link aggregation sites are already fragmented into separate communities by design.
-
Yepp, it works surprisingly well. I assume one of the similar communities will eventually "win" on one of the instances, like with similar subreddits over time. Also some instances will go full specific, like nature or movies or gaming etc. See the growth of lemmynsfw already, lol.
I'm really liking it a lot. I wasn't too amused by Mastodon either, but as you say: for link aggregation, for specific communities, for discussing topics (and not being about people, but about topics) this is a perfect match.
-
I even view the fragmentation problem in niche communities as a feature not a bug. Don't like the coffee community on one instance? Try checking out the coffee community on a different instance. You might like the second group of people better
-
-
Same. Ive already started using lemmy as a place to find solutions to my problems. I just dont google "problem reddit". I go to lemmy search bar and browse "specific keyword not working". Been working with certaib topics, and its only gonna get better from now on
-
Oh yeah, Lemmy has a usable search bar! Kinda forgot that it can be useful after using Reddit for so long.
-
Oh that's good to know, I'll be doing the same now! 😄
-
What I am also doing is when the solution is only on reddit, I will create a new topic with it in a lemmy instance.
Also important topics should be backed up in internet.archive.
-
I tried searching for top 10 eyelash extension brands for dogs on lemmy and it didn't find anytthing pfft
-
-
I said it elsewhere, but I fuckin like Lemmy man. I'm glad I found it, regardless of how/why I did.
-
Same. Good mobile and desktop UI, and a passionate community are big wins here.
-
Same for me
-
Try a calckey instance for a nice Twitter-like fediverse experience.
-
-
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.
-
I’m not giving up. 11 year account deleted. I might read stuff on Reddit from time to time, but it will be without an account, in a private tab, through a vpn, with an ad blocker on.
-
hang on, what leaked internal email, do you know where I can find that?
-
there are also a lot of subreddits that went readonly. which doesn't hurt much. when the first google result for something is a functional readonly reddit page, reddit has succeeded. When the first result I click is a message about the issue we're facing that is much worse for reddit.
At the same time, the couple of subs posting the images and only the images are causing /r/all to have some anti-reddit commentary.
Either way, r/all doesnt look that different. Ok, normal-reddit-for-thing isnt on the front page, instead smaller-reddit-for-thing is there.
I'm sure moderators will plan more, but I think it's going to be difficult to maintain coordination and whether I like it or not, I get reddits approach to just ignore this.
-
It's functional for the users, but not for Reddit who wants more data/engagement.
But yeah, the smaller reddit thingy is true. r/thesims4 was open when r/sims4 was not.
-
-
-
/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/
-
That's great news 👏. I really hope most of the subs currently participating end up going indefinite. Especially with Spez shrugging off the whole thing in the media.
-
People commenting on there calling them lame for trying to protect the communities that they care about. Yet these idiots use the platform (for free) and just gobble up promotions and ads from daddy corporate and say thank you
-
-
-
this is a great interview with Christian, fyi, for people who haven't seen it yet
-
Great article, thanks for sharing. It's a real shame that Reddit seems so determined to just force all the changes through and have no dialogue with the community.
-
Props to The Verge and David Pierce for his coverage of the redditing in general. I have been critical of the Verge and Patel in the past, but since the big site changes I have been forced to admit that the changes have been for the better.
-
-
-
That's my situation as well. Out of curiosity I went into reddit today to see how different it would look. It's close to the same. A lot of the subs I go to are in the "Yeah it sucks but we're small so we won't make a dent so fuck it.." other subs like /r/games with their BS excuse of "we support it but don't want to do anything about it". Overall, kind of the same. Kind of makes me sad
-
There is only one sub I use that has not attempted to do anything about the API issue. They stickied a post forwarded to an explanation of what is happening in support of the blackout, but it is an important time period for us so no one was going to allow a full shut down. It's one of the few non-toxic places to discuss our fandom. Beyond that sub, the others don't matter much to me.
-
-
So, apparently the mod purge started, one of the mods of /r/tumblr confirms getting booted out of the mod team and opening the sub
-
Saw that coming.
-
Not surprised in the least that they're purging mods here, but I'm a little surprised they're doing it during these 48 hours. Seems like it'd be a better move to at least wait until the protest ends before cracking down on delinquent subs/mods. Not that reddit has done anything to suggest that they'd act intelligently in this.
-
But r/tumblr is currently private
-
Spez has told Reddit staff that the Reddit 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.
-
-
Agree. It is not about negotiating. The point is we need a open Forum platform. Usenet use to be that platform, and it got shutdown basically by ISPs that did not want the cost and hassle. Then everything fragmented into separate websites, then it re-consolidated around one commercial platform for each segment. I.E. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Youtube, Instagram, ... That is the fundamental problem. The Fediverse frankly is the only thing I have seen to at least makes a credible try to change that. ALL of these should be decentralized or federated, one or the other.
Other point I would make, Forums have a lot less network effect then friends networks like Facebook. My point is that less scale is required.
-
I think lemmy is pretty much at the number of users now where it can self propagate. I dont care what happens to reddit past this point, as long as lemmy stays active
-
-
There are a couple of subreddits that will go blackout indefinitely. I think r/video is one of them, and it's quite big. This can be annoying for the platform.
-
They can, and probably will, replace the mods I wager
But a bunch of people will be permanently gone by then I hope
-
As others mentioned, if any worthwhile subreddit goes dark, then the mods will be replaced and it'll be brought back.
Creating some noise works only if anyone is listening and willing to respond and enact change. Absolutely not in this scenario. The sad reality is the vocal ones are in the minority in the grand scheme of things. The 50k people leaving is, probably, pocket change and aren't the ones that the platform is geared towards nowadays.
-
Excellent, I can only hope more join them.
-
-
Being out for a few days or a week could be enough for a disapera to form and go elsewhere. For me, I am finding Lemmy and Mastodon are more usable. If even 1% go to Lemmy or Masatadon, a critical mass might be established and people will stay.
-
Agreed, but I don't think negotiating is going to do anything. If they were to negotiate, it would likely only work temporarily. They would likely just changes the terms of the deal when it suits them.
I really feel like Reddit is in "pumping money out of the users" mode at their own expense.
Sadly the only solution feels like parting ways with them.
-
Blacking out indefinitely won't change a thing. Reddit has before and will again, if threatened this way, re-open shuttered subs if they believe it is valuable for their bottom line.
-
Not to mention, it doesn't feel like the blackout did anything either. I opened up r/all on Sync just now and it didn't feel any different than it did a week ago besides a bunch of posts that say that Reddit is killing 3rd-party apps.
-
Yeah, I noticed the same. All it really showed me was how many subs didn't black out…
-
-
-
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.
-
Yeah I wouldn't have ever signed up for lemmy if this api thing hadn't come about. This is my first fediverse experience. I was pissed at reddit, but now I don't care about reddit one way or another. Lemmy has gained enough users to sustain itself even if there is no more mass migration. There is an active community here that will help lemmy grow organically over time.
-
-
relying to lots of ads and
older demographicslow-literacy masses to sustainFIFY
Among the "older demographics" there are the most "nerdy" people, those born when personal computers and the internet didn't exist, those growing up together with technology, used to a world when corporations didn't destroy the good of sharing knowledge.
Those are the people most likely to rebel to what reddit is doing and find their way out if it, because they know it's possible, because they've seen it before.
Youngest people are used to how the world is nowadays because it's all they've seen, but they can be shown the difference if they're willing to listen.
Low-literacy masses are those who don't listen because they don't care, people of that sort exist in every age "range" and are unfortunately the majority of content "consumers", that's why Facebook(/Instagram/WhatsApp) doesn't die, and Reddit won't either most probably.
-
Exactly, I'm 'older' but I grew up with the internet in the 90s and know what it was before it turned into a monetized cesspool of corporate trash.
-
-
I'm trying to figure out what kind of blackout you're talking about. I open up (oh my God, I feel like a heretic) Reddit and guess what? Hardly anything has changed on Reddit. My feed is still there. Yes, a grand total of five ever-fronting subs stopped working, ten more subs took a formal vote, and... it's still the same. Every social network goes the way of monetizing content. I first joined Reddit in 2015, at the time it was an incomprehensible pseudo-social network with an awkward interface. It took almost 18 years before Reddit became usable. But blackout is still a long way off. While kbin/lemmy is consolidated by the thought of blackout, but people can't stay in suspense for long.
-
It's still refreshing to see how many subreddits ended up joining the blackout. Over 8000 joined, including some big ones, and (as of posting) 6800 are still either private or restricted.
-
I don't think the monetisation of content is inevitable for social media . It's inevitable for companies driven by profit who fully control a platform if that company wants to survive - but there are other ways to structure a community that doesn't rely on centralised platforms run by a business.
I guess we might see if i'm right over the next decade or two. I hope I am.
-
-
Reddit relies on user generated content, so it if the few users who actually generate entertaining stuff take their business elsewhere it will go the way of Myspace and DIgg. Because there is already a Facebook for old people.
-
-
r/piracy with a message to use lemmy:
-
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.
-
That. Being able to actually post links to websites.
-
-
Is the exclamation mark command meant to trigger a link? It doesn't do anything for me. My "home" lemmy is lemm.ee if that makes a difference.
-
Lots of Fediverse stuff works like you might know email to work, i.e.
thing@place.com, no matter where your email is hosted, you can send and receive messages from other hosts.In this Case, the
piracycommunity, within thelemmy.dbzer0.comdomain, you should be able to copy-paste the !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com, or any community like it, into the search bar of your home lemmy server and be able to subscribe. -
I'm not sure how to make a link to communities so that it works for everyone sorry
-
-
-
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
-
oh man I'd love to run that but I feel it'd be wrong to purge all of the technical answers I've posted over the years. I think it's better to pass on that one
-
You can filter by subreddit in Power Suite Delete, so if your tech answers are in specific subs, you can leave those alone and delete everything else
-
it had an option to export your comments into a .csv, so theoretically you could post them elsewhere if you want
but that could be a lot of work so I understand just leaving comments as they are
-
-
Just kicked it off on my account, it's currently rewriting every Reddit comment I ever made. Feels good.
-
-
-
What a drama queen. No one has suggested anything more violent than harsh language.
-
We absolutely must ship what we said we would.
Nothing new, but shows that there is absolutely no attempt to find a compromise. I won't be coming back on Wednesday.
-
Did he just imply people will protest by assaulting someone wearing a reddit logo?!
-
Correct, when you think he can't sink lower he starts to Digg
-
-
After slandering the Apollo Dev, Steve now starts to slander the entire userbase.
-
But please continue to mod unpaid and unappreciated!
-
-
To be fair, he isn't wrong.
I cannot see another blackout happening. I think a sizeable chunk of Reddit's moderators would go back if it otherwise meant losing power and influence on one of the largest social media sites.
Of course a lengthier or indefinite blackout of most of Reddit's communities would cause major disruption.
-
-
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.
-
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 :(
-
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.
-
It's unclear how useful aggregate post and comment totals are in terms of measuring the effect of the blackout on content.
I feel comfortable saying that 80% of Reddit content on my subscribed subreddits has no impact on my day or understanding of life. Thus, the question becomes what 20% has been lost.
-
One thing to note that noticable amount of Reddit traffic is actually bots and they're not taking time off. Be it legit bots or bots farming karma to peddle corporate ads later.
-
Also remember that the 50% figure (and all figures on that page) are only taking into account the top 1000 SFW and 500 NSFW subreddits. So while it may appear that 50% of them are dark, a lot of the more medium subs may be staying open
-
-
-
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, most specifically by turning "/r/all" into "/r/onlywhatwewantyoutosee".
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
-
NSFW posts weren't the primary reason why /r/all got limits. /r/all was littered with hate and bigotry and general garbage. If /r/all had been left alone, Reddit would have continued on the path to becoming Voat.
Not modifying, to some degree, what subreddits appear on /r/all would have made trying to remove the bigotry off the site that much harder. (It will never completely go away; the site is too huge at this point.) While they should have used the idea of quarantines long before they started out with flat-out removal of these subs, these weren't just "[racist slur] are dumb" type of stuff. These were subs that outright called for the violence and death of people who weren't them. These were places for racists and bigots who had no qualm about doxxing people with hopes that bad things would happen to them.
You can argue "Well, then, ban the people who do that kind of thing!" Sometimes when the pool gets full of scum, you have to recognize the point where spot cleaning isn't the cure and you have to drain the pool to stop the scum from gathering.
-
You're not wrong at all on that, however, the quarantining and banning of hate communities happened before the removal of any and all NSFW subs from /r/all. The hate groups were largely getting restricted well before that. I realize they're two sides of a similar coin - but there were different motives behind the shifts. Recall also, that most of those groups getting quarantined and banned were not NSFW communities.
Nobody was using boobs or twerk videos for hate speech. A 4K/60FPS version of that gif of Alexandra Daddario wasn't being used to advocate violence against political figures. That later shift was done purely for user control of content. Reddit (probably) isn't getting click shares off of imgur reposts of daddarios boobs. If they're not standing to gain, they lose every time someone leaves the front page and goes to a sub page to explore more. They also get fewer eyes on their paid content if people are turned off from using /r/all because they don't want to see said boobs. That particular move was a dollars and cents content control move only.
-
-
Controlling the cattle has become the overwhelming purpose of the Haves.
-
The other side to all commercial social apps is driving engagement, and as you said driving ads and cash generation. These both are harmful to users. Driving engagement seems to be a more subtle thing, but more harmful of the two as it is kind of corrosive. So commercial social apps are just bad.
-
-
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.
-
I find it a bit disheartening that a lot of comments on Reddit (I know I'm mostly staying away) are labeling us, the people who take issue with not only the API pricing but the entire direction the site is going, snowflakes and whiny babies.
A lot of "I don't cares" and "I just want to use the site not see this useless protest" etc. I remember a time when reddit could come together and actually get results (for better and for worse).
Even the way people comment is different. Seems like a lot more low effort, mouth breather posts, or suspiciously bad faith arguments that I see in response to the increasingly rare thoughtful/informative dialogue in the form of posts or comments.
I'm not saying the site was ever an iconic standard to the peak intellectual, but there seemed to be more people hungry for that type of content.
Maybe I'm just looking back at everything through rose tinted glasses, but I miss the days of ending up going down a new rabbithole sparked by a random comment chain.
I wonder if it's just me and I'm just turning into that old bitter dude longing for the "good ole days."
-
That's reddit from 8+ years ago you're talking about, and small communities. Reddit has long been a mainstream community now, and we all know how the average person is.
-
-
-
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/
-
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.
-
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.
-
-
I didn't know api changes means 3rd party apps no longer can show nsfw content. Nobody's going to pay a subscription and not be able to see stuff that they can see on the official app. Looks like reddit is giving all 3rd party app developers a shitty deal whichever way you cut it.
-
I don't know how to feel about this, that's the app I use and was mad about losing... I already bought the paid version a long time ago but now it's moving to a subscription model so I guess that doesn't count anymore...
The base subscription could cost $2 per month, with an extra $1 for message notifications to account for the additional API calls that such polling incurs.
-
I just had a Rollercoaster of emotions. I was sad and angry to see relay go be sure it's been with me for idk how long (more than 10 years? Has it been that long?). But then losing relay would severely cut my reddit time and lemmy being a lot smaller meant that I could potentially kick this habit. So was kind of excited.
Then I read your message that relay is not going and I'm like "fuck! My addiction will never be cured!" Then saw its a subscription model and now I'm really conflicted.
-
-
-
I can't blame him if he wants his app to survive. I used the pro version for years and would happily payed the planed subscription. But because the vast majority, if not all of the money goes to Reddit I just can't bring myself to do it. I hope his calculations are correct and if they are not, I hope he doesn't falls into dept.
I can't blame the 3P Devs for dealing with this situation as they see fit. It feels like shooting the messenger ...
-
Boo.
-
-
Just dropping in to say fuck Spez.
-
I just checked reddark over 8400 subreddits are down, pretty much all of the big ones are closed down, that's crazy! I only had one reddit brain fart today and caught myself before, so I have no idea how things are there, but I do miss all the nature, castles and sculptures pictures from the stuff I followed.
-
Yeah, I had that moment yesterday. Sat on the toilet and immediately opened Apollo. Closed it a second later. Won’t happen anymore after Apollo is gone, tho.
-
Delete it now, start breaking the habit. I had to do the same.
-
Yeah, once Boost is gone for good I won't have any way to go back even if I wanted to. I'll just have to find my pretty pictures somewhere else, l'll suck it up and fix my tumblr accounts, make them look like a real human owns them instead of a bot so people won't block me :p
I'll eventually go poking around kbin too and maybe finally actually use the mastodon accounts I made.
-
get mlem and put it in the same spot as where your apollo app for is today
-
-
I swapped my Sync app on my homescreen out for Jebroa for Lemmy, so when I instinctively go to open Reddit, I open Lemmy instead. Seems to be working well so far!
-
Substitute RiF for Sync, and it's otherwise the same for me.
-
-
r/redlettermedia went down today which surprised me. Glad they’re jumping on board; I hope spez is eating some serious shit right now.
-
-
Thinking about sticking to Lemmy for most things and using my Reddit alt account just as a porn aggregator. Who's with me?!
-
There's lemmynsfw.com as well now.
-
Similar but in my case it's the war in Ukraine.
-
I thought so, too, but there's !ukraine@lemmy.ml, although I have not checked out that many posts there. And the name alone makes it sound more biased than something like r/CombatFootage
-
-
-
-
That is awesome.
First thing I do when the blackout is over is export my history, edit my comments, delete my acc and buh bye Reddit forever.
-
-
Lemmy.ml is down. My main account is there, which is the one I use to moderate everything. I will try to migrate my account from one instance to another because lemmy.ml is not stable
-
That's an unfortunate timing. They should have locked registrations before accepting too much traffic
-
Yes, or upgrade before like lemmy.world did. I don't know on which instance I will go now, not here because we can't create communities (which is really fine, this instance don't have duplicate that way and the ambiance here is fun)
-
The should just tanked half the users like what their favorite leader Mao would have done
-
-
-
I wish we as a species would just drop this trend of having to eventually ruin a good thing just about every goddam time.
-
Closed source/centralized software always ends like this. It's always "not my problem" with people when it comes to propriatory software dying until, of course, it is :(
-
Just has to do with some central person/group seeing a big pay day. Most people have a price tag at which they would sell just about anything.
Well, people willing to pay for it must see some value in it, and obviously, they don't want to lose that value. So they will do anything for that, including fucking over people
-
Unfortunately our entire economic system relies on that.
-
Tell me how! People expect all good things on the internet to be free on but there are costs.
-
Treat it like public infrastructure and fund it with public taxes.
Demand is real, cost isn't that high, but societal cost for bad execution can be high.
-
-
-
Just deleted my Reddit account.
-
I deleted all my comments, thousands of them, 13 years of comments, using Redact. I think I'll keep my account until July 1st, then I'll see...
-
Ditto but power delete suite
-
-
Power Deleted mine yesterday. The idea of them making $$$ for AI training is creepy.
-
-
manifesting christian decides to rewrite apollo for lemmy 🙏
half kidding of course, i think he said he wasn’t interested in reddit alternatives anyways, but i do miss it
-
He actually addressed it in the Verge article linked in this thread. He's afraid of Lemmy or Kbin dying off and having to deal with the emotional toll of the app dying all over again. As a developer, I totally get that concern. He has put so much of his time into Apollo just to see it die, I wouldn't want to risk that again.
-
As much as i hate the idea of a community relying on one company, I saw someone suggest that Apple buy Apollo and get into social. It’s not a TERRIBLE idea. I feel icky wishing for it though.
-
-
-
Just have to say: Has anyone notice that Beehaw is just way faster then Reddit? Sorry new here, just my first impression. By the way. Thanks everyone for this site.
-
From join-lemmy.org:
Blazing Fast
Made using some of the fastest frameworks and tools, including Rust, Actix, Diesel, Inferno, and Typescript.
-
Maybe because I'm using Jerboa, but it feels slower to me. Jerboa has many issues though
-
Yes, I am on the web UI.. Have not tried the app yet.
-
Have you updated recently? A jerboa update came out earlier today and it seems to run better now for me.
-
-
Indeed! I guess it's (at least partly) because there's not as much stuff going on that the user can see (and sometimes can't see).
-
It really is faster, I noticed that too.
-
-
Only thing I’ve missed about Reddit is googling stuff by adding Reddit on the end of it! Ironically most of the stuff has been around server stuff for my Lemmy instance
-
You can still do that, just pipe it through archive.is or just go there. You're not giving Reddit much with your page view.
-
-
I feel fine switching. I'll miss the deep history of reddit, but apparently the official app sucks for that too (afaik), so no great loss anyways. The community seems small but great here.
-
The official app is so, so, bad. And the thing is, it has only gotten worse over time, not better.
-
-
-
This post is informative but I fail to see how it relates to reddit. Did you post under the wrong thread?
-
Lemmy has been having some issues lately where responses aren't going to the thread the submitter actually clicked on
-
-
-
I also love my Fairphone, but what does this have to do with the reddit blackouts?
-
-
bootloader can be... re-locked
Yes, but iirc they configured their verified boot setup incorrectly (using the keys Google provides publicly for debug/testing purposes instead of their own secret ones) so someone can easily bypass verified boot and install whatever OS or root kit or whatever they want on your phone if they get physical access to it without the phone detecting that and erasing your personal info. That's why GraphineOS doesn't support the fairphone IIRC.
-
A word on reddit, blackouts, & effective protesting: https://piped.video/watch?v=U06rCBIKM5M
wish some reddit mods participating in the blackout watched it.
-
Mod of small (~26,000 users) sub. We'll be staying dark indefinitely. Talking to my other mods for other subs and recommending they do the same. We're tiny but hopefully it sends a message to our users.
-
As a user of a shut-down (maybe temporarily) community in Reddit, the fact that it was shut down and has a decently active (migrating) community here is the very reason i have a Lemmy account.
Shutting down on Reddit is a valid working strategy to send a message, so you made the right choice
-
NEAT
-
-
He makes some really good points. Why should reddit corporate give a shit about a timeboxed tantrum? If people aren't going to commit, then there's no point.
-
A word on reddit, blackouts, & effective protesting: https://piped.video/watch?v=U06rCBIKM5M
As I understand him, announcing a blackout for 2 days is equivalent to reassuring to come back for 363 days despite all that's wrong. Basically signalling "you can do that with me". I feel that interpretation has some truth, but also falls short.
As I understand the blackout, it is a warning shot. Like any political demonstration (and unlike romantic relationships, to which he compares it), it's a show of strength and numbers to both sides. Both participants and recipients can see who else protests, and see how many.
A display of force alone can sway people to either join the protest, or to renegotiate. But those in power can always assume it's a bluff and call it as such by ignoring the protest. Then, it depends on wether the protesting people are willing to follow through. What actual force stands behind that display of force? Are you willing and capable to escalate?
How many subscriptions and subreddits will leave if their demands are not met? And why didn't they leave right away if they don't like it anymore?
I think it's perfectly fine to not escalate to the highest level right away. The intermediate steps are a form of communication and negotiation, and can prevent unecessary harm. But you should be prepared to follow through if the demands are not met, else you signal in fact "you can do that with us".
-
Wow, I didn't know there was a peertube instance getting this much traffic, at least I think its peertube?
Unfortunately the video doesn't play too well on my end, lots of jitter and jumping.
-
It's a piped instance link which just downloads and serves the video from YouTube. It's privacy friendly because your browser doesn't hit Google's site where they'll just further build up your ad profile.
It seems to be used quite a lot here when people can't find the video on PeerTube.
-
-
-
I'm thinking about sticking with Lemmy for most things and just using my Reddit alt as a porn aggregator. Who's with me?!
-
Not me.
Found lemmynsfw.com, nuked reddit nsfw alt.
-
-
Does anyone know what's going on with Lemmy.ml? I can't access it and keep getting 502 errors when I try to check it on browser. Hopefully they're just working on their server because that was the instance where I had subscribed to stuff. It won't be a big deal if they're just gone, just an inconvenience.
If they are gone, already, it is somewhat worrying for the viability of Lemmy generally, because I don't want to lose my subscriptions and comments every time a server shuts down. I've made an account on beehaw and lemmy.world as well under the same username, and I probably will make ones under other popular instances just in case.
-
I’ve made an account on beehaw and lemmy.world as well under the same username, and I probably will make ones under other popular instances just in case.
Probably a better choice is UNpopular instances. Smaller ones. People who don’t quite grasp the federation concept are flooding in from Reddit, joining the larger instances, and overwhelming them.
-
I joined two days ago, a very small instance simply because I liked the name. And I read recommendations that the choice would not matter, that you can switch later anyways and whatnot.
Turns out, bad choice. Many communities are invisible to me unless I perform some exclamation mark shenanigans which I still don't understand (or another person from my instance does, but since we are so few, that doesn't happen so often).
Links to other instances are broken. For example, when yesterday's megathread was closed due to 500 comments, the mod left a link there to this thread here, I suppose. Because since I'm not from beehaw, the link does not work for me.
So it really comes with convenience and benefits to be part of a big instance, as long as that instance can handle the load. It should not make a difference, but it does. I wish the communication was clearer about that upfront. I'm a nerd and can handle it (for a while), but surely some people would leave again, when experience does not live up to advertisement.
For the best experience, join the instance with the most content you're interested in. Federation is nice in theory, but we're not fully there yet.
-
Ah shit, you're right.
-
-
Not sure, but I'm getting the same thing when trying to connect directly. I'm guessing they got the hug of death. It's the second day of the blackout on Reddit, this is probably the time of critical mass for people that are migrating. My assumption is they all tried to join that main lemmy.ml instance rather than distributing the load across smaller instances.
-
Does anyone know what’s going on with Lemmy.ml?
Serious scaling problems with the database in Lemmy. The code was not really tested and tuned for the quantity of federation peers to replicate with, comments, votes, postings. A lot of big communities over there to replicate.
I'm seeing pending on all my remote Join to communities hosted there.
-
All of the most popular lemmy instances have been having issues while they deal with the massive user growth. I expect it will get better over time as things get figured out and lemmy devs make improvements. I don't know what's wrong with lemmy.ml specifically but it will probably be back online soon, I think one of the main lemmy devs runs it so it's not like they are going to abandon it now that lemmy is taking off.
-
-
-
hopefully we’ll be adding ‘lemmy’ to our web searches in a few years to get the best/most accurate information
-
-
Now aws too.. this afternoon
-
Looks like Reddit Mod tools are being accommodated https://mods.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/16693988535309
-
Our API allows free access to moderators and developers creating these tools for non-commercial use cases.
They had already committed to avoiding disruptions to bots, they aren't backing off on the apps.
-
Yeah the non-commercial part just destroys the entire announcement. Mods could just use a community made bot that they bought for like $5 and be done with it.
Since this will be now against the ToS, no one will be bothered to develop these tools for free, to move around.
This is a worthless post.
-
-
I don't have a source for this (and frankly I could be misremembering, or this was a slightly different thing): but I seem to recall reading a long comment about how reddit has said they'll make those things available, but all the mods trying to contact them have been received no communication at all regarding how things will be implemented, when they'll be implemented, given (and been heard) or received any feedback, etc. Just complete silence. Similarly, reddit said it'd implement accessibility tools years? ago and then just silence.
If I'm remembering that right, and even if I'm not, given Reddit's hostile attitude regarding all of this... that actually panning out the way the particle paints is still quite questionable.
I hope I'm wrong though.
-
I believe you're right. Reddit promised to make all the tools the mods need available, but gave no timeline. It won't help the mods if their existing tools shut down on July 1st and the new, official Reddit tools come online in 2030.
-
How is your son? 😁
-
I seem to recall reading a long comment about how reddit has said they’ll make those things available
Make what things available?
-
-
364 comments
thread cycled! new thread is over here, folks