Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview
“The blackouts are not representative of the greater Reddit community.”
“The blackouts are not representative of the greater Reddit community.” Or so he says. Also:
Q: So you’re saying that Apollo, RIF, Sync, they don’t add value to Reddit?
A: Not as much as they take. No way.
I like how he's finally admitted this was pretty much about the third party apps, but has done so in the most stupidest, roundabout way possible.
Anyone who is even remotely competent could've figured out a way to keep third party apps and make money (having apps only login for monthly-subscription paying reddit users like Spotify, half the cost of the APIs, buyout third party apps) but no, Huffman has to have it his way.
And people at Reddit trying to spin this as the people protesting inconvenieincing a glorified forum board, massive eye rolls. Felt like DARVO all over again.
That’s perhaps the most frustrating part. There are numerous ways they could have handled this that at worst would have resulted in a few people whining about it and then moving on.
Even if he had just shut the fuck up for a few days, most subs would probably be up by now. But no, his fragile ego couldn’t handle it, so he decided to go on a personal crusade against the very people who are working for free to keep the site running.
Without the mods and power users, Reddit has barely any value whatsoever.
Aaron would be so disappointed.
Just imagine what Aaron would say... He would be disgusted and set up a fediverse instance to spit out Alex and Steve.
This is what hurts me the most. Aaron's memory doesn't deserve this
This guy has such a toxic attitude and a ridiculous childish language.
This is the Level of PR he is capable of
we are working with everybody who is willing to work with us
Which loosely translates to "we are going to do whatever we want to users, mods and devs. If they take it, good. Otherwise fuck them".
What baffles me is that he does not seem to Get that reddit does not take its powers from the 90% of users who lurk on /r/funny and similari big subs. It's from the powers users and the mods who do god's work. If those go away, he can make reddit profitable by turning into Facebook and then watch it die.
I can't go back to reddit after this and anyone that goes back has lost my respect.
Such a CEO
He kept going on about turning comments on these protest posts to really see how many users disapprove the blackout… as if it won’t be a wall of “Fuck u/spez”
If people really still wanted to use reddit and the communities that existed that are now closed, then wouldn't they just start a new community, like r/funnyv2 or something?
One would think so, wouldn't one?
Spez is delusional.
Huffman was supposedly so out of the loop – despite being Reddit’s CEO and apparently arguing in favor of third-party apps – that he didn’t realize “the extent that they were profiting off our API.”
“I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities,” he told The Verge.What an embarrassing thing for a CEO to say in an interview
It's as if he saw what Elon is doing to Twitter and thought, "By jove, that's precisely what Reddit's been missing."
Sp
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