User visits and time spent on the social media platform normalize after traffic to Reddit briefly dipped last week during the blackout, according to SimilarWeb.
Reddit will never be normal again after this. Someone else said it recently - It doesn't matter if only 5% (or less) of the user base leave because this 5% will most likely be the most passionate and active users actively creating content that is not advertisement.
In the long run; the content quality will decline because of that.
In addition, these statistics likely do not distinguish what is bot traffic that are scraping the site vs users. The bots will keep scraping.
Reddit basically had a monopoly -- given how quickly things are moving on Lemmy and other sites -- I think that monopoly is over. It's still a bit too chaotic here for a major mass move but there's now so much more interesting content. People will eventually figure out how to make these sites competitive now that there is so much interest.
It's at that point that things will really change.
I think you and @Screak42 hit the nail on the head.
There was never going to be a mass exodus, not without an established competitor (as Reddit was to Digg back in the day).
Trust has been broken. That's like a boat that now has a tiny hole in it- it may not sink now, but that doesn't mean it's not sinking.
That said- I don't think there will be a mass move. I think the more passionate old school people will migrate away, which will leave less content for the newer folks. The site will certainly get a lot less interesting. And this will hurt them in the long run. But like most mismanagement, it'll look good for the next quarter or two.
Not only that, once reddit IPOs they are tied to wallstreet and must beat wallstreet quarterly estimates or else. They already had trouble turning a profit, they are going to pound the users with shit no one wants. That was already happening, but it's going to get worse.
It's almost a relief that I was (relatively) recently introduced to 3rd party apps that it made me care enough to move to Kbin in protest of Reddit's actions. The future there is bleak.
I expect the bigger test will be when the API changes go into effect and third-party apps become unusable.
Personally, I have no plans or intention to use the native Reddit app. I may still browse the site on my desktop from time to time, but I'm intentionally making the shift to Lemmy as my go-to for mobile use.. I'll be happy when third-party apps for Lemmy are a little more stable and reliable so I don't have to go through a mobile browser.
Same. Reddit without Boost or other third party apps is borderline unusable. The official app is an ad- and telemetry infested piece of garbage, but if you are planning on selling user data, I guess that helps.
I still visit Reddit on desktop during work, it's often the top Google result for some of my niche questions, but on the other hand I'm pretty glad to have my year long death scrolling behavior cured.
I don't use Reddit on mobile anymore and Lemmy is simply not convenient enough with Jerboa's early stage of development, which means I spend about 90% less time using these apps compared to Boost. My productivity has skyrocketed.
I can't use the official app even if I wanted to. Most of my use is on LineageOS sans gapps. And with old.reddit.com gone I will be locked out completely.
The real dip will happen when the third party apps go down, specially with stuff like reddit Sync's dev now making Sync for Lemmy instead, and Artemis for kbin/Lemmy and Memmy being heavily inspired by Apollo.
Lots of people come over when you explain it to them; even made this quick summary including Sync and Artemis to explain to confused redditors what's happening, and it seems to be effective. Feel free to use it.
The screenshot is a picture of visit duration, I would be interested to see the other statistics. Most Reddit users will return though once the sub-reddits open back up, which is why they are forcing it.
How are these stats aggregated and sourced? If these are coming directly from Reddit, I mean, I wouldnt put it past them to try and modify those values with bot accounts if necessary.
Reddit can't even read their own stats right when they threatened r/Finland they said they have 2 million users the mods checked and they have 20k users but 2 million views.