As Reddit Crushes Protests, Its User Traffic Returns to Normal

I went on Reddit yesterday for the first time since the strike, whilst trying to debug a code issue. Almost every post from years old questions had the replies deleted by the users. I think the real damage will be the deletion of content and the change in tone from redditors. Most useful discourse will be gone and it will turn into a place only for arguing, memes and shit posting. Advertisers aren't going to want to pay to advertise on low quality content like that.

Punishing future searchers is what has me conflicted about wiping everything. I have an 11 year account. I have no idea how many times my troubleshooting was correct for various issues or howany times my anecdotal incidents could match for someone else.
xkcd: Wisdom of the Ancients
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wisdom_of_the_ancients.png
Rollover: "All long threads should have a globally editable post stickied to the top saying" DEAR FUTURE USERS, here's what we've learned so far"
Since I didn't figure out image embedding, here's the regular link https://xkcd.com/979/
- i wont wipe my reddit account because i dont want to destroy the posts i made.
- The Reddit board are profiting off you though, your knowledge in those searches has value and you see zero while.spez and co get millions. Try to get it off Reddit.
- Well host those comments on your own website and submit it to Google to be indexed?
I truly feel most of the 3rd party app users were the more level headed folks in the userbse. For the most part we were users there since before reddit had an app when good discourse took place. We're taking that discourse with us and I anticipate further deterioration of reddit. More akin to Facebook style toxicity and echo chambering. I'm sad to see it because overall that's a net loss for humanity/the internet. But I like it here.
True, plenty of the useful posts, advice, opinions will be lost. Unfortunately i don't think Reddit will suffer much for it, eventually spez will get his IPO, and possibly have moderators replaced by paid staff and/or bots. Life will go on there almost certainly for the worse. Social media and the monetization of people win again. Edit: i deleted my posts, comments, and account there. Same as Facebook and Twitter.

I totally believe this. Exactly zero of the 11K subscribers of the sub I mod have followed me over to the fediverse--despite a third of them 'supporting' the idea of keeping the sub dark.

Still deciding if I should just be an 'absentee mod' (not post anything personally, but keep things reasonably orderly) or let someone else mod it and move on. I just cant, in good conscience, 'return to normal'.

Reddit doesn't support you, your fellow users don't support you. Do right by yourself and stop giving free effort for no benefit.
Do it wrong. Internal protest is the best protest.

I continued to look reddit for reasons, but honestly the feed is deteriorating fast, maybe traffic is back, people posting content, not so much, engagement? Even less, it's like looking to a old mediocre Google News feed.

Fine with me, found a good substitution here after 11 years of reddit
Engagement is up because an algorithm optimized it.
The algorithm does not care if that engagement is negative or toxic.
Yeah, I at least personally used to be a bit of a power user and have just stopped posting/upvoting/downvoting altogether, and I'm not even a mod.
Just because people show up does not mean people are engaged.

I always said, redditors are good at complaining, but do nothing else.

r/workreform is one of the most popular subs, yet reddit's userbase can't even protest online properly.

Your work reform is never coming, plebbit. just saying.

Sadly, I think this is widely true about people in general. Actually commiting to change is so much harder than expressing dissatisfaction with your current state.
- except this is not "I gotta threaten to quit my job if it doesn't improve", "stop eating meat", or "switch to a bicycle instead of a car".
  This is a "I gotta open a different app and start lurking there daily and occasionally post".
  Switching to lemmy took me an hour. How difficult is this protest, really?
  I mean, how much hope is there for humanity with that level of indifference/apathy.
- Occupy Wall Street comes to mind.
  The George Floyd protests eventually brought about justice to the killers, but so many protests never pan out unless extreme violence and complete revocation of the current system takes place, which has never happened in American protests due to the general populace's sense of comfort.
- *France enters the chat "The fuck we do"
Consumers are notoriously difficult to organize for boycotting and protests. There's nothing that actually unites different Reddit users beyond using the same service, so solidarity is nil.
I'm not going back, but I was looking for the exit for a while anyway vOv
"I did something about it! I liked someone's angry tweet!" Then they watched Netflix, distractedly fondling their purity and lovingly sniffing their fingers. bOtH pArTiEs ArEtHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe

Obviously if PC Mag says it it must be true. /S

I'm more curious about how the numbers will look after they nix 3rd party apps. There's bound to be a dip after June 30.

Are there a significant number of users using third party apps? Would be interesting to see.
- I’ve seen an overview from a popular sub a while ago, as far as I remember a third were using 3rd party apps at least part of the time. Many people use multiple ways to view Reddit though, apps on mobile, old Reddit in a tab at work etc.
- Yes, that was the precursor to all this; The API changes and it's effect on 3rd party apps.
- Last I saw they account for something around 10 000 0000 users. But that number is dwarfed by the official app.
Are there a significant number of users using third party apps? Would be interesting to see.

I've cut out Reddit, if lemmy dies my social media use dies with it.

I'll be here contributing to the community as long as everyone else is.

It's going to dip again when third party apps are shut off. Personally I'm still browsing Reddit to check in on the drama on /r/ModCoord

Yeah exactly this. Most of the subs I used to be active in are still restricted or just meme subs now. I'm checking in to watch the drama until I can't use RIF anymore, but it's all lurking for me now and I just don't have any interest in engaging there anymore.
- dont you mean "RIF is fun for Reddit"? Are you sure you wrote this correct xD
just use teddit.net/r/ModCoord - privacy-respecting alternative.
dunno, but third party usage were never that high IIRC. that's why them targeting third party apps is a weird decision
- It’s not weird at all. The traffic is low so they don’t give a shit and by killing them third party apps they avoid questions from investors about loopholes in their ad feeding platform. Reddit wants to go public now so they have to be big boys, and we all know what it means under ripe capitalism. No mission, only revenue
- don't more people use third party apps than the official app?
- Apollo has 25m downloads, I can't imagine that the various Android 3rd party apps are any lower than that in total, if not individually.
  Officially they make up a small amount of traffic, but amongst power users who both create and comment significantly is much more commonly done through 3rd party apps.

From what I have seen, traffic is down 9-10% now, which is quite significant.

Also the world has found out there are alternatives, so if mobile apps stop working or cost money by July, we may see a similar drop again.

What happens after that is hard to say. IMO reddit has steadily deteriorated compared to what it was 15 years ago. I miss the old reddit, what reddit is today I won't miss.

Reddit will probably survive, and that may be for the best for Lemmy too. As long as Lemmy stays sustainable, I think we are better off without most of the people who choose to stay with reddit. Because those are likely to also be the people who don't really care about values.

It depends on what percentage of power users/content creators/OPs are in that 10%. Most online communities have a pretty lopsided composition of posters vs. lurkers. If all posters move, the community will be eaten from the inside-out by repost bots.
- I think the way reddit was going, quality content creators were already drowned out in many places.
  We have a few bots here already making posts, I'm not sure how good or bad they are, but I'd prefer a site without bots. Where things are posted, because someone actually found it relevant here.
Reddit will probably survive, and that may be for the best for Lemmy too.
I never thought about that and that makes a lot of sense to keep the problematic users over there.

Yeah where is this data coming from?
- No way it's legit

Once Apollo is inactive, so am I.

I’ve been here 50% or more. Won’t be hard, lol. Idiots

Maybe it's the novelty here or something but I'm really enjoying Lemmy overall. Agreed switching over completely won't be difficult in the slightest
- There’s less comments, but also no low-effort jokes at the top for karma.
Ill admit its taking a hot minute to get setup on Lemmy, find communities and such. But Im enjoying it.
Yup, once boost is dead I'll be over here on lemmy full time.

Let the sheep stay, while we enjoy some fresh air in the fediverse.

Welp they are getting way less traffic from me. All I do is occasionally log on and see which subs are creatively protesting now 😆

Returns to normal.... minus me, HA TAKE THAT SPEZ!

I was an active member of reddit for over a decade. That ended during the blackout and I refuse to go back. I have blocked reddit at the router level to ensure they see no traffic from my network

Not for this user lol

When the quality of content drops on reddit , people will automatically move to Lemmy.

Minus me. I used that fancy script to change all my comments to a statement and I deleted all my posts.

Too early to judge. Wait a month at least

I think when 3rd party app support drops on the 1st we'll see what to expect in the days to follow.
- Yup. 3rd party app users will have a choice, be forced into learning to use the shitty official reddit app or learn to use any number of apps that connect you to a new platform

When Apollo stops working, I will only be accessing Reddit via old.reddit.com

I refuse to use that shitshow of an ad riddled official app.

Stop accessing at all. You're still giving them traffic.
You should access Reddit only via a mirror as you wouldn’t want to contribute there anyway.
You should use Teddit, I'm using it as a mirror to wrangle in RSS feeds of sub's. That way Reddit doesn't get your traffic directly
- Isn't this using the same API that's going away in 7 days?
  https://codeberg.org/teddit/teddit/src/commit/b0ce6c52a66987543707d3559d50e4dc2d35a3e8/inc/initRedditApi.js#L16

I’ve found my alternative. But the last few days and those going forward I’ve went back to using the shit out of Apollo like I used to because I know it’s about to die. Reddit is going to die on July 1.

I'm curious if this type of usage of Reddit via 3rd party apps is captured in these metrics, or if it only looks at Reddit website and the app traffic

Read that and came here

It was nice when it lasted. July 1st will be a change most likely.

The change will take some time.

Probably a bad idea and I don't know the logistics of this but... What if every existing 3rd party reddit app redirected to Lemmy or kbin or something.

It isn't the 1st of July yet...

I dont care if it doesn't change. As long as this just slowly grows to a nice plateau ill be satisfied.

Not I. I moved to Lemmy.world today. F that noise.

Hi Spez! Nice to see you've found your way here! Enjoy the Fediverse!
How brainwashed do you have to be to say something like this? Actually, if you think that people here are "small dicked incels", why are you even using lemmy? I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you were some reddit employee posting this stuff on lemmy so people come back or something. Unless you work for reddit, this is the worst case of Stockholm syndrome I've ever seen.
- They're here to troll. Report and block.
Go home spez, you're drunk.
You seem to be handling it really well friend