what would Reddit need to do to get you to go back
I'm not trying to convince anyone to go back i promise, quite the contrary actually cause I think spez plans to just decrease the cost of the API and act like it was a bargain deal sacrifice while not solving any of the issues at all
But, when I think about it even if spez did actually listen and reverse all changes I don't think i want to go back to Reddit cause from what Ive seen Lemmy is just friendlier and less :Be Corporate Friendly: I would honestly love it if Lemmy did a project like r/place one of these days so we could see what the internet is actually like instead of what happened in 2022 (I really did enjoy what a bunch of communities did but when the mods started abusing their powers to make it corporate r/place lost so much meaning) but i am curious since i'm not going back is there anything Reddit can do to make you go back to Reddit?
A week ago: Bring down the API costs. I’d have begrudgingly accepted paying a few extra bucks a year for Apollo Ultra.
Today: Nothing. Reddit admins acted like smug children in the face of the Apollo Dev’s good faith questions, then the CEO and admins pulled the stunt of trying to act like the dev threatened them. Then the CEO doubled down on that story in the sham AMA. I don’t want to feed that machine anymore.
I have edited and then deleted all my posts and comments except for a few final ones that will go soon. I will keep the account but only as a point of contact for some people until I get them all contacting my email instead.
I've only been here for a day, but the lack of homophobia and transphobia here compared to Reddit has been a breath of fresh air. I'm not afraid of posting here like I was on Reddit, where I'd actually have to debate with myself for a minute or two before posting. It's like finally leaving a bad relationship; now I'm starting to see how bad that all was for my mental health.
It's quite the opposite at this point. Reddit isn't really in control anymore. Rather, something drastic would have to happen to Lemmy to cause me to leave. Reddit is no longer the default choice.
i kind of want reddit to die now. people talking to one another shouldn’t be monetized or debased through some spyware algorithm run by antisocial dickheads.
I'll be real: I don't want to go back. I want a return to actual communities and comradery, and an exodus from "social" influencers, on ad-riddled and bloated soap boxes.
Honestly, I feel like my time with Reddit is done now. You know how when someone breaks up with you and you're in shock that it's over but then you start reflecting and realising everything that was wrong with the relationship? That. I feel like Lemmy, and the fediverse, is a really interesting alternative way of doing things, I'm not the most tech savvy (or the least) and at nearly 50 it's a bit harder for me to pick up new concepts than it was 20 years ago, but I'll get the hang of it, and I actually think that this will end up being a positive change for me. There is so much wrong with the corporatisation of the internet, and this does feel like a viable and genuine alternative to that.
It’s hard to say. A change in management maybe? Reddit has already gotten worse in recent years, but with betrayal of developers and users with the API, the way Spez intentionally lied about Apollo’s developer to the public, and with the upcoming IPO, I don’t see how things will get any better. It sucks because a lot of the information and utility Reddit has, I don’t know where to find elsewhere.
That being said, I’ve grown extremely tired of how the internet has seemed to have gotten worse and worse over the past 7-10 years. To me, this decentralization/fediverse is exciting because it seems like it has the possibility of making the internet feel freeing, fun, and human again.
Reverse API changes, fire Spez, and sticky an apology to the frontpage.
But even if they did that, I'm not going back 😂
I've been tired of reddit for a while, too many bots, too many bad mods, too many psychos and trolls. Basically, it's just too crowded. It's nothing like it was when I joined in 2010. The spirit of the site died a long time ago and you can't get it back.
I think they've made it clear that even if they backpedal now, they're just testing the waters to see how much bullshit they can get away with and they're going to do the absolute most they can... Even if they completely took a 180 and said they were keeping the API entirely free, I'd still be gone.
I always found it hard to engage with larger Reddit communities anyway; Lemmy and the Fediverse as a whole are much closer to what I wanted from Reddit but couldn't get, so I'm here to stay no matter what happens. Fuck them.
u/spez fired, paid API policy reversed, NSFW policy change reversed, public apology to christian and all reddit users promoting lemmy who got banned + compensation for defamation, all decisions regarding site administration and API policy permanently democratized, so that this shit never happens again, make the whole thing open source.
I don't expect a single thing on my list to happen, but everything on that list would have to happen before I considered returning.
Today's AMA was something else. I honestly don't know how a founder of reddit doesn't understand reddit users.
I really like/liked reddit. I've been on it since digg v4 happened. Rif dies, I'm done using reddit on my phone. I'm not installing their app. If old dies, then I'm completely done with reddit. I'm not using new. Chances are I'll use reddit less and less anyway though.
It won't happen. Reddit is dying. The culture has had a massive shift and you simply don't recover from that. When they have their IPO it will be very telling.
But based on this fiasco, any sane investor would have some serious reservations about the leadership of Reddit but its future in the social networking space.
They pissed off a LOT of people, and those people are the ones that create all of the content.
But look across the social media spectrum. FB, Twitter, Reddit. All of them are just tanking.
We are on the precipice of a big paradigm shift in how we communicate with one another online.
He accused a small 3rd party app solo developer who was working for FREE of blackmailing and threatening him. Spez would have to step down and sell Reddit to someone with better integrity and morals for me to go back.
As someone who really only went on Reddit for memes and techie discussions, I think I can say this: for my use-case, there was nothing special about Reddit itself. In fact, one thing I have realized is just how little the nature of the host matters beyond ease of use. Sure, certain formats lend themselves better to certain use-cases, but ultimately humans are social creatures, and even in the most inconvenient of circumstances, we find a way to make it work.
And once you realize that, it becomes less about the medium, and more about the people who lead the discourse. From what I can gather, Reddit lost that discourse a long time ago. And as such, their downfall was only a matter of time.
TBH, the thing I disliked most about Reddit ended up being the community. It was nice having little niche communities, but wisps of inceldom, hivemind, and that general air of arrogance permeated the entire site. Killing the apps that made the site tolerable to use (Apollo, in my case) was just the last straw. I already used a plugin that deleted all of my posted content from the past 5 years, so I'm officially out, and it's kind of a relief. I'll stick to Discord interest servers and small communities like this one from now on.
The API change was just another nail in the coffin for me. I was running a sober and large local friend group and my account was randomly nuked for "promoting violence". I appealed it with the comment because it wasn't even close to that and then my alt was banned too. Like their moderation/appeals is just three bots in a trench coat. Fuck you Spez.
So yea I think I am officially done. I have some alts but going to either close them or get them suspended during the AMA lol.
Honestly, nothing. I was pretty hopeful to see a change of heart during the AMA, but clearly that didn't happen. Good riddance, long live the fediverse.
If old.reddit.com gets taken down, I'm out for good.
As good as the fediverse is, there has to be a tremendous amount of work to make it easier for non-tech folks to participate. I am excited though, being here certainly feels like the good old simpler web.
100% backpedal on all controversial changes announced within the previous 6 months; including any changes announced at the same time as said controversial changes.
Form a task force of admins and developers to backport all; critical moderation tools and changes introduced since the new.reddit launch; to old.reddit. (Complete this task within 1-2 years.)
Irrevocably Hard remove with no severance /u/spez from his CEO position and any position of power at reddit.
Hire a new CEO from the pool of the community team(s).
Cease all Dickery at once
CANCEL THE IPO!!!!! This shit needs to wait until reddit gets it's act together.
Prioritize hiring humans to run reddit AEO; choose them from your MASSIVE FUCKING POOL OF SUBREDDIT MODERATORS! DO NOT USE AI OR HIRE ANYONE WHO HASN'T MANAGED AT LEAST 25K USER SUBS
Ban all forms of facism; this is including forms of EXTREME viewpoints that grossly exceed reasonable discourse, peaceful free speech, advocate for extremist governmental regulation, violence or oppression of any kind against any group or subset of people.
fuck /u/spez - Just make sure he never gets a C-Level job again please.
continue to build reddit out in a way that allows for fair and ethically priced services from reddit (Ads, unlimited API access, rev sharing, premium features that are cosmetic items only, etc)
Pick up the same "Do No Evil" ethos that Google abandoned; prioritize your users and revenue equally and balance the obligations better.
I don’t think there’s anything they could do to get me to go back.
Lemmy is new yes and doesn’t have as many communities as Reddit does yet, but it’s still well in the early stages.
They’ve been moving to pushing profits for a while as they have been trying to go public, and that began a downward spiral. I was already looking elsewhere once they started putting NFTs in.
At this point, it's only going to get worse. It's a very large Venture Capital backed company, on track to IPO.
Large VC/public companies goals will follow more of what we see with "mainstream" sites and social media. It'd be against their goals and their business to have less ads, less agorithms showing what their partners want to see and not what the user wants to see, less bloat on their front end. Even if the CEO wanted to go that way, he'd quickly be replaced.
It's a self sustaining movement of capital now and users are annoyances that they have to deal to achieve their goals.
I'll be honest, I started using redding decade ago because most forums were very niche, specific, with weird to follow rules, very low on users, and reddit seemed to always have a community for each topic I had an interest on. It still does, but the end is approaching fast, and I don't want to search Discord servers, social media videos, or even ancient methods that are alternatives like IRC servers, mailing lists ; search results are useless in Google due to SEO and already affect other search engines
It all comes up to finding one or more sites that don't look ancient or too mobile focused, and if enough people are going to use it and stick to it. Otherwise it'll just be another corner of the web filled with a few crazy users
Reddit is not what it ought to be. It's overwhelming toxic environment just ruins what could have been a great forum. But it is what it is and for that reason, I'm out.
Going back at this point would be like returning to an abusive partner and thinking that the relationship could actually be better this time.
Honestly I don't think I ever will. It was already causing me issues in terms of addiction and cutting it to of my life has already had a positive effect. I'm not planning on installing Beehaw/Lemmy on my phone which also limits my time. I know its a small community but everyone has been so welcoming to all the Reddit refugees
Ban the handful of moderators who run hundreds of subs between themselves, along with those responsible for moderating AgainstHateSubreddits and ShitRedditSays. Both communities in particular have done tonnes of damage to Reddit as a platform.
Add clear house rules that make Reddit a better place. Banning things like sexualised content of minors, involuntary/revenge porn, racial hatred, etc shouldn't come as a result of the press generating negative publicity and hurting Reddit's bottom line, they should be basic humanitarian requirements to run a social media platform. I mean look at the reason why they banned /r/NoNewNormal, they quoted some bullshit jargon statistics about vote manipulation and used that as a basis to ban them rather than doing what any sane person would do and forbid medical misinformation.
Make the official app actually good. There's a reason why tonnes of people use BaconReader, Apollo, Reddit Is Fun, etc, and why almost every web user prefers Reddit's old minimalistic UI, and it says a lot when a fediverse clone has a better rich text editor than the 'Fancy Pants Editor' of New Reddit...
Spez resigns and brings in somebody more like Aaron Swartz in terms of their beliefs on free speech to run the company.
I think (hope?) this was the push I needed to get away from reddit.
Realistically I think a lot of its "free speech" policies were pretty bad and encouraged a lot of hate. They were extremely slow to moderate what I would consider really obvious abuse and dogwhistle communities.
Them getting rid of the app I use to browse Reddit the most was certainly the straw that broke the camel's back. But it hasn't been great for awhile imho. Why not go to something better?
Nothing. I don't like how they treat their users and I dont trust them. It's not like they were great and this came from nowhere. Reddit has been getting progressively worse for a long time.
fortunately, we have alternatives and don't need reddit.
Honestly I really don't see much of a future for profit-driven social media. Time and time again we've seen that power over communication is just too much power for an individual company to have. The fediverse makes a lot of sense, but I'm not sure if it's the ultimate end state. It would be very nice if it were
Reddit was dead from the day Conde Nast bought it. Every day since then was a roll of the dice as to whether they'd attempt to seize more profits and ruin it, or not. This happens to essentially every public or aspiring public company eventually. The need for perpetual growth warps decisions and guts the original mission in the end.
We call it "autosarcophagy" or "self-cannibalism."
As I understand it, Reddit also took on a lot of external capital investment, which only makes the pressure to perform financially even greater. I can't fault them for making the decisions they have to make to keep their jobs, keep their executive salaries, and so on.
Long live the sustainable, community-driven, community-funded future! Nobody can screw this up for us if we are the ones footing the bill.
The subs I moderated have either gone dark, or are going dark in the next ciuple days.
And with that I let the mod teams I was a part of know that I am moving on. I hate what reddit did to the community, and my time feels better spent where it will be appreciated.
For me they would need to fire spez and announce a complete rollback on all of their planned API changes. Even then I'd probably not let Reddit be my one-and-only anymore
There's nothing they can do to get me to come back. They've shown their cards, it's obvious they don't give a shit about the community built around the site. They will always choose profits over us. I've wiped my entire 13 year history on Reddit. Fuck u/spez
I've heard for a lot of time about these federated social media (lemmy, mastodon...) and I really like it. The interface is not bloated, no bullshit notifications, no ads, no damn algorithms that try so hard to spoonfeed me taking 60% of my feed, taking place for the communities I am actually interested into.
If I could put it into words, lemmy feels a lot like early 2010's social media, fewer people, less stakes, just a bunch of people enjoying some topic (it is ironic, since I started to use Reddit because it seemed to be the only mainstream place left where you can talk with real people). Anyways, I am enjoying it, more than "What would Reddit need to do to get you back?" I would prefer more posts like "What should Lemmy improve to keep you here?".
Just not kill 3rd party apps. Though at this point I want Reddit to destroy itself. I have been hoping for the fediverse to take over ever since I learned of Mastodon and Matrix.
We need to go back to how things were 20 years ago when services like email, IRC, XMPP, icecast, etc. were all decentralized.
I haven't completely left, and to be honest the only way I'd completely leave is if the niche communities I cared about died (or were active here). That being said I've noticed my reddit usage has plummeted over the last week. I used to basically live on that dumb site and now I only check it maybe once or twice a day for a couple minutes
I don't think there is anything they can do to get me back anymore. I have a lot of issues with the culture that exists on that site, and that's not something that can be fixed by walking back the API stuff or removing a few problematic individuals.
That's quite simple, actually. It would need to go back to what it was. It doesn't really have to be open source, it just has to be a site where its CEO's only focus isn't milking money but rather improving the site
I'm wiping my account tonight and will be doing an account delete bit right before the black outs.
I honestly don't think anything would get me to go back. I don't think I'll miss my doom scroll app. Lemmy feels much more easy to actually be apart of, and my account can interact with other fedverse stuff, heck yeah.
The only subreddit I'm going to miss that I haven't seen an alternative of is r/196, so I hope that pops up.
Too late, I've invested too much time, money, and effort into setting up my own Lemmy instance so I can share the love of open source and federated projects with others. What happens if lemmy.ml is overloaded? Go somewhere else and set up an account, and you can reduce the load on their servers.
Be usable and intuitive on mobile, including NSFW, no subscription (one-time purchase is ok), no/limited unobtrusive ads, no excessive data consumption. That's what the 3p app I used was.
I don't socialise on Reddit. Whenever I do, I almost always regret it. But I do kill time while in queues, or on the bus, or on break at work. That needs to be on mobile. Or to 'kill time' at home. That needs to include NSFW. And I want to be seeing the content I went there to see, not miles of ads and promoted posts. And I definitely don't have the budget to pay for it over and over and over. Mobile data is also capped and very expensive here.
It's still usable on desktop, but... I don't use desktop on the bus. It's still available on mobile, but... I don't want to load 5 different resolutions of each video on my limited mobile data.
Honestly, if the key smaller communities that I'm in on Reddit don't migrate away to another platform, then I don't know that I'll even fully leave. Assuming the site doesn't completely implode at this point, of course. For as many subs as I subscribe to, I really only find myself on a handful each day.
That said, spez has really soured my taste for Reddit with the AMA. I only really use old.reddit on desktop, but I've used mainly third-party apps over the years, like most people, I would assume. Even if they lowered API costs to be more reasonable AND third-party app devs decided to come back, they're still limiting NSFW access to third-party app API calls anyway, so a lesser experience either way.
At the end of the day, I'm going to be where the community is, be that here, kbin, or whichever one rises up and has staying power and growth over the next couple years.
Implement ActivityPub, or I I suppose another protocol like Nostr, Ostatus, pump.io, or Diaspora*, and join the fediverse. Preferably publishing their code under the AGPL, but even if they kept it as non-free software I'd still probably get back on. I suppose if they did end-to-end security truly decentralized, like Scuttlebutt or Status, I'd do that too.
I'm still using it because old.reddit.com still works, and until it doesn't, I probably will. That said, I'd rather the fediverse thrive than the increasingly corporate-beholden reddit does, so I'll favour what sparse engagement I make to a lemmy instance first.
I think what's hardest to replace from reddit is the absolutely monstrous archive of posts and discussions, which seems to be a bit of a two-edged sword for them (if the official statements are to be believed) - it costs a tonne in hosting, but makes them the most relevant source for real human discourse. This needs to be handled better, and ideally I'd want to see:
Some sort of archive.reddit.com. Minimal, flat html, ideally anonymised as much as computer-ly possible to help with the inevitable privacy issues this would raise.
Some sort of mobile.old.reddit.com, as they seem incapable of making an app without bloaty (both visual and bandwidth wise) "features". Call me a boomer, but if I can do something without a specific app, I would rather do it that way.
Separate i.reddit.com and v.reddit.com into different companies from the main reddit, reddit should be link aggregation and discussion, content hosting seems like a costly thing to try and monopolise.
If it really costs so much to run the APIs, I'd rather see more user-based rate limiting than price gouging to discourage bad actors. I do not think that is why they are price gouging, but am trying to assume good faith on their part for discussions' sake.
I know I'm an idiot, and some of these are possibly already done and I just haven't looked hard enough, probably some are impossible for obvious reasons I haven't seen. Though even if reddit as a company turned around and tried to become a curator of the discussions it holds rather than milk it's current audience dry with ads, I'd still rather see lemmy out-compete it. Protocol > Platform.
Return in all aspects to how it used to be in 2014 or earlier, but it will never happen because enshittification cannot be reverted.
That includes the bloated inefficient new design that includes an intentionally hostile mobile website that shits the bed on 3G connections, the echo chamber machinery, random layout shifts, NSFW login walls, automated censorship and shadowbanning, the privileges for the big subreddits and the big sponsored powermods.
For a while I thought "fire Spez", but after giving it some more thought....
NOTHING! and I'll elaborate on why. The community of people makes or breaks social media platforms (see, Twitter as prime example). If the owner(s) aren't interested in the well being of the community / communities, then I have no interest in being there.
For me, it is too far gone at this point. The events of the last ~week just highlighted something that I was willfully ignorant of in that it has not been the website I joined back in 2007 for a very long time. VC-backed focus on monetization, profit, return on investment, and ipo (and everything that comes along with that) has ramped up tremendously in the last few years and I think this is now the tipping point of Reddit doing a Digg.
It's a bummer, but not shocking or surprising as it follows a long line of exactly the same pattern, across tech. I'll have fond memories for sure, but have accepted it and am ready to move on to something new.
I wouldn’t because I like it better here. It’s easier to engage because it’s not so huge and there’s less toxicity. I like the software better and that nobody is trying to push certain content in front of me or trying to get me to spend more time on the site. I’ll still go to Reddit on occasion, but that will be because it’s useful for finding information. It won’t be because I want to be part of that community.
I'm not gone yet and I don't know if I actually will be. No matter how frustrated I am with the platform and have been for years now, I don't feel that anything else is ready to replace it.
I wish Lemmy the best but I have my doubts as to how well it'll take off. I remember when Digg died, Reddit was already popular enough to make jumping ship a no brainer for just about everyone. Lemmy is not there yet, and I don't know if it ever will be. It's much smaller than Mastodon/Fediverse, and that's been very slow to pull users away from the even more hated platform it wants to challenge. Can Lemmy achieve the critical mass it needs to succeed?
What's mainly keeping me on Reddit is certain small subs for niche hobbies. Only on the largest platforms is it possible to find people who share my microinterests. Reddit and Discord are it, and Discord really only works as an ephemeral chatroom, it's terrible for news or threaded discussion. Not to mention how much of a problem it is that Discord isn't indexed by search engines.
Even if they revert the API changes, I know It's only going to get worse when the IPO happens, so I don't think I could ever come back. I also like the federated approach more anyways 🤷
I absolutely loved reading wholesome content like this. That's a great idea! We should collectively work together to shape how we want our future year to be!
At this point in time, they have a lot to prove to get me to go back. The site itself has already felt like a lot of recycled content is coming up more and the conversations in some of my favorite subs have already become less deep and engaging. The recommendations and discovery have become kind of subpar and don't even get me started on the native app and website. I work in the development field and the treatment of the third party developers has been garbage, unless there is a major overhaul of the leadership and some really sincere apologizing to those that have mistreated, I just don't see an avenue back at this point.
I'm honestly not "gone" yet, this is my first day on Lemmy. I'm still a little uncertain. Here's what's on my mind:
Reddit isn't, and never has been, profitable. That means that things we don't like are only going to get more and more likely for them to do, because eventually investors will stop paying for them to do the same thing, which we mostly do like.
Lemmy looks like a good alternative, and I'd really like to see reddit die faster so all the content I like moves here.
At the same time, decentralization isn't a silver bullet. It doesn't mean my experience on Lemmy will get better, it just means the individual server I pick has a lot more control over me. Will I lose my identity / get booted off the server because someone decides to stop operating it? Or doesn't like a comment I write? Etc etc
This is kind of like the Wizards of the Coast / OGL situation for me - just enough to make me consider the alternatives, and realize that the alternatives are a better long term solution.
Reddit has become overrun with crypto scam spammers, and they don't appear to be making any attempt to control it. We'll see if the fediverse can do a better job.
I think it is very healthy for huge social media platforms to disappear every now and then and be replaced by better things. After being on Reddit for 13 years I'm excited for something new; hopefully different in good ways. I think a federated approach is a huge improvement. I don't think there's anything they could do.
Makes it feasible for 3rd party apps to continue on the platform. This could be a revenue-sharing agreement, a set price that's not prohibitively expensive but still fairly compensates Reddit, a flat-out exemption from the Enterprising Pricing, doesn't matter. These apps have been around far longer than Reddit's own app, and provide tools (and general polish) the Official App has yet to match seven years in. They deserve to stay and to make a living off of their continued contribution to the community.
Restores parity access to NSFW content via the API. It's essential for moderation bots to combat spam, it helps 3rd party apps stay afloat, and it serves a large part of the community. I get that Reddit wants to sanitize the site in preparation for an IPO. I get that advertisers are wary of NSFW posts. That's not an excuse for removing it from the API. The official ad-supported Reddit app will continue to serve up porn, and the currently proposed API prevents 3rd party clients from using ads anyway. Reddit is making a bad-faith argument that harms moderation bots' ability to do their job, and cripples any 3rd party app that isn't driven from the platform based on price (including 2 "accessibility only" apps they were forced to allow during the AMA).
Apologizes to the Apollo dev for Spez's libelous statements, and starts a good-faith negotiation with developers to open access for things like the enhanced query system that the 1st party app enjoys, usage statistics that will help devs improve API request efficiency, and revenue sharing where devs can monetize using ads or any other method they choose so long as Reddit gets a cut.
Yes, these demands go further than a simple rollback of the new API policy, but at the same time they don't. Reddit's originally stated goal for this change was to keep 3rd party apps around because they add tremendous value to the ecosystem, while stopping the LLM training bots from getting off rent-free when they try to train their AI models off of our hard work. I love that goal. It's something we can all get behind. I just wish they'd actually do it.
But at this point, even if I go back it will be with one foot out the door. The dam has broken, and I plan to campaign hard for alternatives and switch to whichever one hits critical mass first.
Reddit as an entity is just frustrating. Not just the recent debacle, but the pattern of getting slightly more awful with each passing minute. I'm hoping I enjoy my stay here well enough that I never feel the urge to go back. Unfortunately, it's less about what Reddit can do to get me back and more about what the Fediverse can do to keep me.
I liked seeing and engaging with unlimited new things with each passing moment. It would not be very satisfying for me to lose that. Time will tell.
Pay off all my debt. And take me out to a fancy dinner. Wine and dine me, Spez. Then I'll use reddit again. (I would still use lemmy secretly on the side)
I have seen Reddit make a lot of changes over the years that have continually shifted it away from what I wanted it to be. I have been hoping for a long time that something would supplant reddit, probably for most of the time I've been using the platform. If it is really still not profitable after all of that, then I doubt that they can make meaningful positive changes that I want and be in the black. So to answer your question, no, there's probably nothing they can do to get me to stop seeking replacements.
I think that the CEO would need to step down at this point. This has been handled completely inappropriately and he's ultimately responsible. Then they would need to rollback the API changes and approach that change in a more structure community lead approach.
I switched to Reddit when I made a decision I'm done with the big corpo like Meta and I deleted all my social media accounts including WhatsApp. I got Signal and convinced all my friends and family to do the same so now I have a fully functioning social circle there. I moved from Reddit to Lemmy now because I realised that Reddit is more or less the same - the answer to most of the internet issues atm is open source/decentralised services. So I moved here. Still missing a lot of stuff from Reddit though - mostly thriving meme communities...
The fact that they are "willing" to go this route is the writing on the wall.
I also find it so interesting that people and reddit themselves see the platform as "Social Media" and development is has been going that way.
I see it as a link aggregator and forum and treat it as such. I just want to find information, comment about it and have it as dense and "clean" on my screen as possible.
but
The fact that it looks like another Facebook and instagram clone and it is gonna be the only way to experience it is a hell no from me.
Get rid off all the trolls, bots and shills. I know that's nearly an impossible task, but I'm tired of seeing the same thing posted five times a month, good content getting hidden and people arguing for the sake of arguing.
Step 1: A backpedal to their roots, openness and FOSS leaning development. Allow reasonably cheap API access that still gives them some money from the AI trawlers but allows 3rd parties to function, stop blasting me with gigantic notification on my mobile browser to use the terrible official app every time I view a thread (or even literally forcing you off the page period if its 'nsfw' content like elden ring threads, apparently??)
Step 2: Focus on genuine usability. The official app is DOG ASS. The "new" reddit experience is a nightmare compared to old reddit. Videos STILL don't load and run properly, after literally 5 or 6 years. Straight up embarrassing stuff for software developers.
Step 3: Take a genuine stance on moderation and content. Either direction; free-for-all where only the clearly illegal is removed, or tightly moderated with global rules. This current system is a completely broken mess, you'll get the_donald literally breeding terrorists in the open for years, but I can't use call another user an "asshole loser" without getting kicked out of a subreddit? I just dont think the weird federalist style subreddit system works all that well. Global, clear, enforced rules.
If they did these things I think I would return. The real crazy thing is that they could do all of these things and still increase profitability. If the official app was actually good, more people would use it, and the massive amount of calls home and data collection it does would be way more profitable. Jump on the bandwagon, make a reddit LLM chat-bot that is fed only on reddit threads, it would probably be genuinely decent. Or at least make reddit search work, you would siphon off a ton of google search traffic. you know. innovate, at all, even a little. The money would come in. But not AS FAST AS POSSIBLE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE I WANT TO SCROOGE MCDUCK THIS SHIT levels, and thats what the ownership and (soon to be) shareholders will push them towards. So none of this will happen, sadly.
I am running PowerDeleteSuite on both my reddit accounts as i type this. My basic edit is that due to reddits api changes i no longer feel welcome, have moved to lemmy, and support the blackout. I will give a few hours to settle and then delete both accounts
They need to fix everything. I can barely report anything on the site without being banned for it. The admin come around later and fix it and apology, but because that's happened so many times, safety's first response is permanent ban which means I have to use an alt to contact them and get them to fix it. Despite the fact that they told me several times all the suspensions and warnings would be removed, they aren't. I reported something for being a duplicate a couple weeks ago (it was there was another copy on the front page of the sub, and it was one of their report reasons) and came back an hour later to both a permanent ban notice for 'report abuse' for that, and also the fact that my account wasn't actually banned because someone had come through and unbanned me. The site is bordering on being beyond repair at this point.
If they made their mobile web interface usable, I'd use it on mobile. If they keep their old.reddit interface usable, I'll keep using it to some extent. I don't think either of these will happen.
I also think the vast majority won't care unless the moderation bots will be rendered unaffordable to maintain by volunteer mods.
I just deleted my Reddit account. I hope Lemmy and the federated system becomes a great replacement. I have found myself many times quite "over" Reddit. The community has grown polarized and has given way and voice to reflect some of the worst of humanity. I try to keep an open mind and compartmentalize the rest. For me that was the first strike. Beyond that, this move to monetize Reddit by taxing the community that made it what it is today just let's me know they have forgotten who they are and that without us they don't have a site. I'm sure some will continue to use Reddit. I won't be over of them and while I know I don't matter much against millions of users, but I know that many more than just me are sick of the same things and our voice matters.
In short, nothing will bring me back. If someone is willing to do this to begin with, then they're willing to do it again.
I am the founder of a mental health support subreddit, so I kinda permanently tied to Reddit to continue to provide support there. I did however make the same community on Lemmy. World, so shall see what the future holds. I will probably have to be active on both
I really think at this point I am done with Reddit. The attitude Spez and the other admins showed in that AMA was disrespectful to users and mods. Reddit is just a platform, they don’t create content, and the mods work for free as far as I know. To give a big FU to users the way they did is all I needed to see. I am going to use Lemmy and continue to use Mastodon for better or worse, but so far, I am liking it more and more over here.
Honestly the best thing for Lemmy would be if Reddit did completely reverse this decision and retain it's users. Then, Lemmy would remain relatively small and act as a much better internet community. If Reddit loses a large portion of it's users to Lemmy (to be fair, I am one of these people), then eventually Lemmy will become a festering wound as well. I mean, when Reddit was young it felt just like Lemmy does today, and none of us at that time could have ever expected it to end up this way.
while i have been liking my time here, i can’t say i’ll never go on reddit again. i’d like for lemmy to become my primary browsing platform, but there simply isn’t my favourite niche communities on here- in particular r/namenerds, r/battlejackets, r/posthardcore, and all the bullet journalling subs. unless those communities migrate, i’ll still go on reddit (yes, mobile) to engage with them, since those are some of my favourite hobbies, even if i’m hoping to spend more time with lemmy.
I'll always have some positive feelings for Reddit because I met my husband there, but the whole mentality here is so refreshing. I realize I mainly lurked on Reddit cause you'd get torn apart on subs for being new or not knowing the lingo or making a mistake cause you didn't frequent it every day. Don't think I'm gonna back pedal from the fresh start.
Either free access to the API for mobile app developers or allow mobile app developers to run adds to pay for API access at a price corresponding to the actual costs involved with providing the API access...
And fix the linking "bug" they created 5 years ago to try to force old.reddit site users to migrate to the new shitty reddit site by breaking links on old.reddit.
But neither of those will happen... and I'm actually happy about that. I've been growing more and more dissatisfied with Reddit for years, and if they decide to wreck it they can wreck it. I will miss what it used to be, but I won't miss what it has become.
Not sure they can do anything - since I discovered federated platforms and started using more FOSS and non-corporate technology in my life, I am really glad to break away from it all.
I'm still on some platforms I'd rather not be (Discord), but the unfortunate truth of social platforms is that you have to be on them to socialise with certain friends/family, and encouraging people to use something different to talk to you is a non-starter for many.
Allow rif or allow more customization for listview in app. I'm gonna stick around but only on desktop probably. That will be significantly less than my mobile usage.
Nothing. I deleted my account already. It was a spit in the face of the third party developers. The official Reddit app is trash. They were lucky to have those third party apps. Cash grab because of the incoming recession. Meanwhile you're whole platform is based on user generated content. What a joke.
I haven't been a redditor for as long as you guys have, being a teenager and all, but you can see the deterioration. It's strange, losing reddit. Feels like losing a friend but different. But they took the enshittification route, and I'm never going back.
Apologise to Christian for the slander. And that’s just to start.
No point listing the other requirements since the first one will not be met anyway. The most we will get it “I’m sorry Christian felt that way”.
Well, I've been wanting to find a new forum for a while. Reddit no longer resembles what I joined back in the days.
This was just the kick in booty I needed to get on with it. And a ton of alternatives has been laid out before me, so might as well go check some of them out.
Edit: So there's very little chance of me returning.
For a platform based so heavily around user content, they really seem to hate their users. Even if they went back on the API pricing plan, Reddit is just testing the waters for what changes they can get away with to become more profitable and corporate-friendly, and this is something I feel like they’re gonna continue to do.
Only thing they can do to bring me back is more transparency in what they’re doing, but that’s not gonna happen lol.
Nothing. Literally, they just need to change nothing, to do... nothing. It is their actions that are driving people away. Today as of this moment, reddit is working the same as it's done for the past several years.
Then again, I'm defintely enjoying my time here on Lemmy much more than I was at this point on reddit. This feels more like the early days of reddit, where you have more meaningful engagements. You don't show up to a thread only to find 1,000+ comments, and likely one toward the top saying the exact same words you intended to say.
Tbh, if they undid the api change, and also stopped banning communities left and right, id consider it. Atm, lemmy seems like its becoming a farleft monoculture and that is one aspect where it is worse then reddit
I agree with most of the other posters, I'm done with reddit. I want the community but I don't want the corporation. It's not that I find admins who run lemmy instances more trustworthy by default, but the decentralized nature make me think it can be more resilient and altogether a better experience.
I would say give the third party apps a chance but after that AMA I can see the creators never really cared. Maybe new management but it would be highly unlikely. When I get treated like crap there is no reason to stick around that negativity!
At this point - nothing. I've been less and less happy with that place lately, and this is just the final push. Hopefully I'll find a lot of the same things either here, or somewhere else, or just not at all I guess.
There isn’t anything realistic they can do. At this point the damage has been done over the past 5 years or so and the API thing was kind of just the last straw for me.
Saying this as a current Reddit user so this is less of a "winning me back" list and more of a wishlist. Either way...
-Reverse API decisions, support 3rd party apps
-Make new design less shit
-Decentralizing. Not through blockchains or NFT trinkets but through open sourcing and federating with a network like this one. This was Jack Dorsey's plan for Twitter and this is why he funded the development of Bluesky. The plan was to eventually develop Twitter into a client for Bluesky, but he had to fuck everything up by pushing for Elon to buy it, which is a shame because this would have been the best ending for the platform. Reddit doing the same would be the best ending for it as well, but like I said, this is just a wishlist. Modern Reddit would never support something like this.
I think the only way is if Reddit becomes the only active option. I'm a bit too addicted to these anonymous social medias... and it's a nice source to have the internet summarised at your palm.
Spez resigning and free API access to all third party apps as it was before.
Honestly though? Lemmy is reminding me of old reddit and I'm enjoying it so who knows if I'd even go back if this site keeps growing at the rate that it is.
But seriously, I guess none of any further actions to try to fix the whole thing would change that bad gut feeling of being held as a fool that I now have. Mostly due to how they treated Christian Selig.
I would like to see spez step down as CEO and have a formal apology to the 3rd party devs affected by the API pricing change, especially to Christian over the repeated attempts to slander his reputation and outright lie about him and his app (Apollo). I would like them to make the price more reasonable if they wish to continue charging for the API. I would also want them to make the grace period a lot longer (12+ months) to give 3rd party apps a chance to adjust. I also want them to not pursue going public. From what I saw, devs had no issues paying. But the pricing is just to price out 3rd-party apps from existing.
That being said, I think there is no way in hell any of this happens. It would take a literal miracle for any of these things to happen. And I just have a hard time seeing them doing the right thing.
Don’t think I’ll ever go back, no matter what they do going forward. The team at Reddit (or at least a good chunk of the “top dogs”) have shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted. They are slowly boiling the frog, and if they notice they’ve turned the temperature too high, they’ll lower it, and then try to increase it again, just more slowly than last time. They have been doing this for years, but this was a step too far for me
If reddit allowed 3rd party apps to operate at reasonable prices and charged separately for AI training use so that apps like boost and Apollo could exist I would consider using it. I loved it for the communities, some niche, but I am onboard with Lemmy now and I hope that grows here.
For me, I haven't left yet but I will significantly reduce my time on reddit once my app of choice shuts down (Boost). If reddit updates their app to the standard of the 3rd party apps they are killing, I'll be happy to continue my use. Side note, I've found lemmy (jerboa app use) because of this and will hang around here regardless of what happens with reddit
I might keep it it in my back pocket for breaking world news like I did with Twitter if I could still use a 3rd party app but I won't be busting down the door.
It's still useful in that it has a massive user base that can get information out quickly.
The problem with (so called) Reddit protest is their decision won't change. All subreddits should protest UNTIL demands are met. Locking the subreddits on 48h won't do them any harm, but locking for an extended period of time might.
Highly unlikely they’d ever be able to rebuild that bridge but it would start with turning back the API decision. Then hiring Christian from Apollo to help them with building a better app. A significant amount of the leadership stepping down and leaving. Mods getting paid. Transitioning to a platform not reliant on ads. Getting Victoria of AMA fame back. Having mods be an elected position.
If all that happened maybe I’d think they turned into something worth coming back to.
I left other social medias because of the spam, reddit was a more focused place for me with few updates of important stuff.
Lemmy seems like what I was originally attracted to reddit, specially since I'm interested in more technical stuff I'm sure the subs I usually go to are going to thrive here like this one and also !privacyguides@lemmy.one.
If Reddit announced sustainable pricing for the APIs, backpedaled on the NSFW limitations and gave a timeline to make the official app accessible for the visually impaired and apologized to all the people who have been defamed I could consider going back.
Probably need to open source at least their core software and algorithm. Allow third party app to exist. It would be best if they turn into non-profit, but I am not against for-profit organization.
I'm not sure honestly. What I'll miss most is honestly the sports banter in the post game threads, and the long comment chains of hilarious takes after a game. But otherwise, I haven't been engaged with Reddit in a long time. All anyone wants to do in the comments is argue, and every post is a karma farmed bot post now. Even if it's less populated I'd rather spend time in a community I actually engage with.
First and foremost, get third party clients working again. I am used to RiF. I tried the official app. It was very busy but showed much less useful information per screen. I could not even even leave it installed on my phone. It kept spamming (shitty) notifications to try to goose my engagement, even after I disabled them.
Anger about bad corporate decisions fades, but if I cannot comfortably use a site, I cannot come back.
For me to go back, the CEO would have to be completely open about how they treated Christian and fully explain why they are doing that API pricing. But they won’t so I won’t go.
Reddit has become too massive for its own good, and it lost its sense of community from the early years. There was a few nice subs, but they usually ended up being popular for exactly this reason, and they ended up being connected to the “big centralized Reddit bubble” (if that makes sense), which killed the community in the process.
My best memories of fun or interesting conversations on Reddit were actually not made on particular subreddits, but more on recurrent stickied threads on some subreddits that only a few regulars opened and read. Those had a real sense of community.
So yeah, Reddit lost me as a user these past few days, but not 100% because of the actual changes that they made - I think I was already dissatisfied with it and that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s more like a combination of the massive user base and the way the website works that kind of suffocated communities. They cannot really change that, as they would probably not survive changes that are too big or a drastic reduction in the user base.
The Fediverse could suffer from the same issues if it becomes wildly successful of course, but the fact that it is federated adds another layer of separation between community circles, and I think that’s enough for mitigating that problem a little bit.
I don't see myself going back, at least when it comes to the app. I like the way RIF looks and would want it to stay looking like that, but I don't think Reddit wants that style as they're trying to make it more social media focused. I will likely still use it on the desktop but I don't spend a lot of time on my desktop outside of work and gaming so wouldn't be that often. I'm likely going to delete most of my comments on there soon
I mean, kbin has been better for me in every way. It's been mentioned already, but this whole situation was the push that me and a lot of other users needed to look into alternatives and find something that works better for us than reddit did.
Bringing the r/place concept here would be cool, perhaps different instances could all do something similar of their own? Federated r/place sounds fun. :^)
I don't know if I have an answer for that. My most active reddit was my local city sub (r/stlouis) and I spend a lot of time and got a lot of good information from there. It just really bums me out, but I'm looking forward to seeing how this whole deal works here.
Probably nothing now that I made the change. I really like the people here. I don't see a bunch of the snark and hate over here and it suits me better. I imagine reddit is gonna go the way of Twitter and Facebook and I just don't want to give any part of my life to that
At this point, me run out of alternatives worth trying. Just signed up for a lemmy instance today, and liking what I'm seeing so far (even if communities are quite a lot smaller than I'm used to at the moment), but there are other sites that might scratch the reddit itch that I'll try even if the fediverse stuff doesn't take off.
Reddit has shown that that they're a) greedy, and b) incompetent at being greedy. And I'm not going to contribute to them again until I'm well and truly out of other options.
I dunno, the way they've (board members, ceo, admins involved in trying to spin things, etc) been acting, it's pretty obvious they don't want the engaged, active users back. They want to turn it into an ad server and user tracking hub like facebook.
Maybe if they can spez, build a new board of directors, and walk back everything they've done totally, I might be willing to use it passively but directly (as in reading things there via my app of choice, but not interacting) rather than only indirectly via search results when the only hits are there.
That ain't gonna happen. If they don't do that, my last act will be to find replacement mods for the places I'm responsible for, and then I'm gone totally. I'd have done it already, but I'd have to use reddit to recruit anyone at all, and I'm not willing to do that until the protest is over.
Hell, I've thought about just doing enough mod actions that admins would have to break their own rules to oust me, and leaving them locked. But I don't like shitting on communities of people just because the site has gone to shit.
Reddit and u/spez haven't even offered an apology and/or reversed their position. But let's be real, here - apologies don't necessarily make things right, and they don't necessarily erase what's been done. At best, we can forgive. But people don't forget. Whatever trust there may have been, it's gone now. I've grown tired of the half-assed apologies made by organizations and famous individuals that are supposed to make everything ok and compel us to forget what was done. I don't think I'd care if Reddit and/or u/spec tried to make amends. They would not be genuine - your true colors are visible for all to see. Welcome to the real world where hollow apologetic half-measures don't fool anyone.
If I spat on your lunch because I was having a bad day, I don't think there would be much I could say to defend my actions. Actions speak louder than words, and sometimes when you screw up there's no going back. You're just done.
Reddit would basically have to undo a decade of transformation and prove that they've learned to listen to their community. Only after earning my trust with a proven track record of community-driven decisions would I come back.