Reddit admits more moderator protests could hurt its business
Reddit admits more moderator protests could hurt its business
Losing third-party tools "could harm our moderators’ ability to review content..."
I mean, looking at trends of any company and the fact that Reddit is about to IPO it's only a matter of time before they ban the ability for community members to mod subreddits.
Who else is going to do it though?
Yeah they need the community for that. They needed the community for everything. And you know what? Go on that site right now. It’s just endless dribble. Reformatted TikTok videos posted by bots. People endlessly repeating the same shit over and over again. Bots copying those endlessly repeated comments on the subsequent reposts. Where’s the stuff that made Reddit special? Has there been a chuck testa meme or noteworthy cool event like a good ama or the Christmas exchange that’s occurred recently? Is there content coming out of the site that’s making the news like it once did? Is the spark there? No
Now it’s just another corporate whore of a company where a bunch of sparkling water drinking pussies with erectile dysfunction sit around trying to figure out how they can best game the system to exploit their pageviews.
The ceo of this company comes out embracing Elon Musk, whines about how the community is cutting into his bottom line, and we are supposed to sit around continuing to provide this man with the content he needs to keep his website alive?
Fuck that.
I think the people who create the gold that makes the internet what it is have sort of scattered to the ether and they’re waiting for the next thing to pop up. When it happens you’ll see that spark come about once more. Actual interesting content. Good topical memes. A fun atmosphere that doesn’t feel exploited by some pretentious pricks.
I want it to be lemmy and the fediverse. We are lying to ourselves if we think this caught all the people stepping off the sinking ship. But I think with some collective upgrades and a way better ui that can be marketed to the average person. This could and should be it.
Here’s hoping we see that happen.
They'll just start taking over the large money-makers (if they havent already): pics, funny, memes, news, gaming etc.
Maybe they'll even create a tiered system of "community curated" subreddits and "official" subs.
Either way, they don't have to moderate the whole site, just the parts that take in most of the traffic. That way you don't have to deal with volunteers and their personal beefs and/or protests to your changes.
Most of the smaller subs are basically dead anyway, in terms of moderation. Many of them are way less active too.
Why would anyone do free work for a corporation to profit off of?
I used to be a mod at /r/soccer.
I used it when it was a wild-west shitshow full of the same old posts. I used it for a decade, and when they needed mods in my timezone I thought I'd use the time I was gifted thanks to COVID and redundancy to help out.
Most mods have very little power, and a lot of scrutiny if there are more than a few mods. It's just a queue you occasionally look at to see what has been reported, and you action it based on the rules.
Especially when working for projects like Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap is way more rewarding
They're paid in ego boosts. Unfortunately, it means that the types of mods that have hung on are largely the type that like to be paid in ego boosts.
I moderated a mid sized sub for a while. Around 100k users. It was a hobby I was into and I figured may as well moderate because I was spending a lot of time on the sub anyways. It also let me put together some community events which were always fun. Once it stopped being fun and started feeling like a job, I left. I never really thought about it as doing free work for reddit and more helping community building for a hobby I had. People do it for all sorts of reasons. The "power mods" are really the issue.
Why would anyone invest in a corporation that doesn't pay it's workers who were also given the keys to parts of the business and can lock down sections of the business at any given moment.
Why would anyone invest in something so volatile.
It's only value will come when they finally make the announcement and launch the IPO ...... after that it will be worthless.
“Losing free labor will hurt our business”
-signed, the plantation owner who made $193,000,000 last year
Nothing can really kill reddit, but as far as content goes I expect it will follow the same path facebook did where the only people who eventually really interact on it will be conspiracy theorists and moms.
Its a good thing the Moderators famously fumbled their one attempt at protesting for anything significant to reddit
You say it like mods are anything other than a bunch of random diverse people with little to no communications between those on different subs
It was pretty organised, all things considered. The problem was that the organised approach was to do a single, one off, 2-day protest with no end-game. The consensus was simply far too naiive in assuming that the reddit admins wouldn't just sit it out knowing that they'd only have to oust a few stragglers at most.
It's* a good thing
I actually want to know why people comment pedantic grammar corrections, are you trying to be helpful or does it give some sense of superiority?
I really don't know what could kill Reddit at this point. It's so different now with Reddit's new UI, the awards, blocking VPN connections, and Reddit licensing user content for AI training. We saw how things went with the blackout and how so many people caved instantly and were willing to fill the roles of the people that left once subreddits were forced back open.
Maybe blocking NSFW content or requiring users to verify their age?
Can't kill what is already dead.
The communities are all but gone.
The signal to noise ratio is the worst it's ever been.
Most subs are barely moderated. Actual mod involvement (as opposed to Automod) is low.
Reddit now openly collects and sells user data.
The Reddit we knew is dead and gone.
The only place I've seen that still has some life and great energy is r/comics. If lemmy's version(s) of that group could attract the regular content creators I wouldn't have any other reason to visit reddit.
Reddit now openly collects and sells user data.
With Sam Altman as shareholder #4 I think we got sold out long ago. The only real surprise is that Reddit got some compensation…
Accounts made using TOR are also shadowbanned
And I'm pretty sure Reddit still has an .onion version.
Fuck yeah, fuck its business. Fuck reddit for going IPO and Fuck spez for being an insufferable gaping asshole
"Could hurt its business"
Apparently we didn't do much. I'm just happy to be on Lemmy so I don't have to care.
Lol yeah, tired of people coming over here, lurking (not posting or commenting), and complaining there isn't much content to consume.
I modded a few subreddits but left it all behind
I just remembered the other day I'm listed as the only moderator of a subreddit with a couple thousand users and haven't done anything for it in about a year.
Me too. I had really hoped more mods would move their communities to a Lemmy instance and promote it on Reddit but that's largely not the case.
Reverse psychology Uno card attempt to get any remaining mod or community they don't control to out themselves as a risk and be ousted, imo.
Rip their fucking eyes out
Moderators simultaneously make reddit better and worse... mostly worse, though.
A lot worse. Was tired of the [removed] trope whenever mods did something incredibly stupid.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The company also said that bad publicity and media coverage, such as the kind that stemmed from the API protests, could be a risk to Reddit’s success.
The Form S-1 said bad PR around Reddit, including its practices, prices, and mods, "could adversely affect the size, demographics, engagement, and loyalty of our user base," adding:
Reddit’s filing also said that negative publicity and moderators disrupting the normal operation of subreddits could hurt user growth and engagement goals.
Reddit's filing discusses losing moderators as a business risk and notes how important third-party tools are in maintaining mods:
Any disruption to, or lack of availability of, these third-party tools could harm our moderators’ ability to review content and enforce community rules.
Nondisclosure agreement requirements and the lack of a finalized developer platform also drive uncertainty around the longevity of the third-party Reddit app ecosystem, according to devs Ars spoke with this year.
The original article contains 647 words, the summary contains 150 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good, it’s the only thing they can do.
Reddit needs to die
One of the primary reasons Reddit cited for its API rule changes was LLMs profiting off its data for free.
Its data? Seems to me that most of that "data" was actually generated by users. Which Reddit, in turn, profited off for free.
The IPO is going to be a disaster on its own. Then when r/wallstreetbets starts goofin' around with it, it's over. Corporate social media is not the future. Hopefully people move here steadily. I created a community, something I never did on reddit.