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There have been a number of planned exoduses from Reddit over the years (the banning of FatPeopleHate, some kind of succession crisis with the CEO, and the bann

There have been a number of planned exoduses from Reddit over the years (the banning of FatPeopleHate, some kind of succession crisis with the CEO, and the banning of the AMA mod, to name some off the top of my head), but none of them has actually materialized into anything. My question is - What is preventing this? Is it just a matter of getting enough critical mass onto the new platform? Or is there some other logistical or engineering challenge that I'm not considering? The way that Reddit is structured seems like it would be very vulnerable to a coordinated attempt to move users. In my experience, most subreddits have a heavily skewed distribution where a handful of users post most of the content, especially for the long-tail hobby and region-specific subreddits. Intuitively, it feels like there are probably clusters of Reddit users who are subscribed to largely overlapping sets of subreddits, and who derive most of their utility from content generated by the same small-ish set of power users. Depending on the terms of the investment, I wonder if some of these users might become very amenable to a migration to a new platform. A quick aside. For those unfamiliar with Tencent, the Chinese government essentially has direct access to, and control over, all communication on Tencent's platforms. Nothing about the company in particular, its just part of doing business as a media company in China. But the fact of the matter is that you can be jailed for things you say in private group chats, and any chat can be arbitrarily censored, with no notification to the sender or recipient that the message was caught in a filter.

devoply 8y ago
As Digg found out many years ago. There is nothing stopping Reddit users from leaving. The question is which straw breaks the camel's back... and also lack of viable alternatives, a la Reddit to Digg.
- tcd 8y ago
  Apart from the fact there is no decent reddit alternative. That is after reddit offered their entire product free with the source code and data (and the data is still offered for free...) If there was going to be an alternative, it would be here by now. People just don't care that much, contrary to what you may believe.
  - devoply 8y ago
    I believe their open source copy is no longer maintained. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6xh3xp/reddits_main_code_is_no_longer_opensource/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6xh3xp/reddits... But a code base is not an alternative, an alternative is an actual community with a similar focus. You could potentially build it on Reddit's code base if you wanted... but you have to build that somehow. Network effects prevent that from forming and from people leaving existing communities.
- dehrmann 8y ago
  Not sure what reddit's user growth rate is these days, but remember that a large proportion of users weren't around for some of reddit's other crises.
ardy42 8y ago
> My question is - What is preventing this? Is it just a matter of getting enough critical mass onto the new platform? Or is there some other logistical or engineering challenge that I'm not considering? I think there are a few factors: 1) Is there a similar site already out there that's ready to take thee exodus? Voat doesn't count. 2) Nothing political can effectively drive a migration, because politics are too fragmented. If people are tuned into any issues at all, they're probably only tuned in to one or two, and each issue only has a minority of people tuned into it. Reddit's smart enough to avoid political positions that are so widely reviled that they could drive an exodus. 3) Regressions in functionality that affect everyone, or a critical set of users, could drive an exodus, I think. But only as long as #1 can be answered in the affirmative.
tehwebguy 8y ago
The answer is simple: community. Reddit is where the community is. Digg presumably had more traffic at some point but it was always a voteable link dump with a comment section. It was never really a community.
- hombre_fatal 8y ago
  Besides, people vary between not noticing, not caring, or getting involved in the drama because it's actually fun but still not really caring. 99% of Reddit couldn't tell you the name of the mentioned Reddit CEO or fired AMA manager.
Traster 8y ago
One thing to think about is the formation of communities, in Reddit as with other communities 1% of the users are submitted 99% of the content and probably 80% of users are literally not even commenting. I personally think that one of the key things that stops Reddit from being abandoned is that it pisses people off for fairly political reasons (free speech, hate speech etc.) and the people likely to shout "THIS IS TERRIBLE LET'S ALL LEAVE" are those who are least attached to the platform not the most. So sure, they could leave, but the site doesn't suffer when they leave. If you start to see changes that negatively effect the people driving content and those people losing interest, then that's a much more reliable sign that Reddit is going to suffer. That's really what killed Digg. What I'm looking forward to see is when Reddit inevitably has to drive revenue to justify this VC capital and the smug quote from Ohanian comes back: >this new version of digg reeks of VC meddling. It's cobbling together features from more popular sites and departing from the core of digg, which was to "give the power back to the people."
Pharmakon 8y ago
There have been a number of planned exoduses from Reddit over the years (the banning of FatPeopleHate, some kind of succession crisis with the CEO, and the banning of the AMA mod, to name some off the top of my head), but none of them has actually materialized into anything. My question is - What is preventing this? Is it just a matter of getting enough critical mass onto the new platform? Or is there some other logistical or engineering challenge that I'm not considering? The “exodus” happened, it just turned out that the people who left were in fact, massive dicks. They made Voat, which is mostly dead, and where it isn’t dead, it’s a roaring dumpster fire. I guess the major issue is that a lot of the people who make a lot of noise about “free speech” aren’t really sincere, they just want a place to spew. Well, now they have it, but since they only have each other to spew all over, it’s a mess. The people who contribute something rather than just bitching and cursing at everyone obviously didn’t want to join the worst aspects of their community in an “exodus” either. I’ve just learned to be very suspicious of free speech arguments that exist only in the abstract; it’s often a cover for antisocial assholes. People with genuine grievances, as opposed to them being the grievance, tend to lead with specific and defensible examples; the assholes just make a lot of noise and abstract slippery slopes that never materialize. Having said all of that, if someone misses Coontown or FatPeopleHate, Voat exists. Of course since those communities existed to troll people, and those people being trolled didn’t follow them, it’s a bit moribund.
- HoppyHaus 8y ago
  Voat wasn't made in retaliation, it was a college project for a guys C# class. It was a small community that did their own thing, but was pushed as an alternative when the FPH ban occurred. The sad part is that its features are amazing, and while the general look could be a bit better, there is some fantastic ideas put in there, and the current lead dev is dedicated to the site, even if he doesn't agree with the context. A shame, really.
ssnistfajen 8y ago
Because the destinations for these exoduses almost always turn into vile shitholes immediately. That's sort of expected though, considering those who left were vile individuals to begin with.

devoply 8y ago

As Digg found out many years ago. There is nothing stopping Reddit users from leaving. The question is which straw breaks the camel's back... and also lack of viable alternatives, a la Reddit to Digg.

tcd 8y ago
Apart from the fact there is no decent reddit alternative. That is after reddit offered their entire product free with the source code and data (and the data is still offered for free...) If there was going to be an alternative, it would be here by now. People just don't care that much, contrary to what you may believe.
- devoply 8y ago
  I believe their open source copy is no longer maintained. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6xh3xp/reddits_main_code_is_no_longer_opensource/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6xh3xp/reddits... But a code base is not an alternative, an alternative is an actual community with a similar focus. You could potentially build it on Reddit's code base if you wanted... but you have to build that somehow. Network effects prevent that from forming and from people leaving existing communities.
dehrmann 8y ago
Not sure what reddit's user growth rate is these days, but remember that a large proportion of users weren't around for some of reddit's other crises.

ardy42 8y ago

> My question is - What is preventing this? Is it just a matter of getting enough critical mass onto the new platform? Or is there some other logistical or engineering challenge that I'm not considering? I think there are a few factors: 1) Is there a similar site already out there that's ready to take thee exodus? Voat doesn't count. 2) Nothing political can effectively drive a migration, because politics are too fragmented. If people are tuned into any issues at all, they're probably only tuned in to one or two, and each issue only has a minority of people tuned into it. Reddit's smart enough to avoid political positions that are so widely reviled that they could drive an exodus. 3) Regressions in functionality that affect everyone, or a critical set of users, could drive an exodus, I think. But only as long as #1 can be answered in the affirmative.

tehwebguy 8y ago

The answer is simple: community. Reddit is where the community is. Digg presumably had more traffic at some point but it was always a voteable link dump with a comment section. It was never really a community.

hombre_fatal 8y ago
Besides, people vary between not noticing, not caring, or getting involved in the drama because it's actually fun but still not really caring. 99% of Reddit couldn't tell you the name of the mentioned Reddit CEO or fired AMA manager.

Traster 8y ago

One thing to think about is the formation of communities, in Reddit as with other communities 1% of the users are submitted 99% of the content and probably 80% of users are literally not even commenting. I personally think that one of the key things that stops Reddit from being abandoned is that it pisses people off for fairly political reasons (free speech, hate speech etc.) and the people likely to shout "THIS IS TERRIBLE LET'S ALL LEAVE" are those who are least attached to the platform not the most. So sure, they could leave, but the site doesn't suffer when they leave. If you start to see changes that negatively effect the people driving content and those people losing interest, then that's a much more reliable sign that Reddit is going to suffer. That's really what killed Digg. What I'm looking forward to see is when Reddit inevitably has to drive revenue to justify this VC capital and the smug quote from Ohanian comes back: >this new version of digg reeks of VC meddling. It's cobbling together features from more popular sites and departing from the core of digg, which was to "give the power back to the people."

Pharmakon 8y ago

There have been a number of planned exoduses from Reddit over the years (the banning of FatPeopleHate, some kind of succession crisis with the CEO, and the banning of the AMA mod, to name some off the top of my head), but none of them has actually materialized into anything. My question is - What is preventing this? Is it just a matter of getting enough critical mass onto the new platform? Or is there some other logistical or engineering challenge that I'm not considering? The “exodus” happened, it just turned out that the people who left were in fact, massive dicks. They made Voat, which is mostly dead, and where it isn’t dead, it’s a roaring dumpster fire. I guess the major issue is that a lot of the people who make a lot of noise about “free speech” aren’t really sincere, they just want a place to spew. Well, now they have it, but since they only have each other to spew all over, it’s a mess. The people who contribute something rather than just bitching and cursing at everyone obviously didn’t want to join the worst aspects of their community in an “exodus” either. I’ve just learned to be very suspicious of free speech arguments that exist only in the abstract; it’s often a cover for antisocial assholes. People with genuine grievances, as opposed to them being the grievance, tend to lead with specific and defensible examples; the assholes just make a lot of noise and abstract slippery slopes that never materialize. Having said all of that, if someone misses Coontown or FatPeopleHate, Voat exists. Of course since those communities existed to troll people, and those people being trolled didn’t follow them, it’s a bit moribund.

HoppyHaus 8y ago
Voat wasn't made in retaliation, it was a college project for a guys C# class. It was a small community that did their own thing, but was pushed as an alternative when the FPH ban occurred. The sad part is that its features are amazing, and while the general look could be a bit better, there is some fantastic ideas put in there, and the current lead dev is dedicated to the site, even if he doesn't agree with the context. A shame, really.

ssnistfajen 8y ago

Because the destinations for these exoduses almost always turn into vile shitholes immediately. That's sort of expected though, considering those who left were vile individuals to begin with.