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It may be impossible to have a situation where a for-profit company makes a service where the users are not the paying customers and users are treated well inde
by Zak 3y ago
It may be impossible to have a situation where a for-profit company makes a service where the users are not the paying customers and users are treated well indefinitely. Reddit has experimented with a paid premium service, but they couldn't paywall any core functionality because having as many users as they can get is critical to their success.
It's probably a mistake to rely on things like that for socialization, communication, or creating communities. I would like to see federated technologies take off; there are at least two Reddit-alikes using ActivityPub, Kbin and Lemmy, which seem to federate with each other smoothly. They're currently much farther from critical mass than Mastodon (though they sort of federate with that too).
- imiric 3y ago> Reddit has experimented with a paid premium service, but they couldn't paywall any core functionality because having as many users as they can get is critical to their success. Businesses can certainly be "successful" with premium services, especially at Reddit's scale. What's happening there is textbook greed, where leadership chases hockey stick growth. At this point they must understand that this will be the downfall of the service, yet they're intentionally willing to make that sacrifice for short-term gains. Good riddance. There are plenty of other services that can replace Reddit. The circle of the web.