24 ms·

Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

226 points by netfortius 3y ago

mg 3y ago
In another thread about this, someone mentioned Lemmy, a federated alternative to Reddit: https://lemmy.one/communities/listing_type/All/page/1 https://lemmy.one/communities/listing_type/All/page/1 Looks like an interesting approach.
- last_responder 3y ago
  link is broken
  - fullstop 3y ago
    It works for me
- mariusor 3y ago
  For people favouring to the old reddit interface more, I created another federated alternative: https://github.com/mariusor/go-littr https://github.com/mariusor/go-littr (with an example instance at https://brutalinks.tech https://brutalinks.tech). Sadly it received less publicity and mind share than lemmy, so not everything might be up to the expectations of the HN crowd.
- warning26 3y ago
  I wish these federated systems would put a bit more effort into the user experience. I mean, even though you’ve directly linked to the server list (instead of their even less straightforward front page), it’s still confusing. What is a new user supposed to do with this? It’s all incredibly opaque.
- xtracto 3y ago
  The problem I see with lemmy, mastodon and similar services (anybody remember the also open source "Facebook killer" from like 10 years ago?) is that they are confusing: is it one service or a bunch of servers? Which server is the good one? The average is lost on the first page, and you need her for these social based apps. You need the non tech savvy people to get communities like r/medicine. Otherwise you get shat you see on IRC LiberaChat nowadays: the channels with people are mainly technical or technically related ones. ... which like, is good for people like us. But I come to HN for quality tech related discussions... I want a place for quality InstantPot talk, or quality ChildFree chat.
  - Gareth321 3y ago
    To argue your point, today on Lemmy.ml the owner advised users the server could not handle the load, and told users to register on other instances (https://lemmy.ml/post/1147770?scrollToComments=true https://lemmy.ml/post/1147770?scrollToComments=true). This would mean multiple logins. There is no way to migrate or synchronise accounts. Federation is a cool idea but Lemmy's implementation is a terrible user experience.
    - Encrypt-Keeper 3y ago
      Mastadon's is as well. Like it's cool that you can follow somebody if you already know their handle, but the discovery aspect of social media is at least half the point of it. Without some form of mechanism holding everything together, it's never going to be a great experience.
    - xtracto 3y ago
      Someone should do a UI kind of like Emule: the main idea was the same: You fired your client and could connect to one of several servers, but end users didn't care, they just clicked on "connect" and the client will do whatever was necessary. Of course that client could be Web based, not necessary an application (although for mobile, applications are all the rage now)
EscapeFromNY 3y ago
I don't follow reddit too closely. But I remember there was another big fiasco a while ago and a bunch of clones/spinoff sites were started. Have any of those survived? (and not been completely overrun with fringe political content that's banned everywhere else)
- djbusby 3y ago
  https://tildes.net/ https://tildes.net/ Seems still alive.
- tgv 3y ago
  I mentioned this elsewhere: ruqqus and saidit seem to have failed getting traction. The latter one still exists (the former one doesn't, it seems), but is a cesspool of trolling, anti-everything-ism and conspiracy theorists.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  There was Voat and Ruqqus, both became INTENSE white nationalist sites. I think Ruqqus shut down? I know there are a bunch of spinoffs that use that codebase though, TheMotte, Ovarit, and rDrama
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Previous Reddit controversies have mostly been about Reddit banning abhorrent content. This lead to clones which were, more or less from the start, just full of the worst people you can imagine. This limited their general attractiveness; normal people probably won’t want to use a Reddit clone which is populated mostly by Nazis, or by people who are creepily fixated on moaning about fat people, or by the upskirt people, or what have you. This would potentially be rather different, in that the group being driven away is more _normal_.
valine 3y ago
A large portion of reddit contributors use 3rd party apps. Will reddit even be worth using if those people leave? That’s a huge risk, and I’m not confident Reddit has fully evaluated the second order effects of this API change.
- anonred 3y ago
  Do you have a source for “a large portion of reddit contributors use 3rd party apps”? And what percent are we talking about here?
  - George83728 3y ago
    > Do you have a source for “a large portion of reddit contributors use 3rd party apps”? Most top-level reddit posts come from bots reposting old content. Those bots aren't using the first party app...
  - dvngnt_ 3y ago
    i know the pcgaming is around 20 percent which isn't a majority but it's enough to move somewhere else
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    Here is a shot from a subreddit I moderate: * https://imgur.com/a/Tg3IXNf https://imgur.com/a/Tg3IXNf No idea how many of those apps are third party, but I would be willing to bet 'most' of them.
    - anonred 3y ago
      I’d be willing to be the opposite given how hard Reddit is pushing this. But like you said, it’s impossible to tell without a separate category for third party apps.
- barkerja 3y ago
  How large is a "large portion"?
paxys 3y ago
I will never understand how Reddit bungled this so badly. I'm no Harvard MBA, but here's an easier way out – instead of asking small-time app developers to pay millions, put API access contingent on the account subscribing to Reddit Premium. That way users get to keep the experience they enjoy, independent developers can keep doing their thing, Reddit gets to make up for the lost ad revenue in the form of subscriptions, and if people complain about it they are the ones being cheap.
- jacooper 3y ago
  Its not about the revenue, its about forcing everyone to get ads, with endless tracking.
  - paxys 3y ago
    Says who? They are only pushing the "official experience" to make up for lost ad revenue. If I pay Reddit $50/yr why would they care what app I use? YouTube does the same thing with Premium, and it is working out great.
    - kitsunesoba 3y ago
      It's about ads and tracking sure, but they're also trying to build a TikTok-style algorithm-powered black hole that keeps you sucked in by way of constantly shoving more things in front of you, including posts from subreddits you're not subscribed to. They also want to be able to force whatever new half-baked features they add to work with prominent positioning in their apps.
      - Spivak 3y ago
        But to what end? You have a bunch of users who you know are willing to pay real dollars for a different experience. You couldn't ask for better segmentation getting people with wildly different desires and expectations to both be hooked on your platform.
        3y ago
mmiliauskas 3y ago
Reddit is garbage these days anyways. Even communities that are scientific/technical seem to be toxic these days. If you want to get to a comment that has any substance regarding some topic or article, you have to scroll all the way down.
- partiallypro 3y ago
  /r/politics has leaked into virtually every subreddit.
  - ravenstine 3y ago
    The pandemic also ruined a lot of subreddits, especially ones for municipalities. Over 3 years of "OMG COVID" and "we ar liek literally in a pandemic" and "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DON'T SUPPORT MORE LOCKDOWNS" made me give up on a lot of subreddit communities, especially the Los Angeles one. But yeah, the metastasization of Reddit's broad politics also made things worse.
    - vsnf 3y ago
      The municipality boards the world over were all similarly overwhelmed with sanctimony and paranoia. I think this mostly speaks to the demographic of Reddit. Which is to say, the fact that Reddit is home to any edifying discussion at all is in spite of its demographic, not because of it.
    - jabroni_salad 3y ago
      /r/iowa has actually improved but that's only because we are no longer first in the primaries. I hope south carolina has a plan to deal with astroturfing the likes of which they have never imagined.
  - anankaie 3y ago
    The issue is that the admins only selectively enforce their rules, and are very ideologically driven at that (see the general rule of not allowing bans for other subreddit participation). This sets the tone for the moderation.
dsm4ck 3y ago
I really hope one of the bigger third party apps finds a way to just point their front end to a reddit clone and eat reddits lunch.
- jacooper 3y ago
  I keep hearing this, but how many of reddit users actually use third party apps? If Twitter proved anything, its that its really hard to kill a popular social media network, no matter how badly managed or drama filled it is.
  - miroljub 3y ago
    Twitter is not badly managed. It managed to grow to the point of being indispensable, and drama is just one of the reasons why it keeps being popular.
    - dopamean 3y ago
      idk losing 59% of ad revenue feels a bit mismanaged.
    - digging 3y ago
      Twitter is badly managed by almost any metric - are you referring to its management pre-acquisition?
      - rsynnott 3y ago
        I mean, even before acquisition it’d be hard to credibly claim it was well-run. In comparison to now, sure, but that’s the lowest of bars.
      - miroljub 3y ago
        Both. I can't imagine a company being so successful and so influential being badly run. Of course, if someone uses a moral, ethics, or personal political and societal view to judge if a company is well run, then I agree it may appear to many people that Twitter is badly run. But if we take a company valuation and consider the time it took it to achieve it, it's certainly one of the best run companies.
Simulacra 3y ago
I presume that going dark means that there will be less traffic on the site, which ostensibly would put pressure on the ad revenue. How long would this have to go on before it was a noticeable effect on read its balance sheet?
- beezlewax 3y ago
  I can't imagine it will have any noticeable effect on their ad revenue. We are talking about a handful of subs out of thousands.
  - dvngnt_ 3y ago
    well over 100 million users in all sureddits
  - Mindwipe 3y ago
    Ehh, subs aren't equal, and there are a notable amount of top 1% subs here that will have much bigger effect than others.
  - jahlove 3y ago
    We're talking about over 1,000 subreddits (and growing rapidly), including some of the very largest (~6 of the top 10, such as /r/pics, /r/aww, and /r/videos). It will almost certainly have a noticeable effect, especially if many of these subreddits decide to hold the blackout indefinitely.
- pier25 3y ago
  I think the biggest effect will be in terms of PR. Reddit will IPO soon and if the blackout happens the protest will make it to mainstream media.
- Aaargh20318 3y ago
  I don’t think the ad revenue for these two days is the important bit here. Reddit wants to IPO later this year and this protest highlights a very real existential risk behind Reddit’s business model. Reddit is entirely dependent on a large number of unpaid volunteers to moderate their site. Without moderation the site will turn into a cesspool of spam and other unsavory content. No brand is going to want to put their adds next to that. The problem is that unpaid volunteer have no obligations towards Reddit. They aren’t employees so you can’t fire them, they aren’t depending on Reddit for their livelihood and you can’t easily replace them (you’d have to find another sucker to provide free labor for you). They certainly can’t afford to hire enough people to replace the volunteer moderators. So Reddit is now pissing off the very group of people they depend on for their existence, a group of people that can walk away from Reddit with zero consequences. They have shown time and again to not care about the people they need the most to remain in business. They are one dumb-ass move by the admins away from going belly up. Does this company sound like a good investment opportunity to you ?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tiahura 3y ago
While I’m sure Reddit has some wonderful woodworking or music discussions, its main function is to be the shit that attracts flys and keeps them away from sites like this.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  The same argument can be applied to itself: popular subreddits attract users away from niche subreddits. There are many thriving niche subreddits. Maybe the "main function" of Reddit is categorization? If so, it seems reasonably effective, so long as people feel motivated enough to moderate those subreddits. That's the issue at hand.
kumarvvr 3y ago
In this day and age, after fiasco of the likes of Twitter, I wonder how developers choose to spend their time to develop apps for companies that own the content. It is going to be a bumpy ride, and the content owners dont give a damn about third party apps. I solely blame the developers of the apps, for trusting a mega corporation that is set on path of profiteering and data secrecy.
kumarvvr 3y ago
Seems that if there is a way to unlink social networks (users, friends, etc) and content networks, we would have a better time keeping the goals of users and end corporations aligned. With the networks separated, users should, theoretically, be able to switch content networks at will.
- ZunarJ5 3y ago
  Almost like a Federation? Hmmm... You may be onto something.
EGreg 3y ago
I see this kind of thing over and over. It’s a symptom of a larger problem: We are building communities on closed platforms that we don’t control. We need to move from Feudalism to a Free Market: https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/ https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/ When you choose where to host your Wordpress or whatever, you don’t worry about someone shutting off the API keys. On this page is a video explaining how that would work: https://qbix.com/platform https://qbix.com/platform On the other hand we see this all the time: https://twitter.com/nk1tz/status/1197347554201133056?s=46&t=Zz0nAwCHEPYpfIHcldbqWQ https://twitter.com/nk1tz/status/1197347554201133056?s=46&t=... Isn’t that lovely? The screenshot of HN complaining bitterly about someone controlling their own giant platform that we have all come to rely on. And the only solution is “switch to {{their competitor}}” as if that will solve it. This is just one of thousands of examples.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > We are building communities on closed platforms that we don’t control. We need to move from Feudalism to a Free Market A free market literally overrun by Nazis is what that means in the end. It's best seen on all the Twitter clone attempts that marketed themselves as "free speech" alternatives - most notably Parler, Gab and Truth Social: they all ended up being echo chambers of Nazis, where no one but them would want to hang out. The "board scene" had similar moments... from OG 4chan to 8chan and others, as soon as the current "hot" platform began to moderate away the worst of the worst (usually due to some terrorist focusing the police and general public spotlight on it), they simply moved away. The other way, federation of instances like with Mastodon, has a different problem set: while Nazi, CSAM and otherwise problematic instances get cut off from the larger instances, discovery absolutely sucks compared to the elephant (or rather, bird) in the room - there's no way to run "trending topic" campaigns, which was the feature that made Twitter so successful among protesters and dissidents: it allowed them to easily reach a global audience to put a spotlight on government abuses. The solution to go forward is what the EU is doing with the DSA/DMA: allow big, centralized platforms, and force the operators to adhere to a common baseline of moderation standards.
  - BeFlatXIII 3y ago
lelanthran 3y ago
"Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps" ... And no one will even notice...
Timpy 3y ago
If I understand this correctly, these third party apps are drawing tons of ad money away from Reddit while at the same time increasing their hosting costs and dev costs for maintaining the API, right? How is this not a win-win for Reddit? They lower the traffic that was costing them money. I know it's user-hostile and that's the crux of the complaints, but it seems a little naive that these communities are basically boycotting and asking "keeping wasting a lot of money so we can hang out here for free". Am I missing something?
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  Reddit is built on free labor from mods. Without the mods they would have to pay people to moderate thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of communities. Most mods use old reddit on desktop or third party apps on mobile because their app and new site suck for modding. Alienating the mods means their subreddits go to shit, and reddit exists for content. Doesn't sounds like a 'win' to me.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    It seems inevitable that Reddit is going to need to start hiring professional moderators. But given the difficulties in making that work economically, it would only be for the very largest subreddits. And perhaps even then, it would just be a professional lead moderator, with some volunteer help. As it is, the only people who really want to be moderators, especially of a large subreddit, tend to be motivated by reasons other than "build a thriving community of diverse, good faith discussion." Every big subreddit needs a dang.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      > As it is, the only people who really want to be moderators, especially of a large subreddit, tend to be motivated by reasons other than "build a thriving community of diverse, good faith discussion." People say this, but I find it completely untrue. Many people do a lot of things for good reasons, or else we wouldn't have charities. This cynical outlook is toxic and it is a reason why a lot of the people with 'good motives' get burned out. When no one gives you the benefit of consideration that you actually care about your community and want to see it thrive then you lose those motives. This is coming from someone who moderates many (>15) subreddits, with the largest one having 674,038 subscribers as of this posting.
idlewords 3y ago
I don't understand the point of a protest like this without some sort of concrete demand. If you're going to take down most of a popular site, you should: 1. Articulate the reason for your action 2. Explain what specific things need to happen to redress the problem I haven't seen any clear statement of (2). Am I missing something?
- FourHand451 3y ago
  I think that's good advice in principle, but the practical limitation is the ability of a bunch of redditors to come to an agreement on point #2 on short notice. Maybe they figure the implied message of "you are doing a bad thing we don't like. Don't do the bad thing" may be enough to get some change to happen, if change is a real possibility.
  - idlewords 3y ago
    If you can't come together around even one demand, then the message your protest conveys to management is that you are momentarily upset but there is zero risk in ignoring you.
    - FourHand451 3y ago
      I agree that making a clear demand seems more effective if possible, but I don't think disorganization necessarily implies that displeasure is only momentary and involves no risk. Many people can be upset about something and agree on a way to protest it without agreeing on what the solution should be.
- not_a_shill 3y ago
  I feel like it's obvious? They want 3rd party apps to stay in some reasonable capacity. The definition of reasonable can vary, (free - low cost API usage), but it's not that important.
  - idlewords 3y ago
    Articulating a clear demand is extremely important; it demonstrates that you have some organizational capacity beyond saying no.
merricksb 3y ago
Related: Tell HN: My Reddit account was banned after adding my subs to the protest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36192312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36192312 (411 points/10 hours ago/174 comments) Don't let Reddit kill 3rd party apps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36179853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36179853 (361 points/1 day ago/254 comments) How Reddit became the enemy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36177876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36177876 (172 points/1 day ago/154 comments) Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36162235 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36162235 (406 points/3 days ago/421 comments) Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36141083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36141083 (1969 points/4 days ago/1310 comments)
not_a_shill 3y ago
Private for two days is pretty hilariously ineffective, the mods don't want to close the subs permanently and give up control. Well not that anything would be effective. They really do need to funnel people to their app, their revenue per user is awful.
chayesfss 3y ago
[dead]
rybosworld 3y ago
Yeah Reddit sucks, everyone here has known that for years.
evandale 3y ago
I hope something new comes along. I'm getting sick of reddit. They way they allow moderators to run subreddits nowadays is ridiculous. Especially city subreddits that should be completely unbiased and welcoming to all in the region. The r/Toronto city subreddit is absolute garbage now because of what the mods have done. They decided they would have "no-crime January" as a trial to see what the subreddit looks like if users weren't allowed to post articles about petty crime throughout the city. When someone gets stabbed in a high-profile area it couldn't be posted under the no-crime January rules. They said they would run it as a trial and offer a survey to see what people thought. They didn't run the survey and the rule is now in place permanently. Of course, when a white guy or incel commits a crime it's allowed, but if it's a BIPOC? Deleted. Now the mods are trying to astroturf the municipal election we have coming up and push one of the candidates. It's the "progressive" candidate and in true Canadian fashion, if you don't vote for the progressive the reddit mob wants you to vote for you might as well be a Conservative because you're handing them the election. The mods allow people to make posts that say nonsense such as: > To all Progressives - we need to consolidate behind [redacted] now. [He/she] might not be my first choice but this is finally an election where we can put a people-first person in. We can't screw this up by splitting the vote. To suggest you can be a progressive but want another candidate will result in downvotes and insults. Funny enough, those insults would get you banned under their famous Rule 2 which basically allows them to delete or ban anything they deem as "not excellent" but when directed at someone who is seen as "conservative" they are allowed. The subreddit has been like this for about 5-6 years, it's only the political polarization that's got more extreme lately.
- time0ut 3y ago
  I’ve seen this on Reddit and every other online community over the past few years. Zero tolerance for any sort of nuance or thought. It is concerning. HN is the last hold out.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  Don't forget that if you don't like Trudeau, you must want Canada to join the states because you're a truck driving gun-nut bigot who also wants to ban abortion and hates lgbt people.
duped 3y ago
If I had an app with 1.5 million monthly active users and the platform I piggy- backed off asked me to pay them $20 million yearly for the privilege, I would start asking VCs for money to pay the bill and hire a couple folks to build the platform my users are going to migrate to before someone else does. Reddit the company has shown to completely misunderstand the userbase that created their website and they're slaughtering it to make a buck to payoff their own investors. So why not prove them wrong and do it yourself?
- Gareth321 3y ago
  I agree. The Apollo dev arguably owns the user last-mile. It wouldn't be a stretch to offer users an alternative. Reddit was open source until 2017 (https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit) so most of the heavy dev lifting is already done. The major cost would be in infrastructure.
activiation 3y ago
Might be too late, but 3rd party apps should should reddit content and 3rd party content
- activiation 3y ago
  *Should post
dandrew5 3y ago
Has anyone heard if the changes will affect the current JSON API available by appending `.json` to the end of web URLs (i.e. https://www.reddit.com/r/all.json https://www.reddit.com/r/all.json)? I can't find any documentation about it so hopefully not. If anyone is looking for an extension to replace their third-party app, Reddit Theme Studio[1] might be of interest. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-theme-studio/fkjkklmekbggnhjjldbcpbdcijcmbmoi https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-theme-studi...
- jahlove 3y ago
  They said .json is part of their API and is impacted: https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/12qwagm/_/jgrsf2q/?context=1 https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/12qwagm/_/jgrsf2q/?...

226 points by netfortius 3y ago

mg 3y ago

In another thread about this, someone mentioned Lemmy, a federated alternative to Reddit: https://lemmy.one/communities/listing_type/All/page/1 https://lemmy.one/communities/listing_type/All/page/1 Looks like an interesting approach.

last_responder 3y ago
link is broken
- fullstop 3y ago
  It works for me
mariusor 3y ago
For people favouring to the old reddit interface more, I created another federated alternative: https://github.com/mariusor/go-littr https://github.com/mariusor/go-littr (with an example instance at https://brutalinks.tech https://brutalinks.tech). Sadly it received less publicity and mind share than lemmy, so not everything might be up to the expectations of the HN crowd.
warning26 3y ago
I wish these federated systems would put a bit more effort into the user experience. I mean, even though you’ve directly linked to the server list (instead of their even less straightforward front page), it’s still confusing. What is a new user supposed to do with this? It’s all incredibly opaque.
xtracto 3y ago
The problem I see with lemmy, mastodon and similar services (anybody remember the also open source "Facebook killer" from like 10 years ago?) is that they are confusing: is it one service or a bunch of servers? Which server is the good one? The average is lost on the first page, and you need her for these social based apps. You need the non tech savvy people to get communities like r/medicine. Otherwise you get shat you see on IRC LiberaChat nowadays: the channels with people are mainly technical or technically related ones. ... which like, is good for people like us. But I come to HN for quality tech related discussions... I want a place for quality InstantPot talk, or quality ChildFree chat.
- Gareth321 3y ago
  To argue your point, today on Lemmy.ml the owner advised users the server could not handle the load, and told users to register on other instances (https://lemmy.ml/post/1147770?scrollToComments=true https://lemmy.ml/post/1147770?scrollToComments=true). This would mean multiple logins. There is no way to migrate or synchronise accounts. Federation is a cool idea but Lemmy's implementation is a terrible user experience.
  - Encrypt-Keeper 3y ago
    Mastadon's is as well. Like it's cool that you can follow somebody if you already know their handle, but the discovery aspect of social media is at least half the point of it. Without some form of mechanism holding everything together, it's never going to be a great experience.
  - xtracto 3y ago
    Someone should do a UI kind of like Emule: the main idea was the same: You fired your client and could connect to one of several servers, but end users didn't care, they just clicked on "connect" and the client will do whatever was necessary. Of course that client could be Web based, not necessary an application (although for mobile, applications are all the rage now)

EscapeFromNY 3y ago

I don't follow reddit too closely. But I remember there was another big fiasco a while ago and a bunch of clones/spinoff sites were started. Have any of those survived? (and not been completely overrun with fringe political content that's banned everywhere else)

djbusby 3y ago
https://tildes.net/ https://tildes.net/ Seems still alive.
tgv 3y ago
I mentioned this elsewhere: ruqqus and saidit seem to have failed getting traction. The latter one still exists (the former one doesn't, it seems), but is a cesspool of trolling, anti-everything-ism and conspiracy theorists.
local_crmdgeon 3y ago
There was Voat and Ruqqus, both became INTENSE white nationalist sites. I think Ruqqus shut down? I know there are a bunch of spinoffs that use that codebase though, TheMotte, Ovarit, and rDrama
rsynnott 3y ago
Previous Reddit controversies have mostly been about Reddit banning abhorrent content. This lead to clones which were, more or less from the start, just full of the worst people you can imagine. This limited their general attractiveness; normal people probably won’t want to use a Reddit clone which is populated mostly by Nazis, or by people who are creepily fixated on moaning about fat people, or by the upskirt people, or what have you. This would potentially be rather different, in that the group being driven away is more _normal_.

valine 3y ago

A large portion of reddit contributors use 3rd party apps. Will reddit even be worth using if those people leave? That’s a huge risk, and I’m not confident Reddit has fully evaluated the second order effects of this API change.

anonred 3y ago
Do you have a source for “a large portion of reddit contributors use 3rd party apps”? And what percent are we talking about here?
- George83728 3y ago
  > Do you have a source for “a large portion of reddit contributors use 3rd party apps”? Most top-level reddit posts come from bots reposting old content. Those bots aren't using the first party app...
- dvngnt_ 3y ago
  i know the pcgaming is around 20 percent which isn't a majority but it's enough to move somewhere else
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  Here is a shot from a subreddit I moderate: * https://imgur.com/a/Tg3IXNf https://imgur.com/a/Tg3IXNf No idea how many of those apps are third party, but I would be willing to bet 'most' of them.
  - anonred 3y ago
    I’d be willing to be the opposite given how hard Reddit is pushing this. But like you said, it’s impossible to tell without a separate category for third party apps.
barkerja 3y ago
How large is a "large portion"?

paxys 3y ago

I will never understand how Reddit bungled this so badly. I'm no Harvard MBA, but here's an easier way out – instead of asking small-time app developers to pay millions, put API access contingent on the account subscribing to Reddit Premium. That way users get to keep the experience they enjoy, independent developers can keep doing their thing, Reddit gets to make up for the lost ad revenue in the form of subscriptions, and if people complain about it they are the ones being cheap.

jacooper 3y ago
Its not about the revenue, its about forcing everyone to get ads, with endless tracking.
- paxys 3y ago
  Says who? They are only pushing the "official experience" to make up for lost ad revenue. If I pay Reddit $50/yr why would they care what app I use? YouTube does the same thing with Premium, and it is working out great.
  - kitsunesoba 3y ago
    It's about ads and tracking sure, but they're also trying to build a TikTok-style algorithm-powered black hole that keeps you sucked in by way of constantly shoving more things in front of you, including posts from subreddits you're not subscribed to. They also want to be able to force whatever new half-baked features they add to work with prominent positioning in their apps.
    - Spivak 3y ago
      But to what end? You have a bunch of users who you know are willing to pay real dollars for a different experience. You couldn't ask for better segmentation getting people with wildly different desires and expectations to both be hooked on your platform.
      - 3y ago

mmiliauskas 3y ago

Reddit is garbage these days anyways. Even communities that are scientific/technical seem to be toxic these days. If you want to get to a comment that has any substance regarding some topic or article, you have to scroll all the way down.

partiallypro 3y ago
/r/politics has leaked into virtually every subreddit.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  The pandemic also ruined a lot of subreddits, especially ones for municipalities. Over 3 years of "OMG COVID" and "we ar liek literally in a pandemic" and "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DON'T SUPPORT MORE LOCKDOWNS" made me give up on a lot of subreddit communities, especially the Los Angeles one. But yeah, the metastasization of Reddit's broad politics also made things worse.
  - vsnf 3y ago
    The municipality boards the world over were all similarly overwhelmed with sanctimony and paranoia. I think this mostly speaks to the demographic of Reddit. Which is to say, the fact that Reddit is home to any edifying discussion at all is in spite of its demographic, not because of it.
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    /r/iowa has actually improved but that's only because we are no longer first in the primaries. I hope south carolina has a plan to deal with astroturfing the likes of which they have never imagined.
- anankaie 3y ago
  The issue is that the admins only selectively enforce their rules, and are very ideologically driven at that (see the general rule of not allowing bans for other subreddit participation). This sets the tone for the moderation.

dsm4ck 3y ago

I really hope one of the bigger third party apps finds a way to just point their front end to a reddit clone and eat reddits lunch.

jacooper 3y ago
I keep hearing this, but how many of reddit users actually use third party apps? If Twitter proved anything, its that its really hard to kill a popular social media network, no matter how badly managed or drama filled it is.
- miroljub 3y ago
  Twitter is not badly managed. It managed to grow to the point of being indispensable, and drama is just one of the reasons why it keeps being popular.
  - dopamean 3y ago
    idk losing 59% of ad revenue feels a bit mismanaged.
  - digging 3y ago
    Twitter is badly managed by almost any metric - are you referring to its management pre-acquisition?
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      I mean, even before acquisition it’d be hard to credibly claim it was well-run. In comparison to now, sure, but that’s the lowest of bars.
    - miroljub 3y ago
      Both. I can't imagine a company being so successful and so influential being badly run. Of course, if someone uses a moral, ethics, or personal political and societal view to judge if a company is well run, then I agree it may appear to many people that Twitter is badly run. But if we take a company valuation and consider the time it took it to achieve it, it's certainly one of the best run companies.

Simulacra 3y ago

I presume that going dark means that there will be less traffic on the site, which ostensibly would put pressure on the ad revenue. How long would this have to go on before it was a noticeable effect on read its balance sheet?

beezlewax 3y ago
I can't imagine it will have any noticeable effect on their ad revenue. We are talking about a handful of subs out of thousands.
- dvngnt_ 3y ago
  well over 100 million users in all sureddits
- Mindwipe 3y ago
  Ehh, subs aren't equal, and there are a notable amount of top 1% subs here that will have much bigger effect than others.
- jahlove 3y ago
  We're talking about over 1,000 subreddits (and growing rapidly), including some of the very largest (~6 of the top 10, such as /r/pics, /r/aww, and /r/videos). It will almost certainly have a noticeable effect, especially if many of these subreddits decide to hold the blackout indefinitely.
pier25 3y ago
I think the biggest effect will be in terms of PR. Reddit will IPO soon and if the blackout happens the protest will make it to mainstream media.
Aaargh20318 3y ago
I don’t think the ad revenue for these two days is the important bit here. Reddit wants to IPO later this year and this protest highlights a very real existential risk behind Reddit’s business model. Reddit is entirely dependent on a large number of unpaid volunteers to moderate their site. Without moderation the site will turn into a cesspool of spam and other unsavory content. No brand is going to want to put their adds next to that. The problem is that unpaid volunteer have no obligations towards Reddit. They aren’t employees so you can’t fire them, they aren’t depending on Reddit for their livelihood and you can’t easily replace them (you’d have to find another sucker to provide free labor for you). They certainly can’t afford to hire enough people to replace the volunteer moderators. So Reddit is now pissing off the very group of people they depend on for their existence, a group of people that can walk away from Reddit with zero consequences. They have shown time and again to not care about the people they need the most to remain in business. They are one dumb-ass move by the admins away from going belly up. Does this company sound like a good investment opportunity to you ?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tiahura 3y ago

While I’m sure Reddit has some wonderful woodworking or music discussions, its main function is to be the shit that attracts flys and keeps them away from sites like this.

thomastjeffery 3y ago
The same argument can be applied to itself: popular subreddits attract users away from niche subreddits. There are many thriving niche subreddits. Maybe the "main function" of Reddit is categorization? If so, it seems reasonably effective, so long as people feel motivated enough to moderate those subreddits. That's the issue at hand.

kumarvvr 3y ago

In this day and age, after fiasco of the likes of Twitter, I wonder how developers choose to spend their time to develop apps for companies that own the content. It is going to be a bumpy ride, and the content owners dont give a damn about third party apps. I solely blame the developers of the apps, for trusting a mega corporation that is set on path of profiteering and data secrecy.

kumarvvr 3y ago

Seems that if there is a way to unlink social networks (users, friends, etc) and content networks, we would have a better time keeping the goals of users and end corporations aligned. With the networks separated, users should, theoretically, be able to switch content networks at will.

ZunarJ5 3y ago
Almost like a Federation? Hmmm... You may be onto something.

EGreg 3y ago

I see this kind of thing over and over. It’s a symptom of a larger problem: We are building communities on closed platforms that we don’t control. We need to move from Feudalism to a Free Market: https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/ https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/ When you choose where to host your Wordpress or whatever, you don’t worry about someone shutting off the API keys. On this page is a video explaining how that would work: https://qbix.com/platform https://qbix.com/platform On the other hand we see this all the time: https://twitter.com/nk1tz/status/1197347554201133056?s=46&t=Zz0nAwCHEPYpfIHcldbqWQ https://twitter.com/nk1tz/status/1197347554201133056?s=46&t=... Isn’t that lovely? The screenshot of HN complaining bitterly about someone controlling their own giant platform that we have all come to rely on. And the only solution is “switch to {{their competitor}}” as if that will solve it. This is just one of thousands of examples.

mschuster91 3y ago
> We are building communities on closed platforms that we don’t control. We need to move from Feudalism to a Free Market A free market literally overrun by Nazis is what that means in the end. It's best seen on all the Twitter clone attempts that marketed themselves as "free speech" alternatives - most notably Parler, Gab and Truth Social: they all ended up being echo chambers of Nazis, where no one but them would want to hang out. The "board scene" had similar moments... from OG 4chan to 8chan and others, as soon as the current "hot" platform began to moderate away the worst of the worst (usually due to some terrorist focusing the police and general public spotlight on it), they simply moved away. The other way, federation of instances like with Mastodon, has a different problem set: while Nazi, CSAM and otherwise problematic instances get cut off from the larger instances, discovery absolutely sucks compared to the elephant (or rather, bird) in the room - there's no way to run "trending topic" campaigns, which was the feature that made Twitter so successful among protesters and dissidents: it allowed them to easily reach a global audience to put a spotlight on government abuses. The solution to go forward is what the EU is doing with the DSA/DMA: allow big, centralized platforms, and force the operators to adhere to a common baseline of moderation standards.
- BeFlatXIII 3y ago

lelanthran 3y ago

"Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps" ... And no one will even notice...

Timpy 3y ago

If I understand this correctly, these third party apps are drawing tons of ad money away from Reddit while at the same time increasing their hosting costs and dev costs for maintaining the API, right? How is this not a win-win for Reddit? They lower the traffic that was costing them money. I know it's user-hostile and that's the crux of the complaints, but it seems a little naive that these communities are basically boycotting and asking "keeping wasting a lot of money so we can hang out here for free". Am I missing something?

Eisenstein 3y ago
Reddit is built on free labor from mods. Without the mods they would have to pay people to moderate thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of communities. Most mods use old reddit on desktop or third party apps on mobile because their app and new site suck for modding. Alienating the mods means their subreddits go to shit, and reddit exists for content. Doesn't sounds like a 'win' to me.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  It seems inevitable that Reddit is going to need to start hiring professional moderators. But given the difficulties in making that work economically, it would only be for the very largest subreddits. And perhaps even then, it would just be a professional lead moderator, with some volunteer help. As it is, the only people who really want to be moderators, especially of a large subreddit, tend to be motivated by reasons other than "build a thriving community of diverse, good faith discussion." Every big subreddit needs a dang.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    > As it is, the only people who really want to be moderators, especially of a large subreddit, tend to be motivated by reasons other than "build a thriving community of diverse, good faith discussion." People say this, but I find it completely untrue. Many people do a lot of things for good reasons, or else we wouldn't have charities. This cynical outlook is toxic and it is a reason why a lot of the people with 'good motives' get burned out. When no one gives you the benefit of consideration that you actually care about your community and want to see it thrive then you lose those motives. This is coming from someone who moderates many (>15) subreddits, with the largest one having 674,038 subscribers as of this posting.

idlewords 3y ago

I don't understand the point of a protest like this without some sort of concrete demand. If you're going to take down most of a popular site, you should: 1. Articulate the reason for your action 2. Explain what specific things need to happen to redress the problem I haven't seen any clear statement of (2). Am I missing something?

FourHand451 3y ago
I think that's good advice in principle, but the practical limitation is the ability of a bunch of redditors to come to an agreement on point #2 on short notice. Maybe they figure the implied message of "you are doing a bad thing we don't like. Don't do the bad thing" may be enough to get some change to happen, if change is a real possibility.
- idlewords 3y ago
  If you can't come together around even one demand, then the message your protest conveys to management is that you are momentarily upset but there is zero risk in ignoring you.
  - FourHand451 3y ago
    I agree that making a clear demand seems more effective if possible, but I don't think disorganization necessarily implies that displeasure is only momentary and involves no risk. Many people can be upset about something and agree on a way to protest it without agreeing on what the solution should be.
not_a_shill 3y ago
I feel like it's obvious? They want 3rd party apps to stay in some reasonable capacity. The definition of reasonable can vary, (free - low cost API usage), but it's not that important.
- idlewords 3y ago
  Articulating a clear demand is extremely important; it demonstrates that you have some organizational capacity beyond saying no.

merricksb 3y ago

Related: Tell HN: My Reddit account was banned after adding my subs to the protest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36192312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36192312 (411 points/10 hours ago/174 comments) Don't let Reddit kill 3rd party apps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36179853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36179853 (361 points/1 day ago/254 comments) How Reddit became the enemy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36177876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36177876 (172 points/1 day ago/154 comments) Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36162235 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36162235 (406 points/3 days ago/421 comments) Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36141083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36141083 (1969 points/4 days ago/1310 comments)

not_a_shill 3y ago

Private for two days is pretty hilariously ineffective, the mods don't want to close the subs permanently and give up control. Well not that anything would be effective. They really do need to funnel people to their app, their revenue per user is awful.

chayesfss 3y ago

[dead]

rybosworld 3y ago

Yeah Reddit sucks, everyone here has known that for years.

evandale 3y ago

I hope something new comes along. I'm getting sick of reddit. They way they allow moderators to run subreddits nowadays is ridiculous. Especially city subreddits that should be completely unbiased and welcoming to all in the region. The r/Toronto city subreddit is absolute garbage now because of what the mods have done. They decided they would have "no-crime January" as a trial to see what the subreddit looks like if users weren't allowed to post articles about petty crime throughout the city. When someone gets stabbed in a high-profile area it couldn't be posted under the no-crime January rules. They said they would run it as a trial and offer a survey to see what people thought. They didn't run the survey and the rule is now in place permanently. Of course, when a white guy or incel commits a crime it's allowed, but if it's a BIPOC? Deleted. Now the mods are trying to astroturf the municipal election we have coming up and push one of the candidates. It's the "progressive" candidate and in true Canadian fashion, if you don't vote for the progressive the reddit mob wants you to vote for you might as well be a Conservative because you're handing them the election. The mods allow people to make posts that say nonsense such as: > To all Progressives - we need to consolidate behind [redacted] now. [He/she] might not be my first choice but this is finally an election where we can put a people-first person in. We can't screw this up by splitting the vote. To suggest you can be a progressive but want another candidate will result in downvotes and insults. Funny enough, those insults would get you banned under their famous Rule 2 which basically allows them to delete or ban anything they deem as "not excellent" but when directed at someone who is seen as "conservative" they are allowed. The subreddit has been like this for about 5-6 years, it's only the political polarization that's got more extreme lately.

time0ut 3y ago
I’ve seen this on Reddit and every other online community over the past few years. Zero tolerance for any sort of nuance or thought. It is concerning. HN is the last hold out.
brailsafe 3y ago
Don't forget that if you don't like Trudeau, you must want Canada to join the states because you're a truck driving gun-nut bigot who also wants to ban abortion and hates lgbt people.

duped 3y ago

If I had an app with 1.5 million monthly active users and the platform I piggy- backed off asked me to pay them $20 million yearly for the privilege, I would start asking VCs for money to pay the bill and hire a couple folks to build the platform my users are going to migrate to before someone else does. Reddit the company has shown to completely misunderstand the userbase that created their website and they're slaughtering it to make a buck to payoff their own investors. So why not prove them wrong and do it yourself?

Gareth321 3y ago
I agree. The Apollo dev arguably owns the user last-mile. It wouldn't be a stretch to offer users an alternative. Reddit was open source until 2017 (https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit) so most of the heavy dev lifting is already done. The major cost would be in infrastructure.

activiation 3y ago

Might be too late, but 3rd party apps should should reddit content and 3rd party content

activiation 3y ago
*Should post

dandrew5 3y ago

Has anyone heard if the changes will affect the current JSON API available by appending `.json` to the end of web URLs (i.e. https://www.reddit.com/r/all.json https://www.reddit.com/r/all.json)? I can't find any documentation about it so hopefully not. If anyone is looking for an extension to replace their third-party app, Reddit Theme Studio[1] might be of interest. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-theme-studio/fkjkklmekbggnhjjldbcpbdcijcmbmoi https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-theme-studi...

jahlove 3y ago
They said .json is part of their API and is impacted: https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/12qwagm/_/jgrsf2q/?context=1 https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/12qwagm/_/jgrsf2q/?...