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So if the impact of the change is so small, why does the CEO of this company with thousands of employees feel remotely compelled to concoct a fantasy story wher

So if the impact of the change is so small, why does the CEO of this company with thousands of employees feel remotely compelled to concoct a fantasy story where the Apollo developer is an evil villain that is so unbelievable and verifiably unbelievable it doesn't last six hours before blowing up in his face? Even if you completely accept these policy changes as a long-term positive for reddit's growth, how can you have confidence in that leadership? How can you trust anything they tell you as an investor? Steve has some kind of problem. It's been apparent before with editing comments in the live db, and it's apparent now. This problem is a risk for reddit. "Don't lie on or about phone calls" is pretty basic risk management and he can't handle it.

Demmme 3y ago
Don't get me wrong I'm not here to defend any actions of reddit especially not their CEO. But if they have stats saying 1% and less is 3th party App Traffic it's probably more that people in reddit care just not their ceo
- internetter 3y ago
  So 1. I feel like you didn't read the comment you replied to. It says in a compelling way that reddit wouldn't do this if they didn't feel a threat 2. > But if they have stats saying 1% and less is 3th party App A solid takeaway from the original post is that you can't trust Reddit 3. All the bad press surrounding this is infinitely worse for their brand. The subreddit strike, for instance, could force their hand into taking authoritarian control over the platform, as they've hinted at. "Reddit abandons democracy" is a pretty damming headline, and they just can't seem to stop digging their hole deeper
  - dylan604 3y ago
    >All the bad press You're forgetting the adage, "there is no such thing as bad press". If you're not a user of the 3rd party apps, then none of these decisions affect you, and most people are just not going to get upset about things that don't affect them directly.
    - e40 3y ago
      I feel like in the age of cancel culture, this adage isn't really a thing anymore. News travels too far and too fast.
    - threeseed 3y ago
      Of course there is such thing as bad press. Look at companies like Theranos where it was the investigative reporting that ultimately led to their downfall. And as someone who has been on Reddit for 16 years and has never used a 3rd party app this decision does affect me. a) I think less of the company and the site which will affect my engagement and b) It affects everyone else on the site which in turns affects their engagement and the quality of their posts.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        Theranos was doing shady shit and ripping off investors. That's illegal. Bad press didn't shut them down. Criminal investigations shut them down and the CEO is now actually in jail. Confusing illegal activity with activity you disagree with is not doing the conversation (or society in general) a bit of good
    - katbyte 3y ago
      > If you're not a user of the 3rd party apps, then none of these decisions affect you likely untrue. its not just 3rd party apps it affects. it changes api access for anything using the API for instance modtools will be affected which means literally everyone can be affected desktop or not https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/12rt5f8/how_will_the_changes_to_the_api_affect_mod_tools/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/12rt5f8/how_wil... some subreddits make heavy use of bots these are all going to be hugely affected
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > You're forgetting the adage, "there is no such thing as bad press" Yeah, but that adage has never been true. It's just something said by people who get bad press to make themselves feel better.
  - Demmme 3y ago
    I don't 'trust' reddit, I surf reddit and it's communities. Reddit is not a bank account
    - lkschubert8 3y ago
      Aren't you trusting their published stats?
      - Demmme 3y ago
        Nope. I argue bases on them but they do not matter to me. I do not use a 3th party App. For me it makes sense. But if they lied they will hurt themselves anyway
  - WJW 3y ago
    > you can't trust Reddit Sure, but what does that even mean? I cannot trust them to load the topics from /r/ruby or /r/haskell correctly because of nefarious purposes? Perhaps they have replaced all the posts with Python propaganda in the hope I wouldn't notice?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I agree but I think the more damning thing about this update is the slander. Maybe it still doesn't come down to a case, but letting it get this close to begin with is absurd, even for a CEO that got into a piss fight with his users.
stronglikedan 3y ago
> if the impact of the change is so small, why does the CEO of this company with thousands of employees feel remotely compelled to... We see this all the time on social media, where companies respond to the very vocal minority, because even though they may be a minority, their voice is amplified by social media. Not saying this is the case here, but it's why companies often respond even when the real impact may be small.
- monksy 3y ago
  > may be a minority, their voice is amplified by social media. The same organization that is dealing with that, also accepted that when they entered a market to where their potential profibility reaches a vast higher amount of people. The companies asked for that level of audience. They got it, they're operating on a smaller staff than traditionally you would need for that level. Now they're upset they're paying the pipper.
nawgz 3y ago
This breathless take that capitalists aren’t propagandists taking advantage of every step and spreading FUD at every other is shockingly naive. The CEO of Reddit is trying to punish this guy for overstepping because capital naturally positions itself at the top and bullies all threats it perceives It also makes no sense you’re implying this is hurting Reddit. They just shut down a huge ecosystem of free loaders and will be able to show more first party usage and therefore ad views and DAU and so on, which aligns so obviously with their goal of having a huge IPO I don’t even know how you think people will “lose trust in leadership”. They are stoked they’re about to make ridiculous stacks of cash, and the few that aren’t don’t matter.
- kaba0 3y ago
  > It also makes no sense you’re implying this is hurting Reddit. They just shut down a huge ecosystem of free loaders It’s absolutely insane to call them freeloaders. Reddit’s business model is not “we serve pages with ads and advertisers pay us”, it is “those ‘freeloaders’ create content that is the whole value of the company, it is nothing without that — and this results in every traffic that hits the site”
  - fullstop 3y ago
    From what I have read, a lot of moderators also use third party apps as moderation tools. They are not paid to do this job. Heck, most of the video content on Reddit is reposted from other sources.
    - seviu 3y ago
      The moderation tools offered by Reddit don’t have support for accessibility. If you are in r/blind for example… How are you gonna moderate that? And for those who don’t need those tools, third party apps save them a lot of time since the official app is so bad for such things.
    - fsckboy 3y ago
      > They are not paid to do this job. plenty more people want to moderate, seriously, why should they pay them? hear me out: If you pay them "a livable wage" you'll get people in the chair who don't want the job, just the pay. If you pay them less, suddenly you'll run afoul of minimum wage laws, overhead of having employees, etc. you could auction off the job (mods pay reddit for the privilege, given that more people want to moderate than currently can) but that would encourage the mods to monetize their sub (the more successfully, the more subs would become part of ebaum's world) voluntary moderation actually is the happy medium, people who love the job and the sub are willing/want to do it. Like they say "everything can't be measured in money" (ok, I never say that, but there it is)
raydev 3y ago
That's the thing, because of Huffman's instability and childish behavior in previous years, his words have no meaning here. Reddit is still a decent-sized company with a whole team of people who've likely been running the numbers. Third party apps like Apollo are a nerd concern anyway, and nerds are outnumbered on Reddit these days; I'm sure most users are happily poking away at the first party apps.
- theturtletalks 3y ago
  It doesn’t matter if the “nerds” are outnumbered. Lurkers outnumber actual content creators by insane multiples, yet everyone knows that the content creators are the ones that keep people coming back. What about mods? Looks like many of them use 3rd party apps to help moderate their subs. They are outnumbered too, but are they worth less than millions of lurkers? I think not. Reddit is betting that the loud minority are not the ones bringing value to their site. If they are wrong, it may be too late.
  - linuxftw 3y ago
    Content creators want their content to be viewed. They're not going to just go away, they want the internet points.
    - heisenbit 3y ago
      Comments are content too and often more insightful. Moderators for all the bashing some deservedly get are key to keep content creators happy. Each forum is a small organization. The sum of the heads of these orgs. and the identities of users is what makes Reddit valuable. We are however entering an age where identity becomes more portable so mess with all the leads of your teams at your own peril.
    - idiotsecant 3y ago
      Content creators on digg wanted their content to be viewed too. Every social media org should have a framed copy of ozymandius on the wall.
- 3y ago
JohnFen 3y ago
> So if the impact of the change is so small, why does the CEO of this company [...] A thousand times this. Plus their repeated insistence that they "aren't like Twitter" (which is true, I think. They're worse.) They are obviously running scared of something, and that something can really only be that the impact of this is potentially enormous.

Demmme 3y ago

Don't get me wrong I'm not here to defend any actions of reddit especially not their CEO. But if they have stats saying 1% and less is 3th party App Traffic it's probably more that people in reddit care just not their ceo

internetter 3y ago
So 1. I feel like you didn't read the comment you replied to. It says in a compelling way that reddit wouldn't do this if they didn't feel a threat 2. > But if they have stats saying 1% and less is 3th party App A solid takeaway from the original post is that you can't trust Reddit 3. All the bad press surrounding this is infinitely worse for their brand. The subreddit strike, for instance, could force their hand into taking authoritarian control over the platform, as they've hinted at. "Reddit abandons democracy" is a pretty damming headline, and they just can't seem to stop digging their hole deeper
- dylan604 3y ago
  >All the bad press You're forgetting the adage, "there is no such thing as bad press". If you're not a user of the 3rd party apps, then none of these decisions affect you, and most people are just not going to get upset about things that don't affect them directly.
  - e40 3y ago
    I feel like in the age of cancel culture, this adage isn't really a thing anymore. News travels too far and too fast.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Of course there is such thing as bad press. Look at companies like Theranos where it was the investigative reporting that ultimately led to their downfall. And as someone who has been on Reddit for 16 years and has never used a 3rd party app this decision does affect me. a) I think less of the company and the site which will affect my engagement and b) It affects everyone else on the site which in turns affects their engagement and the quality of their posts.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      Theranos was doing shady shit and ripping off investors. That's illegal. Bad press didn't shut them down. Criminal investigations shut them down and the CEO is now actually in jail. Confusing illegal activity with activity you disagree with is not doing the conversation (or society in general) a bit of good
  - katbyte 3y ago
    > If you're not a user of the 3rd party apps, then none of these decisions affect you likely untrue. its not just 3rd party apps it affects. it changes api access for anything using the API for instance modtools will be affected which means literally everyone can be affected desktop or not https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/12rt5f8/how_will_the_changes_to_the_api_affect_mod_tools/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/12rt5f8/how_wil... some subreddits make heavy use of bots these are all going to be hugely affected
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > You're forgetting the adage, "there is no such thing as bad press" Yeah, but that adage has never been true. It's just something said by people who get bad press to make themselves feel better.
- Demmme 3y ago
  I don't 'trust' reddit, I surf reddit and it's communities. Reddit is not a bank account
  - lkschubert8 3y ago
    Aren't you trusting their published stats?
    - Demmme 3y ago
      Nope. I argue bases on them but they do not matter to me. I do not use a 3th party App. For me it makes sense. But if they lied they will hurt themselves anyway
- WJW 3y ago
  > you can't trust Reddit Sure, but what does that even mean? I cannot trust them to load the topics from /r/ruby or /r/haskell correctly because of nefarious purposes? Perhaps they have replaced all the posts with Python propaganda in the hope I wouldn't notice?
johnnyanmac 3y ago
I agree but I think the more damning thing about this update is the slander. Maybe it still doesn't come down to a case, but letting it get this close to begin with is absurd, even for a CEO that got into a piss fight with his users.

stronglikedan 3y ago

> if the impact of the change is so small, why does the CEO of this company with thousands of employees feel remotely compelled to... We see this all the time on social media, where companies respond to the very vocal minority, because even though they may be a minority, their voice is amplified by social media. Not saying this is the case here, but it's why companies often respond even when the real impact may be small.

monksy 3y ago
> may be a minority, their voice is amplified by social media. The same organization that is dealing with that, also accepted that when they entered a market to where their potential profibility reaches a vast higher amount of people. The companies asked for that level of audience. They got it, they're operating on a smaller staff than traditionally you would need for that level. Now they're upset they're paying the pipper.

nawgz 3y ago

This breathless take that capitalists aren’t propagandists taking advantage of every step and spreading FUD at every other is shockingly naive. The CEO of Reddit is trying to punish this guy for overstepping because capital naturally positions itself at the top and bullies all threats it perceives It also makes no sense you’re implying this is hurting Reddit. They just shut down a huge ecosystem of free loaders and will be able to show more first party usage and therefore ad views and DAU and so on, which aligns so obviously with their goal of having a huge IPO I don’t even know how you think people will “lose trust in leadership”. They are stoked they’re about to make ridiculous stacks of cash, and the few that aren’t don’t matter.

kaba0 3y ago
> It also makes no sense you’re implying this is hurting Reddit. They just shut down a huge ecosystem of free loaders It’s absolutely insane to call them freeloaders. Reddit’s business model is not “we serve pages with ads and advertisers pay us”, it is “those ‘freeloaders’ create content that is the whole value of the company, it is nothing without that — and this results in every traffic that hits the site”
- fullstop 3y ago
  From what I have read, a lot of moderators also use third party apps as moderation tools. They are not paid to do this job. Heck, most of the video content on Reddit is reposted from other sources.
  - seviu 3y ago
    The moderation tools offered by Reddit don’t have support for accessibility. If you are in r/blind for example… How are you gonna moderate that? And for those who don’t need those tools, third party apps save them a lot of time since the official app is so bad for such things.
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    > They are not paid to do this job. plenty more people want to moderate, seriously, why should they pay them? hear me out: If you pay them "a livable wage" you'll get people in the chair who don't want the job, just the pay. If you pay them less, suddenly you'll run afoul of minimum wage laws, overhead of having employees, etc. you could auction off the job (mods pay reddit for the privilege, given that more people want to moderate than currently can) but that would encourage the mods to monetize their sub (the more successfully, the more subs would become part of ebaum's world) voluntary moderation actually is the happy medium, people who love the job and the sub are willing/want to do it. Like they say "everything can't be measured in money" (ok, I never say that, but there it is)

raydev 3y ago

That's the thing, because of Huffman's instability and childish behavior in previous years, his words have no meaning here. Reddit is still a decent-sized company with a whole team of people who've likely been running the numbers. Third party apps like Apollo are a nerd concern anyway, and nerds are outnumbered on Reddit these days; I'm sure most users are happily poking away at the first party apps.

theturtletalks 3y ago
It doesn’t matter if the “nerds” are outnumbered. Lurkers outnumber actual content creators by insane multiples, yet everyone knows that the content creators are the ones that keep people coming back. What about mods? Looks like many of them use 3rd party apps to help moderate their subs. They are outnumbered too, but are they worth less than millions of lurkers? I think not. Reddit is betting that the loud minority are not the ones bringing value to their site. If they are wrong, it may be too late.
- linuxftw 3y ago
  Content creators want their content to be viewed. They're not going to just go away, they want the internet points.
  - heisenbit 3y ago
    Comments are content too and often more insightful. Moderators for all the bashing some deservedly get are key to keep content creators happy. Each forum is a small organization. The sum of the heads of these orgs. and the identities of users is what makes Reddit valuable. We are however entering an age where identity becomes more portable so mess with all the leads of your teams at your own peril.
  - idiotsecant 3y ago
    Content creators on digg wanted their content to be viewed too. Every social media org should have a framed copy of ozymandius on the wall.
3y ago

JohnFen 3y ago

> So if the impact of the change is so small, why does the CEO of this company [...] A thousand times this. Plus their repeated insistence that they "aren't like Twitter" (which is true, I think. They're worse.) They are obviously running scared of something, and that something can really only be that the impact of this is potentially enormous.