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Thousands of subreddits pledge to go dark after the Reddit CEO’s recent remarks

617 points by ValentineC 3y ago

geuis 3y ago
This is Digg v4, but for Reddit this time. Where do the nerds go this time like when we migrated from Digg to Reddit?
- 101011 3y ago
  Interesting, I recall it being the nerds of Reddit getting the users of Digg.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
So they're going to force them open, right?
- silisili 3y ago
  That's my assumption. They'll just force open all the big ones, with or without demodding them all. No way they let something as big as funny and videos(among many others) just shut down for days...
  - genocidicbunny 3y ago
    Unless they already have moderators that are up to speed on taking care of subs that big and active, there's going to be a deluge of spam content...I hope. It would be a shame if r/videos turned into a bunch of OF and crypto spam, especially on the day of IPO. Hardcore porn on r/all as the markets open would be hilarious.
    - the_shivers 3y ago
      I had the exact same thought. A real shame indeed.
  - viraptor 3y ago
    That would be a disaster for them. It would be "Mods are asleep, post X" taken to extreme. Any remotely contentious subreddit will be filled with crap and Lemmy will keep getting new users. I think it would be significant numbers switching, even if it takes only 2 days. And that's assuming mods will want to come back after the blackout...
    - yanderekko 3y ago
      >That would be a disaster for them. It would be "Mods are asleep, post X" taken to extreme. They wouldn't be forced open with zero mods, obviously. They'll find volunteers. I would expect that if mass demoddings happen though you would see some sort of weird civil war on Reddit emerge though where outraged users would support spamming these subs in the way you describe specifically to ensure that their prophecy is fulfilled. You can even see people hoping for it in this thread already.
      - mock-possum 3y ago
        Who would volunteer for that though? Modding is hard. Good mods make a good sub.
      - viraptor 3y ago
        They already found volunteers before. Those volunteers with significant personal investment are effectively going on a strike. Finding replacement volunteers with no experience and short notice is unlikely to work well... and worse if they include people with an agenda against the current mods.
    - bmacho 3y ago
      Can't they just close registration for a while, and ban the spammers?
nukeman 3y ago
It’s absolutely insane to see many parts of Reddit in open revolt. I think this is the worst it’s ever been. Worse than 2015, 2018, 2020…
- ramraj07 3y ago
  This is hopefully and likely going to be the biggest user revolt in the history of the internet. I'm sincerely hoping the cowards back down or my last favorite big place on the internet is also going to disappear.
- yanderekko 3y ago
  It might turn out to be one of the largest protests, but it's also one where there's a large gap between how passionate your average mod feels about the issues here vs. your average Reddit users. spez's recent comments have served to lower this gap, but probably not by that much. My guess is that if a lot of mods end up getting replaced over this, they won't be missed.
  - flyinglizard 3y ago
    The contribution of content is very lopsided. I remember about 10% of the users writing at all and maybe 2% writing prolifically. You don’t need much to move the content somewhere else.
    - yanderekko 3y ago
      Sure, but since these changes aren't affecting many users I'm not sure why this would happen. It seems to mostly be wishful thinking on the hopes of activists that this will cause some sort of massive brand damage, or even the sort of advertiser revolt that Twitter has faced. But that would require a lot more mismanagement from spez, I'd guess.
      - mlyle 3y ago
        For a long time, Apple kept the option to receive plain text emails when almost everyone else had moved to HTML. Why? Because there was a crucial slice of unix-y developers who liked it that way, who were an important segment. Even though third party apps might be 3% of users, I'm guessing that the users that are passionate enough about Reddit to find/seek out the best app/pay for app subscriptions/etc are much more likely to be those critical 2% of prolific contributors.
foolfoolz 3y ago
none of this will have any impact. the subs need reddit as much as reddit needs them. collectively sure the subs can control reddit; for a short time. but new ones will appear. and the subs make money by being online so none of them will risk pledging more than 2 days
- rahidz 3y ago
  Moderators aren't paid though, why would they be risking any money?
- harryVic 3y ago
  There is no tech secret sauce to reddit. Reddit is a good experience because of unpaid moderators who care a lot. There is a reason quality of content on reddit is higher than similar websites like quora.
  - ramraj07 3y ago
    There is SOME secret sauce. The admins _do_ play a crucial role. The history plays a role. Everyone says this about reddit and Twitter and yet it's still not true that twitter has been replaced in spite of the shit show going on there.
    - _Qeomash_ 3y ago
      The various alternative reddits that have popped up in the past prove the tech stack isn't complex. Their lack of user adoption shows that the secret sauce is the userbase, not the tech.
  - yanderekko 3y ago
    >Reddit is a good experience because of unpaid moderators who care a lot. Arguably they care too much, and a bit of humbling will be good for Reddit. If the powermods had their way Aimee Challenor would still be working for the site.
- diziet 3y ago
  How do the subs make money on reddit?
polalavik 3y ago
I've been getting more and more active on the largest instance of lemmy - https://lemmy.ml https://lemmy.ml - and its crazy how many popular subreddit names have been created on lemmy.ml in the last week. I'm not sure if the philosophy of the fediverse really meshes with the idea of social media. It feels like if it caught on it would push people farther and farther into smaller echo chambers (and that seems bad!). However, adopting one large instance seems like a drop in replacement for reddit (and the least painful for the average joe).
- Buttons840 3y ago
  They are asking people not to join because they can't handle the influx. Not a good sign. It also looks like I can only post and vote on my own instance, so hosting my own Lemmy is worthless, unlike email where I can host my own without any fundamental downsides (although there are some cultural downsides, for lack of a better term).
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - nulld3v 3y ago
    You can most definitely post/vote on other instances.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    The largest Lemmy instance, according to their list, has 1500 monthly active users, and they can't handle more? How is that thing ever supposed to scale?
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      Congratulations, you have discovered why Reddit (and any B2C social network in general) took venture capital as it did and why it's struggling to contain its expenses on scaling to that many users.
myspy 3y ago
They should fire that incompetent CEO. It‘s sad that bad management is never punished.
- forgotmysn 3y ago
  he's literally doing exactly what the board wants. reddit's investors are more than happy to sacrifices users and the user experience for profitability.
  - ramraj07 3y ago
    This is not the path to profitability. This is how you lose the mods and power users who provide and moderate the content of the site leading to it's downfall. That's not profitable.
    - yanderekko 3y ago
      Mods can be replaced. Do the actual valuable users rely heavily on Reddit's API or 3rd party apps? I doubt they'd leave over pure moral outrage on this issue, although a large amount of generic brand damage could cause some attrition.
      - aaomidi 3y ago
        The valuable users are the mods that rely on third party apps lol. I don’t think yall realize how much free labor the mods are doing.
        yanderekko 3y ago
        There will still be mods doing free labor after whatever purges. Less effectively, sure. But I think Reddit clearly believes that they can be replaced with nearly zero negative impact, or even a positive impact if some particularly toxic powermods can be erased.
        3y ago
the_shivers 3y ago
Going dark for 48 hours seems rather toothless. Props to the subreddits at least attempting to go private permanently.
- bottlepalm 3y ago
  Doesn't matter, new subreddits will pop up to replace them.
  - lewisflude 3y ago
    Absolutely! Even Reddit itself already had multiple subreddits per topic, and I think that there will still be enough subreddits for people to go on.
pcurve 3y ago
I think the CEO will have to step down in a few months. It's difficult to survive this level of cluster.
- gwill 3y ago
  with a massive golden parachute thanks to this being exactly what the board wants.
  - ramraj07 3y ago
    Define massive. Doubt reddit is going to give him 50 MM.
- yanderekko 3y ago
  While the recent A4A seems like an obvious tactical mistake, I've yet to see anyone make a strong argument that the API changes are bad for the site's bottom line. And if no one can do this, then why would spez get fired? I guess maybe just for optics?
  - _Qeomash_ 3y ago
    The question that is unknown is what percent of reddit's userbase uses exclusively third party clients vs those who use reddit's official client. And then, what portion of the third party userbase will migrate to the official client after those third party clients go away. I'm sure spez knows at least the first set of numbers, and they find the amount of expected loss to be an acceptable risk.
  - pcurve 3y ago
    partly optics, but mainly loss of confidence, not just by the users, but Reddit's employees. It may be an OK business decision (though I personally think they didn't think it through), but he handled the aftermath in an extraordinarily bad way. Either he doesn't have good lieutenants around him to advise and support him, or he is too stubborn to listen to them.
    - 3y ago
lolinder 3y ago
You can read through all of /u/spez's replies here [0]. It won't take long, because the most striking thing about this AMA wasn't that he said very many controversial things but that he barely said anything at all. There's one moment where he gives a sarcastic jab about how Reddit isn't profitable while some of the third party apps are, and an earlier one where he repeats some of the things he said about the Apollo dev. But mostly he just avoided even moderately controversial questions. He put in an appearance for about an hour, ignored all the most upvoted questions, then disappeared. [0] https://old.reddit.com/user/spez/comments/ https://old.reddit.com/user/spez/comments/
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  So, like many other high-profile AMAs that reddit has hosted over the years. I mean, can we please talk about Rampart?
- TX81Z 3y ago
  It’s like he’s implying it’s the third party apps fault he can’t make money on a user base that big with that much engagement. Which is an…odd take.
  - LeeroyWasHere 3y ago
    He has said in the past that no one uses 3rd party apps and they're not a meaningful amount of their traffic. Non stop contradiction and lies.
    - teaearlgraycold 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - shiftpgdn 3y ago
      Major subreddits I’ve seen run polls show that less than 3% of users are using third party apps.
      - 3y ago
mjfl 3y ago
It’s pretty easy to make a Reddit clone right? Didn’t they release their source code?
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  It's also somewhat easy to plan a party. The problem is getting people to show up.
  - deanc 3y ago
    And a venue with big enough infrastructure to support that many people at your party. And then we get back to the staff who you usually pay…
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  The app isn't the secret sauce. The moderation team is. Moderation is the hard part of running a site like reddit, otherwise it will turn into a big steaming pile of porn, botspam, crypto poop and probably a whole bunch of other illegal stuff.
- conk 3y ago
  If Reddit had years of runway in an easy money macro climate and still can’t achieve profitability. How’s a startup/clone supposed to get up and running today?
pc_edwin 3y ago
Its unfortunate for Reddit, they have been forced in between a rock and a hard place. They need to become profitable asap since the markets have dried up but users have gotten so used to being subsidised.
- fooster 3y ago
  What does that have to do with the ridiculous api pricing or the lies about the Apollo dev?
  - wmf 3y ago
    The API pricing is a way to force users to see ads.
    - bentcorner 3y ago
      They could, I dunno, send ads through the API. And sure, clients can still ignore the ads but as of a few weeks ago I think all the 3p clients would have been willing to play ball given the alternative world we're in right now.
  - pc_edwin 3y ago
    Its not ridiculous though. Its 75% cheaper than the Twitter API pricing and the free tier is good enough for MVPs & experimentation.
- realitythreek 3y ago
  Unfortunate for.. Reddit? They’re immediately instituting pricing that will kill off the 3rd party apps. How does that help profits exactly? They could have given more notice, they could have started at a lower price point, they could have not lied and accused Apollo dev of extortion. This is their own fault and they’re refusing any self reflection as a company.
  - nielsbot 3y ago
    I think, cynically, this will drive most users from apps to Reddit's own site/app where they can serve ads and do invasive tracking. So, long-term, Reddit gets what it wants. I doubt enough people care enough to stay off Reddit because Apollo is shut down. (I aways think about how the "nudie scanner" revolts fizzled to a whimper in the end--and how people now just put up with doing the perp stance and being mm wave scanned.) One way out would be for Reddit to enforce certain restrictions on 3rd party app, similar to Apple's App Store. "You must show ads", for example.
kumarvvr 3y ago
All these darkening will do nothing. For a large, Chinese invested corporation, the best way to act against, is to ignore it.
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  Or force a US investor to buy it out.
mostlysimilar 3y ago
I'm surprised reddit even allows moderators to change the public/private settings for large subs, especially default ones.
- valine 3y ago
  The alternative would be unworkable. Turning a subreddit public without mods just creates a new 4chan. Reddit it’s highly dependent on the free labor provided by the mods.
  - raincole 3y ago
    Reddit can definitely afford to hire mods for the default subs tho, if they want.
    - klabb3 3y ago
      Conspiracy: is it possible that they already have? Some of the super mods are notoriously anonymous and might even pay for the pleasure of controlling the agenda in eg worldnews.
    - Seattle3503 3y ago
      I would be surprised if Reddit was interested in setting community policy at that granular of a level. Reddit's strstegy up until now has been salutary neglect.
speedylight 3y ago
Should happen on IPO day as well.
DannyBee 3y ago
The same story it always is. Reddit, like so many other places, believes it has a right to extract the value the community creates. But it doesn't. It didn't create the value, the community did. It convinces itself it has a right to profit here, but it really created almost none of the value. It is then surprised when it can't just sit and extract value from the community without pushback. This kind of value extraction only works (If at all), when the value being provided by the company is somewhere near that being provided by the community. Then people are a little more willing to feel like you deserve something. In reddit's case, it's very uneven. Despite providing the website and bandwidth, Reddit feels to most of its community like a large scale freeloader, as funny as that may sound. That sort of relationship eventually goes south, though it takes a while sometimes. All of these places eventually discover that they are not the thing driving real value. Those that are smart realize this early on, try to make as much as they can while they can, and diversify before it all goes to shit. Reddit is not one of those.
- travisjungroth 3y ago
  This is a really interesting take because it’s so opposite of how Reddit sees things. Of course they own all the communities? But, no, not really. It’s like your landlord thinking they own your business.
  - mongol 3y ago
    It is a thought-provoking analogy. To take it further, would Reddit be like a shopping mall, and the apps would be the shops and the moderators be the sales staff? Or would the subreddits be the shops, and the apps be ... yes what would they be? It is just a fun thought experiment. But I think Reddit the company has been more than just a landlord. They have made more than just rented out space to make Reddit what it is.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Reddit have used VC money to artificially put rent at zero, destroying community driven forums in the progress. In a landlord analogy, it would be like opening a big mall and lure shops and consumers at a loss, making the city centre a void, then raise prices when the original functional community in the city is lost.
wellthisisgreat 3y ago
I, for one, really hope that on June 30 Apollo goes dark and so does my use of Reddit. It would be an ethical thing to do on my part. At least Covid-19 days taught me to stick to ethical decisions.
- x86x87 3y ago
  There is a non-zero chance they realize they fucked up and backpedal on this.
mongol 3y ago
Someone here in HN suggested that what Reddit should have done is to make API acccess a benefit of a Reddit premium account. That way Reddit would directly collect money from app users and would not have to rely on app developers to do it, and app developers would not have to shoulder risk in the same way. It seems so clear to me that that would have been a better approach.
- adhvaryu 3y ago
  That would be a valid idea if Reddit wanted to keep 3rd party apps alive.
  - 36278097 3y ago
    Why do they want to kill them so bad if the end user was a paying customer?
    - Kirby64 3y ago
      Killing 3rd party apps lets them funnel traffic to the official app instead, or the official website. Not sure if you've compared 'old' reddit to new (on desktop), or the app to 3rd party ones, but there's a lot of gamification, ads, bad patterns they're pushing with what they have. I suspect it's largely to monetize on the user more significantly via tracking data and such. I assume they'll kill off old reddit shortly here, once they implement the API changes.
      - 36278097 3y ago
        I just don't believe that you couldn't charge enough for a single user to be worth more, subscribed and in a 3rd party app, than they would make on the website as an advertising target.
        yakkityyak 3y ago
        You are right, and we know this factually from YouTube premium providing more revenue than free users. I, the end user of Reddit, should be able to pay for the api access directly to Reddit the company without having to impose risk on Apollo to front massive api bill. There’s no need to funnel anywhere since there’s no ads to be sold. Am I missing something here? It seems like a blatantly obvious compromise.
icapybara 3y ago
Discord should put out a quick Reddit clone. I imagine they already share a lot of the same users. How much would it take? Make the forum feature more like a subreddit for the server, improve discoverability of discord servers, make a “front page” that aggregates threads from popular servers...
- brigandish 3y ago
  The question that should come up in a pitch like that is "if Reddit couldn't make money doing that, why would we?" If hubris is the only differentiator then it's not a good reason. So, why would Discord take on such a large undertaking?
  - replwoacause 3y ago
    Well spez isn’t exactly a good businessman, so under different leadership I think Reddit could be profitable.
    - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
      What could he do differently? I think it is very clear that a paid subscription couldn't compete with ads. Discord ARPU less than <$3, while Facebook ARPU is something like $30 for US. And I think if discord penetrates to more general circle, it's ARPU would decrease further.
      - makeitdouble 3y ago
        > What could he do differently? Give the image of a decent company. That feels dumb, but people's willingness to pay is affected a lot by their perception of what they're paying for. I payed for 3 reddit apps, and never felt like paying for reddit itself as they went downhill. It always felts like they're accepting users like me despite their personal convictions, and I'm half abusing their platform by looking at decent content instead of the flaming hell of subs they had as default and then as prominent subs. Their handling of many of the most public issues has been botched to no end, and their relationship with the mods has always been adversarial. As a counterpoint, people donate to Wikipedia, pay for patreons, push money on Youtube. None of these corporations are perfect, and they have their controversies, but not spitting on the community at every turn helps a lot, to the point where the calculation on what you pay for what you get can be more skewed, or even negative, and it still works out. PS: I see the same dynamic for Twitter, there's no way I'd pay for anything on Twitter at this point, when paying for better instances of Mastodon looks like a long term positive action.
benatkin 3y ago
To me this whole thing is about whether it's ok for a failing tech company that users depend on to pivot, and whether this applies to reddit currently. Failing would be any company that can't continue in its current direction. I think it's not ok to ruin a product or service people depend on for no reason. I also think Reddit is failing in a sense and has good reasons to do most of what they're doing. Perhaps what would make it ok with me is if they had made the API change in such a way that supported freemium business models for third party app developers. For instance accounts could be limited to 20 subreddits unless the app pays some amount per user that would be a fraction of a reasonable charge to the user. Like say 50 cents a month.
satvikpendem 3y ago
I highly doubt anything of substance will occur after this going dark period. Remember Ellen Pao, and the firing of Victoria? There was similar drama then, and lo and behold, nothing happened, quite the opposite as Reddit's userbase increased. The average user uses new Reddit and the official app, they simply do not give a shit about any of this drama. In a year's time, most people won't care anymore. People who use third party apps are outliers. They do not make Reddit any money so Reddit would be glad to be rid of them while also saving on API costs. No other online service allows freeloading millions upon millions of API requests in addition to allowing third party apps to a large extent. Facebook, Whatsapp, Discord, Instagram, Slack, Twitter all don't, so it's a wonder that Reddit did all this time, for free. If subreddits go dark for 48 hours, then from the perspective of Reddit, they'd think, great, then it returns to normal. If they go dark indefinitely, Reddit admins will wait a few days then force the subs open and demod everyone involved. There is a long list of mods who are willing to contribute. In the end, consumer boycotts like this simply don't work.
- y7 3y ago
  > People who use third party apps are outliers. They do not make Reddit any money I'd wager that > 90% of moderators use third party apps, and they indirectly do make Reddit a lot of money. Without the moderators the entire site goes to shit.
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    Yes, however once they demod everyone, they will find other mods willing to do the work. There are a lot of people on reddit, something like 500 million monthly active users, at least some of them would be able to mod subreddits.
    - tumult 3y ago
      People end up leaving or not participating subreddits with low-quality moderation. They also tend to get overrun with spam and abuse, and have to be shut down. Finding a bunch of crappy replacement moderators isn't going to work long-term.
forgetfreeman 3y ago
This unsubtle reminder that if you don't control the iron your community is platformed on you're someone else's product has been brought to you by the letter M and the number 8.
lwansbrough 3y ago
Yeah I don't know, this seems so simple. All spez had to do was: 1. Identify the core value of reddit's service (community of communities who upload posts, videos, images, etc.) 2. Identify the cost factors associated with operating those services (app servers, CDNs, bandwidth, employees, etc.) 3. Identify 3rd party clients as competitors that impact reddit's ability to maintain and improve those services (reddit pays the cost of running the services, competing 3rd party clients do not.) 4. Extend an olive branch to the third party devs by offering them jobs (+ big bonuses if they onboard their respective apps' users onto the official app), and an opportunity to integrate users' favourite features from the third party apps into the official app. It's not a total win, it was never going to be. But good lord, what an intensely poorly managed situation. Typically you get paid a lot as a CEO for moments like this, if you can't handle this then what are you being paid for?
- az226 3y ago
  Or you know, just tell 3P apps, 30% of your top line is ours and call it a day. Would leave everyone thinking, well this is fair. The crazy part is how they are back tracking on things like API usage for mod tools and accessibility. They gave this zero thought when they made the decision. It’s kind of disgusting.
  - anonred 3y ago
    So third-party devs would have to manually cut them a check every month? How would Reddit validate that they’re getting the correct amount? Multiply this logistical nightmare by hundreds of third party developers.
    - fknorangesite 3y ago
      ...yes? It's just an invoice. Determining exact rates are why sales teams and account managers etc exist. Reddit can trivially check app traffic levels. Seems a bog-standard API usage agreement to me. The problem here hasn't been "reddit charges for API access"; it's the totally unreasonable pricing and switchover timeline.
tsunamifury 3y ago
Remember: this is what YCombinator considers their premier success startup.
- jcz_nz 3y ago
  They have millions of weekly active users… on the way to an IPO…. Lots to improve on monetization, and one of the best alternatives to Facebook… what’s your point…?
  - lewisflude 3y ago
    Valid point! But I strongly believe it depends on how you define success. On paper, you’re right, Reddit is the textbook definition of a successful company, with insane amounts of soft power. However I think that it’s still valuable to look a level deeper at the specific decision making that’s going on at the management level, and how that’s affecting the overall dynamic which has caused Reddit to be popular for so long. Specifically, these changes disproportionately affect power users and mods, two groups of people who are largely responsible for creating the content that most Reddit users come to the site for in the first place as well as moderating that content to ensure the quality is high (all unpaid!) In any case, time will tell if these decisions help or hinder the IPO. My personal gut feeling is that reddit will be around in 5-10 years time, and possibly even growing in terms of popularity but we’ll probably see a decrease in quality of content and moderation and potentially a few competing sites existing on the fringes.
    - tsunamifury 3y ago
      It’s already deep in the chumbox content and enshitification cycle with users It missed the IPO window and overcooked and now is trying to monetize on the backslide.
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    It, like almost all their top startups fails to achieve all the advice they constantly pump out. It’s not revenue positive. It is user agnostic at best if antagonistic. It was not fast to pmf from a margin perspective. Basically it feels like all the things YC advises are bs when you look at their “success stories”. Other than connections to investors what they say and what they do so entirely opposite.
dbg31415 3y ago
I found this image funny. https://i.redd.it/616ijgmgb75b1.jpg https://i.redd.it/616ijgmgb75b1.jpg Reddit... It's never been high quality content, but it's something to read when I'm bored. But I think I'm done with it. For me it was probably this little exchange. Where Spez doubles down on claiming that the creator of Apollo was in some way being shady, without providing any evidence. Behavior like this shows me that Spez is used to lying and getting away with it. Long ago, Spez was caught editing user comments. Sort of shows that in 15+ years in a leadership role he hasn't learned how to be a better human... Spez -5264 > His “joke” is the least of our issues. His behavior and communications with us has been all over the place—saying one thing to us while saying something completely different externally; recording and leaking a private phone call—to the point where I don’t know how we could do business with him. iamthatis +5727 > Please feel free to give examples where I said something differently in public versus what I said to you. I give you full permission. https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/jnk45rr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_...
de6u99er 3y ago
u/spez's AMA was a complete dumpster fire. Hard to believe he's the CEO.
- asd88 3y ago
  I mean, it’s hard to believe Reddit is a company with 2000 employees. Have you looked at their app? It’s like somebody’s high school coding project.
  - subarctic 3y ago
    Well there's multiple versions of it so it's more like multiple groups of students' attempts at a high school coding project
crywas 3y ago
I don't use web reddit. Tried old and new and it's horrible on both side! But I use Relay Pro some pros : -Gallerie View -List view -better comments section
alwayslikethis 3y ago
In one comment, he neglected to remove the "A:" at first, presumably while copying from a pre-written document. It shows how little he cares. https://archive.ph/X6EJq https://archive.ph/X6EJq
twayt 3y ago
Yea the CEO's response was tone deaf and not tactful at all. However, it seems insane that people are complaining about this for the following reason: 1. Reddit is not profitable, it is literally bleeding money. 2. No Reddit = No 3P apps to access Reddit. 3. The discussion that should be had is whether it is sustainable for Reddit to keep running it's servers and whether the recent decisions are made in favor of additional growth or survival.
- GabeIsko 3y ago
  Get the government to order VC to support their investments if it is in the public interests. That's capitalism - they aren't all winners financially.
  - twayt 3y ago
    It's this perception that assumes that CEOs can do no right by the people if there is a financial interest in not doing so. Whether you believe this is the case or not, you have to agree that all nuance goes out the window and the mob is only satisfied when it gets what it asks for, not what is in its best interests.
    - GabeIsko 3y ago
      They are certainly having g a poor track record. Most of the CEOs and managers I talk to think that it is a noble pursuit for them to be profitable because the free market determines what is moral and in the public interest. Its a pretty commonly held belief in the business world - it's very similar to a religious faith. 9ne manager even believed that scientific discovery only occurred to fulfill the objectives of business managers. Most scientific research in the US is publicly funded, so it isn't even funded by business. But, he didn't accept that explanation. I was half joking when I was talking about nationalizing social media, but we should ask ourselves why we as a society are destroying these tools that we all used and enjoyed using because a bunch of money changed hands. Twitter is undeniably worse off, so is Facebook. Surely we have proved that we can have these things if we wanted to. At the very least, we should have net neutrality.
- 3y ago
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dang 3y ago
Still doing this CPS style. Recent and related: Thousands of subreddits pledge to go dark after the Reddit CEO’s recent remarks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277814 - June 2023 (232 comments) Reddit bans subreddit detailing how to move to competitor Kbin - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36268458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36268458 - June 2023 (188 comments) Ask HN: Where are Reddit users migrating amidst the API fee controversy? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36267206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36267206 - June 2023 (15 comments) Reddit CEO Spez AMA Overview - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36265027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36265027 - June 2023 (22 comments) Reddit CEO doubles down on attack on Apollo developer in drama-filled AMA - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264232 - June 2023 (470 comments) Thousands of Reddit communities will be inaccessible on Monday in protest - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36263059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36263059 - June 2023 (16 comments) Addressing the community about changes to our API - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369 - June 2023 (364 comments) Ask HN: Are there alternatives to the subreddits which will go dark next week? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259785 - June 2023 (14 comments) Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086 - June 2023 (361 comments) Reddit announces plan to lay off 90 workers as subreddits plan mass protest - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36237285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36237285 - June 2023 (38 comments) Addressing the community about changes to our API - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369 - June 2023 (320 comments) Archive your Reddit data before it's too late - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259930 - June 2023 (341 comments) Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36257981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36257981 - June 2023 (221 comments) Ask HN: Anyone else disinterested in Reddit API drama? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256545 - June 2023 (26 comments) Apollo Back end just made public - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256167 - June 2023 (229 comments) Ask HN: You are given 100M to launch a new Reddit competitor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36255767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36255767 - June 2023 (23 comments) ArchiveTeam has saved over 11.2B Reddit links - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254172 - June 2023 (150 comments) Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086 - June 2023 (352 comments) Using unmodified third-party Reddit apps with a custom server - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36252061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36252061 - June 2023 (20 comments) Power Delete Suite for Reddit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250785 - June 2023 (31 comments) Apollo will close down on June 30th - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36245435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36245435 - June 2023 (1568 comments) Continuation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36251707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36251707
Roark66 3y ago
Isn't reddit source code open? Don't we already have an archive of its content? Aren't there even other open source alternatives (lemmy). Sorry, I really don't get why people are so concerned. If reddid wants to shoot themselves in the foot, nothing is stopping people from self hosting alternatives.
- e40 3y ago
  Reddit went closed source a long time ago.
EGreg 3y ago
I guess it’s a good time to mention this: https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/ https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/
FounderBurr 3y ago
People using Reddit essentially laid their eggs in someone else’s nest, on purpose and with intent to get value for zero investment. Reddit offered in the free market and everyone chose. Those who didn’t choose Reddit are still out there not on Reddit… nothing was taken that wasn’t given by choice in the past. You can’t moan and complain your way into owning Reddit, or it’s api or web services, etc. Just take your invaluable content elsewhere.
seydor 3y ago
And thousands new ones will arise . I think it's about time. And reddit might even want this. One of the worst things about current reddit is the same moderators moderating multiple subreddits for more than decade , it has gotten really old while its audience is always young.
noduerme 3y ago
remember when people needed enough brains to get online that most of them were capable of figuring out Usenet and IRC? Seriously, if you're a "mod" or "dev" whose life's work rotates around the good graces of a private company that doesn't give a flying f** about you, you're basically just a tapeworm in the colon of the consumer internet. Good luck with your protest; you sold your soul years ago.
- thinkingemote 3y ago
  Bravo. Additionally, with reddit it gets a huge amount of consumer advertising, PR, marketing spend by companies but its not actually to reddit the company (paid mods, sock puppets, customer support, teams of PR "users" and fan boys all shill for their products and brand). Reddit sees other products being sold and want their cut.
nologic01 3y ago
Its the end of an era. It doesn't matter if reddit survives this (which it will obviously do) and goes on to a lucrative IPO and milking the unwashed masses for a few more years. Because of the moderators reddit felt like a more human place, a least bad option. For anybody with two firing neurons it is clear now that these centralized ad-driven platforms are where humanity's conversation goes to get annihilated. The new thing will be the fediverse. Its still unclear how it will get funded etc. It may well be that parts of it will have the same or similar pathologies. But it wont be all of it.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  I wonder on that lucrative IPO. Unless they deliver some misleading AI spiel just at the right time to exploit the mania...
  - nologic01 3y ago
    my assumption is that they are executing on a game plan towards that exit (lock down any revenue "leakage", revisit any monetisation options that were held back, reduce costs etc.) ofcourse nobody can guarantee that they will execute well, that the outcome will not be a disaster even if well executed or that there will be a willing market at the end :-) but that plan will go ahead irrespective of user action.
kapitanjakc 3y ago
They said that each Oauth based auth user/key will have 100 requests/min. So is it not possible for third party apps to create a process which generates Oauth token for each user when they sign up/join in via their app ? In that manner, each user have their own token and each user can have their own 100 req/min, which should be sufficient for most if not all users.
- goykasi 3y ago
  This would seem like a good way to remedy the problem, but afaik, the limits also include the Oauth clientid. So, limits are actually tied to the client application as a whole -- not just user usage. This is where the limits for a popular app quickly fall over.
blacklight 3y ago
Reddit is pretty much dead to me after they decided to put a paywall on their API and after their CEO's embarrassing AMA. I'll keep using my libreddit instance until the API lasts, and then just delete any presence I have over there. "Profitability" is killing the internet. Either you scoop up as much user data as possible, or charge users for basically anything more than the basis (RyanAir model coming to haunt IT?), or investors think that it's just not worthing putting money into you. Investors are a negligible minority of Internet users, most of them don't even know how TCP/IP works, yet they have the biggest say on how the Internet should be designed. And they're killing it. These big pocketed motherfuckers who put their money into things they don't even understand aren't welcome anymore. It's time to develop open forums based on open protocols, so all this shit about profitability, walled gardens and centralization goes out of the window for good by design. We need an ActivityPub for forums too - and, who knows, maybe ActivityPub itself with a few tweaks will suffice?
adverbly 3y ago
Is it just me or have we lost the ability to collectively move to competitors in social networks? I remember the day when digg was overthrown, MySpace, livejournal... there's a long list. But in recent memory, Twitter, reddit, and more(eg twitch) are calling people's bluff and they seem to be at least partly getting away with it (at least they've maintained the market leader position). Any ideas why? One guess: These markets have matured into a monopoly with fragmented competition so that the only competitors that are in position to accept new users are niche products and not ready to absorb or capitalize on these collapses (eg federated products or alt right platforms). Anyways, it's a bit of a pipe dream but I would love if we had something like a non-for-profit which could come in and create a better long-term home and single ecosystem to compete with these monopolies when they start misbehaving. I think signal did a really good job at this. I've been able to move a number of my messaging groups onto it. Pipe dream but Signal or Wikimedia foundation run social networks might be interesting.
- anonred 3y ago
  The number of users on these platforms has increased considerably. Orchestrating a “movement” consisting of hundreds of millions of people takes a really significant forcing function that affects everyone, not just a vocal minority.
EchoReflection 3y ago
It is way overdue for redditors to switch to Mastodon or something similar.
- timbit42 3y ago
  ...or Lemmy or kbin...
golgo_13 3y ago
Redit fucking blows anyways. Fuck those jackwagons
golgo_13 3y ago
Redit blows anyways

617 points by ValentineC 3y ago

geuis 3y ago

This is Digg v4, but for Reddit this time. Where do the nerds go this time like when we migrated from Digg to Reddit?

101011 3y ago
Interesting, I recall it being the nerds of Reddit getting the users of Digg.

kelseyfrog 3y ago

So they're going to force them open, right?

silisili 3y ago
That's my assumption. They'll just force open all the big ones, with or without demodding them all. No way they let something as big as funny and videos(among many others) just shut down for days...
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  Unless they already have moderators that are up to speed on taking care of subs that big and active, there's going to be a deluge of spam content...I hope. It would be a shame if r/videos turned into a bunch of OF and crypto spam, especially on the day of IPO. Hardcore porn on r/all as the markets open would be hilarious.
  - the_shivers 3y ago
    I had the exact same thought. A real shame indeed.
- viraptor 3y ago
  That would be a disaster for them. It would be "Mods are asleep, post X" taken to extreme. Any remotely contentious subreddit will be filled with crap and Lemmy will keep getting new users. I think it would be significant numbers switching, even if it takes only 2 days. And that's assuming mods will want to come back after the blackout...
  - yanderekko 3y ago
    >That would be a disaster for them. It would be "Mods are asleep, post X" taken to extreme. They wouldn't be forced open with zero mods, obviously. They'll find volunteers. I would expect that if mass demoddings happen though you would see some sort of weird civil war on Reddit emerge though where outraged users would support spamming these subs in the way you describe specifically to ensure that their prophecy is fulfilled. You can even see people hoping for it in this thread already.
    - mock-possum 3y ago
      Who would volunteer for that though? Modding is hard. Good mods make a good sub.
    - viraptor 3y ago
      They already found volunteers before. Those volunteers with significant personal investment are effectively going on a strike. Finding replacement volunteers with no experience and short notice is unlikely to work well... and worse if they include people with an agenda against the current mods.
  - bmacho 3y ago
    Can't they just close registration for a while, and ban the spammers?

nukeman 3y ago

It’s absolutely insane to see many parts of Reddit in open revolt. I think this is the worst it’s ever been. Worse than 2015, 2018, 2020…

ramraj07 3y ago
This is hopefully and likely going to be the biggest user revolt in the history of the internet. I'm sincerely hoping the cowards back down or my last favorite big place on the internet is also going to disappear.
yanderekko 3y ago
It might turn out to be one of the largest protests, but it's also one where there's a large gap between how passionate your average mod feels about the issues here vs. your average Reddit users. spez's recent comments have served to lower this gap, but probably not by that much. My guess is that if a lot of mods end up getting replaced over this, they won't be missed.
- flyinglizard 3y ago
  The contribution of content is very lopsided. I remember about 10% of the users writing at all and maybe 2% writing prolifically. You don’t need much to move the content somewhere else.
  - yanderekko 3y ago
    Sure, but since these changes aren't affecting many users I'm not sure why this would happen. It seems to mostly be wishful thinking on the hopes of activists that this will cause some sort of massive brand damage, or even the sort of advertiser revolt that Twitter has faced. But that would require a lot more mismanagement from spez, I'd guess.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      For a long time, Apple kept the option to receive plain text emails when almost everyone else had moved to HTML. Why? Because there was a crucial slice of unix-y developers who liked it that way, who were an important segment. Even though third party apps might be 3% of users, I'm guessing that the users that are passionate enough about Reddit to find/seek out the best app/pay for app subscriptions/etc are much more likely to be those critical 2% of prolific contributors.

foolfoolz 3y ago

none of this will have any impact. the subs need reddit as much as reddit needs them. collectively sure the subs can control reddit; for a short time. but new ones will appear. and the subs make money by being online so none of them will risk pledging more than 2 days

rahidz 3y ago
Moderators aren't paid though, why would they be risking any money?
harryVic 3y ago
There is no tech secret sauce to reddit. Reddit is a good experience because of unpaid moderators who care a lot. There is a reason quality of content on reddit is higher than similar websites like quora.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  There is SOME secret sauce. The admins _do_ play a crucial role. The history plays a role. Everyone says this about reddit and Twitter and yet it's still not true that twitter has been replaced in spite of the shit show going on there.
  - _Qeomash_ 3y ago
    The various alternative reddits that have popped up in the past prove the tech stack isn't complex. Their lack of user adoption shows that the secret sauce is the userbase, not the tech.
- yanderekko 3y ago
  >Reddit is a good experience because of unpaid moderators who care a lot. Arguably they care too much, and a bit of humbling will be good for Reddit. If the powermods had their way Aimee Challenor would still be working for the site.
diziet 3y ago
How do the subs make money on reddit?

polalavik 3y ago

I've been getting more and more active on the largest instance of lemmy - https://lemmy.ml https://lemmy.ml - and its crazy how many popular subreddit names have been created on lemmy.ml in the last week. I'm not sure if the philosophy of the fediverse really meshes with the idea of social media. It feels like if it caught on it would push people farther and farther into smaller echo chambers (and that seems bad!). However, adopting one large instance seems like a drop in replacement for reddit (and the least painful for the average joe).

Buttons840 3y ago
They are asking people not to join because they can't handle the influx. Not a good sign. It also looks like I can only post and vote on my own instance, so hosting my own Lemmy is worthless, unlike email where I can host my own without any fundamental downsides (although there are some cultural downsides, for lack of a better term).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- nulld3v 3y ago
  You can most definitely post/vote on other instances.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- p-e-w 3y ago
  The largest Lemmy instance, according to their list, has 1500 monthly active users, and they can't handle more? How is that thing ever supposed to scale?
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    Congratulations, you have discovered why Reddit (and any B2C social network in general) took venture capital as it did and why it's struggling to contain its expenses on scaling to that many users.

myspy 3y ago

They should fire that incompetent CEO. It‘s sad that bad management is never punished.

forgotmysn 3y ago
he's literally doing exactly what the board wants. reddit's investors are more than happy to sacrifices users and the user experience for profitability.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  This is not the path to profitability. This is how you lose the mods and power users who provide and moderate the content of the site leading to it's downfall. That's not profitable.
  - yanderekko 3y ago
    Mods can be replaced. Do the actual valuable users rely heavily on Reddit's API or 3rd party apps? I doubt they'd leave over pure moral outrage on this issue, although a large amount of generic brand damage could cause some attrition.
    - aaomidi 3y ago
      The valuable users are the mods that rely on third party apps lol. I don’t think yall realize how much free labor the mods are doing.
      - yanderekko 3y ago
        There will still be mods doing free labor after whatever purges. Less effectively, sure. But I think Reddit clearly believes that they can be replaced with nearly zero negative impact, or even a positive impact if some particularly toxic powermods can be erased.
        3y ago

the_shivers 3y ago

Going dark for 48 hours seems rather toothless. Props to the subreddits at least attempting to go private permanently.

bottlepalm 3y ago
Doesn't matter, new subreddits will pop up to replace them.
- lewisflude 3y ago
  Absolutely! Even Reddit itself already had multiple subreddits per topic, and I think that there will still be enough subreddits for people to go on.

pcurve 3y ago

I think the CEO will have to step down in a few months. It's difficult to survive this level of cluster.

gwill 3y ago
with a massive golden parachute thanks to this being exactly what the board wants.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  Define massive. Doubt reddit is going to give him 50 MM.
yanderekko 3y ago
While the recent A4A seems like an obvious tactical mistake, I've yet to see anyone make a strong argument that the API changes are bad for the site's bottom line. And if no one can do this, then why would spez get fired? I guess maybe just for optics?
- _Qeomash_ 3y ago
  The question that is unknown is what percent of reddit's userbase uses exclusively third party clients vs those who use reddit's official client. And then, what portion of the third party userbase will migrate to the official client after those third party clients go away. I'm sure spez knows at least the first set of numbers, and they find the amount of expected loss to be an acceptable risk.
- pcurve 3y ago
  partly optics, but mainly loss of confidence, not just by the users, but Reddit's employees. It may be an OK business decision (though I personally think they didn't think it through), but he handled the aftermath in an extraordinarily bad way. Either he doesn't have good lieutenants around him to advise and support him, or he is too stubborn to listen to them.
  - 3y ago

lolinder 3y ago

You can read through all of /u/spez's replies here [0]. It won't take long, because the most striking thing about this AMA wasn't that he said very many controversial things but that he barely said anything at all. There's one moment where he gives a sarcastic jab about how Reddit isn't profitable while some of the third party apps are, and an earlier one where he repeats some of the things he said about the Apollo dev. But mostly he just avoided even moderately controversial questions. He put in an appearance for about an hour, ignored all the most upvoted questions, then disappeared. [0] https://old.reddit.com/user/spez/comments/ https://old.reddit.com/user/spez/comments/

genocidicbunny 3y ago
So, like many other high-profile AMAs that reddit has hosted over the years. I mean, can we please talk about Rampart?
TX81Z 3y ago
It’s like he’s implying it’s the third party apps fault he can’t make money on a user base that big with that much engagement. Which is an…odd take.
- LeeroyWasHere 3y ago
  He has said in the past that no one uses 3rd party apps and they're not a meaningful amount of their traffic. Non stop contradiction and lies.
  - teaearlgraycold 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - shiftpgdn 3y ago
    Major subreddits I’ve seen run polls show that less than 3% of users are using third party apps.
    - 3y ago

mjfl 3y ago

It’s pretty easy to make a Reddit clone right? Didn’t they release their source code?

Eisenstein 3y ago
It's also somewhat easy to plan a party. The problem is getting people to show up.
- deanc 3y ago
  And a venue with big enough infrastructure to support that many people at your party. And then we get back to the staff who you usually pay…
genocidicbunny 3y ago
The app isn't the secret sauce. The moderation team is. Moderation is the hard part of running a site like reddit, otherwise it will turn into a big steaming pile of porn, botspam, crypto poop and probably a whole bunch of other illegal stuff.
conk 3y ago
If Reddit had years of runway in an easy money macro climate and still can’t achieve profitability. How’s a startup/clone supposed to get up and running today?

pc_edwin 3y ago

Its unfortunate for Reddit, they have been forced in between a rock and a hard place. They need to become profitable asap since the markets have dried up but users have gotten so used to being subsidised.

fooster 3y ago
What does that have to do with the ridiculous api pricing or the lies about the Apollo dev?
- wmf 3y ago
  The API pricing is a way to force users to see ads.
  - bentcorner 3y ago
    They could, I dunno, send ads through the API. And sure, clients can still ignore the ads but as of a few weeks ago I think all the 3p clients would have been willing to play ball given the alternative world we're in right now.
- pc_edwin 3y ago
  Its not ridiculous though. Its 75% cheaper than the Twitter API pricing and the free tier is good enough for MVPs & experimentation.
realitythreek 3y ago
Unfortunate for.. Reddit? They’re immediately instituting pricing that will kill off the 3rd party apps. How does that help profits exactly? They could have given more notice, they could have started at a lower price point, they could have not lied and accused Apollo dev of extortion. This is their own fault and they’re refusing any self reflection as a company.
- nielsbot 3y ago
  I think, cynically, this will drive most users from apps to Reddit's own site/app where they can serve ads and do invasive tracking. So, long-term, Reddit gets what it wants. I doubt enough people care enough to stay off Reddit because Apollo is shut down. (I aways think about how the "nudie scanner" revolts fizzled to a whimper in the end--and how people now just put up with doing the perp stance and being mm wave scanned.) One way out would be for Reddit to enforce certain restrictions on 3rd party app, similar to Apple's App Store. "You must show ads", for example.

kumarvvr 3y ago

All these darkening will do nothing. For a large, Chinese invested corporation, the best way to act against, is to ignore it.

deafpolygon 3y ago
Or force a US investor to buy it out.

mostlysimilar 3y ago

I'm surprised reddit even allows moderators to change the public/private settings for large subs, especially default ones.

valine 3y ago
The alternative would be unworkable. Turning a subreddit public without mods just creates a new 4chan. Reddit it’s highly dependent on the free labor provided by the mods.
- raincole 3y ago
  Reddit can definitely afford to hire mods for the default subs tho, if they want.
  - klabb3 3y ago
    Conspiracy: is it possible that they already have? Some of the super mods are notoriously anonymous and might even pay for the pleasure of controlling the agenda in eg worldnews.
  - Seattle3503 3y ago
    I would be surprised if Reddit was interested in setting community policy at that granular of a level. Reddit's strstegy up until now has been salutary neglect.

speedylight 3y ago

Should happen on IPO day as well.

DannyBee 3y ago

The same story it always is. Reddit, like so many other places, believes it has a right to extract the value the community creates. But it doesn't. It didn't create the value, the community did. It convinces itself it has a right to profit here, but it really created almost none of the value. It is then surprised when it can't just sit and extract value from the community without pushback. This kind of value extraction only works (If at all), when the value being provided by the company is somewhere near that being provided by the community. Then people are a little more willing to feel like you deserve something. In reddit's case, it's very uneven. Despite providing the website and bandwidth, Reddit feels to most of its community like a large scale freeloader, as funny as that may sound. That sort of relationship eventually goes south, though it takes a while sometimes. All of these places eventually discover that they are not the thing driving real value. Those that are smart realize this early on, try to make as much as they can while they can, and diversify before it all goes to shit. Reddit is not one of those.

travisjungroth 3y ago
This is a really interesting take because it’s so opposite of how Reddit sees things. Of course they own all the communities? But, no, not really. It’s like your landlord thinking they own your business.
- mongol 3y ago
  It is a thought-provoking analogy. To take it further, would Reddit be like a shopping mall, and the apps would be the shops and the moderators be the sales staff? Or would the subreddits be the shops, and the apps be ... yes what would they be? It is just a fun thought experiment. But I think Reddit the company has been more than just a landlord. They have made more than just rented out space to make Reddit what it is.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Reddit have used VC money to artificially put rent at zero, destroying community driven forums in the progress. In a landlord analogy, it would be like opening a big mall and lure shops and consumers at a loss, making the city centre a void, then raise prices when the original functional community in the city is lost.

wellthisisgreat 3y ago

I, for one, really hope that on June 30 Apollo goes dark and so does my use of Reddit. It would be an ethical thing to do on my part. At least Covid-19 days taught me to stick to ethical decisions.

x86x87 3y ago
There is a non-zero chance they realize they fucked up and backpedal on this.

mongol 3y ago

Someone here in HN suggested that what Reddit should have done is to make API acccess a benefit of a Reddit premium account. That way Reddit would directly collect money from app users and would not have to rely on app developers to do it, and app developers would not have to shoulder risk in the same way. It seems so clear to me that that would have been a better approach.

adhvaryu 3y ago
That would be a valid idea if Reddit wanted to keep 3rd party apps alive.
- 36278097 3y ago
  Why do they want to kill them so bad if the end user was a paying customer?
  - Kirby64 3y ago
    Killing 3rd party apps lets them funnel traffic to the official app instead, or the official website. Not sure if you've compared 'old' reddit to new (on desktop), or the app to 3rd party ones, but there's a lot of gamification, ads, bad patterns they're pushing with what they have. I suspect it's largely to monetize on the user more significantly via tracking data and such. I assume they'll kill off old reddit shortly here, once they implement the API changes.
    - 36278097 3y ago
      I just don't believe that you couldn't charge enough for a single user to be worth more, subscribed and in a 3rd party app, than they would make on the website as an advertising target.
      - yakkityyak 3y ago
        You are right, and we know this factually from YouTube premium providing more revenue than free users. I, the end user of Reddit, should be able to pay for the api access directly to Reddit the company without having to impose risk on Apollo to front massive api bill. There’s no need to funnel anywhere since there’s no ads to be sold. Am I missing something here? It seems like a blatantly obvious compromise.

icapybara 3y ago

Discord should put out a quick Reddit clone. I imagine they already share a lot of the same users. How much would it take? Make the forum feature more like a subreddit for the server, improve discoverability of discord servers, make a “front page” that aggregates threads from popular servers...

brigandish 3y ago
The question that should come up in a pitch like that is "if Reddit couldn't make money doing that, why would we?" If hubris is the only differentiator then it's not a good reason. So, why would Discord take on such a large undertaking?
- replwoacause 3y ago
  Well spez isn’t exactly a good businessman, so under different leadership I think Reddit could be profitable.
  - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
    What could he do differently? I think it is very clear that a paid subscription couldn't compete with ads. Discord ARPU less than <$3, while Facebook ARPU is something like $30 for US. And I think if discord penetrates to more general circle, it's ARPU would decrease further.
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      > What could he do differently? Give the image of a decent company. That feels dumb, but people's willingness to pay is affected a lot by their perception of what they're paying for. I payed for 3 reddit apps, and never felt like paying for reddit itself as they went downhill. It always felts like they're accepting users like me despite their personal convictions, and I'm half abusing their platform by looking at decent content instead of the flaming hell of subs they had as default and then as prominent subs. Their handling of many of the most public issues has been botched to no end, and their relationship with the mods has always been adversarial. As a counterpoint, people donate to Wikipedia, pay for patreons, push money on Youtube. None of these corporations are perfect, and they have their controversies, but not spitting on the community at every turn helps a lot, to the point where the calculation on what you pay for what you get can be more skewed, or even negative, and it still works out. PS: I see the same dynamic for Twitter, there's no way I'd pay for anything on Twitter at this point, when paying for better instances of Mastodon looks like a long term positive action.

benatkin 3y ago

To me this whole thing is about whether it's ok for a failing tech company that users depend on to pivot, and whether this applies to reddit currently. Failing would be any company that can't continue in its current direction. I think it's not ok to ruin a product or service people depend on for no reason. I also think Reddit is failing in a sense and has good reasons to do most of what they're doing. Perhaps what would make it ok with me is if they had made the API change in such a way that supported freemium business models for third party app developers. For instance accounts could be limited to 20 subreddits unless the app pays some amount per user that would be a fraction of a reasonable charge to the user. Like say 50 cents a month.

satvikpendem 3y ago

I highly doubt anything of substance will occur after this going dark period. Remember Ellen Pao, and the firing of Victoria? There was similar drama then, and lo and behold, nothing happened, quite the opposite as Reddit's userbase increased. The average user uses new Reddit and the official app, they simply do not give a shit about any of this drama. In a year's time, most people won't care anymore. People who use third party apps are outliers. They do not make Reddit any money so Reddit would be glad to be rid of them while also saving on API costs. No other online service allows freeloading millions upon millions of API requests in addition to allowing third party apps to a large extent. Facebook, Whatsapp, Discord, Instagram, Slack, Twitter all don't, so it's a wonder that Reddit did all this time, for free. If subreddits go dark for 48 hours, then from the perspective of Reddit, they'd think, great, then it returns to normal. If they go dark indefinitely, Reddit admins will wait a few days then force the subs open and demod everyone involved. There is a long list of mods who are willing to contribute. In the end, consumer boycotts like this simply don't work.

y7 3y ago
> People who use third party apps are outliers. They do not make Reddit any money I'd wager that > 90% of moderators use third party apps, and they indirectly do make Reddit a lot of money. Without the moderators the entire site goes to shit.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Yes, however once they demod everyone, they will find other mods willing to do the work. There are a lot of people on reddit, something like 500 million monthly active users, at least some of them would be able to mod subreddits.
  - tumult 3y ago
    People end up leaving or not participating subreddits with low-quality moderation. They also tend to get overrun with spam and abuse, and have to be shut down. Finding a bunch of crappy replacement moderators isn't going to work long-term.

forgetfreeman 3y ago

This unsubtle reminder that if you don't control the iron your community is platformed on you're someone else's product has been brought to you by the letter M and the number 8.

lwansbrough 3y ago

Yeah I don't know, this seems so simple. All spez had to do was: 1. Identify the core value of reddit's service (community of communities who upload posts, videos, images, etc.) 2. Identify the cost factors associated with operating those services (app servers, CDNs, bandwidth, employees, etc.) 3. Identify 3rd party clients as competitors that impact reddit's ability to maintain and improve those services (reddit pays the cost of running the services, competing 3rd party clients do not.) 4. Extend an olive branch to the third party devs by offering them jobs (+ big bonuses if they onboard their respective apps' users onto the official app), and an opportunity to integrate users' favourite features from the third party apps into the official app. It's not a total win, it was never going to be. But good lord, what an intensely poorly managed situation. Typically you get paid a lot as a CEO for moments like this, if you can't handle this then what are you being paid for?

az226 3y ago
Or you know, just tell 3P apps, 30% of your top line is ours and call it a day. Would leave everyone thinking, well this is fair. The crazy part is how they are back tracking on things like API usage for mod tools and accessibility. They gave this zero thought when they made the decision. It’s kind of disgusting.
- anonred 3y ago
  So third-party devs would have to manually cut them a check every month? How would Reddit validate that they’re getting the correct amount? Multiply this logistical nightmare by hundreds of third party developers.
  - fknorangesite 3y ago
    ...yes? It's just an invoice. Determining exact rates are why sales teams and account managers etc exist. Reddit can trivially check app traffic levels. Seems a bog-standard API usage agreement to me. The problem here hasn't been "reddit charges for API access"; it's the totally unreasonable pricing and switchover timeline.

tsunamifury 3y ago

Remember: this is what YCombinator considers their premier success startup.

jcz_nz 3y ago
They have millions of weekly active users… on the way to an IPO…. Lots to improve on monetization, and one of the best alternatives to Facebook… what’s your point…?
- lewisflude 3y ago
  Valid point! But I strongly believe it depends on how you define success. On paper, you’re right, Reddit is the textbook definition of a successful company, with insane amounts of soft power. However I think that it’s still valuable to look a level deeper at the specific decision making that’s going on at the management level, and how that’s affecting the overall dynamic which has caused Reddit to be popular for so long. Specifically, these changes disproportionately affect power users and mods, two groups of people who are largely responsible for creating the content that most Reddit users come to the site for in the first place as well as moderating that content to ensure the quality is high (all unpaid!) In any case, time will tell if these decisions help or hinder the IPO. My personal gut feeling is that reddit will be around in 5-10 years time, and possibly even growing in terms of popularity but we’ll probably see a decrease in quality of content and moderation and potentially a few competing sites existing on the fringes.
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    It’s already deep in the chumbox content and enshitification cycle with users It missed the IPO window and overcooked and now is trying to monetize on the backslide.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  It, like almost all their top startups fails to achieve all the advice they constantly pump out. It’s not revenue positive. It is user agnostic at best if antagonistic. It was not fast to pmf from a margin perspective. Basically it feels like all the things YC advises are bs when you look at their “success stories”. Other than connections to investors what they say and what they do so entirely opposite.

dbg31415 3y ago

I found this image funny. https://i.redd.it/616ijgmgb75b1.jpg https://i.redd.it/616ijgmgb75b1.jpg Reddit... It's never been high quality content, but it's something to read when I'm bored. But I think I'm done with it. For me it was probably this little exchange. Where Spez doubles down on claiming that the creator of Apollo was in some way being shady, without providing any evidence. Behavior like this shows me that Spez is used to lying and getting away with it. Long ago, Spez was caught editing user comments. Sort of shows that in 15+ years in a leadership role he hasn't learned how to be a better human... Spez -5264 > His “joke” is the least of our issues. His behavior and communications with us has been all over the place—saying one thing to us while saying something completely different externally; recording and leaking a private phone call—to the point where I don’t know how we could do business with him. iamthatis +5727 > Please feel free to give examples where I said something differently in public versus what I said to you. I give you full permission. https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/jnk45rr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_...

de6u99er 3y ago

u/spez's AMA was a complete dumpster fire. Hard to believe he's the CEO.

asd88 3y ago
I mean, it’s hard to believe Reddit is a company with 2000 employees. Have you looked at their app? It’s like somebody’s high school coding project.
- subarctic 3y ago
  Well there's multiple versions of it so it's more like multiple groups of students' attempts at a high school coding project

crywas 3y ago

I don't use web reddit. Tried old and new and it's horrible on both side! But I use Relay Pro some pros : -Gallerie View -List view -better comments section

alwayslikethis 3y ago

In one comment, he neglected to remove the "A:" at first, presumably while copying from a pre-written document. It shows how little he cares. https://archive.ph/X6EJq https://archive.ph/X6EJq

twayt 3y ago

Yea the CEO's response was tone deaf and not tactful at all. However, it seems insane that people are complaining about this for the following reason: 1. Reddit is not profitable, it is literally bleeding money. 2. No Reddit = No 3P apps to access Reddit. 3. The discussion that should be had is whether it is sustainable for Reddit to keep running it's servers and whether the recent decisions are made in favor of additional growth or survival.

GabeIsko 3y ago
Get the government to order VC to support their investments if it is in the public interests. That's capitalism - they aren't all winners financially.
- twayt 3y ago
  It's this perception that assumes that CEOs can do no right by the people if there is a financial interest in not doing so. Whether you believe this is the case or not, you have to agree that all nuance goes out the window and the mob is only satisfied when it gets what it asks for, not what is in its best interests.
  - GabeIsko 3y ago
    They are certainly having g a poor track record. Most of the CEOs and managers I talk to think that it is a noble pursuit for them to be profitable because the free market determines what is moral and in the public interest. Its a pretty commonly held belief in the business world - it's very similar to a religious faith. 9ne manager even believed that scientific discovery only occurred to fulfill the objectives of business managers. Most scientific research in the US is publicly funded, so it isn't even funded by business. But, he didn't accept that explanation. I was half joking when I was talking about nationalizing social media, but we should ask ourselves why we as a society are destroying these tools that we all used and enjoyed using because a bunch of money changed hands. Twitter is undeniably worse off, so is Facebook. Surely we have proved that we can have these things if we wanted to. At the very least, we should have net neutrality.
3y ago

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dang 3y ago

Still doing this CPS style. Recent and related: Thousands of subreddits pledge to go dark after the Reddit CEO’s recent remarks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277814 - June 2023 (232 comments) Reddit bans subreddit detailing how to move to competitor Kbin - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36268458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36268458 - June 2023 (188 comments) Ask HN: Where are Reddit users migrating amidst the API fee controversy? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36267206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36267206 - June 2023 (15 comments) Reddit CEO Spez AMA Overview - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36265027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36265027 - June 2023 (22 comments) Reddit CEO doubles down on attack on Apollo developer in drama-filled AMA - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264232 - June 2023 (470 comments) Thousands of Reddit communities will be inaccessible on Monday in protest - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36263059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36263059 - June 2023 (16 comments) Addressing the community about changes to our API - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369 - June 2023 (364 comments) Ask HN: Are there alternatives to the subreddits which will go dark next week? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259785 - June 2023 (14 comments) Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086 - June 2023 (361 comments) Reddit announces plan to lay off 90 workers as subreddits plan mass protest - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36237285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36237285 - June 2023 (38 comments) Addressing the community about changes to our API - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369 - June 2023 (320 comments) Archive your Reddit data before it's too late - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259930 - June 2023 (341 comments) Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36257981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36257981 - June 2023 (221 comments) Ask HN: Anyone else disinterested in Reddit API drama? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256545 - June 2023 (26 comments) Apollo Back end just made public - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256167 - June 2023 (229 comments) Ask HN: You are given 100M to launch a new Reddit competitor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36255767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36255767 - June 2023 (23 comments) ArchiveTeam has saved over 11.2B Reddit links - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254172 - June 2023 (150 comments) Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086 - June 2023 (352 comments) Using unmodified third-party Reddit apps with a custom server - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36252061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36252061 - June 2023 (20 comments) Power Delete Suite for Reddit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250785 - June 2023 (31 comments) Apollo will close down on June 30th - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36245435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36245435 - June 2023 (1568 comments) Continuation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36251707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36251707

Roark66 3y ago

Isn't reddit source code open? Don't we already have an archive of its content? Aren't there even other open source alternatives (lemmy). Sorry, I really don't get why people are so concerned. If reddid wants to shoot themselves in the foot, nothing is stopping people from self hosting alternatives.

e40 3y ago
Reddit went closed source a long time ago.

EGreg 3y ago

I guess it’s a good time to mention this: https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/ https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/

FounderBurr 3y ago

People using Reddit essentially laid their eggs in someone else’s nest, on purpose and with intent to get value for zero investment. Reddit offered in the free market and everyone chose. Those who didn’t choose Reddit are still out there not on Reddit… nothing was taken that wasn’t given by choice in the past. You can’t moan and complain your way into owning Reddit, or it’s api or web services, etc. Just take your invaluable content elsewhere.

seydor 3y ago

And thousands new ones will arise . I think it's about time. And reddit might even want this. One of the worst things about current reddit is the same moderators moderating multiple subreddits for more than decade , it has gotten really old while its audience is always young.

noduerme 3y ago

remember when people needed enough brains to get online that most of them were capable of figuring out Usenet and IRC? Seriously, if you're a "mod" or "dev" whose life's work rotates around the good graces of a private company that doesn't give a flying f** about you, you're basically just a tapeworm in the colon of the consumer internet. Good luck with your protest; you sold your soul years ago.

thinkingemote 3y ago
Bravo. Additionally, with reddit it gets a huge amount of consumer advertising, PR, marketing spend by companies but its not actually to reddit the company (paid mods, sock puppets, customer support, teams of PR "users" and fan boys all shill for their products and brand). Reddit sees other products being sold and want their cut.

nologic01 3y ago

Its the end of an era. It doesn't matter if reddit survives this (which it will obviously do) and goes on to a lucrative IPO and milking the unwashed masses for a few more years. Because of the moderators reddit felt like a more human place, a least bad option. For anybody with two firing neurons it is clear now that these centralized ad-driven platforms are where humanity's conversation goes to get annihilated. The new thing will be the fediverse. Its still unclear how it will get funded etc. It may well be that parts of it will have the same or similar pathologies. But it wont be all of it.

Ekaros 3y ago
I wonder on that lucrative IPO. Unless they deliver some misleading AI spiel just at the right time to exploit the mania...
- nologic01 3y ago
  my assumption is that they are executing on a game plan towards that exit (lock down any revenue "leakage", revisit any monetisation options that were held back, reduce costs etc.) ofcourse nobody can guarantee that they will execute well, that the outcome will not be a disaster even if well executed or that there will be a willing market at the end :-) but that plan will go ahead irrespective of user action.

kapitanjakc 3y ago

They said that each Oauth based auth user/key will have 100 requests/min. So is it not possible for third party apps to create a process which generates Oauth token for each user when they sign up/join in via their app ? In that manner, each user have their own token and each user can have their own 100 req/min, which should be sufficient for most if not all users.

goykasi 3y ago
This would seem like a good way to remedy the problem, but afaik, the limits also include the Oauth clientid. So, limits are actually tied to the client application as a whole -- not just user usage. This is where the limits for a popular app quickly fall over.

blacklight 3y ago

Reddit is pretty much dead to me after they decided to put a paywall on their API and after their CEO's embarrassing AMA. I'll keep using my libreddit instance until the API lasts, and then just delete any presence I have over there. "Profitability" is killing the internet. Either you scoop up as much user data as possible, or charge users for basically anything more than the basis (RyanAir model coming to haunt IT?), or investors think that it's just not worthing putting money into you. Investors are a negligible minority of Internet users, most of them don't even know how TCP/IP works, yet they have the biggest say on how the Internet should be designed. And they're killing it. These big pocketed motherfuckers who put their money into things they don't even understand aren't welcome anymore. It's time to develop open forums based on open protocols, so all this shit about profitability, walled gardens and centralization goes out of the window for good by design. We need an ActivityPub for forums too - and, who knows, maybe ActivityPub itself with a few tweaks will suffice?

adverbly 3y ago

Is it just me or have we lost the ability to collectively move to competitors in social networks? I remember the day when digg was overthrown, MySpace, livejournal... there's a long list. But in recent memory, Twitter, reddit, and more(eg twitch) are calling people's bluff and they seem to be at least partly getting away with it (at least they've maintained the market leader position). Any ideas why? One guess: These markets have matured into a monopoly with fragmented competition so that the only competitors that are in position to accept new users are niche products and not ready to absorb or capitalize on these collapses (eg federated products or alt right platforms). Anyways, it's a bit of a pipe dream but I would love if we had something like a non-for-profit which could come in and create a better long-term home and single ecosystem to compete with these monopolies when they start misbehaving. I think signal did a really good job at this. I've been able to move a number of my messaging groups onto it. Pipe dream but Signal or Wikimedia foundation run social networks might be interesting.

anonred 3y ago
The number of users on these platforms has increased considerably. Orchestrating a “movement” consisting of hundreds of millions of people takes a really significant forcing function that affects everyone, not just a vocal minority.

EchoReflection 3y ago

It is way overdue for redditors to switch to Mastodon or something similar.

timbit42 3y ago
...or Lemmy or kbin...

golgo_13 3y ago

Redit fucking blows anyways. Fuck those jackwagons

golgo_13 3y ago

Redit blows anyways