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There's a good number of people saying this strike is meaningless and reddit's API change will only affect a tiny % of users. I want to explain why I believe th

There's a good number of people saying this strike is meaningless and reddit's API change will only affect a tiny % of users. I want to explain why I believe they are wrong. Engagement is a power curve. Most content is created by a small subset of users. I think it is a fair to say that if you use and especially pay for third party tools, whether that be a client or something like RES, you are more than likely a power user. If you moderate a subreddit, you're probably a power user. If those power users go away then you lose a large swath of content and moderation which negatively affects the regular users at other parts of the curve. It is not going to be immediate but this is reddit slowly bleeding itself to death.

themagician 3y ago
Most of the content is also modded by a small subset of mods—literally dozens. You've got maybe a hundred mods who are "power mods" that control the vast majority of large subreddits, and these are the ones "protesting". They don't own the subreddits. They have no rights to them, but they like to pretend that they do. Their moderation has, in many ways, become oppressive to the userbase. You don't hear about it because—surprise—they ban those people. Honestly, the mod structure on reddit needs to change. This protest will almost 100% backfire. If it actually impacts revenue the admins will just ban a few dozen mods and the protest will, effectively, be over. Users will probably be better off for it too. The oppressive moderation that happens on reddit is not necessary. The very nature of the site is self moderating. Let people post what they want and vote on it.
- altonas 3y ago
  I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this. I'm active in some video game subreddits and I even mod a video game related sub with about 25k subscribers. And on multiple occasions I've had terrible interactions with those big multi-sub moderators. A particularly infamous multi-sub mod (whom you can probably figure out) has threatened me for my subreddit on multiple occasions, making statements like "I'll have you blacklisted from modding other subs". That same exact mod on multiple occasions has deleted my posts from subs he mods, just to reupload them for karma himself. I don't even care about the karma, I just wish mods wouldn't delete my posts that don't break any rules in any way, shape, or form, especially when it's for blatant karma farming. If you look around Google you can even find several posts of subreddits getting "liberated" of this particular multi sub mod... Something needs to change so this stops happening
  - ImaCake 3y ago
    This stuff happens on the mental health subreddits too. Its bad enough to always second guess your own diagnosis but its worse when a mod decides you are excluded from one of the few places that will tentatively accept you.
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      I have a direct family member that was very ill, thought maybe they were transgender, tried that out, their mental state was not improving, got professional help from a doctor that listened instead of supporting every thought, got a lot better, and spent this year de-transitioning. I talked a little about their experience and, instantly banned from a handful of Reddit including a ban on my account that I appealed.
      - ImaCake 3y ago
        Yeah, mental health is so stigmatised that there is little room for the grey, like in your example. A few radicals end up controlling the discussion and most of us, who are too busy with life, are left confused and locked out by the hysteria. I am more sympathetic to those who support trans rights but go too far because the other side is literally calling for their extermination, but the lack of reasonable voices leaves eveyone poorer and disenfranchised.
        SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        > the other side is literally calling for their extermination If literally… citations please. I ask because I was accused of “supporting genocide” or some such nonsense. I have not seen anyone literally calling for murder. The point of my post is that I have seen, first hand, people saying it’s rampant out there though. And since I was accused of exactly that, I’d like to see just how real this threat is.
        ImaCake 3y ago
        I guess it is very marginal rhetoric. People like De Santis are not actively saying it, although their actions indicate a great deal of opposition. For what it’s worth, I dont think its fair or right that you were blocked for your example. But I think it is the siege mentality of the marginalised trans community that explains why you got blocked.
- seydor 3y ago
  reddit should auto-retire mods after X months. We can do that in mainstream politics - not on reddit politics
- mynameishere 3y ago
  Agree completely. Get rid of all the large-sub mods, replace them with paid moderators who are instructed to only remove spam and illegal content. Giant, giant improvement. The mods as they are just power trip on their own politics. Why else would they do it for no money?
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Disagree with this for lots of reasons: 1. First, look at the incentive structure for being a mod of a large subreddit: it's a ton of work, with people constantly bitching at you, for no compensation. The vast majority of people with a life are not going to want to do this. So of course it appeals to people who can power trip off it, and I can't see those dynamics really changing. I do think that reddit should change the rules to make it easier for particularly egregious mods to be voted out by the subscribers of a sub, but that's a relatively small change. For example, some of the r/lgbt mods were notorious assholes, which is why some people split off to make r/ainbow. Should be easier for subscribers to essentially "impeach" shitty mods. 2. "If it actually impacts revenue the admins will just ban a few dozen mods and the protest will, effectively, be over" People keep saying this, but I doubt it. The vast majority of reddit users, at least in the subs I've seen, support this - a bunch of the subs even had polls to ask what they should do. It's one thing for the admins to remove mods who are acting against the wishes of most is a subs' subscribers, but I think it would be total chaos if they tried to replace mods specifically to get their way WRT to the API changes. At the end of the day, reddit is nothing without it's community. Company management can only go so far before it kills the goose that laid the golden egg.
  - themagician 3y ago
    The power trip is enough for most people. And for the right subs, brands approach you with outrageous offers. It can EASILY make you six figures *a month. When I read, it was much smaller. Years ago when reddit it was much smaller and I was working for an agency. We paid $60,000 just for 2-3 months of “posting support”. It amounted to something like 12 posts. I know first hand how much some mods get compensated. And this wasn’t even a major subreddit.
    - Yhippa 3y ago
      If this is true, this sounds like a bad deal for Reddit. If I were them, I'd want my cut.
    - cellularmitosis 3y ago
      What are they paying for? For the mod to look the other way for certain corporate spam posts?
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  > The very nature of the site is self moderating. Let people post what they want and vote on it. This only works (mostly) for legal content. Unfortunately a lot of illegal content would be highly popular and upvoted if not moderated. It also doesn't really work when a subset of users engage with the system in bad faith or leverage bots. Paid moderation is expensive - even if offshored - and I'm surprised that Reddit is willing to risk having to take on increased moderation costs. There's no way the lost potential revenue from 3rd party app users is enough to make up for that.
  - NegativeK 3y ago
    > This only works (mostly) for legal content. It doesn't work even then. I've never (_never_) seen a community get large and be able to moderate itself with just technology like upvotes/downvotes. Someone needs to say "You're violating our community standards; get out." Large, in this case, means big enough that cliques form. That happens well before a thousand people.
    - wincy 3y ago
      [flagged]
- Shaanie 3y ago
  Self-moderation doesn't work for any reasonably large community, if you don't want your community to be generic Facebook/Instagram quality posts. Community-based moderation inevitably makes any subreddit into "fun phots/videos" because people who browse largely don't care about where the post is, they might not even realize what subreddit it is in when up-voting. Subreddits like askscience or askhistorians would be impossible without extremely strict moderation, for obvious reasons.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    Ok, but flip side… Reddit “Science” is the one of the most ridiculously biased and censoring of dissent subs I’ve ever seen. Absolute junk science that confirms a political bias? Straight to the top!! Any reasonable voice? [Removed].
    - patrick451 3y ago
      As always, censorship is common sense moderation if it aligns with your existing biases.
- OldManRyan 3y ago
  I do agree this is an issue that needs to be addressed but you are also posting this on a website that is heavily moderated and runs as smoothly as it does because of the efforts of dang and the other moderators so I can't agree that reddit should just be the wild west.
- opportune 3y ago
  The reddit replacement I am scoping out eliminates mods and subreddit squatting. I don't see a need for mods as they exist in reddit really, just "janitors" like in 4chan, most likely paid. Moderation seems like it could be done purely on the basis of voting and a sitewide content policy.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- isaacremuant 3y ago
  Except if you search in Reddit right now you'll find plenty of posts where mod asked the users if they should join the blackout (sometimes rather meekly) and userbases, almost always, said yes.
- allmadhare 3y ago
  The fact that you can go on reddit right now and enjoy it without all the annoying power users is only more reason to start visiting in my books. Hell I might even finally download the app.
- stevenwliao 3y ago
  If you've ever moderated a large subreddit before, you would know that it's not self-moderating. Garbage comments attract more garbage comments, and pretty soon your userbase is toxic as everyone else who's looking for a civil conversation leaves.
- graeme 3y ago
  Have a look at the link being discussed. Subreddits all the way down to 5K+ subreddits are going dark. It's all across the board.
- currylover 3y ago
  There's nothing softer than reddit mods. Reddit mods are so soft that dumping fabric softener on them would harden them.
spokeonawheel 3y ago
they are wrong because 3rd party apps are the only way the site is actually usable on a mobile device.
mrtksn 3y ago
So, what happens if reddit just kicks out the mods participating? It's not like the owners of the subs actually own anything, they just happen to do work in exchange of clout or money(from 3rd parties). There will be unlimited supply of volunteers waiting in line to acquire this privilege. If anyone actually manages to do some damage, they can just roll back the database or something. I've seen so many boycotts on the internet and the only one that worked was DIGG->Reddit and it worked only because Reddit was ready to take over. It would be poetic if Reddit goes away the way it come but I wouldn't bet on it. The relationship is symbiotic but the parties are not equal, it's the platform that holds the power. Unlike the real world where atoms behaviour is absolute, in this virtual environment the platform decides about how the nature works and the only real power is in the hands of those who control the servers.
- OldManRyan 3y ago
  What happens if reddit crosses that line is completely up to community response. People could go on as usual and nothing happens or there could be an even more visceral backlash. History says business as usual but no one really knows what would happen.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    There's no real community though. I have 12 y/o account with over 15K post karma and 35K comment karma and I don't care the slightest. The place has grown too big to feel like a community, if anything, I'm worried that r/StableDiffusion might go away because there are is so much chronological high quality content of the development of stable diffusion. I tracked down my first comment about how "reddit is dead", it's from 11 years ago. Apart from some smaller subs, for me reddit has become a content stream not that different from Twitter or TikTok. I will be sad to see some niche subs go but maybe that's the plan, after all, they are going after the mainstream. There's probably not much money in monetising some nerds.
    - OldManRyan 3y ago
      reddit is not a community. The subreddits are the community. I don't care about reddit as a whole but there are individual subreddits that if they change or go away then I no longer have a reason to use reddit.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
danpalmer 3y ago
> Engagement is a power curve. Most content is created by a small subset of users. This is it, and it's the same with Twitter. At some number of connection in the social graph, or some amount of content produced, a user becomes more valuable than the ad money they could bring in. i.e. the opportunity cost flips, and it's worth giving up the ad revenue or API usage in order to keep them. To use an extreme, if a Kardashian said they were leaving Twitter, it would obviously be worth a lot of money to keep them on the platform. But my guess is that the percentage of users bringing more value than their ad revenue is closer to 1 in a 100 than 1 in a million. As you said this then plays into the third party client issue directly, because those users are almost by definition power users, and power users get so much value out of third party clients with micro optimisations for their use-cases. The problem is that this feels so obvious that I can't believe Reddit (or Twitter) don't have a measure of this internally, and I don't know why they wouldn't be optimising for it. My only conclusion is that it's too much nuance for a Musk-driven product team to handle, and that Reddit are shit-scared that they're going to collapse before IPO'ing and can't make rational decisions.
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  For power users, advertisers flip from paying for their eyes to paying for their thumbs.
- pests 3y ago
  > because those users are almost by definition power users Why is this the case and being repeated everywhere by everyone? Reddit originally didn't have a mobile app and only third party clients existed. Everyone who wanted a mobile experience was using a third party app. Many of those original users never switched to the official app. How are they power users by definition?
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    That's a fair point, but I still think there's a strong correlation. To address that point specifically, users who started using Reddit early enough that the official one didn't exist, and have stuck around and are still active now, are more likely to be power users just based on account age. Additionally, many years ago those seeking out mobile apps may have been power users as well. Mobile apps are the default now, but unofficial apps have only recently been more mainstream.
yanderekko 3y ago
>Engagement is a power curve Sure, but the degradation of the UX based on these changes seems to be pretty exaggerated in my view. How many of these powerusers are only using Reddit through a 3rd party client and would quit the site over having it closed? My guess is that the answer is "not many", and Reddit is clearly banking on this... and why would I trust angry activists over Reddit's own internal analysis? More concretely, my impression is that these changes will not hit RES meaningfully. If they did, I would be unhappy but it would not break the site for me.
- OldManRyan 3y ago
  The developer of RES said they do not know if the changes will hit them and it is up in the air. > Reddit's public statements have been limited on this method, however we have been told we should see minimal impact via this route. However we are still not 100% sure on potential impact and are being cautious going forwards.[0] Developers behind third-party clients were also told they should be fine with the new changes so reddit's word isn't worth anything. This is not just about clients but tools and bots as well. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Enhancement/comments/141hzqj/announcement_res_reddits_upcoming_api_changes/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Enhancement/comments/141hzqj/announ...
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  Would removing old.reddit.com break the site for you? It would for me, and thats the trajectory. The new UI is an absolute pig.
  - weaksauce 3y ago
    yeah i could probably get by not using reddit on my ipad even if i didn't like the change... but not having old.reddit would be a monumental no from me.
  - BenisMaximus 3y ago
    Without that, RES, or a third-party interface, I'm 100% out. I do not need to deal with cluttered, shitty interfaces that are designed to "increase engagement" instead of giving me what I want. Respect my time or fuck off.
MisterBastahrd 3y ago
And now I want to explain why you're wrong. The vast majority of people who are visiting subreddits are doing so because they're actively seeking out the material being presented to them. These people are subscribers to the subreddits. Subreddits that "go dark" are not blocked for everyone. Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit. So this giant display of enlightened asshattery affects almost nobody. And even if it did, it's a 2 day ordeal. Which means jack fucking squat. It's the equivalent of wearing an MLK bandana on Juneteenth day and spending the rest of the year voting and campaigning for politicians trying to abolish what's left of the Voting Rights Act.
- OldManRyan 3y ago
  > The vast majority of people who are visiting subreddits are doing so because they're actively seeking out the material being presented to them. These people are subscribers to the subreddits. Subreddits that "go dark" are not blocked for everyone. Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit. I don't believe this is true but I'm willing to test it out. I'll subscribe to a bunch of subreddits that intend to go dark and see what happens.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - OldManRyan 3y ago
    One of the subreddits I subbed to has gone dark and I cannot access it so I can confirm this is not true.
- marcomourao 3y ago
  > Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit. When a sub is set to private "Only approved members can view and take part in its discussions."
  - aniforprez 3y ago
crazygringo 3y ago
> I think it is a fair to say that if you use and especially pay for third party tools, whether that be a client or something like RES, you are more than likely a power user. I've seen this repeated elsewhere but I've seen zero actual evidence of it. And the counterpoint is quite easy: that people use these apps/extensions for a better viewing experience. Because on the creation side, typing into a text box or pasting a link is just typing into a text box. The apps/extensions are great for consuming. Quick Google searches reveal that Reddit has something between 0.5 and 1.5 billion monthly users, while the Apollo app has 1.5 million monthly users. That's nothing. The bigger question seems to be around moderators who use power moderation tools. Will Reddit keep allowing moderation tools? If not, will they improve their own? If they lose moderators, are there other moderators willing to take their place, or will they start investing in more ML-based moderation, etc.?
- Sholmesy 3y ago
  > Quick Google searches reveal that Reddit has something between 0.5 and 1.5 billion monthly users Not disagree-ing with your points, but do you have a source for this? It doesn't pass the sniff test to me. 1.5B people is ~ 20% of the world population, and probably closer to 50% of those with computers & internet capable of downloading reddit.com, an image heavy forum. I'm in the demographic for Reddit (30s, male, western country), and I think maybe 10% of my friends, family & coworkers even know what Reddit is, let along are an MAU.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Everybody's reporting "Reddit had 430 million monthly active users in 2020", so that's the half-billion that seems to be fact-based. Then the current 1.5B number seems to be based on extrapolation (1.66B in [1] for one estimate) based on previous growth rates. I shared your initial skepticism, but Reddit is the 20th most popular site in the world [2]. I know I have definitely been surprised and even shocked that certain extended family members and coworkers of mine have turned out to be heavy Reddit users. It's turned into this incredibly widespread site that almost nobody talks about "in real life". Of course, monthly active users presumably includes people who click on a Reddit search result once in the month. It doesn't mean they're using it daily and upvoting. [1] https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/number-of-reddit-users/#section-2 https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/number-of-reddit-users/#sect... [2] https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/ https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/
madeofpalk 3y ago
This is brought up a bunch, but I’m kind of sceptical about this. Although only a small percent post, I believe those users are largely interchangeable and replaceable. This isn’t twitter - apart from a few exceptions, there are not personalities on Reddit that people would feel the loss of. All the big/main subreddits are all pretty low-effort content, just reposting memes and videos from elsewhere. Mods maintaining the subreddits are the real ‘power users’ who would impact the site if they left.
andrei_says_ 3y ago
> slowly bleeding itself to death If it’s slowly then it likely doesn’t matter in the context of going public and making a lot of cash for the investors. It’s hard to imagine that the people who are given the power to decide the fate of Reddit don’t care about its long term fate at all - but it might well be the case.
r00fus 3y ago
If management has shown themselves to be adversarial in this case because they think the power users aren't correct, a 2 day strike isn't going to do much to convince them otherwise. This would have to be a month or more. And I think that's the real threat - the 2 day is a shot across the bow, if it impacts statistics I think it will likely be extended until management cries uncle. If I were management I'd do everything in my power to make this strike look like it failed (since the alternative to actually preventing the strike by negotiation seems to have been scrapped or unconsidered).

themagician 3y ago

Most of the content is also modded by a small subset of mods—literally dozens. You've got maybe a hundred mods who are "power mods" that control the vast majority of large subreddits, and these are the ones "protesting". They don't own the subreddits. They have no rights to them, but they like to pretend that they do. Their moderation has, in many ways, become oppressive to the userbase. You don't hear about it because—surprise—they ban those people. Honestly, the mod structure on reddit needs to change. This protest will almost 100% backfire. If it actually impacts revenue the admins will just ban a few dozen mods and the protest will, effectively, be over. Users will probably be better off for it too. The oppressive moderation that happens on reddit is not necessary. The very nature of the site is self moderating. Let people post what they want and vote on it.

altonas 3y ago
I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this. I'm active in some video game subreddits and I even mod a video game related sub with about 25k subscribers. And on multiple occasions I've had terrible interactions with those big multi-sub moderators. A particularly infamous multi-sub mod (whom you can probably figure out) has threatened me for my subreddit on multiple occasions, making statements like "I'll have you blacklisted from modding other subs". That same exact mod on multiple occasions has deleted my posts from subs he mods, just to reupload them for karma himself. I don't even care about the karma, I just wish mods wouldn't delete my posts that don't break any rules in any way, shape, or form, especially when it's for blatant karma farming. If you look around Google you can even find several posts of subreddits getting "liberated" of this particular multi sub mod... Something needs to change so this stops happening
- ImaCake 3y ago
  This stuff happens on the mental health subreddits too. Its bad enough to always second guess your own diagnosis but its worse when a mod decides you are excluded from one of the few places that will tentatively accept you.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    I have a direct family member that was very ill, thought maybe they were transgender, tried that out, their mental state was not improving, got professional help from a doctor that listened instead of supporting every thought, got a lot better, and spent this year de-transitioning. I talked a little about their experience and, instantly banned from a handful of Reddit including a ban on my account that I appealed.
    - ImaCake 3y ago
      Yeah, mental health is so stigmatised that there is little room for the grey, like in your example. A few radicals end up controlling the discussion and most of us, who are too busy with life, are left confused and locked out by the hysteria. I am more sympathetic to those who support trans rights but go too far because the other side is literally calling for their extermination, but the lack of reasonable voices leaves eveyone poorer and disenfranchised.
      - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        > the other side is literally calling for their extermination If literally… citations please. I ask because I was accused of “supporting genocide” or some such nonsense. I have not seen anyone literally calling for murder. The point of my post is that I have seen, first hand, people saying it’s rampant out there though. And since I was accused of exactly that, I’d like to see just how real this threat is.
        ImaCake 3y ago
        I guess it is very marginal rhetoric. People like De Santis are not actively saying it, although their actions indicate a great deal of opposition. For what it’s worth, I dont think its fair or right that you were blocked for your example. But I think it is the siege mentality of the marginalised trans community that explains why you got blocked.
seydor 3y ago
reddit should auto-retire mods after X months. We can do that in mainstream politics - not on reddit politics
mynameishere 3y ago
Agree completely. Get rid of all the large-sub mods, replace them with paid moderators who are instructed to only remove spam and illegal content. Giant, giant improvement. The mods as they are just power trip on their own politics. Why else would they do it for no money?
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Disagree with this for lots of reasons: 1. First, look at the incentive structure for being a mod of a large subreddit: it's a ton of work, with people constantly bitching at you, for no compensation. The vast majority of people with a life are not going to want to do this. So of course it appeals to people who can power trip off it, and I can't see those dynamics really changing. I do think that reddit should change the rules to make it easier for particularly egregious mods to be voted out by the subscribers of a sub, but that's a relatively small change. For example, some of the r/lgbt mods were notorious assholes, which is why some people split off to make r/ainbow. Should be easier for subscribers to essentially "impeach" shitty mods. 2. "If it actually impacts revenue the admins will just ban a few dozen mods and the protest will, effectively, be over" People keep saying this, but I doubt it. The vast majority of reddit users, at least in the subs I've seen, support this - a bunch of the subs even had polls to ask what they should do. It's one thing for the admins to remove mods who are acting against the wishes of most is a subs' subscribers, but I think it would be total chaos if they tried to replace mods specifically to get their way WRT to the API changes. At the end of the day, reddit is nothing without it's community. Company management can only go so far before it kills the goose that laid the golden egg.
- themagician 3y ago
  The power trip is enough for most people. And for the right subs, brands approach you with outrageous offers. It can EASILY make you six figures *a month. When I read, it was much smaller. Years ago when reddit it was much smaller and I was working for an agency. We paid $60,000 just for 2-3 months of “posting support”. It amounted to something like 12 posts. I know first hand how much some mods get compensated. And this wasn’t even a major subreddit.
  - Yhippa 3y ago
    If this is true, this sounds like a bad deal for Reddit. If I were them, I'd want my cut.
  - cellularmitosis 3y ago
    What are they paying for? For the mod to look the other way for certain corporate spam posts?
AlexandrB 3y ago
> The very nature of the site is self moderating. Let people post what they want and vote on it. This only works (mostly) for legal content. Unfortunately a lot of illegal content would be highly popular and upvoted if not moderated. It also doesn't really work when a subset of users engage with the system in bad faith or leverage bots. Paid moderation is expensive - even if offshored - and I'm surprised that Reddit is willing to risk having to take on increased moderation costs. There's no way the lost potential revenue from 3rd party app users is enough to make up for that.
- NegativeK 3y ago
  > This only works (mostly) for legal content. It doesn't work even then. I've never (_never_) seen a community get large and be able to moderate itself with just technology like upvotes/downvotes. Someone needs to say "You're violating our community standards; get out." Large, in this case, means big enough that cliques form. That happens well before a thousand people.
  - wincy 3y ago
    [flagged]
Shaanie 3y ago
Self-moderation doesn't work for any reasonably large community, if you don't want your community to be generic Facebook/Instagram quality posts. Community-based moderation inevitably makes any subreddit into "fun phots/videos" because people who browse largely don't care about where the post is, they might not even realize what subreddit it is in when up-voting. Subreddits like askscience or askhistorians would be impossible without extremely strict moderation, for obvious reasons.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  Ok, but flip side… Reddit “Science” is the one of the most ridiculously biased and censoring of dissent subs I’ve ever seen. Absolute junk science that confirms a political bias? Straight to the top!! Any reasonable voice? [Removed].
  - patrick451 3y ago
    As always, censorship is common sense moderation if it aligns with your existing biases.
OldManRyan 3y ago
I do agree this is an issue that needs to be addressed but you are also posting this on a website that is heavily moderated and runs as smoothly as it does because of the efforts of dang and the other moderators so I can't agree that reddit should just be the wild west.
opportune 3y ago
The reddit replacement I am scoping out eliminates mods and subreddit squatting. I don't see a need for mods as they exist in reddit really, just "janitors" like in 4chan, most likely paid. Moderation seems like it could be done purely on the basis of voting and a sitewide content policy.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
isaacremuant 3y ago
Except if you search in Reddit right now you'll find plenty of posts where mod asked the users if they should join the blackout (sometimes rather meekly) and userbases, almost always, said yes.
allmadhare 3y ago
The fact that you can go on reddit right now and enjoy it without all the annoying power users is only more reason to start visiting in my books. Hell I might even finally download the app.
stevenwliao 3y ago
If you've ever moderated a large subreddit before, you would know that it's not self-moderating. Garbage comments attract more garbage comments, and pretty soon your userbase is toxic as everyone else who's looking for a civil conversation leaves.
graeme 3y ago
Have a look at the link being discussed. Subreddits all the way down to 5K+ subreddits are going dark. It's all across the board.
currylover 3y ago
There's nothing softer than reddit mods. Reddit mods are so soft that dumping fabric softener on them would harden them.

spokeonawheel 3y ago

they are wrong because 3rd party apps are the only way the site is actually usable on a mobile device.

mrtksn 3y ago

So, what happens if reddit just kicks out the mods participating? It's not like the owners of the subs actually own anything, they just happen to do work in exchange of clout or money(from 3rd parties). There will be unlimited supply of volunteers waiting in line to acquire this privilege. If anyone actually manages to do some damage, they can just roll back the database or something. I've seen so many boycotts on the internet and the only one that worked was DIGG->Reddit and it worked only because Reddit was ready to take over. It would be poetic if Reddit goes away the way it come but I wouldn't bet on it. The relationship is symbiotic but the parties are not equal, it's the platform that holds the power. Unlike the real world where atoms behaviour is absolute, in this virtual environment the platform decides about how the nature works and the only real power is in the hands of those who control the servers.

OldManRyan 3y ago
What happens if reddit crosses that line is completely up to community response. People could go on as usual and nothing happens or there could be an even more visceral backlash. History says business as usual but no one really knows what would happen.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  There's no real community though. I have 12 y/o account with over 15K post karma and 35K comment karma and I don't care the slightest. The place has grown too big to feel like a community, if anything, I'm worried that r/StableDiffusion might go away because there are is so much chronological high quality content of the development of stable diffusion. I tracked down my first comment about how "reddit is dead", it's from 11 years ago. Apart from some smaller subs, for me reddit has become a content stream not that different from Twitter or TikTok. I will be sad to see some niche subs go but maybe that's the plan, after all, they are going after the mainstream. There's probably not much money in monetising some nerds.
  - OldManRyan 3y ago
    reddit is not a community. The subreddits are the community. I don't care about reddit as a whole but there are individual subreddits that if they change or go away then I no longer have a reason to use reddit.

deleted 3y ago

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danpalmer 3y ago

> Engagement is a power curve. Most content is created by a small subset of users. This is it, and it's the same with Twitter. At some number of connection in the social graph, or some amount of content produced, a user becomes more valuable than the ad money they could bring in. i.e. the opportunity cost flips, and it's worth giving up the ad revenue or API usage in order to keep them. To use an extreme, if a Kardashian said they were leaving Twitter, it would obviously be worth a lot of money to keep them on the platform. But my guess is that the percentage of users bringing more value than their ad revenue is closer to 1 in a 100 than 1 in a million. As you said this then plays into the third party client issue directly, because those users are almost by definition power users, and power users get so much value out of third party clients with micro optimisations for their use-cases. The problem is that this feels so obvious that I can't believe Reddit (or Twitter) don't have a measure of this internally, and I don't know why they wouldn't be optimising for it. My only conclusion is that it's too much nuance for a Musk-driven product team to handle, and that Reddit are shit-scared that they're going to collapse before IPO'ing and can't make rational decisions.

teaearlgraycold 3y ago
For power users, advertisers flip from paying for their eyes to paying for their thumbs.
pests 3y ago
> because those users are almost by definition power users Why is this the case and being repeated everywhere by everyone? Reddit originally didn't have a mobile app and only third party clients existed. Everyone who wanted a mobile experience was using a third party app. Many of those original users never switched to the official app. How are they power users by definition?
- danpalmer 3y ago
  That's a fair point, but I still think there's a strong correlation. To address that point specifically, users who started using Reddit early enough that the official one didn't exist, and have stuck around and are still active now, are more likely to be power users just based on account age. Additionally, many years ago those seeking out mobile apps may have been power users as well. Mobile apps are the default now, but unofficial apps have only recently been more mainstream.

yanderekko 3y ago

>Engagement is a power curve Sure, but the degradation of the UX based on these changes seems to be pretty exaggerated in my view. How many of these powerusers are only using Reddit through a 3rd party client and would quit the site over having it closed? My guess is that the answer is "not many", and Reddit is clearly banking on this... and why would I trust angry activists over Reddit's own internal analysis? More concretely, my impression is that these changes will not hit RES meaningfully. If they did, I would be unhappy but it would not break the site for me.

OldManRyan 3y ago
The developer of RES said they do not know if the changes will hit them and it is up in the air. > Reddit's public statements have been limited on this method, however we have been told we should see minimal impact via this route. However we are still not 100% sure on potential impact and are being cautious going forwards.[0] Developers behind third-party clients were also told they should be fine with the new changes so reddit's word isn't worth anything. This is not just about clients but tools and bots as well. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Enhancement/comments/141hzqj/announcement_res_reddits_upcoming_api_changes/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Enhancement/comments/141hzqj/announ...
brucethemoose2 3y ago
Would removing old.reddit.com break the site for you? It would for me, and thats the trajectory. The new UI is an absolute pig.
- weaksauce 3y ago
  yeah i could probably get by not using reddit on my ipad even if i didn't like the change... but not having old.reddit would be a monumental no from me.
- BenisMaximus 3y ago
  Without that, RES, or a third-party interface, I'm 100% out. I do not need to deal with cluttered, shitty interfaces that are designed to "increase engagement" instead of giving me what I want. Respect my time or fuck off.

MisterBastahrd 3y ago

And now I want to explain why you're wrong. The vast majority of people who are visiting subreddits are doing so because they're actively seeking out the material being presented to them. These people are subscribers to the subreddits. Subreddits that "go dark" are not blocked for everyone. Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit. So this giant display of enlightened asshattery affects almost nobody. And even if it did, it's a 2 day ordeal. Which means jack fucking squat. It's the equivalent of wearing an MLK bandana on Juneteenth day and spending the rest of the year voting and campaigning for politicians trying to abolish what's left of the Voting Rights Act.

OldManRyan 3y ago
> The vast majority of people who are visiting subreddits are doing so because they're actively seeking out the material being presented to them. These people are subscribers to the subreddits. Subreddits that "go dark" are not blocked for everyone. Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit. I don't believe this is true but I'm willing to test it out. I'll subscribe to a bunch of subreddits that intend to go dark and see what happens.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- OldManRyan 3y ago
  One of the subreddits I subbed to has gone dark and I cannot access it so I can confirm this is not true.
marcomourao 3y ago
> Their access is restricted ONLY for those who have not yet subscribed to the subreddit. When a sub is set to private "Only approved members can view and take part in its discussions."
- aniforprez 3y ago

crazygringo 3y ago

> I think it is a fair to say that if you use and especially pay for third party tools, whether that be a client or something like RES, you are more than likely a power user. I've seen this repeated elsewhere but I've seen zero actual evidence of it. And the counterpoint is quite easy: that people use these apps/extensions for a better viewing experience. Because on the creation side, typing into a text box or pasting a link is just typing into a text box. The apps/extensions are great for consuming. Quick Google searches reveal that Reddit has something between 0.5 and 1.5 billion monthly users, while the Apollo app has 1.5 million monthly users. That's nothing. The bigger question seems to be around moderators who use power moderation tools. Will Reddit keep allowing moderation tools? If not, will they improve their own? If they lose moderators, are there other moderators willing to take their place, or will they start investing in more ML-based moderation, etc.?

Sholmesy 3y ago
> Quick Google searches reveal that Reddit has something between 0.5 and 1.5 billion monthly users Not disagree-ing with your points, but do you have a source for this? It doesn't pass the sniff test to me. 1.5B people is ~ 20% of the world population, and probably closer to 50% of those with computers & internet capable of downloading reddit.com, an image heavy forum. I'm in the demographic for Reddit (30s, male, western country), and I think maybe 10% of my friends, family & coworkers even know what Reddit is, let along are an MAU.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Everybody's reporting "Reddit had 430 million monthly active users in 2020", so that's the half-billion that seems to be fact-based. Then the current 1.5B number seems to be based on extrapolation (1.66B in [1] for one estimate) based on previous growth rates. I shared your initial skepticism, but Reddit is the 20th most popular site in the world [2]. I know I have definitely been surprised and even shocked that certain extended family members and coworkers of mine have turned out to be heavy Reddit users. It's turned into this incredibly widespread site that almost nobody talks about "in real life". Of course, monthly active users presumably includes people who click on a Reddit search result once in the month. It doesn't mean they're using it daily and upvoting. [1] https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/number-of-reddit-users/#section-2 https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/number-of-reddit-users/#sect... [2] https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/ https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/

madeofpalk 3y ago

This is brought up a bunch, but I’m kind of sceptical about this. Although only a small percent post, I believe those users are largely interchangeable and replaceable. This isn’t twitter - apart from a few exceptions, there are not personalities on Reddit that people would feel the loss of. All the big/main subreddits are all pretty low-effort content, just reposting memes and videos from elsewhere. Mods maintaining the subreddits are the real ‘power users’ who would impact the site if they left.

andrei_says_ 3y ago

> slowly bleeding itself to death If it’s slowly then it likely doesn’t matter in the context of going public and making a lot of cash for the investors. It’s hard to imagine that the people who are given the power to decide the fate of Reddit don’t care about its long term fate at all - but it might well be the case.

r00fus 3y ago

If management has shown themselves to be adversarial in this case because they think the power users aren't correct, a 2 day strike isn't going to do much to convince them otherwise. This would have to be a month or more. And I think that's the real threat - the 2 day is a shot across the bow, if it impacts statistics I think it will likely be extended until management cries uncle. If I were management I'd do everything in my power to make this strike look like it failed (since the alternative to actually preventing the strike by negotiation seems to have been scrapped or unconsidered).