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That's the same defeatest advice people always give when you don't like the direction of your country/state/municipality/etc. you should leave/move/etc. I say a

That's the same defeatest advice people always give when you don't like the direction of your country/state/municipality/etc. you should leave/move/etc. I say absolutely not and if you have invested time and energy into something (I've had my reddit account a bit longer than my HN one) then you can and should fight for it. I don't have a vision disability and so am not very impacted by the killing of 3rd party acts but this is an act of solidarity to support those who are (However minor most of our sacrifice is). The least I can do is not complain that my daily quota of cat pictures is unfairly impacted.

llm_nerd 3y ago
You argue the critical importance of Reddit -- equivocating it with legislative bodies (which I find fantastically ridiculous, as an aside) -- but then you also dismiss people annoyed by the blackout as missing out on only cat pictures. It's an extreme example of someone arguing both sides. Though of course what you probably intend to convey is that people who find the blackout annoying can be dismissed because they're just those weird cat picture people -- they just don't understand the importance like you do, and thus don't count -- and is a perfect example of my point. I don't care about the API issue, despite being a professional dev. I find sharecropping on someone else's product a perilous path that eventually comes up snake-eyes. Like, the moment someone makes a third party app for Reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, or anything else, they are on an expiry meter. Have people not learned this yet? The blackout thing didn't work because most people don't care, so some people have stomped their feet and effectively started trying to vandalize the site and I think it's achieving absolutely nothing.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > don't care about the API issue, despite being a professional dev. I find sharecropping on someone else's product a perilous path that eventually comes up snake-eyes. Like, the moment someone makes a third party app for Reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, or anything else, they are on an expiry meter. Have people not learned this yet? You are missing the forest for the trees here. The issue is not that they are charging for API access. The issue is that assurances were given that the transition would be reasonable but pricing withheld until the last minute. Negotiations then proceeded in bad faith, with reddit never intending to allow them to pay the price asked (no methods existed to even make this transaction possible with a 30 day deadline, and other app creators were ignored completely when approaching reddit sales). When the dev made the situation public (with a 'go ahead' from reddit) then Huffman appears to have taken it personally, and instead of engaging with the community concerns about lack of options for mobile moderators, went on a tantrum. He then discounts any concerns over his handling of the situation and doubles down on libelous claims that were proven false. This is on top of using reasoning that is not only dubious, but contradictory. If they really care about making a profit, why not offer something of value and charge for it, like the 3rd party apps do? You don't win customers by making something shitty and then removing all of their options and then not even have a plan in place to make money with the shitty alternative. Huffman has been unable to monetize reddit and he isn't presenting any way to. All he is doing is acting unhinged and destructive -- with both community trust/relations and the corporation itself being used in ways that can not be turned around. Usually corporations burn their trust as a short-sighted scheme to make a bunch of money quickly (reputable brand cuts so many costs the reputation is lost, etc) and this is tragic, but at least they got something out of it. This guy seems like he is just burning things down because he is frustrated that they exist successfully on their own using the same resources he has, while he cannot.
- runamok 3y ago
  It's a metaphor and doesn't need to be perfect. My point was merely "don't like it, then leave" is useless advice IMO. I didn't say reddit is critical exactly (though maybe it is for many who frequent https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/), only that it has value to many. Strikes and demonstrations and such are ALWAYS inconvenient by design. That doesn't mean they are pointless. BART strikes and BLM protests impacted me a lot more than reddit blackouts but I still supported them. Ultimately we are ALL sharecropping where the majority of the web is "owned/gatekeeped" by a handful of big companies like google, meta, microsoft, amazon, twitter (?), visa, mastercard, paypal, yelp, cloudflare, comcast, cox, etc. You may agree or disagree with my list but hopefully you get my point. It remains to be seen if it worked or not depending on what the fallout is. Will users, moderators and most importantly advertisers leave? Will reddit IPO? Will they be able to hire? Will spez survive this as CEO?

llm_nerd 3y ago

You argue the critical importance of Reddit -- equivocating it with legislative bodies (which I find fantastically ridiculous, as an aside) -- but then you also dismiss people annoyed by the blackout as missing out on only cat pictures. It's an extreme example of someone arguing both sides. Though of course what you probably intend to convey is that people who find the blackout annoying can be dismissed because they're just those weird cat picture people -- they just don't understand the importance like you do, and thus don't count -- and is a perfect example of my point. I don't care about the API issue, despite being a professional dev. I find sharecropping on someone else's product a perilous path that eventually comes up snake-eyes. Like, the moment someone makes a third party app for Reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, or anything else, they are on an expiry meter. Have people not learned this yet? The blackout thing didn't work because most people don't care, so some people have stomped their feet and effectively started trying to vandalize the site and I think it's achieving absolutely nothing.

Eisenstein 3y ago
> don't care about the API issue, despite being a professional dev. I find sharecropping on someone else's product a perilous path that eventually comes up snake-eyes. Like, the moment someone makes a third party app for Reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, or anything else, they are on an expiry meter. Have people not learned this yet? You are missing the forest for the trees here. The issue is not that they are charging for API access. The issue is that assurances were given that the transition would be reasonable but pricing withheld until the last minute. Negotiations then proceeded in bad faith, with reddit never intending to allow them to pay the price asked (no methods existed to even make this transaction possible with a 30 day deadline, and other app creators were ignored completely when approaching reddit sales). When the dev made the situation public (with a 'go ahead' from reddit) then Huffman appears to have taken it personally, and instead of engaging with the community concerns about lack of options for mobile moderators, went on a tantrum. He then discounts any concerns over his handling of the situation and doubles down on libelous claims that were proven false. This is on top of using reasoning that is not only dubious, but contradictory. If they really care about making a profit, why not offer something of value and charge for it, like the 3rd party apps do? You don't win customers by making something shitty and then removing all of their options and then not even have a plan in place to make money with the shitty alternative. Huffman has been unable to monetize reddit and he isn't presenting any way to. All he is doing is acting unhinged and destructive -- with both community trust/relations and the corporation itself being used in ways that can not be turned around. Usually corporations burn their trust as a short-sighted scheme to make a bunch of money quickly (reputable brand cuts so many costs the reputation is lost, etc) and this is tragic, but at least they got something out of it. This guy seems like he is just burning things down because he is frustrated that they exist successfully on their own using the same resources he has, while he cannot.
runamok 3y ago
It's a metaphor and doesn't need to be perfect. My point was merely "don't like it, then leave" is useless advice IMO. I didn't say reddit is critical exactly (though maybe it is for many who frequent https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/), only that it has value to many. Strikes and demonstrations and such are ALWAYS inconvenient by design. That doesn't mean they are pointless. BART strikes and BLM protests impacted me a lot more than reddit blackouts but I still supported them. Ultimately we are ALL sharecropping where the majority of the web is "owned/gatekeeped" by a handful of big companies like google, meta, microsoft, amazon, twitter (?), visa, mastercard, paypal, yelp, cloudflare, comcast, cox, etc. You may agree or disagree with my list but hopefully you get my point. It remains to be seen if it worked or not depending on what the fallout is. Will users, moderators and most importantly advertisers leave? Will reddit IPO? Will they be able to hire? Will spez survive this as CEO?