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This is a cycle we can expect for any platform that has the bills. Hosting is not free. Storage is not free. Bandwidth is not free. Labor to fix bugs and develo

This is a cycle we can expect for any platform that has the bills. Hosting is not free. Storage is not free. Bandwidth is not free. Labor to fix bugs and develop features is not free. So this constant expectation that it should all be free (or even cheap) is not a realistic world view. We joke about the fact that "the cloud" isn't real, it's just someone else's computer. But isn't that kinda the basis of the current delusion? "We want to have complete freedom, be completely safe, get the features we want, have it for free and... don't bother me with any advertisement".

a4a4a4a4 3y ago
I don't think any of the third part devs are asking for it to be free. The Apollo devs initial response to the announcement was "I'm honestly looking forward to the pricing and the stuff you're rolling out provided it's enough to keep me with a job. You guys seem nothing but reasonable, so I'm looking to finding out more." Then they announced pricing which is 29x the current revenue per user, and are blocking NSFW content from the API anyway. Latest update from him: https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_t...
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
I do free community building all the time, both irl and online and can tell you the #1 thing lacking ... leaders. We could have exactly what you describe but people just don't step up and take responsibility and leadership. Its frustrating, exhausting and disheartening to constantly be dragging people into taking care of each other.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  As someone with similar experience, 100% agree. Free, competent, altruistically interested Pick two when looking for leaders. The "volunteer leader problem" boils down to looking for an altruistic individual who's capable and willing to put up with a ton of shit for... love of X. There aren't many. There shouldn't be any, but some people are awesome. In reality, you end up having to substitute some package of incentives (prestige, authority, etc.) in order to entice on-the-fence candidates, and then ride herd on ensuring they don't succumb to their baser instincts. So when mods say mod tools are important, what they're really saying is: "I put up with a lot of shit, to make you money, and I don't get paid. Give me something in return that makes me feel like you're thankful." Reddit's been pretty bad, historically and presently, at doing that.
  - InSteady 3y ago
    I don't have personal experience with this online, but IRL when you volunteer the people you are helping face to face (and others who see your actions) tend to be pretty vocal about thanking you and otherwise showing that they respect and appreciate what you are doing. I imagine online the vast majority of personal interaction is people who are aggrieved, angry, or just plain hate mods on an ideological level. I often wonder how many people go out of their way to directly contact the mods and say "thank you for what you are doing" on a regular basis. I tend to stick up for mods when I see people mindlessly bitching (r/science was terrible for this, because it's actually heavily moderated as it should be), but I only DMed a mod to say thanks on maybe one occasion... All that is to say, it's one thing to feel like the ratio of hate:love you are getting from users is pretty tilted towards the negative... but getting only empty words and no support from the institutional level is actual injury not just insult. That's why I stand with the mods, and after 10 years or so of daily usage I have left reddit for good (or until reasonable accommodations are made). Although I'll admit, I've been wanting to break my reddit habits for a long time, so this decision does include some self-interest on my part.
    - ethbr0 3y ago
      I've volunteered as leadership in mixed IRL/online groups, and agreed that the online components were far more toxic. People who can't avoid being assholes to other people tend to avoid actually being around other people, but god knows they'll post a lot online. Or as a quip I once heard said, "You have a higher floor of politeness to people who can punch you in the face in reply."
  - enw 3y ago
    Yet, as expected, when threatened to take their online “authority” away so many Reddit mods buckled and opened the subreddits in a hearbeat.
ornornor 3y ago
People are willing to pay Reddit, just not the exorbitant rates they’re asking especially when they didn’t lift a finger to empower the people working for Reddit for free.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Moderators do not work for Reddit just like group admins do no work for Facebook. These people are customers who use the product just like any other user. A section of the general population enjoy building and running communities which Reddit has empowered. Them thinking they’re “working for Reddit” is the reason why so many of them seem out of touch. They are not Reddit employees and Reddit does not need them.
  - ornornor 3y ago
    > Reddit does not need them. We’ll see.
wintermutestwin 3y ago
>This is a cycle we can expect for any platform that has the bills. I am not surprised to hear this sentiment so frequently in this startup minded space, but there is another approach to the problem. IMO, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc are technically "simple" (once you strip them down to what the end user actually needs from the service) and they provide incredibly valuable services to the world (well I think Twitter is incredibly lame, but I guess I am alone in this opinion). Why aren't there non-profit (or benefit corporation) versions of these services? Enshitification requires the profit motive.
- noirscape 3y ago
  Because the problem isn't technical, it's well, human. As it turns out, when we're given a slight bit of anonymity (in the "my name and face aren't attached to this" sense, not in the "no consistent identity" sense, aka "crypto won't solve this either"), the barrier to being an asshole becomes significantly lower[0]. Someone needs to moderate those spaces and Masnicks Theorem states that any form of content moderation at scale doesn't properly work[1] because nobody can agree on what "bad behavior" even is outside the blatantly obvious like automated spam. (And just to head this off - automated techniques like karma and "votes" sound great in theory but in practice enable all sorts of abuse. - the problem isn't technical and can't be technically solved.) The problem is simply scale - there's plenty of niche communities for various interests who are likely to not fall victim to the process due to either being non-profit or existing perpendicular to a business' actual revenue stream[2]. Those communities will keep existing until they simply burn out (the natural lifecycle) and the last couple mods just quietly close the place down. Twitter/Facebook/Reddit attempted to unnaturally cannabilize those communities by moving everything in their walled gardens (alongside a lucky break due to Tapatalk killing the ability for traditional forums to move to mobile) and then trying to extract money from them. Their state is honestly more unnatural than you'd think, but it's what most users gravitated towards. The closest we have right now as a solution to marry the self-managed forums of old with centralized services is the fediverse, but explaining it to people is often considered to be difficult enough that it probably won't grab mainstream appeal. And y'know... Maybe that's alright? Centralized social media that tries to appeal to everyone may just have been a mistake to begin with. [0]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InternetJerk https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InternetJerk (formerly known as GIFT or Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem.) [1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-theorem-content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-to-do-well/ https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-t... [2]: HN being the latter, mostly existing to market YC startups and because paulg wanted a discussion forum.
nerdbert 3y ago
The issue isn't paying the bills. The issue is trying to reach to a huge IPO payday for the handful of people placed to cash out. If all they cared about were paying the server bills, there would be easy compromises to be made.
flas9sd 3y ago
platforms create a two sided market, inflating their own value as middlemen and blackbox (if not publicly listed). What mastodon showed is: how high is the bill really? as in: given the opportunity, maybe users will foot the bill and having an incentive to optimize for cost. My only worry is a tragedy of the commons scenario.
FreshStart 3y ago
Actually a state actor might pick up that bill to own the access to the world's data without the constant churn of innovation dead social networks.

a4a4a4a4 3y ago

I don't think any of the third part devs are asking for it to be free. The Apollo devs initial response to the announcement was "I'm honestly looking forward to the pricing and the stuff you're rolling out provided it's enough to keep me with a job. You guys seem nothing but reasonable, so I'm looking to finding out more." Then they announced pricing which is 29x the current revenue per user, and are blocking NSFW content from the API anyway. Latest update from him: https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_t...

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

I do free community building all the time, both irl and online and can tell you the #1 thing lacking ... leaders. We could have exactly what you describe but people just don't step up and take responsibility and leadership. Its frustrating, exhausting and disheartening to constantly be dragging people into taking care of each other.

ethbr0 3y ago
As someone with similar experience, 100% agree. Free, competent, altruistically interested Pick two when looking for leaders. The "volunteer leader problem" boils down to looking for an altruistic individual who's capable and willing to put up with a ton of shit for... love of X. There aren't many. There shouldn't be any, but some people are awesome. In reality, you end up having to substitute some package of incentives (prestige, authority, etc.) in order to entice on-the-fence candidates, and then ride herd on ensuring they don't succumb to their baser instincts. So when mods say mod tools are important, what they're really saying is: "I put up with a lot of shit, to make you money, and I don't get paid. Give me something in return that makes me feel like you're thankful." Reddit's been pretty bad, historically and presently, at doing that.
- InSteady 3y ago
  I don't have personal experience with this online, but IRL when you volunteer the people you are helping face to face (and others who see your actions) tend to be pretty vocal about thanking you and otherwise showing that they respect and appreciate what you are doing. I imagine online the vast majority of personal interaction is people who are aggrieved, angry, or just plain hate mods on an ideological level. I often wonder how many people go out of their way to directly contact the mods and say "thank you for what you are doing" on a regular basis. I tend to stick up for mods when I see people mindlessly bitching (r/science was terrible for this, because it's actually heavily moderated as it should be), but I only DMed a mod to say thanks on maybe one occasion... All that is to say, it's one thing to feel like the ratio of hate:love you are getting from users is pretty tilted towards the negative... but getting only empty words and no support from the institutional level is actual injury not just insult. That's why I stand with the mods, and after 10 years or so of daily usage I have left reddit for good (or until reasonable accommodations are made). Although I'll admit, I've been wanting to break my reddit habits for a long time, so this decision does include some self-interest on my part.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    I've volunteered as leadership in mixed IRL/online groups, and agreed that the online components were far more toxic. People who can't avoid being assholes to other people tend to avoid actually being around other people, but god knows they'll post a lot online. Or as a quip I once heard said, "You have a higher floor of politeness to people who can punch you in the face in reply."
- enw 3y ago
  Yet, as expected, when threatened to take their online “authority” away so many Reddit mods buckled and opened the subreddits in a hearbeat.

ornornor 3y ago

People are willing to pay Reddit, just not the exorbitant rates they’re asking especially when they didn’t lift a finger to empower the people working for Reddit for free.

edgyquant 3y ago
Moderators do not work for Reddit just like group admins do no work for Facebook. These people are customers who use the product just like any other user. A section of the general population enjoy building and running communities which Reddit has empowered. Them thinking they’re “working for Reddit” is the reason why so many of them seem out of touch. They are not Reddit employees and Reddit does not need them.
- ornornor 3y ago
  > Reddit does not need them. We’ll see.

wintermutestwin 3y ago

>This is a cycle we can expect for any platform that has the bills. I am not surprised to hear this sentiment so frequently in this startup minded space, but there is another approach to the problem. IMO, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc are technically "simple" (once you strip them down to what the end user actually needs from the service) and they provide incredibly valuable services to the world (well I think Twitter is incredibly lame, but I guess I am alone in this opinion). Why aren't there non-profit (or benefit corporation) versions of these services? Enshitification requires the profit motive.

noirscape 3y ago
Because the problem isn't technical, it's well, human. As it turns out, when we're given a slight bit of anonymity (in the "my name and face aren't attached to this" sense, not in the "no consistent identity" sense, aka "crypto won't solve this either"), the barrier to being an asshole becomes significantly lower[0]. Someone needs to moderate those spaces and Masnicks Theorem states that any form of content moderation at scale doesn't properly work[1] because nobody can agree on what "bad behavior" even is outside the blatantly obvious like automated spam. (And just to head this off - automated techniques like karma and "votes" sound great in theory but in practice enable all sorts of abuse. - the problem isn't technical and can't be technically solved.) The problem is simply scale - there's plenty of niche communities for various interests who are likely to not fall victim to the process due to either being non-profit or existing perpendicular to a business' actual revenue stream[2]. Those communities will keep existing until they simply burn out (the natural lifecycle) and the last couple mods just quietly close the place down. Twitter/Facebook/Reddit attempted to unnaturally cannabilize those communities by moving everything in their walled gardens (alongside a lucky break due to Tapatalk killing the ability for traditional forums to move to mobile) and then trying to extract money from them. Their state is honestly more unnatural than you'd think, but it's what most users gravitated towards. The closest we have right now as a solution to marry the self-managed forums of old with centralized services is the fediverse, but explaining it to people is often considered to be difficult enough that it probably won't grab mainstream appeal. And y'know... Maybe that's alright? Centralized social media that tries to appeal to everyone may just have been a mistake to begin with. [0]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InternetJerk https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InternetJerk (formerly known as GIFT or Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem.) [1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-theorem-content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-to-do-well/ https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-t... [2]: HN being the latter, mostly existing to market YC startups and because paulg wanted a discussion forum.

nerdbert 3y ago

The issue isn't paying the bills. The issue is trying to reach to a huge IPO payday for the handful of people placed to cash out. If all they cared about were paying the server bills, there would be easy compromises to be made.

flas9sd 3y ago

platforms create a two sided market, inflating their own value as middlemen and blackbox (if not publicly listed). What mastodon showed is: how high is the bill really? as in: given the opportunity, maybe users will foot the bill and having an incentive to optimize for cost. My only worry is a tragedy of the commons scenario.

FreshStart 3y ago

Actually a state actor might pick up that bill to own the access to the world's data without the constant churn of innovation dead social networks.