I’m not trying to convince anyone to go back i promise, quite the contrary actually cause I think spez plans to just decrease the cost of the API and act like it was a bargain deal sacrifice while not solving any of the issues at all
But, when I think about it even if spez did actually listen and reverse all changes I don’t think i want to go back to Reddit cause from what Ive seen Lemmy is just friendlier and less :Be Corporate Friendly: I would honestly love it if Lemmy did a project like r/place one of these days so we could see what the internet is actually like instead of what happened in 2022 (I really did enjoy what a bunch of communities did but when the mods started abusing their powers to make it corporate r/place lost so much meaning) but i am curious since i’m not going back is there anything Reddit can do to make you go back to Reddit?
Highly unlikely they’d ever be able to rebuild that bridge but it would start with turning back the API decision. Then hiring Christian from Apollo to help them with building a better app. A significant amount of the leadership stepping down and leaving. Mods getting paid. Transitioning to a platform not reliant on ads. Getting Victoria of AMA fame back. Having mods be an elected position.
If all that happened maybe I’d think they turned into something worth coming back to.
I feel like Christian wouldn’t take a job at reddit if they offered one. He seems to be pretty set on being a native iOS developer and reddit’s app is cross-platform. Not to mention he has beef with the CEO now, lol
In an interview posted to youtube the other day I am pretty sure he said they did offer him a job when he first released apollo but he declined
How do you see that working? Pay for access? Pay to post? I know there’s one sort of BBS called “The Well” that apparently has run since 1985 by charging monthly, now $15 a month. That’s a big ask for sight unseen BBS / forum. But that’s apparently what it costs to run the servers for ~ 3,000 people.
I just think that sort of thing would really really kill reddit right fast - approximately none of the normies are going to want to pay monthly for memes and harassment.
If you want to read the history The WELL, and other virtual communities, then Howard Rheinghold’s book “The Virtual Community” is a very good read. I first read it before I even had internet access, and it completely captivated me. Talk of running The WELL on a minicomputer will certainly feel dated, though :-)