Reddit’s unpopular decision to revise its API pricing in a move that’s forcing third-party apps out of business has taken a weird turn. In an AMA hosted today by Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman, aka u/spez on the internet forum site, the exec doubled down on accusations against the developer behind the well-liked third-party […]
Thing is, I’m kind of settled with the idea that Reddit will still win out monetarily with this. 99% of users are going to take the path of least resistance, which is kinda expected.
So my goal is more around just having a good conversational community, and I kinda like the change in pace now that I’m using alternatives. I don’t really focus on “Reddit losing”. I just like having a good place to chat. It might be funny to see if they end up reversing course, but I’m not losing sleep on that turnout.
That is my feeling. I want Lemmy to be good, so I hope a lot of quality users jump ship from Reddit, but if Reddit retains the millions of passive users, then I’m happy for Reddit to keep them. One part of Reddit’s issue was the diluted quality of posts and comments, so let it continue to exist to filter people who want that experience. ___
Yeah it sounds harsh but once a subreddit got above 100k its quality inevitably took a nose dive unless this was actively moderated against which it usually wasn’t. Lurkers are fine in general but when the whole platform is mostly lurkers looking to doomscroll TikTok style rather the lurkers wanting to read (and upvote) decent high-effort content it all goes down the pan pretty quickly.
If Reddit’s role in the Fediverse is as a great big sponge to soak up the passive users who just want quick content then long live Reddit! Spez staying on as CEO and increasingly zombifying the platform is actually great for us because it will drive active users here and keep the passive users on Reddit.
I’m ok with the smarter people forming communities elsewhere like Lemmy. Reddit brain drain will definitely be a thing. It’s going to be the new Facebook when this is all over.
Reddit won’t come out on top. They’ll survive, but it’s going to hurt them. They seem to have pissed off most communities on the site. It’s the largest protest they’ve ever had.
Reddit doesn’t run a profit yet, so all they need to achieve is enough to get into the black. Like Twitter, Reddit I don’t think will crash and burn but the quality will drop dramatically. Reddit doesn’t care about quality long as there’s enough users on the site to make the paid ads have value. In the short term I think they’ll succeed in that but it’s going to turn into a cesspool.
But if those up for actual conversation and vaguely respectful debate come over here & leave the trolls and the karma farmers with Spez then that’s a great result!
Should be noted, Twitter is actively crashing and burning and may file for bankruptcy this year.
…And Mastodon seems to be a much nicer place to be than Twitter, even if it is a smaller “community”
Excellent point. Those of us who actually value conversation will make the effort to find, sign up for, and learn another platform. For the trolls and karma farmers, that’s just too much trouble. There will still be enough targets on Reddit to satisfy trolls, plus we’ve got the sunk cost fallacy working for us: karma farmers would lose their precious karma by leaving. Reddit is much more bot-friendly, too.
Thanks for being a greedy jerk, spez! Reddit is serving the Lemmy community as a bullshit filter!
They are taking the pig to market. The pig is not going to be okay, but a few people are going to get fat. That was the whole point all along and why didn’t everyone see that.
It’s just a question of if it sticks or not. Will people complain and mods relent or admins intervene and oust mod teams for a new batch of dummies? I feel the answer is yes.
I really hope this doesn’t happen, but I fear the same. Often these corpos will just bet on people being lazy, forgetting how bad the scandal was after a few weeks/months, and just roll over for them.
I just hope Reddit utterly collapses as a message to the wider industry, but I doubt it will and even if it did, I think the message would likely fall on deaf ears.
I don’t know where reddit’s going from this, but I agree that the main focus should be what happens here. Seems like it gave the userbase a nice boost, and that’s mostly it.
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People jumping ship will no longer be commenting or posting new content, so hopefully there are a few big hitters.
What I’m really hoping for is a lot of the mods to leave or go on strike. There’s only so many people who are willing to do the work for free, especially qualified people who care about the content.
out of curiosity, what alternatives are you using? im only on lemmy rn but i wanna try other stuff out
I also signed up to kbin. Can’t give opinions yet, because I just started using both of these.
True, to hell with them. I’ll do me.
Same. We have seen nothing but reddit shitting the bed. If people are still staying everything, they’re not as likely to leave. If this doesn’t do it, then that’s that. The subs I would consider stating for are dead. Emulation has a post from yesterday, and then 5 days ago. EmulationOnAndroid is still private. Sad to see the community not there anymore, since it was a great way to keep up with everything that was going on, but if they don’t pick up here I’ll just watch some YouTubers and move on.
Depends on the quality of the first-party mod tools and if enough mods stick around. Reddit doesn’t work without free labor. It’ll be overrun by spam and trolls.