Imagine how differently this would have played out if Reddit CEO Steve Huffman had taken a collaborative approach with app developers and stake holders. A few months ago, he could have called them up and humbly asked them for ideas and assistance in making Reddit profitable. Reddit would be on path to financial success by now.
I don’t think it’s wrong for Spez to charge for API access, but the rates he’s vowing to charge are excessive and clearly designed to nuke third-party apps from their ecosystem.
As for how I’d make money from Reddit in his shoes, I’d:
- Add more features for Reddit Premium, like being able to view more than 1,000 items on the front page, video uploads in comments, or enhanced search functionality.
- Add OnlyFans-style subscriptions or revenue sharing for partnered subreddits/users, with a 90% to 10% cut between content creators and Reddit.
- Bring back RPAN as a full time streaming platform to compete with the likes of Twitch/Kick.
It’s a corporate us vs them mentality. I don’t think Steve would even ask his own employees for help - the people who are on the ground running the company. The internal memo strongly indicates that Reddit doesn’t have a two-way communication channel with leadership.
It’s a shame, because refusing to take feedback is what ends up sinking most companies.
As much as I do hope this helps, I’m afraid it won’t change a thing: Like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well." -Spez. Seem they will ride out this storm. This have to be permanent to make any changes at Reddit.
But not for me. I’m forever gone.
And if there are enough power users (lots of comments, posts) like me who feel the same, it will have an impact.
There’s a HUGE middle ground between “nothing changes” and “reddit goes out of business.” As we see with Twitter, you can have a zombie platform that persists but slowly loses inertia month after month.
It’s not that Reddit dies abruptly. It’s that the platform is wounded now and, without attention, will bleed out slowly over many years.
At a communications conference last week, a Bloomberg reporter told the attendees that most tier 1 journalists are looking for stories on LinkedIn now instead of Twitter. It’s gone from vital to junk in just a few months. Without its moderators, Reddit faces the same fate: lots of activity, but most of it junk.
Its not the loss of moderators, its the loss of content. If reddit hadn’t changed their original self moderation model this couldn’t happen. Or at least, not like this.
Moderators are not responsible for making content, they just moderate a sub where others create content. Originally users moderated content on their own.
Pretty funny how reddit’s move to authoritarianism has worked against them this time.
Maybe Spez is right (obligatory fuck /u/spez comment), but this blowout also brought Lemmy and other similar sites to the limelight. We’re on the stage where we early adopters are testing the waters, it’s just a matter of time until a new competitor stands above the others and Spez’s Reddit irónico s going to have to eat those words.
a lot of people back on Reddit could not give less of a shit about the issues and just want their content; they even see this as just mods powertripping again
it’s kind of annoying to see that, tbh, even if I sort of get it
A look at their comment histories might be interesting, to see if they’re the ones contributing content worth reading.
I suspect I can guess the answer.
I haven’t seen that. Everyone seems to be rather upset about Apollo, RIF, Relay, etc. The only person I’ve seen suggesting power tripping mods is u/spez.
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Keep in mind that Reddit is running a propaganda campaign to try to squash the blackout. Notice most of the comments are almost exactly the same. As we saw with Trump, all it takes is a few well placed comments to stir up dissent and get people to parrot dumb talking points. Reddit can easily manipulate votes and comments to make it look like most people don’t care, but obviously they do, because there was the biggest blackout I’ve seen on a social media platform ever.
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Cool that sites are reporting on it. Maybe that’ll add pressure.
Couldn’t the Admin team just force-open subs, at least the big ones?
Am I missing something? I mean they could just hire new mods.
I hope they don’t, but spez isn’t exactly known for being righteous
Thats what they are doing
Comments around that tweet are a dumpster fire
Sure, they could go find new people who do this job for free (and thanks to the API changes virtually tool-less) or hire people to do it for them. Whether those people will be equally successful in nurturing their communities, who knows.
But it’s definitely an option and probably only a matter of time before it happens.
They could, but this would probably anger people further. So they’re hoping it blows over without them needing to take aggressive actions.
I guess Reddit has introduced free API calls for moderator apps. They’re trying to placate the mods, but screw the users. Good luck with that.
It’s almost like they never considered that moderators use the same third party apps as the rest of their users, either.
Though based on the leaked internal memo, it looks like Reddit doesn’t think very much of their users at all.
My problem with the “free API” is there are no control mechanisms for it. What’s to stop Reddit from discontinuing the free contract if they decide to develop their own specific use App? A creator or developer of any said App will be beholden to bend or subjugate themselves to the whims of Reddit admins, any controversial comments or events like that of Apollo could nullify the free API if they don’t approve of your actions.
It’s a slippery slope and we’ve already been shown that Reddit can and will change/vilify anyone who doesn’t fall in line especially when IPO time comes.
It turns out though, the mods are also users. That’s the whole free labor market Reddit has tapped into. They don’t have to pay mods and so users are mods. Yet now they are trying to monetize just half and completely failing to understand what their user base even looks like. I don’t know many mods but the ones I do know are users first and moderators because they want the community to be decent.
Apparently the head mod of /r/Tumblr has already been forcibly demodded. A bit weird that Tumblr of all places has been the starting point.
I predicted this but kind of surprised that it happened so fast. I’m guessing this mod won’t allow anything critical of spez.
I predicted forcible demods…
But like, I feel like the one thing that would work is the one thing no one has been talking about.
A mod strike!
Maybe it has been suppressed because it would seem too radical but like, if the communities are going to die anyways might as well go out with a bang. Mods should all go on strike and spammers can run free and burn the site to the ground. That’s basically what happened with Twitter, right? Has Spez seen what has happened to the valuation of Twitter this past year or what?
I went on Reddit during the blackout and on the front page there were shitty tattoos of bdsm furries with their dick and balls out… If the front page could all turn into that and the enforcement of NSFW tags was lost due to lack of mods, I can’t imagine that the shareholders would be happy about what the site has become.
Mod + user direct action - everyone should post spacedicks/porn and mods should refuse to enforce the rules. Reddit wants to destroy the mods? Then reddit should see what a world without mods on the internet actually looks like… Especially before the IPO. Plus, the internet can get VERY active when it comes to participating in mischief instead of watching things slowly fall apart. I’d upvote spacedicks for the cause.
I have no idea why no one is talking about this unless posts/comments like that are being suppressed. Since it seems like most 3rd party apps have the best mod tools and most mods won’t keep up their work if they don’t have the right tools, the end result will be the same anyways.
Edit: they can’t afford to pay people to replace enough mods. Spez deserves a look at what reddit will become BEFORE the IPO in my opinion.
Reddit wants to destroy the mods? Then reddit should see what a world without mods on the internet actually looks like… Especially before the IPO
To be fair… reddit was originally designed to be self-moderated by the users… and it use to work really well. It would be a miracle if they moved back to that model and I would no doubt switch back to them from lemmy if they did. Those were the hey days of reddit and the internet as a whole.
The real question I think is will Reddit retaliate back and forcibly recover communities and install new mods?
If they tried to hire enough mods to do a quality job of it they’d be bankrupt by the end of the year. I don’t know if they’ll have enough capable volunteers for a significant fraction of the subreddits.
I’m happy to find a place like Lemmy. It’s good to have federated services that don’t have to be at the beck and call of a group of heartless investors with the face of a petulant manchild like Spez.
correct.
It will not pass until it is made right.
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The major Star Trek subs all have. Started their own Lemmy instance (startrek.website) and have their private message directing folks over.
Well they uave been familiar with the Federation for very long time.
You know, I wonder if that was in all seriousness actually part of it, because they do have positive associations with the word federation, and that’s the same effect marketing mainly tries to achieve. Might make people just that little bit more interested in it and more willing to work through any troubles getting used to a new system.
I’m sure that subconsciously influenced the decision at least a bit. Plus the whole socialist and “fuck money” attitude in Trek.
that would explain why Im suddenly seeing a ton of star trek posts on my federated feed, I mean Id expect some but Ive seen a lot more all of a sudden
LOL That would be me bringing them into the federation LMAO
More star trek fans in the fediverse = awesome, imo. Welcome aboard, and thanks.
As somebody who isn’t even a Star Trek fan, I still think a flood of trekkies is infinitely cooler than a flood of white supremacists which have killed similar platforms.
That’s awesome. Starting a community is cool but starting their own instance is next level.
Hey Trekkies are top nerd, would you expect any less? Godspeed brothers.
I grew up with TNG and it warms my heart that it’s still going strong, we definitely need some of that optimism for the future.
Oh nice I was looking for a good Trek community. Did
/r/tuvixinstitute/r/daystrominstitute move over?They did! !daystrominstitute@startrek.website is Daystrom. !startrek@startrek.website is the mainsub, and !risa@startrek.website is the meme/shitpost sub!
How do I get to those from your comment? I clicked them and it just opened Gmail and decided the links were the addresses lol.
Try this, I’m still learning how to link other communities.
Frustratingly, your first link there works for me, but the other two return 404s…
It’s possible your space isn’t federated with those communities yet? You might need to start the link with searching for them using the !instance@web.site command to force your instance to download their pages first.
Does anybody know yet if you are allowed to criticize startrek on those communities? I had a major problem with /r/startrek in that you couldn’t say anything less than glowingly positive or you were banned. Like, not even about the whole woke bullshit, you couldn’t even say the writing was below par - banned.
I just wanna talk about startrek, both the good and the glaringly bad lol.
You could always criticize them, you just couldn’t be lazy about your criticism.
I’ve many times talked about the inconsistency in character development, the trend to “give backstory and then kill a character,” and the absolutely nauseating camera movement (especially in the early seasons) of Discovery, for example. Never even got a warning, nor my posts removed.
There was a major thread like a year back talking about how in Disco, the actors don’t actually move about a scene when they do things. The movement is from room to room, and then they are stuck in place as they talk and it really throws you out of it.
Edit: In fact, there’s literally a post critiquing season 4 of Discovery right now on their front page with healthy discussion in the comments.
All of these were allowed before and still.
Disagree. I was banned from there when they signed on with the brigade to get /r/nonewnormal banned. My offending post? “Et tu, /r/startrek?” (Off topic - so much for Reddits rules against “brigading.”)
That was it. And it was in that thread (so it was on topic.) And I watched others get banned in the same thread for literally quoting from the TNG episode “The Drumhead.” So I found alternate startrek subs and saw the influx of other users who were banned from the main sub for mild criticism (with receipts). Then watched those subs get banned as well for not towing the Paramount line.
I firmly believe that the main ST sub was monitored, if not infiltrated by, Paramount (or a PR/marketing firm hired by them) to halt any negative discussion of the new shows. I watched similar things happen all across Reddit, especially in the larger subs. After being on Reddit for nearly 15 years (since just prior to the Digg migration), that place has changed.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Considering you used “woke” as a pejorative earlier and now you’re ranting about conspiracies involving Paramount (why would Paramount sanction a move to the fediverse where they can’t show ads?) and supporting a sub that was about supporting anti-mask/anti-vaxx nonsense during the beginning of a global pandemic that’s killed ~7 million people since 2020, I really am not even interested in furthering this discussion with you. LLAP 🖖
I really am not even interested in furthering this discussion with you.
Aww, and we were having such a pleasant conversation. That’s ok, I’m going to respond to you anyways, for the benefit of anybody else who comes across this.
Ahem.
Considering you used “woke” as a pejorative
I believe what I said was “woke bullshit.” And I used it as an adjective to describe, specifically, one aspect of a show that you were not allowed to criticize on /r/startrek. Like it or not, you cannot deny that Disco is woke AF. I would personally argue that ST has always been progressive, and in the modern era going woke was the obvious and logical next step for the franchise. Furthermore, it has been criticized for this, rightly or wrongly. But that’s the literal point of a discussion board, to have a discussion. And people are allowed to like different things - that’s ok. They’re even allowed to * gasp * like things that are different than you like, or like things that you don’t like - that’s also ok. What is not ok, IMO, is censoring the conversation because you don’t like it (to a point, please don’t use this as a straw man or slippery slope, let’s keep this on topic). And that’s what was happening on /r/startrek with all the bans.
ranting about conspiracies involving Paramount
“Oh no, he’s ranting! Watch out, he’ll start raving next!” 🙄 Because it makes zero sense that Paramount would keep an eye on the largest message board on the internet dedicated to discussing their flagship product. No sense whatsoever. Crazy talk. And it further makes even less sense that they would want to advertise on the platform hosting that message board, to try and drive traffic towards their subscription service, being buoyed by their flagship product. Complete lunacy. And then to even suggest (gasp!) that they would use those advertising dollars to apply pressure to the platform to quell any sort of negative discussion about their flagship product, well that just crosses a line. I mean, that would never happen, and to suggest otherwise is clearly insane.
why would Paramount sanction a move to the fediverse where they can’t show ads?
Never said they did. I said that my belief is that they were involved to an extent over on /r/startrek. I don’t think they would follow over here, for the reasons you’ve stated. But knowing that the same mods that ran /r/startrek are also running startrek.website is enough to give me pause about what sort of criticism of the brand will be allowed.
Edit: If Reddit dies a miserable death, and startrek.website becomes the de facto startrek message board on the internet, it would be extremely naive to think that Paramount (or their PR/marketing firm) wouldn’t follow the Fediverse. They wouldn’t be able to apply pressure directly like they can/could on Reddit with their advertising dollars, but if I worked for that department I’d get very creative to see how I could exercise control over the content of the community. Just off the top of my head, first thing I’d do is to offer a job to one of (if not all of) the moderators - “We’ll pay you $ to make your community look like this. Welcome aboard!” Hell, maybe that’s simply all they did on Reddit in the first place - no need to pressure the platform when you can simply buy the mods. (I’m not saying that’s what happened, I’m simply thinking out loud. 🤷♂️)
and supporting a sub that was about supporting anti-mask/anti-vaxx nonsense
It was a sub dedicated to vaccine hesitancy, vaccine-induced injuries, and vaccine mania (“take the vax or lose your job!”). And Covid vaccine injuries are very fucking real. I’m old enough to remember the last time a vaccine was rushed to market, and allllll the problems that caused - there is very good reason to be hesitant this time around. Personally, I believe “you do you” - but the hive-mind hysteria would have none of that. (“Brought to you by Pfizer!” ?)
So that’s ok. I think we’ve both gotten what we needed out of this conversation. You have yourself a wonderful day, I wish you nothing but health and happiness.
Edit: almost forget this gem!
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
To quote Nero: “Don’t tell me that didn’t happen! I watched it happen! It did happen!” Lololol
I would be cautious too if I were a sub owner and guiding people to an alternative honestly. Lemmy and Kbin both are relatively unstable right now, even if they are pretty good. Waiting a little to see which instances are more stable and likely to last is a good move before planting people somewhere and making an official replacement sub.
Stuff’s already starting to go back to public, I expect nothing to change for the better.
I mean it seems like only a couple thousand went public, the site is still very much noticeably short on content.
And reddit still don’t give a shit. Just shows how much they care about the community.
I honestly don’t care whether or not reddit (the company) gives a shit. I just want users to realize that reddit deserves to be replaced by something more open and user focused.
Im surprised they havent just performed takovers of the private subreddits and installed new mods.
Maybe they have but are doing it at a slow pacing, either because its manual or because it may attract less attention.
They have. I assume you haven’t seen the r/adviceanimals post yet?
I expect most of the “popular” subs (like the one you mentioned) aren’t ones I have ever been aware of or cared to be aware of.
I wasn’t aware either, but it was mentioned on Lemmy somewhere
I haven’t. But now I’ve seen a couple. I believe they did /r/tumbler or something dirty too.
It’s a shame. Totally antithetical to their culture they (Reddit) started and grew with as a freedom of speech platform.
They’ve been running away from their culture of free speech since 2008. The only direction they have ever moved has been in the opposite direction.
Lemmy is growing but we need to work to make easy to allow reddit mods to setup instances and fund them
I am a Reddit mod. Gimme the step-by-step tutorial! There are certain subs that I want to see reproduced ASAP, like /r/LifeProTips and more!
Well, on Beehaw you cannot create new communities, but you certainly can be made a mod of one even from another instance. Find the ones you want and ask the current mods of it.
Why can’t we create communities on here? Do the Beehaw admins specifically restrict this? Thanks, by the way.
I hope the struggle continues until Reddit feels the pain to their bottom line.
It wont. They are going to step in.
Who cares? We’re here now, the only thing we should hope it’s that the good content creators move from reddit to here, aside from that, they may do what they want with the site from here on.
