Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-memo-api-pricing-changes-steve-huffman

by mfiguiere • 3 years ago

242 252 3 years ago

theverge.com

minimaxir• 3 years ago

Before the blackout, many subreddits hinted at extending the blackout indefinitely if Reddit is being adversarial.

This seems adversarial.

jtode3• 3 years ago

Seems like someone determined to finish the task his masters sent him to do.

kibwen3• 3 years ago

Extending the blackout indefinitely has now become a coordinated action via /r/ModCoord (which is the also the source of the list of blacked out subreddits that people are using), with an optional "solidarity mode" that involves blacking out one day a week in perpetuity (which they're calling "Touch Grass Tuesdays"): https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/148ks6u/indefinit...

mr_00ff004• 3 years ago

The irony of organizing a blackout to teach Reddit a lesson while organizing it on a subreddit.

smsm424• 3 years ago

This sounds like finding ways to fold without it looking like they folded. The question is simple - can they live with the new situation or not? If they are willing to, then protesting on Tuesdays is not going to do much. If they are not, then they are not on every day, not only Tuesday. I don't endorse either side here, but looking realistically, it's either win - Reddit changes their behavior to more acceptable - or loss - Reddit doesn't. Solidarity Tuesdays are just a form of the loss where people still pretend it's not lost yet.

jmclnx• 3 years ago

Funny you linked old.reddit, I find the new version unusable via firefox (I do not do mobile).

EA-31673• 3 years ago

From Reddit's perspective overall this is a terrible idea, but from Huffman's perspective it's purely rational. If he has to walk this back it's probably not compatible with his continued tenure after all, the question of why this was done so hastily and rudely would inevitably undermine his leadership. If he just barrels ahead though, and prays that the addictions of mods and users are greater than their pride/desire to have a functional site, then he can possibly survive.

It's not as though there's a third choice, he can't realistically get rid of the mods and replace them, then expect that to not blow up in his face. He can't walk this back, and he's doubled down on libeling the dev of Apollo for example. "Stay the course and hope everyone just gets over it" is his best option, having already sunk into the quicksand.

IMO of course.

seanosaur3• 3 years ago

he can't realistically get rid of the mods and replace them, then expect that to not blow up in his face

I'm not so sure about that. I would be very surprised if there was a high % of redditors that know / care about the mods or mod system. This could be the cynic in me but I bet he could eject all the mods tomorrow, replace them with more faceless accounts, and the vast majority of reddit's userbase would not see a difference.

Those that have been around the site for a while would notice and feel the change and not be happy about it, but we're most likely talking about a very small single-digit % of the userbase.

oxygen_crisis2• 3 years ago

This decision comes from the board of directors, not Huffman. Huffman's job here is to be the whipping boy for their decisions.

wesapien2• 3 years ago

The one login for multiple forums as nice but I wouIdn't mind it if they fold. But not HN. Today, I can just spin up a dedicated forum browser and save all the username-password there in isolation.

data-ottawa2• 3 years ago

he can't realistically get rid of the mods and replace them

Out of hundreds of millions of users, finding new mods does not seem that difficult. There are a lot of power-hungry users and people looking to leverage moderating for political or financial advantage.

There would be backlash, but I don't know what it would take for the real mass-exodus of Reddit. Lemmy/Tildes aren't showing massive numbers of new users that would make a real exodus (Lemmy has gone from 1k users to 18k, but that's far from 500M on Reddit).

* Source on Lemmy numbers https://the-federation.info/platform/73

paulmd• 3 years ago

Huffman isn't going to walk it back or he'd have done so during the Q+A. Like nobody doubts that mods are willing to take subs private, the move was telegraphed well in advance. Spez doesn't care, he's not going to back down on this change, that was the message from the Q+A last week and actually pushing the button doesn't change the status quo from last week.

They're gonna wait the 48 hours, lever open any major subs that stay closed, and move on with life. If mods leave en-masse there are "abandoned communities" procedures for new mods taking over or being inserted. There will always be someone willing to take on the work for the modicum of status and power it gives you. Some of those will be bad, and life will move on.

Don't mistake "terrible for the communities that have been built" with "terrible for reddit as a business", and yes you're probably also right that there is also "terrible for spez the person" in play here as well (there always is). Even if they lose 25% or 30% of the users turning it into Reddit-Shaped Tiktok, that may be more profitable for Reddit The Business than operating as a community platform. Because advertisers are, on the whole, willing to pay more than the average user, that's always been the thing about Facebook and Google and every other platform. Nobody's really paying for a Kagi subscription, in the grand scheme of things, that's a lot smaller revenue than Google selling Adwords and offering a free search service on the back of it.

But users have an emotional attachment to their posts and their community, and see it (rightly) as something they've built collectively and is being taken away from them. But that's not necessarily where the interests of Reddit The Business lay. Reddit-Shaped Tiktok probably is more profitable.

At the end of the day this is their platform, Spez is YCombinator and they're gonna chase the YC payday. You don't have to like it, but after the symbolic protest they are gonna clear the place out and get back to it.

If you want to build sustainable communities hosted by people who aren't chasing a payday, use Mastodon and Lemmy and Matrix, and not a Ycombinator platform or Facebook or other centralized service. Otherwise we're back here in another 2 years crying about how great Imgur Communities (idk) were before they cranked rates.

It is, of course, an ironic sentiment for YC, home of the “10,000x ROI or go home” mindset. Hypercapitalism is great up until it affects you personally, right? Very “bioshock”.

Tiktok bans leave a market gap for TikTok-Shaped Reddit and everybody in the industry wants to be the one to fill that gap. Spez is pivoting to profitability and 1000x revenue in classic YC style and people act like he’s grown a second head.

Krasnol• 3 years ago

/r/de, THE German sub has extended till Sunday.

MisterBastahrd3• 3 years ago

One of the fun things about reddit is that if mods decide to extend it indefinitely, users are free to create their own subreddits and move their conversations there. Any mod who thinks they're ultimately important in the grand scheme of things is deluding themselves.

adamc5• 3 years ago

I don't think that's true at all. Users can certainly create new subreddits, but new, compelling subreddits usually require... committed mods. Where are they going to come from, and why wouldn't they also care about these changes that make modding much worse?

It's essentially an empty threat.

jtode3• 3 years ago

No individual is all that important, but collectively, a bunch of individuals are extremely powerful. A bunch of angry individuals can destroy quite a lot in a short period of time.

The individuals that are deluding themselves are the very few individuals at the top of this scheme.

bamfly• 3 years ago

I wonder how many of the people coordinating the blackout sent the "challenge accepted" meme to one another, on reading this quote. It was sure the first thing that popped into my head, on reading it.

jtriangle• 3 years ago

"We can remain r*tarded longer than they can remain solvent"

activiation2• 3 years ago

I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public. Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations.

LoL

ortusdux• 3 years ago

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/are-we-the-baddies

EA-31673• 3 years ago

Hans... they've got snoos on them.

exitb• 3 years ago

Only said to make the protesters appear crazy.

nivekney• 3 years ago

inb4 paid actors coming up

dijit2• 3 years ago

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss, external popularity can paint a target on your back for 0.000x% of people (which, of course is infinitesimal but non-zero).

I myself have been harrassed for wearing local game studio garb because our games are "violent" and we have "problems with violence" in the city.

The game was a vampire fantasy battle royale, so not exactly a realistic depiction of gun crime- people who feel vindicated to act a certain way will do so without shame or impunity. Best to not give them anything to cling to.

mehlmao• 3 years ago

I was sad to see Bloodhunt end development. Thanks for your work on it!

activiation2• 3 years ago

True, but that statement might speak to his current state of mind.

tomjen3• 3 years ago

Sorry, but he is right on that - if 0.001% really hate you and you have millions of users, then you have a lot of crazy people.

QuarterRoy2• 3 years ago

I think he went about this completely in the wrong way and comes off as arrogant but on this I agree.

Many subs that didn’t go dark still seem to have plenty of participants and people need their digital crack.

I don’t see this being a digg moment for Reddit.

ugjka6• 3 years ago

The problem isn't that no one can create a Reddit clone, the problem is that no one can scale like Reddit and do it at continuous loss just to be dominant

dragonwriter• 3 years ago

The problem isn't that no one can create a Reddit clone, the problem is that no one can scale like Reddit and do it at continuous loss just to be dominant

Well, anyone with enough money to burn can, but most who could probably can find other, better ways to burn the money.

lawn2• 3 years ago

No, the problem with a Reddit clone isn't technical.

It's getting the network effect that's difficult. And as much as we nerds want to believe, the best technical solution isn't always what wins.

MisterBastahrd3• 3 years ago

The problem with reddit clones is that every single freaking one I've seen featured on HN over the past few days has absolutely no idea of what it takes to run a proper social media platform. We abandoned tagging-as-categories two generations back. Active moderators are always better than hivemind moderation. They're so hellbent on trying to find a use case for monetizing their halfassed "build reddit in 24 hours" clones that they don't actually think about how to make the user experience better. Why the hell is the one guy working on a disbursement algorithm when his UI looks like shit and his site is unnavigable? Because he's a hobbyist, not an entrepreneur.

nologic01• 3 years ago

There is sudden death and there is death by a thousand cuts.

The current social media scene is dead. But its going to be messy because of the network effects, the poisson adtech models etc.

I'd be really surprised if the known platforms can somehow reinvent themselves. They are hostage to the same mechanics that prevents others to do something better.

angrydev• 3 years ago

Tend to agree with your final thought. The web is so different than it was in 2010, yes there are some promising newcomers but our expectations of a service are radically different in 2023. Also want to note there seems to be a general sentiment of fatigue regarding Reddit and social media in general.

But I do want to selfishly drop this gem from the founder of digg on the eve of their destruction, which mirrors so closely the quote from this memo https://twitter.com/kevinrose/status/22543843421

hopefulrabbit• 3 years ago

Got a chuckle from him addressing his employees with a "Hi Snoos".

Am I the only one surprised how hard they are doubling down on this?

QuarterRoy2• 3 years ago

His job is to double down on getting Reddit public with a successful IPO.

Investors want their $ back out of Reddit

almost_usual2• 3 years ago

With all the negative publicity this IPO is DOA. Not unless they push it out year(s) and do PR. Damage is already done.

randomdata3• 3 years ago

An IPO is the least of his concerns right now. It is clear they are on the verge of bankruptcy and are panicking, desperately trying to find some source of revenue to keep the lights on. In the past they would find more investors, but investors have had enough.

mvdtnz• 3 years ago

He's not wrong that it will pass. Getting to this stage was a big mistake but doubling down now seems viable to me. I don't see this as Reddit's Digg moment - but maybe I'm wrong. It's definitely a big bet.

throwaway202351• 3 years ago

I'm so happy that this Reddit stuff is giving HN something to talk about other than ChatGPT.

kobalsky• 3 years ago

until you mentioned it though

southwesterly• 3 years ago

You just lost the GameGPT

TheFreim3• 3 years ago

If the blackout is only for two days then they're right, but if they continue indefinitely it could force a change (reddit is currently unusable since all but one sub I enjoy is gone, if it was gone indefinitely then reddit would be indefinitely out of the picture for me).

adrr2• 3 years ago

They’ll just replace the mods if the popular subreddits go longer than 2 days.

FranzFerdiNaN• 3 years ago

Good luck finding hundreds of new mods.

thegreatdukd3• 3 years ago

Cheering for them to do that for r/nba already. Mods blacked out the sub on the last day of the NBA finals. Zero common sense.

samwillis• 3 years ago

At some point, if they remain closed, Reddit will just take ownership of them, suspend the mods and reopen the reddits.

They will however need to do it carefully, probably after most others have folded and reopened, so as not to cause another blackout.

But ultimately it's their platform, they can do what they want. Maybe they will just have to start actually employing the mods, which may actually end up a net positive from this fiasco.

wellthisisgreat• 3 years ago

the unmotivated mods will tank the subreddits and Reddit doesn't seem to be in a position to pay the mods

copperx• 3 years ago

They can just disable the private subreddit feature without changing absolutely anything else.

Ataraxic2• 3 years ago

Reopening is one thing but moderating an internet forum for no pay is not universally appealing.

Losing the most motivated mods may be a big loss, or extremely active users who post and/or make content. Hard to know right now but I think we'll get an early glimpse when some reopen.

jtode3• 3 years ago

Who will they give the job to, and what will they pay them?

fallinghawks• 3 years ago

Most of the reason Reddit works at all is because of the huge number of volunteers doing moderation because they're passionate about their sub. If Reddit had to pay for moderators they would be bankrupt in a very short time. And even if it did replace mods with its own people (whether paid or not) the quality of the sub will drop.

joecot3• 3 years ago

The problem is that reddit's entire system depends on unpaid labor from volunteer moderators. And they just pissed a lot of those moderators off.

Yeah, reddit can reopen those subreddits if they want to and kick the mods. But who are they going to get to moderate it? They can't afford to hire staff to moderate themselves, reddit is already unprofitable. Are they going to do an application process for scab mods? That will be an extremely unpopular fiasco.

The end result is either reddit capitulating, or becoming an absolute shell of its former self. Most likely they will compromise, charging third party apps for API access but an amount that is feasible. That is capitulation, because the entire point was to kill the third party apps entirely. There's a reason that all their compromises so far revolve around still supporting the third party moderation and accessibility tools. They want the moderators, they need the moderators, they very much want to be done with third party clients.

chung8123• 3 years ago

I am surprised people haven't just made new reddits. I am subscribed to a lot of alternate subs because the mods acted overpowering so there is no reason to think that new subs cannot be created until reddit decides to just remove the mods.

98codes• 3 years ago

The only thing they care about is bottom line, and this, "Huffman says the blackout hasn’t had “significant revenue impact”," is key.

To lose 95.8% of your site (judged by the 8467 out of 8838 subreddits gone dark) and not have a revenue impact at all raises some questions, primarily if there are any revenue streams based on usage, or only on monthly subscriptions and non-view-based ad contracts?

oxygen_crisis2• 3 years ago

To lose 95.8% of your site (judged by the 8467 out of 8838 subreddits gone dark)

That's out of the 8838 that made a pledge to go dark. Those ~400 are just the ones that went "restricted" (read-only) instead of private, or flaked on the pledge.

There are over a million subreddits, the blackout doesn't even reach one percent of them.

willis9363• 3 years ago

CEO caught lying multiple times this week, known to abuse admin powers to manipulate narrative, and completely failing to understand the entity he is in charge of says there is no significant impact from the blackout. Nothing to see here, move along.

graeme2• 3 years ago

It's about 70% of the top 1500 subreddits

https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/

MuffinFlavored5• 3 years ago

If the blackout is only for two days then they're right

Yeah... I don't know the tradeoffs at play but 2 days is... extremely insignificant / probably a bad decision by all of the moderators? It sends a message sure but, it's a bunch of "whiny reddit mods" versus C-level executives in a "help us make API more affordable versus help us not lose a ton of money offering generous free API hosting/usage" negotiation.

How does the CEO + team not just ignore this two day spat? They are in the business of making money. Why should they foot the bill for the API calls? So they have to crack down on some 3rd party apps we all took for granted and kill a few apps off. Sucks but at the end of the day, will it really matter in 6 months?

Now, blackout for a week or two weeks to really hurt their ad revenue traffic, sure

But 2 days?... lol

nequo• 3 years ago

What the 2 day blackout does is it nudges people to explore alternatives. With this, Reddit management has lowered the barriers to exit. When the next boycott comes, migration for many subreddits will be easier.

throitallaway• 3 years ago

Why should they foot the bill for the API calls? So they have to crack down on some 3rd party apps we all took for granted and kill a few apps off. Sucks but at the end of the day, will it really matter in 6 months?

This would be all fine and well if their official app weren't garbage. They do everything in their power to push you to the mobile app, but they seemingly haven't improved it since its inception.

ComodoHacker• 3 years ago

they have to crack down on some 3rd party apps we all took for granted and kill a few apps off

I believe they aim for selling API access to AI companies, for (re)training data. Third party apps are just taking collateral damage.

danaris5• 3 years ago

2 days shows Reddit that the mods can organize. It's a warning shot.

Now, you can't entirely extrapolate from there to an indefinite blackout, but statements like this from the CEO seem like one of the best ways to make it more likely—especially given the average orneriness level of the stereotypical Redditor.

Kazrath• 3 years ago

Why should they foot the bill for the API calls?

You have a serious misunderstanding of how this works. They are footing the bill for API calls regardless. All reddit access by users is to external public facing API's. We are not on their internal network. They MUST have accessible servers + data costs. In all honesty the 3rd parties are probably more efficient as they are a lot less bloated which means LESS costs.

favorited• 3 years ago

They are in the business of making money.

Sounds like they're pretty bad at it, then. 4 days ago, their CEO claimed that Reddit is not profitable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_...

bitshiftfaced• 3 years ago

I'm not saying anyone planned it this way, but it's no surprise to see this particular length of time. You can't accuse the mod of failing care since they did participate. But then again, pushing it much longer poses the risk that the mod loses their subreddit to a new volunteer when Reddit inevitably forces the subreddit open again.

ehutch79• 3 years ago

It'll only be for two days. Which means it's exactly as effective as gas boycotts.

aeternum• 3 years ago

I kind of like it, many of the large overpopulated subreddits are gone and more niche subreddits remain.

Reddit may have found a way to end the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

fho• 3 years ago

For me it's the other way around ... A lot if the high volume subreddits are gone leaving only the small communities that I have actually subscribed to ... And honestly, I very much enjoy the current state of reddit :-/

gremlinsinc6• 3 years ago

it's out indefinitely for me, the day I can no longer use relay for reddit on Android.

jeeva• 3 years ago

It's amazing how my muscle memory reaches for the spot that it was on my homescreen in any spare moment, and also excellent that my doing that has faded hugely even in the last day.

mr_sturd• 3 years ago

I do hope a good chunk of mods extend the blackouts indefinitely.

justrealist2• 3 years ago

Reddit will simply replace the mods if this becomes more than an annoyance.

Rebelgecko2• 3 years ago

For heavily moderated communities (eg r/AskHistorians or even dang here on HN), I think it's a mistake to treat mods as fungible. For better or worse, moderation sets the tone and timbre of the community.

adamc5• 3 years ago

They don't have a mechanism to easily find competent, committed mods. Incompetent mods will create evaporation of users.

Simulacra• 3 years ago

I went to Reddit, the page was black, so I just went somewhere else. I still don't see how this is going to motivate anyone to do anything.

Timon3• 3 years ago

I went to Reddit, the page was black, so I just went somewhere else

It's that part.

rvz• 3 years ago

See. They don't care at all. Just another day of internet outrage.

smsm424• 3 years ago

As I predicted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36192312#36192983 they thing it's a blip on the radar and will soon pass and everybody would just consent to the new reality. The thought of their way not being the right way is not being considered and there would be no changes. They plan to just wait it out and count on redditors to fold and endure what they must. We'll see if they are right.

TheFreim3• 3 years ago

I don't understand why reddit didn't respond to the initial criticism by decreasing the pricing/demands and just slowly implementing what they want over time. Doing it all at once seemed like a silly move.

graypegg• 3 years ago

I think they would’ve done that if they wanted to build Reddit more, but it seems like they’re betting on going public so the people that want to can take their exit.

HDThoreaun• 3 years ago

They want to IPO very soon. Don't have the luxury of rolling this out over a year plus.

willis9363• 3 years ago

Were they surprised by the news that they will IPO very soon? I suppose there was nothing they could have done to avert this issue 2-3 years ago.

smsm424• 3 years ago

Not so silly if they are sure they'll crush the opposition. If they are convinced the boycotts are powerless, then the sooner they demonstrate it, the better.

crznp• 3 years ago

Reddit's main asset is its community, so it is odd to cast the community as their opposition.

AustinDev• 3 years ago

What I don't understand is why they simply don't do what spotify does. Free acounts have to use the official spotify apps but paid accounts can use third party apps and apis as part of their subscription benefits. I would gladly pay for reddit gold monthly if I got to keep using my ad-free 3rd party client of my choice.

Nathanba• 3 years ago

hm yeah that seems like an obvious possible win for reddit, they would convert all the 3rd party app users into paid users. Maybe they simply didn't have that idea

rrrrrrrrrrrryan• 3 years ago

They want everyone to use the official app so they can advertise to paid users in the future. It's the cable TV model: get people to start paying for subscriptions by offering to remove ads, then slowly trickle the ads back in.

A paid tier lets you easily identify which of your users have disposable income, and then you can sell the ability to advertise to them at a huge premium.

Spotify's advertisements are quite different because they're basically worthless. Nobody wants to pay money to advertise to broke people. Their free tier exists merely as a funnel; the advertisements function as intentional annoyances to nudge people into paying for a subscription.

xyst2• 3 years ago

Probably VCs or board pushing CEO to make hasty decisions. Profit over everything else.

wvenable7• 3 years ago

It wasn't until they announced this that all the issues with accessibility came up either. They literally didn't think about it until now (because they didn't have to).

Also running a paid API service actually requires providing services to the third parties that are using them (like billing dashboards, etc).

I'm pretty sure they didn't really think this through entirely when they proposed it. Now that they kind of have a better idea of what they're getting into doubling down is just hubris.

sf4lifer• 3 years ago

Do MODs lose money during blackout. If no, what's the incentive to bring them back quickly?

sarchertech• 3 years ago

Mods aren’t paid, so no. There are mods based around commercial interests that might have some financial incentive—for example if you are an author and you moderate a subreddit for your books.

anthonybsd• 3 years ago

Reddit mods are all volunteers....

Night_Thastus2• 3 years ago

In the end, this "blackout" will do about as much as a change.org petition.

Even if some subreddits choose to extend the time period (even indefinitely) Reddit has no reason to really care - most of them are so small they don't 'move the needle'.

I appreciate that the decision Reddit is making and their justification both seem poor. But the response seems like people are missing where and how Reddit makes its money.

evouga• 3 years ago

Leading up to the blackout, there were multiple threads on Reddit asking for alternatives to visit instead.

None of those threads received any non-joke replies.

The only thing that will make Reddit change course is serious competition. Probably not even that, since as long as the exodus happens after the IPO, it's the public that will be left holding the bag and not the investors.

Night_Thastus2• 3 years ago

Only the smallest number of users really, truly care about any of this.

The vast majority, 99%+ just use the site casually and don't follow any of this drama. They will use the site regardless of what goes on.

Even among those who are disgruntled, many of them will just come back to Reddit anyways, because it's large enough that it has a huge chunk of content that those alternative simply don't have.

almost_usual2• 3 years ago

Investors on hopium, an IPO now is DOA.

ddtaylor• 3 years ago

Louis Rossman was right about this in his video where he said "going dark for two days is actually saying the quiet part out loud, which is that you're willing to put up with this shit 363 days a year"

randomdata3• 3 years ago

Translation: A large round of layoffs are coming soon.

Rebelgecko2• 3 years ago

They just did layoffs (although they're still like 3x bigger than they were 4 years ago)

robertoandred• 3 years ago

And clearly third-party apps are the source of their money troubles.

adamc5• 3 years ago

If I had a job at reddit, I'd be shopping my resume.

api• 3 years ago

None of this will do a thing if people aren't willing to leave, and unfortunately I doubt many will.

The most powerful force in computing is laziness. People will trade freedom, autonomy, privacy, security, ownership of their own works, anything for ease of use.

perfectstorm5• 3 years ago

can someone help me understand what's the core of the issue is? is it because they are now charging for APIs which used to be free? i hope that's the not the issue because that's not a sustainable business. third party apps can grow revenue using Reddit's contents and Reddit don't see a penny from them.

if the issue is the amount Reddit charge per call, why can't those third party apps charge their users more based on the API charge? the whole thing seems bit immature from both sides.

mulmen• 3 years ago

This has been discussed at length but I will summarize for you. Reddit is charging exorbitant fees for API access and they gave an unreasonably short time to adapt. 30 days is not enough time to completely change the business model of an app, so 3p apps are shutting down. Customers have already paid for annual subscriptions to Apollo for example so the app has to keep supporting those customers or refund them. But they will cost millions just in the first year with the new API fees. The business can't survive like that, so it has to shut down.

perfectstorm5• 3 years ago

i see. i didn't realize it was a 30 day notice which is pretty short.

krisoft• 3 years ago

if the issue is the amount Reddit charge per call, why can't those third party apps charge their users more based on the API charge?

As a first approximation yes, the issue is the amount Reddit charges per call. The perception is that they are way overcharging for the calls, because the real message is that they don't want 3rd party apps to exist anymore.

wvenable7• 3 years ago

This is a weird take. You're saying that 3rd party apps should just charge their users whatever is necessary to satisfy Reddit's pricing? As a user, I don't feel like that's a viable solution. Ultimately it's the users who pay and not the app makers.

How much is Reddit worth to pay for only on mobile and with a degraded (no NSFW) experience?

perfectstorm5• 3 years ago

I mean that's a common knowledge, no? if the cost of raw materials goes up, manufacturers hike up the prices of the final goods and consumers pay for it.

shadowgovt• 3 years ago

Oh, that's a fascinating question. My prediction is one of two things will happen:

1) His prediction will come true

2) The mods who set these subreddits private will discover that private is way more palatable, enjoyable, and easy to manage than public and will leave it there.

... at which point, either new subreddits come along to pick up the public (with the former subreddits slowly collapsing into an elite or old-guard) or Reddit will drift into irrelevance, replaced by some other public gathering location.

throwaway106382• 3 years ago

I deleted my account - scrubbed all of my comments and content first - and I've always blocked ads on reddit anyway. A two day blackout won't do much unless it extends indefinitely, but actually hurt reddit in their bottom line and they might actually think twice.

InCityDreams• 3 years ago

Sorry Ukraine, I'll donate as previously, but sure am missing a lot of tips of who I can donate to that came from the r/UkraineWarVideoReport (amongst others).

Unbelievable - but screw you reddit. Youtube works fine, and united24 is still there.

Such a shame as I was really getting into reddit - I thought it was pretty cool.

fdsalkwjvalkj• 3 years ago

We saw the same thing play out with Twitter. You had a large quantity but minority percentage of users upset with changes XYZ, they left the platform for mastadon/bluesky/whatever, and Twitter lived on.

What does moving on look like? My guess is reassigning moderators of popular subs to big-corp sympathizers. Or maybe making the private feature a paid one (my personal favorite because it's a little petty). But it could be as organic as users making clones of the popular subreddits.

If you look to Digg vs Reddit-- Digg fundamentally changed the experience of a lot of users in an in your face sort of way. The Reddit changes may make it a fundamentally different platform now, but for the vast majority of users, they won't notice.

a2tech• 3 years ago

I don't know, Twitter looks like its dying, and not slowly. They're hemorrhaging money (income is WAY down by all reports and it wasn't making money even before) and it seems like most reasonable people have left. Musk seems to be overseeing a pond that is getting smaller and more toxic by the day.

cabinguy• 3 years ago

Everyone should move to digg.

420420420• 3 years ago

Reddit refugee here, can someone explain why moving everyone to kbin.social is not being talked about?

danaris5• 3 years ago

To some extent, the answer to that question is circular: it's not being talked about, because no one knows about it. No one knows about it, because it's not being talked about.

As we've seen with various other social media implosions in the recent past, a big part of what makes a migration successful is exactly what made the social media service successful in the first place: network effects. Get enough people on board, have them spread it to their own circles, and you'll hit a critical mass and be able to migrate to the new service with most of the community intact.

Unfortunately, far too often the conversation around where to migrate to looks like the XKCD "Standards" comic [0].

[0] https://xkcd.com/927/

TechBro8615• 3 years ago

The bulk of Reddit mods have so much of their identity riding on their moderation power that there is basically nothing Reddit could say or do to lose their free labor. Yes, there is a long tail of selfless reddit mods just doing their janitorial duties in some smaller subreddits, but most reddit traffic is directed to subreddits moderated by stereotypical mods whose physical stature resembles the shape of their place in the bell curve of traffic. They will never surrender that power because it's all they have going for them.

adamc5• 3 years ago

Well, I may be boycotting reddit forever, I guess. Had enough.

xyst2• 3 years ago

Reddit CEO's fragile ego was hurt during the AMA and his personal account was downvoted into oblivion. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and tank a couple of news cycles of bad press.

This 2 day moratorium is now much more likely to become a multi-week protest/blackout. Reddit board should look at issuing a "no confidence" vote on this guy.

willis9363• 3 years ago

Offer Selig the position.

data-ottawa2• 3 years ago

Selig acquihire to head of iOS/mobile dev could have been a good move.

neals• 3 years ago

Moved from Digg to Reddit back in the day. Used to love it, now it's more of a habit. Also, if you really look at it, it's just 9gag with extra's that I don't use. The way down is here, time for something new.

I've been trying mastodon but it doesn't scratch any itches, I just want to read other peoples comments and thoughts and learn from them. I actually don't even comment myself that much.

seydor• 3 years ago

Of course it will, like all the previous reddit hysterics which were quickly forgotten. I m not sure if people remember that net neutrality Did not pass, and yet the world did not end.

The blackout is so ill-thought and self-limiting. If they keep the subs down, my subreddits will start attracting users. The mods have no option but to end the strike, because they are too addicted to their power.

If they insist to take this further, reddit will see it as a wonderful opportunity to shake up the community which has been stagnant for years. There is nothing unique about the subs that are down

xcjs2• 3 years ago

The lack of regulated net neutrality is still something to be concerned about if you care about accessing sites and services at will without additional costs, limitations, or outright blocks.

The only reason a large effect hasn't been noticed is the protections offered at some state levels that enforce neutrality in practice nationwide (assuming you're in the United States).

legitster• 3 years ago

I would love nothing more than if actual independent communities actually had to build and maintain their own internet spaces again. I do not miss the days of forums - but there has to be something between the two, right?

But... unfortunately the CEO is probably right. Reddit is first and foremost a community of addicts. No one is actually threatening to spin off their own superior community space. (The closest we see are people trying to make knockoff platforms). Unless 100 new websites spin up and take away all of the community content, the addicts will just come back.

pseudalopex• 3 years ago

Why do you not miss the days of forums?

TechRemarker• 3 years ago

He seems to be counting on it lasting only 2 days, which if the case, is easy to ignore. 2 days was presumably based on concessions from Reddit but since not the case, then hopefully as many subreddits as possible will hold out as long as possible, as the only thing that will affect change is continuing to hit their financial bottom line. If only a few continue to protest it becomes much easier for Reddit to ignore. Appears it's in mods hands at this point.

machdiamonds• 3 years ago

There was an idea floating around here about users downvoting en masse as a form of protest. While this could certainly disrupt the algorithm and content quality, it wouldn't require a massive participation. However, identifying and banning accounts engaged in systematic downvoting would be quite straightforward. A more subversive approach could be to invert the system - upvote low quality posts and downvote high quality ones.

controlname• 3 years ago

For me, the recent goings-on at Reddit have made me fully acknowledge that this is a fundamentally different Reddit from the one I first started visiting over a decade. Change is inevitable. It therefore made it a surprisingly easy decision to uninstall the Reddit third-party apps (the devs who I am thankful to for making Reddit usable again) and I haven't missed it at all.

predictabl32• 3 years ago

Starting last night, about a thousand subreddits have gone private.

comforting to know he lies to his employees the same way he lies to would-be partners and users

reddark currently shows over 8000 subreddits as "dark" and that is under-counting. It uses the API to determine status, but only checks from a list of subs that notified of their plan to go dark.

Havoc• 3 years ago

Does Huffman have supervoting shares? Little bit surprised he's still CEO given how tone deaf this is being handled.

The peasants are restless but don't worry they throw tantrums often and have short memories. Fuck 'em cause advertising money is still rolling in

Also quite amused that he thinks a couple of mod tool improvements are the solution.

HatchedLake721• 3 years ago

Mods are joining forces for an indefinite blackout https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/148ks6u/indefinit...

bastard_op• 3 years ago

The one sure way to make a point, simply move to another platform. Let them die with their "passing".

monksy• 3 years ago

ModCoord Response: (Suggestion for indefinite blackout) https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/148ks6u/indefinit...

Some subs have moved from a limited time blackout to indefinite (r/Chicago and r/ChicagoMeetup have gone this route)

friend_and_foe• 3 years ago

He's not wrong. How many times has reddit abused it's users knowing that they'll just take it because they are addicted? The only thing that will get results is if these subreddits go private permanently. But they won't. They don't have it in them to.

kojeovo• 3 years ago

I can't get past the "snoos"

Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

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