Reddit comments on every post about the blackouts
Reddit comments on every post about the blackouts
I think that's a big thing. The people who most strongly supported the blackout largely left or at least use Reddit a lot less.
Heck, one sub I use frequently, the Stardew valley sub, apparently did a poll yesterday (and only yesterday) about next steps. But I was treating the 14th as a day to still stay off Reddit (it wasn't really clear exactly when the blackout should have ended), so I didn't get to even have a say in the poll despite using the sub frequently. I only even saw it because of a post announcing the results (majority wanted further blackout but it needed 2/3s).
I think the funniest thing in all of this is how so incredibly easy it took for Reddit to swing into the support of these profit-driven and greedy decisions simply because it slightly inconvenienced them for a couple days. Like the second they're faced with something that could disrupt their daily content feed they just completely bend over backwards
I don't expect everyone to be perfect, I'm certainly not, but at least have the guts to admit there's a problem. The fact that all these users perform Olympic gold-level mental gymnastics to somehow justify the blackout is not only something that won't help at all, but the people doing it are wasting time and are idiotic is...well actually that's pretty on point for the site
Very possible. But even the people left I am sure will go back to virtue signaling about how awful greedy companies are and how we need to take a stand against them while ironically still posting from and thereby supporting one
As dumb as it sounds it reminds me of that Black Mirror episode where the guy slowly uncovers everyone is being lied to by the government, and ultimately gets hired by that same government as a skeptic radio persona that everyone loves to listen to while they fall back in line
And if Reddit does make positive changes those same passive users who believe anything corporations tell them (the type who call everyone else idiots because they don't understand business) will laud the charges and say how great Reddit is for making them.
This happens so often in tech. "Company X should never change' becomes 'i love company X because they've improved!'
People can be weirdly aggressive in how they align with their favorite corporate 3rd parties.
I think the 2 day protest was so a lot more subreddits would be willing to participate, and was ultimately used to spread awareness throughout the userbase (and get some traction in the news cycle). I don't think anyone leading the charge was expecting spez or reddit as a whole to cave and revert everything within those 2 days, but you'd be surprised how easily users can ignore that stuff unless it's shoved right in their face
Ultimately despite reddit still being a shithole, I think it was pretty effective. Not sure it could be called "rexxit", but the fediverse is far more populated (and a bit more mainstream) now, as people start realizing there is a way for the community to hold some power and not constantly be at the mercy of bad management or greed
I suspect that it's not quite that simple. AFAIK, Reddit simply isn't profitable, and they need to make it profitable. Or at least break even. Reverting to mean isn't the answer, because they'd just keep losing money. But I don't know what the real solution is. Obviously they advertise, but people using the non-official apps don't see those, and people that use the old.reddit.com with layered ad blocking scripts also don't see ads; that means those users are costing them money, and not earning them any money.
I don't know what the solution is. Pissing off and losing a massive segment of your user base cuts costs, but also cuts your potential ad revenue.
Agree but they lost good opportunities I think by not properly engaging with people like the Apollo developer. Someone who evidently understood their need to monetize their API etc but instead of thinking what's reasonable they seemed to have pivoted to crazy.
There was surely a halfway house?
Pissing off and losing a massive segment of your user base cuts costs, but also cuts your potential ad revenue.
They're gambling on it not hurting their potential ad revenue at all. They'll try to bolster their ranks with new users who are just looking for content streams and start doing whatever they can to squeeze as much shareholder value out of them as possible.
This is usually the case when someone calls out bad behaviour. People turn and look at the person doing the calling out, and see them as the shit disturber, rather than the toxic or abusive person.
Unfortunately, it's just part of standing up for something.
I poked my head in this morning after staying away a couple of days. I've been on the fence about whether this event spells the end of my time on Reddit or not. I think it does. The comments like OP shows in his meme, combined with the behavior of Spez since the blackouts - that's just not something I want to be a part of. I don't want to contribute in the smallest way to the continued dominance of Reddit in that category of social media platform.
I'll mull it over another few days, but pretty sure my main account is getting deleted this week. I have a secondary account that I might just stop using, but (due to what I use it for) am not quite sure I want to delete yet.
Probably means I need a new kbin account too, since I din't really consider whether "runningfrommreddit" was a name I'd want to potentially use for years when I set it up. 😁
My only issue is how many posts/comments I've saved on my account over the years. Also how often I searched for product recommendations on there which date back years
Think I'm planning to keep my account, maybe use the script to edit all my comments, and then just view it accountless every now and then
Not your boss, luckily!
But yes the same ... This has reminded me of the early days of Reddit itself. Far fewer uses and posts so generally actually interesting rather than 'scroll fodder'