Hey! This post is not specifically related to the lemmy.world instance. From now on, posts such as these will be removed, in order for the community to stay on topic. However, as this is a highly upvoted post, I’ll just lock it for now.
That’s what Huffman was saying BEFORE the blackout. Now that 8476/8838 subreddits are currently dark, I wonder what he would say now? I don’t really see how Reddit recovers from this. It’s sad because I loved it and there’s nothing else like it (yet), but there would need to be some major changes taking place before a lot of people consider venturing back.
There are 3.1 million subreddits.
That 8838 is the number of subs who pledged to protest in some capacity. A lot of them are big subreddits, but still. It’s not like they’ve cut off access to 90% of the site like some people think.
Over half my feed went dark. I was only getting posts from 4-5 subreddits, mostly news. That’s a big impact on a user.
Yep. I was disappointed WTF didn’t participate.
I guess they’re living up to their name?
All the subreddits I subscribe to went dark except for 1. It’s a sub about this show called “From”. I’m slightly disappointed in them
Yeah but how many of those millions are ghost towns?, since a lot of the biggest subs are participating I’m more curious about how reddit will handle it, replacing the mods in every one of them? That’s a lot of man power, I hope whoever they put in charge isn’t an idiot that does it for free, and what’s more funny is that the best mod tools rely on the API and 3rd party access.
At the very least I expect a decline in quality content and spam, trolls, bots etc.
My bet? AI.
If they have any kind of archive of past mod decisions then they can just dump all that into a neural net. And then they get to look all sexy in their upcoming IPO because they are using ⭐️⭐️⭐️ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE⭐️⭐️⭐️ like all the ⭐️⭐️⭐️SEXIEST⭐️⭐️⭐️ companies!!!1! No more of those annoying unpaid volunteers to get uppity any more!
I, for one, do not welcome our new AI moderation overlords, and will probably be done with Reddit if this happens. But I just know someone there has to be pushing for this.
It would take a considerable while to train an in-house LLM AI for moderation purposes, and even if it was trained honestly it would at least be consistent whereas you can get away with breaking mod rules as long as your meme made them chuckle, etc.
Who cares, AI will become a part of Lemmy too and I’m just done with reddit anyways.
That’s the neat part, it doesn’t have to be good.
even assuming reddit can ship an “AI moderation bot” that kinda works in the upcoming week (which will be the feat of the year), quality will start going down long before it can moderate at a good enough capacity to work well.
Oh I’m not saying these putative AI mods would be any better than existing Reddit mods. They’d probably be even more arbitrary and capricious and unappealable, and I sure don’t expect them to be anywhere near fully-trained. But they’d be owned by Reddit, who would now be ⭐️⭐️⭐️AN AI COMPANY⭐️⭐️⭐️, which is the replacement for “the blockchain” as a thing you vaguely mention your company using if you want rich, dumb investors to wet their pants and throw tons of money at you.
The word you’re looking for is “buzzword”.
Losing RIF is what got me looking elsewhere.
Yeah, but those subs contain the majority of redditor interaction. ~70k people on a sub is enough to put it into the top 5%. The top 1% subs are very likely responsible for 50%+ of all reddit posts. Losing just a handful of them is a big deal.
Unfortunately in a few hours most of those subreddits will open back up and it’ll be business as normal. The ones that don’t open will be transferred over to new moderators and they’ll resume normal operation too.
Realistically, for the most part, not much will change for Reddit. A lot has changed for me and you, though. I’ve diversified my entertainment and don’t intend to lurk the same website for hours a day. I like Lemmy, and I like the people here but Reddit is too old and too encompassing to never visit it again.
The problem is that there is a lot of great crowd-sourced knowledge on Reddit on everything from programming to which microwave oven I should buy. It’s going to take time to replace that, if it can be done.
It can be done, it just won’t be done while Reddit is up. Eventually it will go away and that knowledge will have to be rediscovered and reposted elsewhere.
I kind of want all the users to wipe their comments and burn it down like the library of Alexandria. Then spez can’t mine it for AI.
I hate losing the window into humanity, but it would be insanely satisfying to watch the fire burn.
if you do this just remember to redact your comments and posts FIRST and do it only while the subs are live tomorrow not dark right not. read a different post that thishas something to do with what reddit keep and can use.
I actually used power delete suite to do just that. Fuck spez
Couldn’t agree more on your second paragraph. I have lurked Reddit for years. This, however, is my first comment, and it’s on Lemmy…
:D I’m honored to be the first person you reply to! Hope this Lemmy thing goes places.
You and me both! Look at that, I’ve doubled my number of comments…better go and lie down :)
Me, too. I am also a Reddit transplant, and I still don’t understand everything here (also trying mastodon, but they can share users? I admit, I don’t get it, lol), but I’m hopeful that enough people will make the move. I was on Reddit for 15 years, on the old Reddit desktop website, then on RIF when I got a smartphone. I won’t use Reddit’s app, it sucks, so, that’s that.
Yea, My sub is only going dark from the 12th - 14th, i already replicated the sub here. but its not Reddit 0_o I don’t think anything will ever replace reddit but give it sometime and after the exodus on the 30th this will be the only place to be. RedReader on Reddit is a good third party app for reddit (On Android) But its a learning curve but good. I heard it had immunity from the 3p app list cause of its accessibilty.
People said the same about Digg
Digg gutted a lot more content and usability with their redesign.
That said, if reddit axes old…
And MySpace
Reddit might become dog if they follow through with baking third party apps
wonder if we need some discord “lemmy migration office hours” to help users get started?
Remember MySpace?
Yep, I actually do. was to young and internet was iffy back in the day.
Well it forced me to look for alternative. People won’t necessarily stick with Lemmy right now, but they know there are alternative, some of their name and what it looks like.
Personally I have looked at Lemmy and nine or kine (something like that) and I think it’s pretty close.
Was it kbin.social?
yes kbin :)
I think Reddit will have a somewhat significant loss in users but it’ll endure, at least for the time being. Social media sites die slower now. But I’m happy I found alternatives because I just can’t see myself using their official app
Absolutely agree with this. Twitter is still going strong, in part because the fediverse is “too hard.” Reddit isn’t going anywhere.
in part because the fediverse is “too hard.”
I think this is probably a good thing, it might keep dumb people away.
As an aside, it’s starting to irritate me how often I see people complain the fediverse/threadiverse is too complex or too difficult to understand. I mean, you managed to understand that email accounts live on different servers, but you can’t apply that same mental logic to forums living on different servers?
I am fairly tech savvy. It took me some time to understand the fediverse and how it works. The thing is, you need to read stuff to understand. That is well above the capabilities of like 80% of people. Oh, and you won’t believe how many people I have met that have no idea what a server is or how email works. Trust me, the bar for entry is pretty high for the average joe. It’s a good filter though.
Having spent the last couple of decades in tech support I’d say you’re being very generous with the estimate of ~20% of people being willing and able to read so they can understand something…
Yeah. I was a lot more cynical before now. Half a year ago I would have said like 5%. And thank you for your service o7.
The part that confused and pushed me away is the fact that depending on which email server you sign up for, you may not be able to send or receive an email to a server that may or may not already exist. If the person/group that runs the instance you signed up for defederates something, you’re out of luck if you wanted to use that instance without making a dedicated account over there. It also doesn’t help that the federation of different instances isn’t automatic or retroactive. Someone on your instance has to subscribe to something on another instance for the federation to start, and it only starts pulling content from that point forward. If you want to see older content you have to go to that instance at a minimum, and maybe sign up for that instance depending on what it is. Those are the biggest factors against the Fediverse, in my opinion.
Completely agree. Fediverse is cool in theory, but I don’t know if I’m fully convinced it’s a workable replacement as a content aggregator that we’ve come to expect in this day and age. Hell, you already have instances like lemmy.ml banning people for posting news stories that show China or Russia in a negative light. And lemmy.ml is one of the default instances advertised when you look into Lemmy! That’s a terrible first impression for new users and I think it’s going to turn a lot of people away if censorship is a common occurence on bigger instances.
Also, the Lemmy app on Android is not very good. I can’t even upvoted any comments or posts because it constantly times out.
That all being said, I’m cautiously optimistic that devs will be able to improve the platform over time. Like I said, the Fediverse is cool in theory and I like the concept, but it does have some major drawbacks for content consumers, as you pointed out.
agree- reddit is a fucking big house that won’t burn down to the ground in a day. we’re should take comfort though in the fact that spez keri’s throwing fuel in the fire hastening it’s demise.
Between this place, and https://squabbles.io/… Reddit is no longer relevant.
Piggy backing off this to remind people that after multiple reports of a child porn seller on reddit were either ignored or claimedtnot to violate TOS, spez personally banned me for harassment after I asked him to intervene.
deleted by creator
As of today, he’s saying “the blackout will pass.” Doesn’t sound he cares at all, so I’m here now. Hello, new friend!
It’s not 8838 total, I’m pretty sure it’s the list of subs that said they’ll participate
Since I don’t see a link to it in the discussion, here’s an internal email from yesterday that has made its way to the Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-memo-api-pricing-changes-steve-huffman
Well Steve, it’s not profitable for me to be a moderator for free either. Feel free to let me know how profitable you think you’ll be after hiring enough staff to replace all the mods that’ll be leaving.
The alt-right is having a great time right now on Reddit. Tons of their posts from r/conservative on the front page.
Yes I went there for a peek and it’s so angry. Compared to the positive vibe here, reddit felt oppressive. I’m not going back. Let it simmer and boil. I love this place. It’s so refreshing at lemmy. Such a positive vibe. Like the internet was before it all became centralised. Lemmy is the real Web 3.
r/Canada was taken over by alt-right a long time ago. r/OnGuardForThee had to be made in response to that. I feel like Reddit in general is going that direction. The sheer volume of bot activity on most major subreddits is insane.
Well, that demographic is always great for their advertiser acquisition goal
Right? Nothing like a festering pile of bigotry & ignorance to get the advertisers signing up.
You joke but it’s not exactly wrong.
People like that love to buy dumb shit. After a time Reddit will be nothing but my pillow, t shirt companies, colonial penn life insurance, and reverse mortgage ads.
True, but they’re not exactly swimming in disposable income, usually. Trump’s base is mostly non-college-educated whites. Not exactly a rich vein to mine.
True, but that’s the same base for the mega churches, and those fucks aren’t hurting for private jets.
Trump raises a few million bucks every time he tells his supporters to donate. A LOT of companies want in on that
True enough. As the saying goes, no one ever went broke underestimating the American consumer. Or something along those lines.
So its like Twitter?
WE should blackout for longer, i own a very small subreddit, but 2 days is not enough!! im not backing down tomorrow, i ask over subs do the same. lets stick it to reddit
I don’t need reddit. Reddit doesn’t generate content, nor does it prevent contributors from sharing the same content on other platforms.
What is reddit doing to win me back?
Yeah its weird that people keep talking about “Reddit’s content” when they haven’t created shit. At least Slashdot has always said “These comments are owned by whoever wrote them”
Not that slashdot hasn’t become crap, but it’s something.
At least Slashdot has always said “These comments are owned by whoever wrote them”
The same sort of thing is in the Reddit terms of service. They don’t want to own the possibly-offensive, maybe-even-illegal speech that people post there. They just require as a term of service that they receive a perpetual license to do whatever they want with it.
Free Reddit silver and a kick in the nuts.
And some ugly-ass NFT snoo abomination
Cool beans. Thanks spez, for introducing me to lemmy.
Been for for 10 minutes. Really like it so far. Really gives me the vibe of the early 2000s internet (in a good way)
This right here.
And that’s why this is my first comment on lemmy! Just in case Reddit eats itself.
Aye, welcome! I’m still figuring things out myself. Mostly hoping the iOS client Mlem can find its footing because the whole Lemmy experience feels incomplete at the moment, but this all still feels like I’m on the ground floor of something potentially great.
This kind of protest is meaningless, going back online after 48 hours? It’s just a way for communities to feel good about themselves. The best way to protest is to delete the account / subreddit going offline indefinitely (although I doubt the effectiveness of this)
Then my friend is truly dead.
The world is ready to fully transition away from that cancerous company.
It started out great at the times of Aaron Swartz, but just as with people, cancer sometimes hits. Anyway, it influenced projects like lemmy for which I’m thankful.
Yes I’m aware of the history. The only way to kill cancer is excise it. Lemmy realistically can’t take a full migration from Reddit but that needs to change. I too am super grateful. Part of me wonders if this platform could end the same way but given it’s decentralised nature, I highly doubt it. Reddit was open source once. I really want this to succeed. Seize the means of communication.
One thing that worries me is Lemmy’s dedication to non-advertisement funding. Lemmy will never be able to handle a ton of people without money for server space and bandwidth. I hate ads as much as anyone, but there are ways to do it that aren’t intrusive or toxic or damage your integrity.
As more and more people host their own federated instances it won’t be as big of a problem as it was for web 2.0 legacy sites like reddit. The Fediverse really is the future.
There are ways to do advertising that works and is not annoying (or at least less annoying). Context advertising are ads that are directly related to the subject matter of interest. For example, ads from companies that are in the business of meeting the needs of the boatbuilding community would be welcome or at least tolerated in a boatbuilding community. Those same ads shown to a programming community would be less welcome, even if there happens to be significant shared membership.
For example, the paper magazine “Small Craft Advisor” recently transitioned to online only via Substack. It didn’t take long for subscribers to actually complain about the loss of advertising and SCA had to respond with self-promotion articles from former advertisers.
Context advertising requires no user profiling, no user tracking, and no data collection. “Oh, you sell epoxy (or sails or plans)? Well here is a community (as distinct from a user profile) that is likely looking for what you sell and probably already discussing products in your line of business.”
There is a site I am familiar with that was determined to not have intrusive ads and actually created a side business of creating ads for its advertisers that it would find acceptable on the site, which consisted of a still image of given dimensions, and a link.
When you say no data collection, you mean no personalized data collection, right? Obviously they would want to know how many times the ad was clicked.
That sounds like the kind of thing I envision.
Yes, no personalized data collection. Both sides of the ad transaction would need to track something if the placement had some kind of impressions or click-through payment system. It’s been a while since I’ve managed a website, but I think most of that can be handled with pretty basic logging that has existed since before micro-targeted advertising was even conceived.
For a simple placement contract like we have with what few newspapers remain, the ad supplier could assess the value of the placement for themselves using standard referrer logs. Not paying its way? Don’t renew the placement.
The privacy movement can’t sell out to private entities or all bets are off again, I think no advertisements is wholly nessasary. I think taking out Reddit is much more achievable than many people think. Yes it will take some money and resources.
Yes, but where is that money going to come from?
The money is coming from the community, which is why progress is slow. People don’t have much money. It doesn’t mean we should sell the soul of the project for a quick buck. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Rome wasn’t built for free either, we need some sort of financial backup. Even if it isn’t advertising something needs to be in place.
Open source and decentralized are two different things, as long as it’s just a bunch of independent server instances which are small enough each to handle the traffic load you can’t really buy that out.
The question is if it’ll take off, more or less.
The question is if it’ll take off, more or less.
It already has.
we’re here aren’t we (grin). Looking forward to seeing how this plays out for sure.
yes, its origins were great, it’s finale is not so great. I suspect if Aaron were alive he’d be livid. I also think reddit’s demise might be the intended outcome, like BCG is at the helm or somesuch.
Unfortunately they aren’t since the ones who cared couldn’t be bothered for more than two days.
The death of Reddit will be a slow bleeding process. Expect waves. Not floods.
I think it will be more like the tide moving out slowly … no one will really notice and the CEO and owners will keep telling everyone everything will be fine even as their ship sits beached on a sandbar and the water will never return.
Here’s a thread where subreddit mods are announcing their subs going indefinitely dark: https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/148ks6u/indefinite_blackout_next_steps_polling_your/
just deleted my last account. fuck em lol
It’s not that you’re charging for API access; it’s that you’re charging US pharmaceutical industry pricing levels ($12,000 for something that should realistically be $200) and then only giving devs such a short time to implement changes. This was designed to kill 3PApps outright and everyone can see it. What an ass.
That part. No one is saying don’t charge but literally no one can afford to fork over that kind of money. Christian crunched the number to run Apollo for a year and it came out to approximately $20M. Twenty million freaking dollars. How is this reasonable?
I’m so tired of unchecked greed. It ruins everything. US Pharma is a great comparison.
Main reason why I’m gonna try and stick it out with Lemmy.
Hard to corporate greed a decentralised system :D
Well at least they’ll be more “profitable” with so many less users coming to the site and using third party apps.
Glad I’ve found Lemmy.
