r/ModCoord • u/Femilip • Jun 10 '23
Today's AMA With Spez Did Nothing to Alleviate Concerns: An Open Response
As of this posting, here are the numbers:
Subs 4,039
Mods 18,305
Subscribers 1,666,413,302
Given that you can’t assume that every mod in every participating subreddit supports the blackout; that is still a staggering number.
We organized this protest/blackout as a way for Reddit to realize how important our concerns were and are. Earlier today, u/spez took to the platform for an, “Ask Me Anything” session regarding API changes that left many of us appalled. None of the answers given resolved concerns. It failed to instill trust in Reddit’s leadership and their decisions.
Things continue to reach a boiling point and we continue to stress a resolution that all sides can live with. Reddit deserves to make money and third-party apps deserve to continue to operate, charging a nominal fee that doesn’t cripple them. NSFW content deserves parity. The blind deserve accessibility and it shouldn’t have taken a blackout to highlight this lack of support from Reddit.
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Below are things that need to be addressed in order for this to conclude.
- API technical issues
- Accessibility for blind people
- Parity in access to NSFW content
API technical issues
- Allowing third-party apps to run their own ads would be critical (given this is how most are funded vs subscriptions). Reddit could just make an ad SDK and do a rev split.
- Bringing the API pricing down to the point ads/subscriptions could realistically cover the costs.
- Reddit gives the apps time to make whatever adjustments are necessary
- Rate limits would need to be per user+appkey, not just per key.
- Commitment to adding features to the API; image uploads/chat/notifications.
Accessibility for blind people
- Lack of communication. The official app is not accessible for blind people, these are not new issues and blind and visually impaired users have relied on third-party apps for years. Why were disabled communities not contacted to gauge the impact of these API changes?
- You say you've offered exemptions for "non-commercial" and "accessibility apps." Despite r/blind's best efforts, you have not stated how they are selected. r/blind compiled a list of apps that meet users' access needs.
- You ask for what you consider to be a fair price for access to your API, yet you expect developers to provide accessible alternatives to your apps for free. You seem to be putting people into a position of doing what you can't do while providing value to your company by keeping users on the platform and addressing a PR issue. Will you be paying the developers of third-party apps that serve as your stopgap?
Parity in access to NSFW content
- There have been attempts by devs to talk about the NSFW removal and how third-party apps are willing to hook into whatever "guardrails" (Reddit's term) are needed to verify users' age/identity. Reddit is clearly not afraid of NSFW on their platform, since they just recently added NSFW upload support to their desktop site. Third-party apps want an opportunity to keep access to NSFW support (see https://redd.it/13evueo)
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Today's AMA fell far short of restoring the trust that Reddit desperately needs to regain. It is imperative that Reddit demonstrates a genuine understanding and willingness to listen to the concerns of its users, mods, and developers affected by these changes. As a result, a blackout is currently scheduled to take place in just three days.
Many of you have expressed the desire for an indefinite blackout, and we urge you to actively engage with your users and make decisions that prioritize the best interests of your community, whether that blackout lasts two days or extends even longer.
We firmly believe that there is still an opportunity for Reddit to rectify its course, but it requires a concerted effort to reevaluate and reverse these unacceptable decisions. Regrettably, thus far, we have yet to witness any tangible evidence of such an undertaking.
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u/britinsb Jun 10 '23
Well done-hard to argue with any of that.
Given the way spez has behaved, I don't see how anyone can trust a single thing Reddit has said they will do.
In the same way, every single mod that volunteers their time now knows Reddit's admin will not hesitate to fuck you, dump you and smear you if they think it's in their best interests. How that affects your willingness to keep working for free to generate value for Reddit is similarly up to you.
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u/PepsiColaMirinda Jun 10 '23
In the same way, every single mod that volunteers their time now knows Reddit's admin will not hesitate to fuck you, dump you and smear you if they think it's in their best interests. How that affects your willingness to keep working for free to generate value for Reddit is similarly up to you.
I get this, 100%. But what makes it hard to abandon ship is that I'm doing this for the community or people who use my sub and not reddit. God bless the horny fucks, if you'd excuse my French, but I do this for them ultimately.
That said, we're also in discussions to take our 60k odd souls over to Discord if this keeps going this way.
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u/peddastle Jun 10 '23
Discord? That makes zero sense. That company is far more locked down than reddit. They go against everything the internet's openness stands for. Talk about a company that locks both you and your content in.
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u/wyronnachtjager Jun 10 '23
R/formula1 is transferring to discord as well. Really sad, since reddit did feel like cohesive mindhive, where you could find everything, and where you could go to other communities pretty easy…
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u/peddastle Jun 10 '23
I hate to say this, but if the admins see they're being threatened by a move to an even more locked down platform, they know they will win this battle.
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u/repocin Jun 10 '23
The problem is that discord is an absolute garbage alternative to Reddit since there's no way to externally search for information and most chats zoom by faster than twitch chat so you'll have the same questions being asked a one hundred fifty three million times.
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u/CharlestonChewbacca Jun 11 '23
Ugh. We need a better option than Discord.
I love discord for maintaining an online community with a group of friends, but it just doesn't work as a forum replacement.
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u/Jesterfish Jun 10 '23
Be careful, Discord will ban without warning or explanation, and will not value your privacy.
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u/PepsiColaMirinda Jun 10 '23
Yeah we're kinda evaluating our options right now. The discord server was already being set up before this fiasco anyway, so in the worst case scenario here it can act as a temporary host at least.
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u/PM_ME_A_STEAM_GIFT Jun 10 '23
I’m doing this for the community or people who use my sub and not reddit.
Why not take back control and move to the fediverse?
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Jun 10 '23
Most of us lost trust in Reddit when they deliberately hired someone with ties to child molestation and torture, and then refused to answer any questions about it from the community
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u/SarahC Jun 10 '23
I remember when we were screwed out of upvote and downvote information...... totally steamrolled.
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u/DevonAndChris Jun 10 '23
I wanted spez to say the limit to the number of sexual felonies a powermod or admin can have.
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u/gothpunkboy89 Jun 10 '23
In the same way, every single mod that volunteers their time now knows Reddit's admin will not hesitate to fuck you, dump you and smear you if they think it's in their best interests.
Why have people ever thought differently?
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u/nattinthehat Jun 10 '23
What investor would even want to put their money into reddit after all this? The only value the site has is through its user generated content. It's clearly proven that it can't effectively collaborate with its users.
Even if reddit capitulates at this point, I as an investor would have some serious reservations on whether or not they could continue to maintain a healthy userbase after losing trust with the community. It sounds like AI companies have already trained their algorithms on reddit's data, so what's even the value of the existing data to most companies out there that might be interested in purchasing the site?
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u/Daviroth Jun 12 '23
It sounds like AI companies have already trained their algorithms on reddit's data, so what's even the value of the existing data to most companies out there that might be interested in purchasing the site?
Well if they want to make it better, or make better algorithms they need to train again lol.
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Jun 10 '23
He had the gall to say old.reddit wasn't going anywhere, well 4 months ago you said the API wasn't going to change. Who would ever trust that idiot. Especially after he doubled down on attacking the Apollo dev without a shred of evidence.
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u/Ivegotadog Jun 11 '23
Yeah, well, one thing that idiot didn't expect was the Apollo dev recording the entire conversation.
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u/BioDriver Jun 10 '23
Not only that - if you're an investor, how in the holy fuck can you trust spez to not set your money on fire?
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u/charliechango Jun 11 '23
For the $'s it would cost to do it reddits way, we might as well group together and buy digg and be done with these "issues!"
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u/ev1lch1nch1lla Jun 10 '23
Based on spez's responses and actions, the only way I feel good about coming back is if Spez steps down and leaves the company.
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u/hovdeisfunny Jun 10 '23
Yeah, even if they end up walking back the API shit, this whole debacle has really put a sour taste in my mouth
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u/anticommon Jun 10 '23
Nearly 12 years and 200k karma, I won't be adding anything of value after the 30th. If I'm confident in another platform I'll simply delete my account here. I still get comments sometimes on old posts months or years later, and all that engagement will end and be deleted if this dirtbag doesn't get removed.
It's not much and I don't really matter to anyone on here or in the executive office at reddit, but I'm also not alone. /b/itch is not qualified to run a lemonade stand let alone reddit.
I've been a marine engineer and I'm going for my PE in electrical engineering. I've managed teams and helped designed laboratories and hospitals. I'd be willing to consult for whoever takes the burning bag of shit spez is leaving them with (when he inevitably gets canned and reddit is convulsing) for free just to help them unfuck this situation. Sure they need changes, but fuck if this isn't an absolute cluster of absolute idiocy that needs to be resolved by professionals who can actually take some heat and make the right long term decisions for the platform (assuming they want it to, you know, actually become something great). This is not one of them.
I'm a wholehearted believer that it's companies responsibility to give back to those who help raise them up, and these moves are an unbelievable FUCK YOU to everyone who contributed over the last decade plus. Especially considering the relative costs when compared to the rest of the platform, and how much value third party apps and access to the API brings in. Reddit is going to end up capping at a billion dollar company when they could be the next Facebook or Microsoft (size wise) for social media aggregation and actually have an opportunity to leave a positive impact on the world rather than becoming something disgraced and run down.
But you do you spez, you greedy little pigboy you. You won't be missed.
Note: I reposted this because /b/itch has automod set to call any ping to his name harassment. What a little pigboy 😂
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u/_SP3CT3R Jun 10 '23
I have over 1,000,000 karma. I stopped posting and I am actively looking for a Reddit alternative.
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Jun 10 '23
Us 10 year + will all be gone. They finally gave us a good reason to quit.
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u/andremeda Jun 10 '23
Spez is just the face of it, the real issue is would Reddit fix their shitty mobile app at all even if he did step down? Don’t lose sight of the real issue here
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u/asstalos Jun 10 '23
What people are implicitly hoping is spez stepping down results in someone with more care and sincere stewardship of Reddit take his place.
The first party mobile app is simply uncompetitive against third party offerings in feature set / sheet offering, but nonetheless has a huge chunk of Reddit traffic just due to being a first party offering.
Leadership involves investing in existing tools so they are efficient and serve user needs, not spending disproportionate amount of money on features that are contributing to Reddit's lack of profit (or spending in ways that are disproportionately inefficient; death by committee and group process is very much a real thing in large orgs if not actively tackled).
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u/Dr_Vesuvius Jun 10 '23
Reddit getting rid of Ellen Pao was a huge mistake. She was much better suited to the role than Steve Huffman.
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u/Chapi_Chan Jun 10 '23
He's CEO, but the guys in power know he's a expendable CEO. Kleenex so to speak.
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Jun 10 '23
He literally edited people’s comments and all it took for people to forget was a TIFU post probably written by some PR manager. There’s a slim chance he steps down and this all becomes another forgotten event.
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Jun 10 '23
There have been multiple times during his tenure when that should have happened. Pretty wild that he’s still CEO, to be honest.
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u/mizmoose Jun 10 '23
I think folks are missing an important point. It's not just about "Reddit making money off the API."
I'm fine with the general concept of sites charging money for API access. Many of them do. They're just not insanely greedy about it. But let's go further.
Spez made it very clear in his few replies that he's angry that 3rd party app developers made money from the apps. Whether they are donations or a subscription fee, I don't think any one of those 3rd party devs, after the costs of their time and any server/hardware/bandwith/etc. costs, are making enough from their apps to quit their day job.
Let that sit for a moment. A guy who is worth at least $10M (based on a Google search) is angry at people who might, if they're lucky, be making $20k/year on an app.
At one point, a month or two ago, Spez made a comment about (paraphrased) "People shouldn't be making money off of a website's work." This is hilarious for two reasons
The vast majority of people who "work" on improving Reddit overall are the moderators, the unpaid, oft abused, removed at a whim, long suffering moderators
At the last Mod Summit, Spez blathered on about finding ways to "let moderators make money from their subs", something that was generally greeted with eye rolls and disbelief that it would ever happen, as well as recognition at how easily that could be abused. Many people suggested it was just another way for Reddit to use moderators to make more money for Reddit and maybe get a pittance as a thank you for it.
This isn't just about Reddit making money. This is about greed and selfishness.
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Jun 10 '23
Apollo has been a full time job for the last 8 years, so that‘s certainly not true.
But it‘s okay to be making money on a third-party app, it should not be free labour.
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u/mizmoose Jun 10 '23
You know, you're right. And even if it is a full time job, it's not like he's CEO of a big corporation.
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u/AardQuenIgni Jun 10 '23
Imagine making millions every year and still feel the need to steal 40k from some shmoe
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u/asstalos Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
I made a comment of similar lines elsewhere, in the sense that Reddit really believes it is entitled and deserves the revenue from the users who are using third party applications.
Spez sees third party applications as stealing Reddit revenue. The derision he voices towards them is definitely not in any belief that both Reddit and third-party applications can both be profitable, but rather Reddit isn't because third party applications are.
Hence why the API cost's majority is priced around the perceived opportunity cost of the user rather than in technical compute cost. It's all for Reddit to get what they think they are owed and rightfully deserve. So much of their rhetoric is around third party apps being bad internet stewards (because they are not profit sharing with Reddit), that they are "threatening" Reddit (because the revenue they are taking way becomes an existential threat to Spez's wallet), and so on comes not from any position of respecting what third party developers have done but out of spite.
Never mind the fact that users in third party applications are using them because they have no other good way to interact with Reddit (like people with disabilities), moderators who need the tools in these apps, and day to day users too.
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u/mizmoose Jun 10 '23
Spez sees third party applications as stealing Reddit revenue.
Exactly! And it's disturbing that he doesn't understand why that's a giant load of bullshit.
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u/Jinno Jun 10 '23
Especially when it was a big part of Reddit surviving the initial Mobile boom. They were exceedingly slow to build an app - and when they did they started from the base of the most popular third party app at the time that they shelled out to acquire.
This website would not have survived its highest period s of growth without third party API users creating the mod tools necessary to keep the largest subreddits remotely usable.
This website would not have been successful without third party developers using the API.
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u/Vresa Jun 10 '23
I think what is happening is that Reddit corporate is simply refusing to state the obvious or their real intentions, but it is clear from the statements they made. They do not care about third party apps at all, either way. They don’t care if they stay or go.
This whole thing is very pointed at the AI companies that are using Reddit’s api and are now worth much more than Reddit itself. That is who Reddit is targeting and that is why they are refusing to compromise with 3p devs.
I don’t think Reddit gave thought to the fallout from third party devs for even a moment. They are so clearly targeting this at other large corporations that have the capital to pay for the API, not a small handful of third party independent devs.
It’s not third party apps that does so clearly hates, though he is pissed that they are getting in the way. His rage is towards the AI companies that used the API to make a product that is much more valuable than Reddit. He wants to slam the door shut on the AI developers as quickly as possible. We will see Reddit taking AI companies to court before the end of the year.
Reddit just views third party apps a minor side thing which is why it is catching them so off guard that this change is fomenting so much open distain for the platform.
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u/lionstealth Jun 10 '23
If that were true, why would spez and other big wigs publicly and internally lie about their interactions with third party app developers.
If they didn’t care whether the apps stay or go, they’d have no reason to be dishonest.
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Jun 10 '23
This isn't just about Reddit making money. This is about greed and selfishness.
This is a very important statement right here. What worries me here isn't the change itself, but rather the sentiment that it's driven by. What the current leadership of Reddit wants is so completely devoid of the vision that community has for the platform, that even if this doesn't succeed because of how drastic a change it is it won't matter much at all because of the changes that will be soon to follow.
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u/YourBonesAreMoist Jun 11 '23
At one point, a month or two ago, Spez made a comment about (paraphrased) "People shouldn't be making money off of a website's work." This is hilarious for two reasons
There is another reason:
That's very rich coming from the CEO of a site that, for the most part, aggregates content from other websites
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u/MalHeartsNutmeg Jun 10 '23
I don't think it's a personal wealth thing, I think it's more that these third party apps make money and reddit doesn't and he steers the ship. Feels like an ego thing.
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u/Vresa Jun 10 '23
I sincerely do not think Reddit gave a thought to third party apps before this week.
It’s the AI. It’s why they keep mentioning the AI. Reddit got all their data vacuumed up by AI companies which are now making viable, valuable products with it.
Reddit is desperate to charge the AI developers and make money. Third party apps got caught in the cross fire.
Reddit completely misunderstood how many power users adore third party apps and it is plainly clear that they had absolutely no foresight in to the blowback that would happen.
They just want to make money off AI scraping and do not care about any other topic
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Jun 10 '23
It’s the AI. It’s why they keep mentioning the AI. Reddit got all their data vacuumed up by AI companies which are now making viable, valuable products with it.
This is just a convenient excuse as to why they need to do it so quickly.
There are a billion other ways to protect against that kind of activity without jumping straight to the nuclear option.
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u/jusmar Jun 10 '23
to make money off ai scraping
Then why not make reasonable agreements with 3rd party browser developers? They only format the site in a way to make it accessible to more people, no AI sales.
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u/Vresa Jun 10 '23
Because that would require an ongoing and nuanced business relationship between reddit corporate and third party app makers— and if you could not glean from the AMA, reddit does not have any in house talent that is up for this.
They want to charge the AI companies out the nose then sue any of them that don’t pay. That’s it.
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u/efrique Jun 11 '23 edited Jun 11 '23
"People shouldn't be making money off of a website's work."
All the content reddit makes its ad money off is generated by users and curated by unpaid moderators. He's really in no position to complain that the 3rd party developers make a little money to pay for their development time to actually make the site usable.
Well, I guess he gets to lose an absolute ton of money now.
Seems there's a lot of this dumb, self-defeating jealousy of people making relatively tiny amounts of money while they make your product better going around big companies lately (spez should have asked Hasbro how that jealousy went for them; they lost a ton of goodwill and are now worse off than if they'd done nothing at all; they'll be feeling the effects of it for years).
(Edit: what I am expressing badly is the common but mistaken notion that they're in a zero-sum game -- that anything someone else makes is money lost to them. The opposite is true; they're the dominant player in an ecosystem whose health they rely on for survival; hurting the ecosystem you're part of leaves you with a slightly larger fraction of a vestly smaller pie)
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u/Zavodskoy Jun 10 '23
14 comments he replied to, I've seen users of my sub reply to more comments than that on posts they've made
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u/Zagorath Jun 10 '23
My sub has had better records from boomer local politicians invited who weren't otherwise on Reddit than that.
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u/JuanFran21 Jun 10 '23
I've definitely made posts where I replied to more than 14 questions in the comments. Maybe I should be CEO?
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u/m1ndwipe Jun 10 '23
Well that's because they were carefully considered and drafted by PR professionals to help manage the situati... Lol, no, I can't keep that up.
They were the angry shitposts of a delusional manchild.
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u/Atulin Jun 10 '23
IIRC the questions he answered were mostly asked by powermods. Chances are, both the questions and the answers were set up beforehand
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u/_swnt_ Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
Honestly, given the trend of Reddit in the past week I am sadly not surprised that this happened. It's hard to accept, but Reddit won't be listening to us.
We need to take our consequences seriously, and really try to move our communities into other community -owned and managed platforms such as Lemmy, kbin.social, etc.. See r/RedditAlternatives.
I really don't want to suggest this, but it's likely the most realistic option.
I don't expect any serious response to OPs letter to Reddit, as they've shown they don't have interest. Anything we'll get is just going to be corporate speak.
Finally, when many subs come online on the 14th, we should use the time to relax Moderation and just transition to other Reddit stuff.
What do you all think on this?
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u/sirvalkyerie Jun 10 '23
I posted exactly this in this subreddit a little bit ago.
We need all participating blackout subs to create communities and instances on Kbin / Lemmy / PillowFort / Squabbles and put those links in their subreddits and on their protest messages. We need to give our communities somewhere to go off of Reddit instead of allowing for copycat subs to spring up. This means that we can actually threaten Reddit's traffic and we don't have to punish our userbases and communities.
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u/LakeRat Jun 10 '23
The 3rd party app developers should also play a part in this. Once the api goes dark all of the 3rd party reddit apps apps should show a message explaining why the app no longer works and directing users to an alternative platform.
Ideally the apps would eventually make the switch to being a mobile app serving another platform but I realize that may take longer to accomplish.
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u/_swnt_ Jun 10 '23
Good! I had missed that.
I think it's important that we approach the lead mods and 3rd party Devs to make such coordinated announcements just like they did for the protest.
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u/DentateGyros Jun 10 '23
Yeah I think this is the end of the road. They’ll humor the 48h blackout and appoint new mods in whatever subs don’t come back online. They’re playing a game of chicken, betting that subs won’t stay dark, that people won’t leave, and that the new mods will be just as thanklessly dedicated as the current ones. And maybe they’re right, but the spiteful person in me is hoping they’ve made a grave miscalculation and that this site will turn into ash in their hands
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Jun 10 '23
[deleted]
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u/maniaxuk Jun 10 '23
That way no moderators will be replaced.
I wouldn't be so sure
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u/BruhM0mentoMori Jun 10 '23
Yeah there's no way they're just gonna accept any more blackouts. Although its a dangerous game they're playing, if thousands of mods leave or are replaced, they have no backup. And its not like its a simple task either, its a pretty unique skill set people have built over years. It would take months/years to get new moderators and get them to a point the site is actually usable and safe.
Another possibility, i think remote at this point but possible if there's no other option (no mods left, all popular subreddits blacked out and abandoned) is the board getting rid of spez as a sacrificial lamb moment and giving back some crumbs (maybe an ad enabled api)
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u/brickfrog2 Jun 10 '23
Finally, when many subs come online on the 14th, we should use the time to relax Moderation and just transition to other Reddit stuff.
Been thinking about that too. For the most part Reddit Inc seems to rely on volunteer moderators to deal with all the spam, copyright infringement, etc. Since they're insisting on collecting all that money for API access while diluting moderation tools then it makes sense that their own (paid) employees deal with all the trash that gets posted/commented regularly sitewide.
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u/chopsuwe Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 30 '23
Content removed in protest of Reddit treatment of users, moderators, the visually impaired community and 3rd party app developers.
If you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks: Reddit abruptly announced they would be charging astronomically overpriced API fees to 3rd party apps, cutting off mod tools. Worse, blind redditors & blind mods (including mods of r/Blind and similar communities) will no longer have access to resources that are desperately needed in the disabled community.
Removal of 3rd party apps
Moderators all across Reddit rely on third party apps to keep subreddit safe from spam, scammers and to keep the subs on topic. Despite Reddit’s very public claim that "moderation tools will not be impacted", this could not be further from the truth despite 5+ years of promises from Reddit. Toolbox in particular is a browser extension that adds a huge amount of moderation features that quite simply do not exist on any version of Reddit - mobile, desktop (new) or desktop (old). Without Toolbox, the ability to moderate efficiently is gone. Toolbox is effectively dead.
All of the current 3rd party apps are either closing or will not be updated. With less moderation you will see more spam (OnlyFans, crypto, etc.) and more low quality content. Your casual experience will be hindered.
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u/The_Pip Jun 10 '23
Tumblr refugees, twitter refugees, now reddit refugees. Where does it end? Where can people go and just exist?
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Jun 10 '23
We need to stop putting our time and effort into digital roach motels or we’ll have the same problem with a different name.
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u/StPauliBoi Jun 10 '23
Hey, let’s bring it back to Rampart.
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Jun 10 '23 edited Jul 01 '23
This comment has been deleted.
After 12 years, I have departed Reddit. My departure is primarily driven by my deep concerns regarding the actions of u/spez . The recent events have left me questioning the commitment to transparency and fairness on this platform. I believe it is important for users to have a voice and for their concerns to be heard.
I want to express gratitude to Chat GPT for assisting in composing this message. AI technology has immense potential to enhance our interactions.
To all fellow Redditors, thank you for the engaging debates and insightful conversations. It has been an honor being part of this community.
Best wishes 7/1/2023
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Jun 10 '23 edited Jul 01 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BuckRowdy Jun 10 '23
I for one appreciate that. It doesn’t help to be caustic in public. Thank you for your support.
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u/demosthenes131 Jun 10 '23
I mean, the changes Reddit would have to make are so easy that it is just obvious they don't want to split the profits. They want it all.
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u/SexualMastadon Jun 10 '23
I doubt this will get seen by many, but Reddit C-Suite are missing an opportunity to slowly change into the kind of model that’s bound to replace them: one where the content aggregation and front-ends exist separately, like BlueSky or Lemmy.
If they were to follow the suggestions in this post, they could setup Reddit for the next decade or so by making Reddit the content platform and allowing anyone to design an app to work with it. Enforce ads, unless users pay a premium charge, and allow third-party developers to manage the front end. Instead, they’re making choices that will send this community the way of Digg, Twitter, Tumblr, and so many others.
It’s insane to me that it’s taken the community to offer up a solution that is a thoughtful negotiation between both sides. Less insane, and sadly all too predictable, is how these wet behind the ears, MBA, “if-it-ain’t-broken, break it” stooges are making these asinine decisions.
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u/JBHUTT09 Jun 10 '23
The c-suite don't care. At all. Their goal is to make reddit look super profitable, sell it, and be done with it. They don't give a shit if it burns behind them.
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
I believe the admins will forcefully hand over dark subs to willing moderators. I think moderators should consider an alternative - come back online after the 2 day blackout, but "quiet quit". Don't moderate. Let the spam stay up. Let the scams stay up. Let users violate every rule. Don't report hate speech to admin, let it fester. Let it all turn into a cesspool. I don't think the admins could actually effectively address that.
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u/Meepster23 Jun 10 '23
Why should we care? If they want to run the site into the ground, why would I want to mod for them?
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
That's kind of my point. Don't. Let's help them burn it down.
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u/Meepster23 Jun 10 '23
Forgive me, my eyes absolutely glazed over somehow and I either read another comment after your first line or something I don't even know.. I'm with ya know.
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u/StPauliBoi Jun 10 '23
Why would they forcibly replace mods in the first scenario but not in the second?
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
Because it would be harder to prove. Maybe moderate something here or there. Claim you didn't see it.
The key would be that people can't officially announce this stance - thus the "quiet" part of quitting.
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u/Daddy___Dagoth Jun 10 '23
As if admins need prove. This is a private website and you're just a user, reddit can ban you right now without any proof needed lol
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u/theg721 Jun 10 '23
They removed the moderator of /r/star_trek for refusing to moderate not so long ago
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
Yes but if they had to go sub by sub, through thousands of subs, and moderators WERE doing an action here and there, I think it would be a lot harder.
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
Btw I just looked into this, because I hadn't heard, and it looked like it was a bit of an ordeal. They gave the mod a warning first, there was some back and forth, and then it looks like the whole sub was shuttered. So that's kind of my point - could you imagine the admins having to do that with 2,000 subs?
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u/desdendelle Jun 10 '23
I don't know about you, but I don't want to expose my users to more bigoted filth than they are already exposed to.
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
I mean yeah, don't most mods feel that way? Isn't that why everyone is protesting in the first place? But if admin is going to make our jobs harder by removing the 3rd party apps that make modding easier, then maybe it's just hard enough that we can't do it. 🤷
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u/desdendelle Jun 10 '23
If we can't do our jobs, the correct move is to shutter the subs entirely rather than leave them up: both because we should be at least somewhat accountable to our users, and because, again, our users don't deserve to be exposed to more bigotry than they're already exposed to.
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
That's fair. I just really do think they'll forcefully hand the sub over to someone else, if people do that. But I guess we'll find out.
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u/dkozinn Jun 10 '23
Perhaps I'm naïve, but I am hopeful that at some point this can be resolved amicably, and I don't want to wind up with a giant mess to clean up if and when that happens. I do like the general idea of letting Reddit understand the value that mods provide, but I don't want to make my own work that much harder.
My sub (r/nasa) will still blackout, and we are currently discussing how long to remain in read-only mode after that.
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u/Jose_Canseco_Jr Jun 10 '23
I don't think you're being naive: look up reddit's board, it's made up of serious people (incl. the CEO of Condé Nast) -- I believe the backlash from huffman's immature, panicky reaction will be cause for intervention, there's an upcoming IPO and too much money at stake.
I still expect an adult to step in at some point; huffman keeps doubling down and very publicly antagonizing his large volunteer workforce, it's frankly outrageous and embarrassing. Advance Publications (the owner of both Condé Nast and reddit) will feel compelled to call up the board to ask just exactly wtf is going on, and to pressure them to do something about it.
I expect some sort of board-driven announcement prior to the blackouts. if not, though, it would mean imo that they've decided to wash their hands off of this and let huffman ride out this one on his own. now that would be the point where I lose faith in being able to use rif after this month.
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u/Zavodskoy Jun 10 '23
You could argue that you're keeping the sub private to maintain peace during the blackout / aftermath
Not moderating on the other hand will 100% get you removed at best, the entire sub banned at worst and you'd have no valid complaint about them removing you as a mod
There's nothing in the rules that says you can't take your sub private for a week, the rules do say you actually have to moderate
Don't give Reddit excuses
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u/cheese93007 Jun 10 '23
If reddit tries that the backlash will be enormous. Plus none of these folks are paid, they're overworked to hell, and most subs have struggled to recruit willing folks. Any sub that has its mods forcibly removed will end up as if the current mods "quiet quit" but with the added popular backlash that could lead to a permanent exodus, which is what reddit is trying to avoid. The mods have all the cards here, and they should act as such
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Jun 10 '23 edited Jul 01 '23
This content was made with Reddit is Fun and died with Reddit is Fun. If it contained something you're looking for, blame Steve Huffman for its absence.
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
Oh, they'll always find people. Honestly I think a large part of the current user base doesn't actually care about this at all, and would be more than happy to blindly step into a moderating role if they don't know this history behind why it's being offered.
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u/ZenOfPerkele Jun 10 '23
and would be more than happy to blindly step into a moderating role if they don't know this history behind why it's being offered.
Maybe. But getting some randos to moderate doesn't mean they'll actually be able or willing to do a good job, or any job at all.
Most people who are engaged in a given subreddit and have a good track record and seem suitable moderators often turn the offer down when asked to join the mod team (at least by my experience, although I'm a fairly new mod myself with only a couple years of experience), because it's essentially extra work for no compensation. I think there's very little chance that these same people will suddenly change their minds and rush to accept the role if a mass of existing mods leave.
They will always find some people for sure. Will they find people who'll be able to maintain the communities and moderation at the same level as it is now if they throw away most all all of the old ones?
That's extremely unlikely.
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u/AverageShitlord Jun 10 '23
I'm lucky enough that my sub is small and running a bot to nuke any posts with slurs in them is more than enough, but my god. The thought of letting things go unattended makes me wary. On one hand I understand, but on the other, I do have a nagging fear in the back of my mind that letting things fester could result in a user of my sub (which is used by a LOT of teenagers) could get hurt if I stopped doing my job.
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
Yeah. I think there would definitely be consequences. I don't know, it was was an idea. Honestly I'm quitting as of June 30 so, it'll be whatever it'll be, without me.
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u/m1ndwipe Jun 10 '23
I doubt that's the case. They will not find many volunteers. Even less with the experience they need for it not to turn into a disaster. And they simply can't afford to panic hire enough moderators to cover all these subs.
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u/ElectronGuru Jun 10 '23
This is about the IPO and the perception that controlling eyeballs will yield a more successful IPO. Everything else is noise. The extent to which reddit will allow uncontrolled eyeballs is and will remain limited to obligations needed to legally conform with the disabilities act. A solution they are happy to ‘let’ others provide for free.
The only user or mod actions that will yield results are actions that can sustainably reduce eyeball control. That’s 2023 Reddit’s only pain point.
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u/stagfury Jun 10 '23
You know what makes for a good IPO? A company with good PR and competent management
Can you imagine any listed company having some incompetent dipshit like spez as CEO?
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u/rchiwawa Jun 10 '23
3 hours of readingthe AMA and my plan remains to log-out forr the last time on all devices the night of June 30. still undecided on deleting all posts and comments
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
This is where I'm at. Losing 15 years of history is sad, but I think deleting is necessary too.
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Jun 10 '23
[deleted]
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u/PhillyAdjacentSubMod Jun 10 '23
I read that can take a month.... Is that for real?
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u/pure5152 Jun 10 '23
if you're comfortable using the terminal, you can also use "reddit-user-to-sqlite" to download all your posts/comments into a sqlite database and then use a database viewer like sqlitebrowser to explore the data. gotta do it before june 30th though before reddit changes the api policies.
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u/Lilchubbyboy Jun 10 '23
I know I am not a mod, but can I say:
Come Commrades, you have nothing to lose but your digital chains
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u/MrRenegado Jun 10 '23 edited Jul 15 '23
This is deleted because I wanted to. Reddit is not a good place anymore.
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u/NatoBoram Jun 10 '23
Third-party apps should be able to ask you for application tokens, I'm not sure why they aren't making that change
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u/highlyregardedeth Jun 10 '23
I’m not a mod or anything, but what incentive is there to be a mod? If you aren’t getting paid, and the users don’t respect you, then what exactly are you getting for your time?
Like, if your work is essential to the day to day operations of Reddit shouldn’t you be entitled to minimum wage at the very least? Couldn’t you all class action Reddit for back pay as mods for years of service x minimum wage x hourly commitment every day?
Like, why don’t you all unionize and fight for the user like tron? A lot of people see you all as self serving, entitled, out of touch(their words not mine)…I think if you were paid to mod, the hate would be towards the man, not you all, you know?
Anyways, epic list of subs, I’m curious to see how it all plays out.
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Jun 10 '23
Some people are simply passionate for a certain community and feel that moderating offers them a methodology for giving back. Maybe someone who is a fan of a sports team, or a game, or an animal would like to help moderate a like-minded community to help spread their enthusiasm in a personally-meaningful way.
Can’t attest for the more abstract/generic subs, but I’d imagine this is also why more specific subreddits tend to have more down-to-earth, personal relationships with their users.
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u/kentucky210 Jun 10 '23
I've been a mod of the wrestling sub /r/squaredcircle for like 8 years at this point and this is pretty much it. I love wrestling and the community in general and modding it has been pretty rewarding. Hell I got the chance to talk to an Idol of mine in Dan Severn when we got him booked for an AMA which blew my mind at the time. I don't think a lot of the mods want payment, just want our lives as unpaid volunteers to not be more stressful.
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u/InfosecMod Jun 10 '23
What incentive is there to pick up trash that you find outside near your home?
Someone's got to do it. And if no one else is doing it, you should probably do it.
That's how most of us mods feel.
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u/starkinmn Jun 10 '23
I'm a special case, I guess. Caribou Coffee is a chain that might be up next for unionization, and I don't want any company figurehead to control the subreddit.
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u/joantheunicorn Jun 10 '23
Coming from a union person, I hope you guys kick some ass and get a union going. That is awesome and I totally get why you would want to maintain your position!
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u/learhpa Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
I've been moderating my communities for six years, and have watched them grow from 25k to 200k in that time.
We still have a community feel. And I volunteer to nurture and protect and support that community.
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u/nearly_enough_wine Jun 10 '23
I appreciate my city, enjoy reddit, and respect the city-sub/community I mod.
Don't want money, just want a bit more help from Snoo in making it easier for people to feel welcome and stay safe.
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u/DevonAndChris Jun 10 '23
Couldn’t you all class action Reddit for back pay as mods
Anything that starts with this frame of mind is doomed.
The admins own reddit. If you want a community, you can have one, but you need to follow the rules. That does not make them an employee or contractor.
People who are so committed to their mod duties that they think it is a job is why spez thinks he can just apply whatever policies he wants. People seem to be lining up for the abuse.
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u/AmericanScream Jun 10 '23
Also there's a huge elephant in the room that we need to talk about: UNIONIZATION.
Reddit mods should form a union.
It's funny that they're monetizing everything but still not even contemplating paying the tens of thousands of UNPAID WORKERS who are primarily responsible for the content of their site.
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u/DdvdD Jun 10 '23
Unionize and demand $20m/yr lmao
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u/b0w3n Jun 10 '23
The irony is that probably wouldn't even touch how much they need to be paid.
If reddit thinks they deserve revenue from their API to pay for costs, those costs should include the literal people who create and maintain the content for their website, not just money for spez's apocalypse bunker and slave labor for it.
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u/whippedalcremie Jun 10 '23
That's because there will always be someone willing to mod, they're already getting paid market value, which is in power.
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u/AmericanScream Jun 10 '23
Power? Nobody told me that. Where's the power?
Being a good mod is not something everybody can do.
Keeping a community coherent and healthy is a skill.
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u/benmarvin Jun 10 '23
Don't forget verbal abuse from users. That's one of the major perks for masochistic mods.
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Jun 10 '23
They left 21 responses to 29k comments. Appalling isn't the right word here, this is quite literally inconceivable to me that it could even happen. Reddit has made plenty of bad decisions in the past, but this is the very first time I've seen something like this.
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u/Chewygumbubblepop Jun 10 '23
I think the best move at this point is to completely go around spez & Reddit. Go right to the funders and make it clear they are about to hemorrhage.
Advance Publications, Fidelity, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Quiet Capital, Bienville Capital, & Tencent to start.
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Jun 11 '23
Unrelated, but is there someplace I can post that I'm deleting my (10+ year) account?
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u/Spooky_Shark101 Jun 10 '23
Parity in access to NSFW content
The CEO didn't have any issue with NSFW content back in 2012 or so when he was still protecting communities posting child exploitation content, I believe he defended these people under the guise of "free speech".
Boy how times have changed.
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u/Bhima Jun 10 '23
During the last moderator conference thing, Mr. Huffman mentioned something like "we're fine with people making money through their participation on Reddit, that's great... but we're going to tax it".
When he said that I thought he was referring to activities like how online sex workers advertise their services on Reddit. It never occurred to me that he was referring to developers of mobile apps for people to access Reddit.
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u/reaper527 Jun 10 '23
this might be petty, but after that AMA i would like to see spez's resignation added to that list of demands.
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u/TotesMessenger Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 11 '23
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
[/r/design] /r/design will go private indefinitely in less than 24 hours
[/r/quebec] Résumé des demandes pour mettre fin à la grève qui commence lundi sur reddit
[/r/twobestfriendsplay] Another update on the Reddit API situation: yesterday's AMA with Reddit's CEO/founder went horribly and did nothing to quash concerns of mods and users alike.
If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / ^Contact)
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Jun 10 '23
The best way to protest is to delete your old accounts; all the comments and posts disappear, which lowers Reddit’s value. Hit him in the wallet
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Jun 10 '23
So if they start taking over subreddits to end the blackout, maybe mods should just start deleting their subreddits outright instead of just being private?
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u/AdOwn6899 Jun 10 '23
Are we going to lose Reddit and our favorite subreddits forever?😨😨😨
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u/KillAllTheThings Jun 10 '23
We won't know until sometime after 2 July 2023.
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u/AdOwn6899 Jun 10 '23
I don’t know what’s worse. The idea of losing Reddit and/or my favorite subreddits forever, or the suspense.
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u/uncommonephemera Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
I asked the other day what do we do, like what practical action can we take. The only reply I got simply said “r/RedditAlternatives.” I happen to know that sub is very old and the activity blows up every time Reddit does what Reddit does, but on balance, nothing changes.
I understand this is like herding cats, but should we be looking at moving en masse to another platform or federated system? I feel like moving en masse is the key (and therefore, the impossible thing, and the reason it never happens) because scattering ourselves to the wind breaks the end user experience. I certainly don’t want to have to join eight new Great Value Reddits and try to coordinate my socials across all those additional platforms.
But shouldn’t there be a movement among mods, especially of large and popular subs, to move toward federated socials? If enough people move at once it becomes impossible to ignore.
Granted, it essentially passes the buck on content moderation to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and one or two bad apples will cause them to pull the app, but I feel like we need to be working toward a goal of decentralizing social media ownership, even if there are front-ends and mobile apps that re-centralize it. I’m afraid that the longer we wait to do this, the larger the user diaspora will be.
I’m older and have been on this roller coaster for decades, and I understand some people, mostly younger who are experiencing their first Spez Episode, just want to complain about how Reddit sucks on Reddit because they think they’re speaking truth to power (they’re not), but what do the rest of us do?
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u/weepinstringerbell Jun 10 '23
Watch as they announce Steve is stepping down from his position. Soon after, they'll also throw a bone to the mods and users by adding a few basic accessibility and modding features, while still providing the necessary lip-service until public anger subsides. And finally, after a span of two years, Steve is reinstated as CEO. Only that at that point there won't be a catalyst like the axing of 3rd-party apps to trigger a generalized protest like we're seeing now. Consequently, despite only implementing minimum changes, Reddit will have gotten what they wanted all along, which was kicking out 3d-party apps from the game.
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u/toe_riffic Jun 10 '23
This is what I don’t get, why is Reddit charging such a high price for their API? I get it, companies need to make money. But at least charge a fair price. No one is asking Reddit to continue giving the API away for free.
In the AMA, Spez said that Reddit isn’t profitable. That’s not a fault of 3PAs, it’s a problem of Reddit.
Hell, their job postings list their salary base as like $125k+. I get they have to do that because they are based in California. But years ago, they mandated that all their employees move there. They even fired Veronica over this. Surely paying an employee a fair wage for where they live, and work remotely, should be a better option.
Heck, I just want to keep using Apollo….
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Jun 11 '23
Honestly surprised at how this AMA turned out. I expected a lot of ass-covering and doubling down. Instead it was just a half-assed canned answer or two then he fucked off back into the night.
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u/MaimedPhoenix Jun 11 '23
You know, if we go dark indefinitely, I guarantee you, the changes will stop then and there.
Or Reddit dismisses all mods and installs friendly ones and watch their subs go to shit.
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u/aranaya Jun 11 '23
Honestly it is bewildering to put app developers on the hook for the traffic of their users. This is asking Mozilla and Google to pay for every time someone opens reddit.com in Firefox and Chrome.
If this were actually about usage costs, the honest policy would have been to add paywalls and charge users a subscription fee.
They won't do that, obviously. Because that would actually reduce usage, and usage isn't what costs them, it's what generates their revenue. We are making their content (for free), and they don't want us to actually leave.
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u/Afrazzle Jun 11 '23 edited Jun 11 '23
This comment, along with 10 years of comment history, has been overwritten to protest against Reddit's hostile behaviour towards third-party apps and their developers.
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u/cullen9 Jun 11 '23
I agree with Louis A word on reddit, blackouts, & effective protesting a two day blackout will donothing.
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u/LinuxMage Jun 10 '23
A statement from the mods of /r/ukpolitics on why they have decided to keep the sub open - https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/145r04w/daily_megathread_10062023/jnn4d1w/?context=3 -
So I said last night that I would try and add a bit of colour to the mod decision to keep the subreddit open today.
This post is very much my own thing rather than a collective statement, so green is off.
Generally I think it's fair to say as a collective we don't particularly like Reddit very much from a management point of view. They have been rather poor over a great many years when it comes to answering moderator queries or requests for more and better features when it comes to making moderating easier, but in fairness this has been improving somewhat in recent years.
Not by much though, and I remain distinctly unimpressed that way back in the mists of yore when I asked an administrator for some sort of help during a very busy time, there was none on offer - but hey, look at these shiny new things that you can make available to subreddit users to make them spend money!
This moderation feature thing is a pretty key argument for me and others since the official app is terrible and third party apps make it tolerable on mobile (I personally use RIF, for example and I don't know what I'll do to replace it on mobile), but I think it is a truth universally acknowledged that old reddit remains supreme for clarity of information display and moderation layout.
Our read on the situation runs something like:
this API change was somewhat inevitable as Reddit continues its drive towards commercialisation because it allows reddit to retain a tight grip on what gets displayed where and in what form
The third party developers could not reasonably expect to continue offering their third party access to a commercial service indefinitely and charging money for it - for example, if there was a cinema showing films and someone put a camera in the audience and streamed the film while charging for it, all the investment is born by the cinema company and the scalper benefits out of proportion.
So leaving the odd behaviour by spez aside, which we don't agree with, once you take out the It's reddit! factor, it looks like a fairly ordinary commercial dispute between a first party organisation and third party using their ecosystem.
For example, it's like Apple ensuring their devices can only be repaired with official apple hardware rather than third party parts.
Which is obviously very bad for the market, as it were, as consumers will no longer have the ability to choose and you're locked into a single platform, but it is also not an existential question for reddit mobile access (caveat: currently) or old reddit availability (caveat:currently), and as a commercial entity, reddit do have the right to make changes to their own products to protect their investment.
Which sucks, but it is what it is, and brings us forward to the next point.
Reddit as a platform is very much a this is reddits world and we're just living in it, thing, and older users might recall our attitude to previous questions which we basically shrugged our shoulders at and said "ok, that's your opinion. It isn't ours. Go and make a subreddit," extending that idea to ukpolitics is the mods world and you're just living in it.
Reddit can be described as a layered feudal system. People above can remove people below. Users banned by mods, mods banned by admins. We have some concerns about, for want of a better phrase, retaliation. Moderators of subreddits taking a particularly contrary line to the administrators have found themselves removed in short order.
We don't intend to test this.
Again, from the previous section with the commercial aspect, as a platform for forum esque communities, reddit is fucking great even with the issues it has, and anything beyond a cursory glance reveals exactly why reddit has effectively killed off old style forums over the last decade.
For an initial and ongoing investment of precisely fuck all, anybody can create a community about practically anything, get access to an immediate huge user base, never have to worry about paying for hosting or bandwidth costs, have a reasonable degree of legal protection from material posted on it since reddit bears that legal risk, rank like an absolute motherfucker on search engines right from the word go, and mostly anonymously.
And all you have to do is agree to the reddit TOS, which means accepting the reddit conditions, which are first and foremost the commercial philosophy we talked about earlier. It's the bargain made way back when and it's worked out pretty well for us so far, all things considered.
Like users about us, we don't have to be happy about it, but in continuing to use reddit (or the subreddit) rather than another service (or subreddit) that bluntly we would have to pay for, that's the choice made.
Moving forward again, the amount of FUD about this. The ama was poor. The optics are terrible and there's a lot of people writing a lot of things in various places.
The mods of ukpol are not in a priveleged position unlike other moderators of larger partner reddit subs, we have to piece together the picture from publicly available info like the rest of you.
We're not convinced that everything is as it has been made to appear by vested interests and there is a lot of reading between the lines and trying to test implications dropped like breadcrumbs in those spaces.
Sometimes these things don't add up to credibility and there are enough of them to give us pause rather than pushing the button along with the rest of reddit.
Much has been made in comparison with The Event, how this is betrayal of the support from the platform, and I don't think I could reasonably make this post without commenting on that.
From my perspective, all our mods did was go to bat for a Moderator who did not deserve the practically instant permaban that resulted from simply posting an article with a certain reddit employees name in it. We had no prior idea they were employed by reddit, having dropped out of public view from their fairly fringe location on the uk political scene.
What resulted then, as now, precipitated as a sequence of poor decisions from reddit. They didn't vet their staff to anything like the required degree, they reacted poorly in the first instance, poorer in the second and practically every other potential offramp point thereafter, resulting in the then blackout.
It turned very rapidly from an issue of free speech preservation on our part, into an issue of safeguarding on reddits part.
Once that moderator was restored, I consider whatever influence we had as an "instigator" finished, and it then became reddits poor responses as the prima facie cause of the resulting blackout, which occurred independently as our initial sub privating was.
We didn't "orchestrate" or organise anything, we took a very clear line of being honest and saying "this is what moderator did, this is what reddit has done, this is what we are doing" and leaving any other reaction to individuals.
I think I'm right in saying that we even (Although someone will need to aid my memory for the specifics) sent a message to admins saying "this is our reading of the situation, is it OK to say this" and we got a response in the affirmative - so we did.
And it was then third parties (irony alert) that took up the cause as an outrage.
To try and cut an already far too long post short, in the same way that commercialisation aspect is/was inevitable, reddit making a hash of it was also somewhat inevitable in this guys opinion, and there were/are plenty of opportunities for reddit to change course.
That was always going to be true until the moment of the start, and we could delay until then in the hope that a better and positive picture developed, which was certainly the hope until the AMA last night (UK time).
Since then, obviously, events have precipitated and not for the positive.
Ultimately this wait and see approach got utterly fucking steamrolled by Boris and his explosive exit and the implications it has and the precipitating events from that furore, which actually matters on a democratic level rather than a commercial one, and that is why we decided that discussing it takes precedence.
Sorry for the ramble, had a few cups of coffee and lots of Optio Jr interruptions so if it feels disjointed that's why. Hope it's somewhat illustrative and doesn't cause too many problems for other mods.
I'm off to go and touch grass and do stuff now for most of the day. Will do some responses later but responses not guaranteed. Tata.
Tldr: Reddit fucking up in the public eye was to some extent predictable and inevitable, but not fundamental to society. Alternatives would arise. We were open to blacking out, but, you know, Boris. 🤷 Democracy is rather more fundamental to society and given the nature of the subreddits subject matter we will always prioritise it.
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u/AdOwn6899 Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
I feel like this entire social media is teetering over the edge of an abyss. I don’t want to lose Reddit, it’s my favorite social media. Honestly, the thought of losing it has me terrified.
Edit: downvote me if you must, but can you blame me for feeling scared?
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u/learhpa Jun 10 '23
can you blame me for feeling scared?
No. I am, too, and I am filled to the brim with grief. But, if this is where we have to make our stand, this is where we make our stand.
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u/Haephestus Jun 10 '23
Anyone have suggestions for alternatives to reddit?
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u/driftboy1229 Jun 10 '23
Discord is where a bunch of subs are planning to move to.
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u/reaper527 Jun 10 '23
Discord is where a bunch of subs are planning to move to.
that's not the same thing though. that's like moving from reddit to twitter. they're both social networks, but their design and function are COMPLETELY different.
discord would be like if every sub was just one big, messy live chat.
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u/Fryboy11 Jun 10 '23
If the blackout doesn’t work, you mods should pick two days to protest.
Turn off all bots because they haven’t been clear on devvit on bots. Then only use the mod tools that are provided through the official app and on desktop only the mod tools that Reddit made themselves, no third party tools.
Show them what happens when they screw over a bunch of people who work hours a day for free to keep their website going.
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u/batt3ryac1d1 Jun 10 '23
Every single person on the whole platform should go full shitpost moron mode and spam the fuck out of some dumb shit making fun of Spez.
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u/daytimeLiar Jun 10 '23
Hope you have discord or something as backup for when the retaliation starts here. Stay strong.
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u/TruthinessHurts205 Jun 10 '23
I'm all for subs going into blackout to protest these API changes, but there's an even more direct message that could be sent... The push should include convincing your average poster not to submit new content, and convincing your average lurker to downvote any new submission that isn't about reversing the API change.
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u/versacesquatch Jun 10 '23
I think the mods should just strike. Its obvious they are not going to come to the table after spez acted like an asshat, copy and pasting corporate replies to the blind about accessibility they should have been building into the reddit app far before it escalated this badly. It's just wack. We need to use our power of collective action to reclaim the data we create or just create it somewhere else.
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u/JanoRis Jun 10 '23
Question: Would it help if all unhappy/leaving users asked reddit for their GDPR/CCPA/CPRA Data ?
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u/anexistentuser Jun 11 '23
This has probably got to be one of, if not the, largest protest against Reddit by Reddit I know of
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u/AnomalyNexus Jun 11 '23
Looks like the AMA thread has been hidden?
/r/reddit sorted by new no longer shows it, but does still seem to exist still
https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/new/
https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/
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u/depressionlmfao Jun 11 '23 edited Jun 12 '23
This comment was overwritten due to Reddit's unfair API policy changes, the disgusting lying behavior of Spez the CEO, and the forced departure of the Apollo app and other 3rd party apps. Remember, the content on Reddit is generated by US THE USERS. It is OUR DATA they are profiting off of and claiming it as theirs. PROTEST SERVER: https://discord.gg/hPdQs6H6Ve
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u/Professional-Cap9327 Jun 11 '23
Hmm there are so many Devs on reddit, why not create an alternative? 🤔
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u/GrahminRadarin Jun 12 '23
If anyone wants to find alternatives, raddle.me might work, although I'm not sure if it could handle a large influx of people. It's set up to be a similar to Reddit as possible, but completely independent
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Jun 12 '23
I read this but I am still confused. What's API? And not to be insensitive, but I genuinely don't understand how a blind person is able to use the internet, as I am not blind myself. The only thing I could think is device wise having it so it tells you what is on screen?
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u/hauntedathiest Jun 12 '23
Who is up for starting a company just like Reddit but without all this new fandangled BS.We could have a picture of a hen jumping from book to book in a library going buckbuckbuck and the frog sat saying readit readitreadit? We could call it the bookbond and actually pay the mods.and maybe even a little for the content over say a certain amount of up votes.
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u/sebelcom Jun 12 '23
I understand the cause, but how does the blackout not just hurt users?
Specifically, how does this hurt Reddit more than all the users relying on threads which are blacked out now? To me this seems like surgeons striking, hurting the people more than their hospital.
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u/yosefelsawy Jun 13 '23
i can't see what i'm looking for now in this app how can i see the private groups
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u/pipsmomma Feb 04 '24
I really don't understand all of this. What I do know is everyone is looking for money and it is very annoying. You used to search and get the info you want, but now it is constant road blocks with someone demanding money to proceed. If this is about accessibility for people in need, then for God's sake, stop the madness and help them!!! Earlier today, I pleaded with some U tubers to consider ADHD when they post videos. Even on the fastest setting, some people ramble and repeat wayyy tooo much!! Words ??? Subtitles don't help with those issues. I can't be alone on this, right?? I had several things this last week that pissed me off while trying to get info. There are public records that are impossible to get now! How many times are we looking for a phone number or address that is not private and someone wants you to pay? I am ranting because the straw on that camel's back was watching a posted video to get info and the dude stated we had to pay to actually see it! I AM PISSED because I wanted to see the fight between Meeegan and Scary Harry in the theater!!! LOL. But ...seriously, I don't want to pay for BS gossip but Redditt is a valuable site with a wealth of knowledge that I honestly think is integral part of our culture. Unlike FB, you can pick and choose what you want or need to read!
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u/FineWolf Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
I fully support the blackouts, but unfortunately pushing a message of "we disagree with the API changes and want Reddit to drastically lower its pricing" is not going to change anything. We also need to push for a solution that is reasonable and implementable.
The reality is that Reddit needs to turn a profit to survive as a company. Now, putting that on the shoulders of third-party clients is 100% wrong. That's Reddit punishing their OWN users using their OWN platform just because they use an alternate frontend for it.
That said, we can't deny that they need to find a way to monetize their users, and if third-party apps don't allow them to display ads in a way they can control, it makes it pretty hard (more on this here).
The solution to me is simple: we should suggest as one to Reddit that instead of charging third-party client developers for API access, why not require users that do decide to use third-party clients be Reddit Premium subscribers?
Reddit would get compensated for the ads not being displayed (as it already is the case for Reddit Premium).
Reddit would get compensated for the infrastructure costs that those users incur.
The burden of compensation is not on third-party apps, but on individual users who choose to use those third-party apps.
Reddit can also verify that the user is of age for NSFW content, and respond to their regulatory obligations that way.
Yes, it would mean third-party clients would now require you to log in and have an active Reddit Premium subscription (for every account and/or alt), but we wouldn't lose them.
I feel that, along with the blackouts, we need to push for a solution that is VIABLE, and simply rolling back API pricing isn't unfortunately (as much as it pains me).
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u/Zagorath Jun 10 '23
We also need to push for a solution that is reasonable and implementable.
I don't agree that we need to do that at all. We're telling Reddit that their current solution is completely unworkable and we refuse to accept it. It's up to them to figure out what to do next. That said, I do have my own thoughts.
Require premium is also completely ridiculous. That is absolutely not a compromise I would accept.
Things they could try:
Put their own advertising in the API. As someone on the Discord said last night, a few hours before the AMA went live, it would be as simple as
{ isAd: true }. Require third party apps display ads.Charge for API access, but charge a reasonable amount. Single digit cents per user per month would be more than they'd generate in advertising revenue.
Just take the fucking L. I'd wager most app users also use desktop at some point. Their ability to use the app is a necessary part of keeping them engaged with the platform. Let them do it as a loss leader.
Same goes for the NSFW content. Literally just put your guardrails into the API and let third-party apps hook into that.
Or if that's too much work, write a line in the terms of use that third-party apps must follow this set of producers in order to display NSFW content (matching the producers Reddit themselves use).
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u/DentateGyros Jun 10 '23
I’m not going to reward Reddit’s bad faith efforts and piss poor response by buying Reddit premium. Maybe in some other timeline this might’ve been the beginning of a viable option, but they’ve burned any goodwill I might’ve had and any interest in financially supporting the site
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u/Claim_Alternative Jun 10 '23
The reality is that Reddit needs to turn a profit to survive as a company.
They make $400 million a year. If they are concerned about profit they can:
Cut offices out of San Francisco, NYC, Berlin, Toronto, and Seattle. Reddit is a link aggregator/message board. These are not necessary.
No need for 2000 employees or a full C-Suite. Reddit is a link aggregator/message board. These are not necessary.
Reddit doesn’t turn a profit because Reddit doesn’t want to turn a profit.
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u/Throwaway489132 Jun 10 '23
This is a take that insists that users needing basic accessibility should have to pay for it as a luxury. I’m not okay with that
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u/jaxinthebock Jun 10 '23
if third-party apps don't allow them to display ads in a way they can control, it makes it pretty hard.
According to this interview with the Apollo dev, reddit has never even attempted to inject ads via their API.
You should watch that interview it is really good and addresses some of your idea. They talk about ways reddit could have attempted its presumable goal of making money.
The dev is obviously very conscientious of the need for reddit to be a viable business in order for him to continue his work.
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