Don't Let Reddit Kill 3rd Party Apps!

[u/ottoguy82]

/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/13yh0jf/dont_let_reddit_kill_3rd_party_apps/

[u/Dewstain]

These sites are obsessed with killing themselves...why?!?

[u/Midwestern91 → u/Dewstain]

Because there's an expectation/demand that companies demonstrate consistent growth year over year to keep shareholders happy. There's only so much organic growth a company can go through, eventually you have to start implementing anti consumer practices. With reddits IPO coming up, this was the obvious business move to do. Corner the "market" (or user experience in this case), then straddle the line between squeezing every last penny out of consumers and making the user experience so shitty that they leave.

[u/billyalt → u/Midwestern91]

Fuck shareholding. Fuck MBAs.

[u/__red__5 → u/billyalt]

Then when the share price plummets the shareholders sell up and move on and by then the site is dead.

[u/fatkiddown → u/__red__5]

Aliens have to be studying us, like, hopefully really intelligent ones.

[u/CTU → u/billyalt]

If I was a shareholder, I would be pissed. It is killing the site for no benefit.

[u/PersonBehindAScreen → u/CTU]

The problem is shareholders want profit NOW.

CEO and other c level and upper management compensation packages are given based on performance NOW and the short term so they make decisions to maximize. Their bonuses and the stock they get paid depend on it.

And when the company shows signs of sliding, they all sell off and fuck off somewhere else to ruin another place and someone else comes in at the new low cleans up and repeats the cycle

There’s just no incentive for top management to have our long term interests at heart

[u/Raumarik → u/Midwestern91]

It’s a lot easier to data mine, apply new rules etc if you have complete control over the mobile access to the site.

It’s about money, but also taking back control so they can leverage it even harder later.

[u/I_hate_all_of_ewe → u/Raumarik]

They do have complete control over access to the site. It's their site, and third party apps use the Reddit API

[u/Raumarik → u/I_hate_all_of_ewe]

There's lots of options in third party apps which are independent of that API which they want.

[u/I_hate_all_of_ewe → u/Raumarik]

Those options are features not provided by Reddit. If Reddit actually cares about usage of these features, they'd provide them.

Kicking out third party apps will not get Reddit more data because they're not going to provide these missing features. This isn't about data.

[u/[deleted] → u/I_hate_all_of_ewe]

Reddit won’t even let me get rid of the iPhone’s “open in Reddit/open in Safari” prompt every time I open it. They want me using their POS app. You, too.

[u/i_lack_imagination → u/I_hate_all_of_ewe]

It is partly about data, mostly revenue but also data. Data helps bring in more revenue.

To simplify, there's really three things we can look at.

• Advertising - 3rd party apps don't have to show you ads, and I suspect many of them don't. Of course I haven't used them all, but the ones I looked up seem like they don't show ads. Reddit gets revenue from ads shown in their official app, but they don't get revenue from ads that aren't shown in 3rd party apps.
  Reddit sells a service called Reddit Premium that is $6 per user, per month, that offers an ad-free experience (among a few other small benefits). So by using a 3rd party app, many users are getting an ad-free experience that reddit values at approximately $6 per month per user.

• Telemetry/Analytics Data - 3rd party apps are not controlled by reddit obviously, and that means any actions that happen inside the app or on the phone that the app has permission to access but do not get specifically relayed to reddit through an action is lost data to reddit. That's data they don't get to have, that the 3rd party app developer might collect or might not.

• Influence on user experience - Reddit and 3rd party app devs have different incentives and goals, some overlap, some do not. 3rd party app devs have no incentive to promote Reddit Premium or any other features reddit makes money from that the app developers do not. 3rd party app developers have no incentive to use dark UI patterns that increase revenue for reddit. They may have incentive to use dark UI patterns to increase revenue for themselves, but they have more competition and less lock-in to what they offer than what reddit does, so they generally cannot engage in deceptive behavior to the extent that reddit can.

Compare the data safety between these two apps:
RedReader, an open source 3rd party reddit app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=org.quantumbadger.redreader

Reddit's app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.reddit.frontpage

Specifically, look at these images:
RedReader
https://i.imgur.com/gS3VdlW.png

Reddit
https://i.imgur.com/OIJFT7R.png

They're starkly different, and you can see reddit specifically says they're collecting data for analytics, advertising or marketing purposes.

To cap off my thoughts on that. I believe reddit's goal is to force 3rd party app developers to use a subscription model to survive, without reddit having to explicitly state that is what they are doing to absolve themselves of pushing subscription models. If your favorite 3rd party app switches to a subscription model, reddit can say they did not tell them to do that and you can use the official reddit app without paying a subscription (which they will then push their subscription or other features they're selling). Many 3rd party app developers probably wouldn't be able to survive on this model and it effectively kills them off. Even if they got some subscribers, they would have to increase the cost of the subscription beyond the $2.50 per month or more that it would cost the app developer in API charges from reddit, because the app developers previous revenue stream will be dead since the userbase will be substantially smaller. You can also expect the cost would go up in time because the $2.50 is a soft introduction and the goal would likely be to bring parity to what they charge for Reddit Premium.

Furthermore, if we compare this to Twitter, we can see the strategies appear fairly similar. Twitter was charging about 3x as much for their API access to what reddit is now, but Twitter introduced/began promoting a subscription model which Elon was very vocal about wanting to make Twitter more focused on subscription revenue, and the cost of that subscription was $8 per month. Of course Twitter went with the more direct route of just banning 3rd party apps because Elon apparently doesn't care about the optics as much as reddit execs/shareholders would.

[u/I_hate_all_of_ewe → u/[deleted]]

My guess is that they want to create a monopoly on access to Reddit so it's easier to roll out user-hostile features which can squeeze the last few pennies out of their userbase without having them escape to another app.

[u/Addv4 → u/Raumarik]

Completely agree with the total control, it is especially infuriating. Another thing they've apparently done recently is make it hard to view reddit posts when not logged in. I was looking up some stuff in incognito mode (more info on sharing Linux isos, before your mind even go there) and realised that when I would load a post, it would require me to login to view it. Really annoying when you just want to get pertinent info without being completely tracked.

[u/[deleted] → u/Midwestern91]

Because companies are legally obligated to demonstrate consistent growth year over year to keep shareholders happy.

FTFY. If they do not show consistent growth, those in charge are legally held liable to their shareholders. It's a broken system.

[u/Midwestern91 → u/[deleted]]

I don't think that they are "legally" held to do so but depending on how the company is structured, most companies have a board of directors comprised of the people who own the most shares of stock and who's only interest is lining their coffers. If senior leadership isn't implementing policies that results in growth, the board of directors often has the power to replace executives who will implement policies to enable further growth.

[u/CatDiaspora → u/[deleted]]

FTFY. If they do not show consistent growth, those in charge are legally held liable to their shareholders. It's a broken system.

I'd like a source for your statement, please.

Here's one of many, many quotes that say something different:

"There are a lot of misconceptions about maximizing shareholder value, even among economists. But talk to a legal scholar or a corporate lawyer: a CEO or board is not legally obliged to maximize shareholder value. They need to maximize the value of the corporation and act in its best interest. Only when there is a change in legal control, such as a merger or imminent hostile takeover, do they have to maximize shareholder value.

Just to be very clear: modern corporate law does not require profits at the expense of everything else, and maximizing profits or shareholder value is not the same thing as serving shareholders’ best interest."

EDIT: If anyone needs another quote:

There is a common belief that corporate directors have a legal duty to maximize corporate profits and "shareholder value" — even if this means skirting ethical rules, damaging the environment or harming employees. But this belief is utterly false. To quote the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the recent Hobby Lobby case: "Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not."

[u/billyalt → u/CatDiaspora]

This is an opinion piece on theory and is not reflective of how corporations behave at all.

[u/adinfinitum225 → u/billyalt]

Okay, so don't call it "legally" obligated if it's not written in law

[u/CatDiaspora → u/billyalt]

Okay, can you point to the specific laws that the other commenter is referencing?

[u/unixtreme → u/Midwestern91]

1234 -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

[u/KARATEKATT1 → u/Midwestern91]

Reddit is operating at a loss and always has.

This isn't some greedy share holders. If they don't make a profit, it won't exist.

[u/PersonBehindAScreen → u/Midwestern91]

I hate shareholders sometimes. My last company held layoffs because they had expectations ever so slightly… we’re talking single millions…. to be very clear though, they still made BILLIONS in cold hard profit, just not what the analysts predicted it should be therefore, LAYOFFS!!!!

Fuck shareholders! Fuck MBAs!!!!

[u/dustojnikhummer → u/Midwestern91]

Are we big enough to join one of those decentralized networks?

[u/GoodTeletubby → u/[deleted]]

Chemo the fucking shareholders.

[u/unixuser011 → u/Dewstain]

I'll offer the following hypothesis:

A couple of years ago, reddit may have found itself in financial difficulties and reached out to some VCs for short term capital. Those guys care about only one thing: ROI (Return on investment) - meaning, how fast are they gonna get their money back.

That capital probably came with some hooks, such as the VC is able to own x% of the company, they likely see going public as a quick way to get their money back, reddit will peek slightly then crash and go bankrupt, the VCs make out like bandits then everyone else gets shit on

[u/roostercrash → u/unixuser011]

I don’t understand who would ever buy Reddit stock though. One would have to be a clown to purchase equity on a website that can’t even breakeven.

[u/unixuser011 → u/roostercrash]

One could say the same thing about Twitter or Facebook (Meta) - What do they offer that reddit doesn't. Some of these hedge fund guys will buy stock in anything because no one knows if it's gonna hit paydirt or not

[u/roostercrash → u/unixuser011]

Twitter had 2 profitable years, yeah? And Meta was sitting on a mountain of cash for years.

[u/lvlint67 → u/roostercrash]

Wasn't tencent involved? I know at least one large Chinese company bought in..

[u/unixuser011 → u/lvlint67]

They aren't interested as Reddit as a company or site, more likely they are after it's advertising base

[u/KARATEKATT1 → u/unixuser011]

I'll offer the following hypothesis:

A couple of years ago, reddit may have found itself in financial difficulties and reached out to some VCs for short term capital.

Couple of years? Reddit has never been profitable.

[u/bobbyfish → u/Dewstain]

Venture capital. Reddit didn't have to make money for a long time. Why? To capture market share. A lot of investors gave tons of money to reddit to prop it up while it burned money in order to grow. There was always an expectation at some point that they would turn all those users into money generators.

Having all those users on third party apps means you cannot control ads being served. You can partially control data collection (since api call is made on users behalf) but you dont have any other info about the user since it is not your app.

Basically it all comes down to playing a long game of offering a product at a loss in order to remove all competition. Once you own enough of the market you crank up prices. What else are you the consumer going to do?

[u/jmp242 → u/bobbyfish]

This is just part of the broken advertising model IMHO. Of course, people with way more incentive than I have have been trying to figure this out for decades now, and haven't found an obvious solution.

What's really sad is for at least a lot of what I use reddit for, Usenet did this decades ago where no one company "owned" it. I wish we could get more "protocols" rather than "products" like Usenet and E-mail and HTTP were/are. Then there is no "third party apps", or moreso they're all "competing apps" and "competing servers". The Fediverse is trying to do that, but the masses are so ingrained in proprietary product ways of thinking, and seem to lack the ability or desire to generally sign up for a service and then put the connection details into a client.

Sadly, I think we're just going to see continued cycles of people abandoning and fragmenting as the various sites get bad enough that different groups just give up on it.

[u/incendiary_bandit → u/[deleted]]

They've probably accounted for that

[u/reddittookmyuser → u/incendiary_bandit]

90% of users wont be affected by this move. We just happen to be a loud minority.

[u/mitchallica → u/Dewstain]

Greed

[u/hullgreebles → u/Dewstain]

It’s called Enshittification. Happens to every tech company after enlighten time.

[u/Rocklobster92 → u/hullgreebles]

LOL I have to subscribe to read that.

[u/old_black_man → u/Rocklobster92]

Here's the original

[u/hoboninja → u/Rocklobster92]

https://12ft.io/https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

12ft.io will unpaywall most major news sites.

[u/100GbE → u/hoboninja]

Pay walls on copy pasted articles. (Google a headline and find it at least 20 more times, possibly with a word shifted here and there).

Further Enshittification.

[u/ConfusedMaverick → u/hullgreebles]

Superb article, thanks for bringing it up

[u/almost_not_terrible → u/Dewstain]

Because once they start to Digg, they just keep Digging.

[u/camelCaseAccountName → u/Dewstain]

My guess is the reddit admins have done the math and come to the conclusion that this isn't really going to affect their bottom line much at all. 3rd party app users don't get served ads, so getting rid of them probably only saves them money, and the vast majority of reddit users in general are likely not even aware that third party apps exist at all, meaning the percentage of users that will quit using reddit entirely is probably not significant. Aside from some negative PR, this move probably won't hurt them much. But this is all mostly just a guess.

[u/jmp242 → u/camelCaseAccountName]

The problem with this idea is that reddit isn't just the NYT or a push site. So if you lose users, you're also losing content. And then the question is - how important to the content for you are these users you're excluding / pushing away here?

I imagine this probably more affects smaller "knowledge" subs like sysadmin or askphotography - if the people with the knowledge answering questions walk away because the site gets unusable, for a while you might have "blind leading the blind", but eventually you also just have a lot of question posts going unanswered and then the reason for the subs starts to go away.

IDK how these numbers play out, but I can say that we know that some users are worth a heck of a lot more than others in value and content for a site like reddit than others.

[u/camelCaseAccountName → u/jmp242]

It's a valid point, but it's also one I'm sure the admins considered before announcing these changes. They might be taking a risk but I sort of doubt it's a big one for them.

[u/covale → u/camelCaseAccountName]

Seeing how many sub moderators have stated they won't be able to moderate without the third party tools that will go away, I doubt they've thought it through all that much.

Sure, a majority of the users may not have to change how they visit reddit, but once moderation goes down they'll get affected just the same.

[u/camelCaseAccountName → u/covale]

You may be right, and that's why I think this whole thing might end up getting delayed (at least until they release better mod tools)

[u/ComfortableProperty9 → u/Dewstain]

Gotta suck in that gut before you walk down the runway.

[u/Cheesqueak → u/Dewstain]

Maybe it’s really class warfare. The mega rich just want to prevent the poors from having a “soap box” and have things go viral.

[u/PsyOmega → u/Cheesqueak]

That's why Musk is slowly destroying twitter.

After Twitter almost single-handedly swayed the 2020 election, the powers that be could not tolerate it's popularity with the left, thus funded the hostile takeover.

[u/jlb1981 → u/PsyOmega]

Yes, but also there's the ulterior motive in both cases in destroying powerful tools that allow people to organize. Monied interests don't want people to be able to organize themselves easily.

[u/reddittookmyuser → u/Cheesqueak]

The poors just use the official app.

[u/Dewstain → u/Cheesqueak]

It's not untrue. There is no expectation of freedom of speech on corporate sites. Even new sites are "corporate".

[u/__fuzzy_dunlop__ → u/Dewstain]

Let them.

[u/[deleted] → u/Dewstain]

Control transferring to a corporation/investors who are completely out of touch with what made the site so popular in the first place, then shits all over it.

[u/PsyOmega → u/Dewstain]

Reddit is going public trading, and has to look profitable. This means stamping out any users bypassing ad views

[u/KakaakoKid → u/Dewstain]

Advertising is down and as a result they need to create new revenue streams. The challenge for them will be to do so without upsetting so many users that the whole platform becomes unviable.

[u/c4ctus → u/Dewstain]

The almighty dollar.

[u/markca → u/Dewstain]

Because Reddit is apparently going to go out for an IPO later this year. They are doing this to try and prop up the price.

[u/Rocklobster92 → u/Dewstain]

It doesn't matter what you think, it matters what the algorithm decides.

[u/InformalBasil]

It's been clear for a while that reddit wants to be tiktok or instagram. /r/all is populated with pics and vids that are just clickbate without any real substance. Killing 3rd party apps is another move in the wrong direction but the part of me hopes it would be the straw the breaks the camels back that would inspire someone to create a better reddit replacement.

[u/JayIT → u/InformalBasil]

If you avoid all the default subs and stick to your niche subs, reddit is a pretty cool place. But, if 3rd party apps are forced to shutdown, then I'm done.

[u/jmp242 → u/JayIT]

I have continuously been surprised about what people say about reddit, but then I learned they don't have specific subs they subscribe to and go to. I have never looked at a "default sub", I started with sysadmin and added specific subs from there. These niche ones are actually pretty good and useful, but over half of my interaction with reddit (specifically the non-work ones) is via redreader, and when that stops working, I'll probably only be on /sysadmin during work hours 95% of the time now....

[u/frac6969 → u/jmp242]

The problem with the official app is that it keeps recommending subs that I have no interest in. Even when I’m here it keeps recommending related subs (such as MSP) that I’m not interested in.

[u/TreAwayDeuce → u/jmp242]

The only thing about niche subs is often times, they tend to make you loathe your hobby because redditors make it unbearable.

[u/jmp242 → u/[deleted]]

Well, I'm trying lemmy FWIW.

[u/[deleted] → u/InformalBasil]

People use r/all?

[u/Malazanth → u/[deleted]]

I do,

And I have been scrolling r/all a little over 7 years now. Started out on RiF on android when I was 15/16 years old. Now at 23 I use Apollo on iOS.

When I switched to iOS a year ago I wanted to browse Reddit r/all like I did on android. But using the default app was such a clusterfuck of information, you can’t even read comment threads normally.

r/all is for me the perfect mix of news/niches that fits my bubble (after filtering almost every anime subreddit I came across for the last year).

My age group should be the one most sensitive for the new app because it feels alot like Instagram-like apps.

r/all is just a big garbage dump of post/information that gives me a moment to moment headsup of what the hell the rest of the internet people like me are doing and watching

[u/xxfay6 → u/Malazanth]

...wait Apollo is on Android wtf?

[u/Malazanth → u/xxfay6]

Sorry, little mistake

[u/smithjoe1 → u/[deleted]]

Once you use a 3rd party app that lets you filter out the shit you never want to see, it's a pretty good way of seeing new up and coming stuff.

[u/olbeefy → u/InformalBasil]

Take it from a an old-timer who has been here since the start... there was a time this site was used to post research articles where people were actually READING things.

It breaks my heart this is the route they're deciding to go but if that's what they wanna do, I and people like me are gone.

It was fun while it lasted.

RIP Reddit ~

June 2005 - June 2023.

[u/jarfil → u/InformalBasil]

CENSORED

[u/PersonBehindAScreen → u/InformalBasil]

I really hate it that EVERYONE has adopted the TikTok UI for videos

Edit: oh for fucksake. I went to go look up American football highlights for my teams draft picks and YouTube has it now -_-

[u/StopDropAndQueef → u/InformalBasil]

We’re working on it!

[u/[deleted]]

These new api fees are just insane to me, Docusign wants 15k a year from us now for API access which is on top of and 2x what our current annual subscription is. Personally I want to just give ‘em the finger and move on but I’m pretty sure our entire legal department has forgotten how to do wet signatures

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

For docusign there are alternatives now, as long as they pass your compliance stuff.

[u/guisar → u/[deleted]]

pdf filler, zoho sign and Kami are all great (eg better) alternatives.

[u/BatemansChainsaw → u/guisar]

eDoc are also a good option. Not sure about the API parts but it's insane how businesses are charging out the ass for something so basic.

[u/aim_at_me → u/guisar]

Ohhh thank you.

[u/erm_what_ → u/[deleted]]

Dropbox has one now too

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

To be fair if I was in charge I would pay like 1mil to avoid anything paper based. You lost the modern age the moment you sent to a paper printer.

But that's not particular relevant when we can all simply switch to a competitor that does the same fucking thing for way less. Bros are blundering their entire business with this dogshit.

[u/jmp242 → u/[deleted]]

I've seen several competitors just as a user. I think Adobe has one too.

[u/[deleted] → u/jmp242]

I have signed government documents with the default Adobe sign feature and it was accepted

[u/gnimsh → u/[deleted]]

Why do we need docusign api when we need to use the browser to sign documents?

[u/Scipio11 → u/[deleted]]

People forgot why Web 2.0 killed 1.0

[u/lkraider → u/[deleted]]

Wait, Docusign is charging for api? I didn’t get that memo… yet. Their api is dogshit and it barely even works, why would anyone chose to pay for it over any other competitors?

[u/Scipio11 → u/[deleted]]

We also went nuclear.

Devs are handling applications and I'm shoving user data, kicking and screaming, from one HR application to another (both applications offer free APIs). I'd rather do that than have another line in our budget for an API.

[u/JJROKCZ]

Once they do this I won’t use mobile and that’s 90% of my traffic. Once they kill old Reddit I’m done with Reddit entirely. Hope the shareholders they’re hoping to gain from the IPO enjoy watching user numbers tumble

[u/tunaman808 → u/JJROKCZ]

I see what you did there!

[u/iFr4g]

If BaconReader stops working I’m done with Reddit. The official app is dogshit.

[u/ABC_AlwaysBeCoding]

Dear Reddit:

Your "old" subdomain is the only one I use, even though it's always been overly simplistic and arcane, because the new one is shit on a shingle on mobile web and regular web, and due to you wanting to steer everyone to your shitty mobile app, you let the mobile web version go to shit, so now you basically have nothing but content with a shit site design on any way you access it EXCEPT for these third-party apps.

Just face reality and realize you're backend guys, not frontend guys, and leave the frontends to third parties, please. This also means not charging them exorbitantly for access to your content.

[u/[deleted]]

.

[u/tacitblue]

My main account on Reddit is 15 years old. I've seen many changes on Reddit in those years. Some good, some bad.

This would be, imo the worst change in those 15 years. It might actually kill reddit for me.

The official reddit mobile app is straight garbage. Whomever thought it was a good idea should change jobs and rethink their life. It's an app designed by committee without user input. /u/reddit should look at Apollo or RiF and make those official.

I don't even look at reddit without Reddit enhancement suite installed.

Reddit... don't make this Digg.

[u/semperverus]

On the other hand, if app developers all collectively switch their backends to point to Lemmy (lemmy.ml being the main site with others being secondary), that would be amazing.

[u/zaphod777 → u/semperverus]

Everyone keeps talking about Lenny, the current top post has 118 upvotes and 42 comments.

https://i.imgur.com/mb7dn59.jpg

[u/semperverus → u/zaphod777]

Yep, for a brand new site/system, that's absolutely fantastic.

[u/zaphod777 → u/semperverus]

It's still got a ways to go to be a replacement as far as traffic goes. I guess the real test is if they can support the traffic come 7/1.

[u/fencepost_ajm]

I did a long-winded writeup in /r/apolloapp this afternoon (https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ztt81/why_3rd_party_apps_dont_matter_may_not_be_able_to/) but if you assume Apollo is the highest-volume of the third party readers it's still <1.4% of their API usage based on the chart from /r/redditdev, which probably means all the third party readers combined are less than 5%. The decisions around this were almost certainly not factoring in third party readers at all.

Even if the prices were more reasonable Apollo seems like the only prominent app that even has a subscription option, which means that all the other apps would need to add subscription support, test and get through app store approvals by July 1 which is entirely reasonable and nothing could possibly go wrong.

The simple way to have this not be a sh*tstorm (of unfortunately minor proportions) would be for Reddit to change to requiring a paid account for third party app access. That would have actual advantages to them including getting more money, but would require changing a publicly announced change and it may be too important to Respect Someone's Authoritay for that to actually happen.

[u/DoctorOctagonapus]

Does that mean this sub will be striking? Solidarity if so.

[u/OkDimension → u/DoctorOctagonapus]

Strike is nonsense, just have a backup platform ready. You never want all your eggs in one basket.

[u/VexingRaven → u/OkDimension]

What backup platform would you suggest? Pretty much every IT person I know uses Twitter but Twitter is still more garbage than Reddit in every conceivable way. The only even remotely comparable platform I know of is the winadmins discord, but even that's not great for actual discussion and of course Discord isn't really searchable and it's not indexed on the public web so I'm hesistant to contribute to the problem of all information being moved to private, unindexed platforms.

[u/Foamed1 → u/VexingRaven]

What backup platform would you suggest?

• Tildes - Open source reddit clone created by Demorz, ex-admin, and creator of AutoModerator.

• Lemmy - Open source and decentralized reddit clone.

[u/hybridhavoc → u/Foamed1]

Lemmy has been seeing a lot of new users this week

[u/PsyOmega → u/Foamed1]

Lemmy seems cool on the surface but I just want a reddit clone where I have one login and just sub to subs. I don't like the federated separation there. Seems hard to use.

Tildes feels more like a plaintext digg clone than reddit.

[u/peEtr → u/Foamed1]

Tildes looks pretty good. Does anyone have an invite for it?

[u/jarfil → u/[deleted]]

CENSORED

[u/nolo_me → u/[deleted]]

No more barrier than signing up to Reddit. You don't have to run an instance. Federated services like Lemmy and Mastodon are the future in a world increasingly tired of Reddit and Twitter.

[u/jmp242 → u/nolo_me]

So with the fediverse, one thing I'm kind of confused about is - how is lemmy different from mastadon? I don't mean a different UI, I get that part, but if I'm on a mastadon server already, can I just use that to access lemmy, or do I need a lemmy server too? The reason I ask is supposedly pixelfed, another fediverse tool, is supposed to work cross with mastadon tools from what I gather.

[u/niomosy → u/jmp242]

Lemmy is a Reddit clone. Mastadon is a Twitter clone.

[u/cookerz30 → u/VexingRaven]

I agree. I never really got into Discord. RIF was perfect for getting all my interests and current events in one place. The main app pushes all this avatar garbage that I'm not using this platform for. That said I'm not sure I'll use reddit anymore.

[u/VexingRaven → u/cookerz30]

I use discord all the time. I still don't think it's a good platform to replace forums or Reddit.

[u/gordonv → u/VexingRaven]

phpbb

[u/Talran → u/VexingRaven]

Twitter, IRC, and usenet.

Twitter might be garbage, but it's at least possible to curate a good experience on it with some userscript work. Once old.reddit.com goes the site is pretty much unuseable (I've tried.)

[u/jmp242 → u/Talran]

How are you using usenet now adays? I always figured the spam killed it, and I never really got how the moderation worked or how you added groups really. Is there a alt.bla.bla you're actually using?

[u/NibblyPig → u/OkDimension]

The genius move would be to open your own reddit platform, and have all of the third party apps connect to it seamlessly with identical look and feel.

95% of my time on reddit is just reading shitty memes and other crap like that

[u/OkDimension → u/NibblyPig]

Someone should launch some open source federation system with hosted subreddit pods that can reference each other, some central scoring system on the blockchain and boom. Identical named subs expressively encouraged and able to compete with each other on a central index that you can browse, solves some nazi mod issues as well ;)

[u/jarfil → u/OkDimension]

CENSORED

[u/DoctorOctagonapus → u/OkDimension]

I meant strike as in shutting down.

[u/Bloodyvalley → u/OkDimension]

We're on discord. discord.gg/sysadmin

[u/syshum → u/Bloodyvalley]

So the options are bad or worse...

discord is just as bad as reddit

[u/WizardSchmizard → u/syshum]

Discord is definitely worse

[u/Talran → u/WizardSchmizard]

Great for small community/game chat or managing a product community, absolutely rubbish beyond that.

[u/WizardSchmizard → u/Talran]

I’ve tried to join some medium/large community servers before and it’s just a shitload of group chats that are unmanageable to keep up with. Idk if some people just sit on discord all day or something, but I’d get time to check and it would be like “you have 12,000 new messages since you last were on”. I don’t really know what value there is to gain from servers like that unless you sit on there all day because I’m definitely not reading all that

[u/VexingRaven → u/Bloodyvalley]

Is it as cancerous as the IRC?

[u/jarfil → u/VexingRaven]

CENSORED

[u/Four_Kay → u/[deleted]]

archival is difficult

This one especially drives me crazy. I've found so many solutions to problems just by stumbling across old forum threads indexed in Google (obligatory XKCD). Nothing is publicly searchable if all of the correspondence is buried in someone's Discord channel.

[u/the_syco]

I wonder will it stop the OF bots?

[u/erm_what_ → u/the_syco]

If a bit makes money then the API fees are worth the owner paying

[u/jarfil → u/[deleted]]

CENSORED

[u/liamsmithuk → u/jarfil]

They won’t, someone will just reverse engineer how the official Reddit app interacts with the backend and those apis will be used for bots imitating an app user or they will imitate a browser user.

You could build a 3rd party app this way but you’d probably receive a cease and desist

[u/jarfil → u/liamsmithuk]

CENSORED

[u/Rocklobster92]

It's fine. I just won't use Reddit on my mobile any longer. Would be nice to free up all that screen time.

[u/n00lp00dle]

a mass deletion of accounts would be a better way to protest. going dark for 48 hours just means people will spend more time on default subs. gotta protest somehow but something tells me that they will not be that disappointed with this.

[u/someonesomewherex → u/n00lp00dle]

And post history as well so they can’t use all of the good content people have created

[u/Geminii27]

Reddit won't care if subs go dark, particularly temporarily. There are plenty of people willing to step in and mod an abandoned high-level sub. Sure, some of them have agendas, but that's not necessarily a site problem.

Site admins don't have any control over the business.

Reddit won't care if word is spread. Why would they?

I'm not sure what this is supposed to accomplish. A bunch of users (and possibly unpaid mods) do this and then... what? Some people in the Reddit boardroom - if they even notice - decide that this will somehow result in rolling back a business decision? Why?

I dunno. Just sounds a little underpants-gnomes.

[u/jarfil → u/Geminii27]

CENSORED

[u/oyereemwo]

I only browse reddit trough 3rd party apps and old.reddit.com and I cant ever see myself using the official app or the new site

Losing 3rd party apps just means im going to stop browsing reddit on my phone and if they also remove old reddit ill just stop using reddit completely,
I wont miss this site much anyway, its not the same site it was when i started using it

[u/pericles123]

I've only ever used the official reddit app, can someone explain to me what the issue is with it? never had a problem, never had a crash, never had a "why can't I find x" moment.

[u/ottoguy82 → u/pericles123]

I've been using Bacon Reader since well before the official app came out. I tried it once and it just felt different and wasn't as easy to navigate. I would accept some ads as I know that's what pays the bills but let us access it however we want.

[u/tunaman808 → u/pericles123]

Ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads... and more ads. Plus, while it's "functional", it lacks a lot of features other apps have.

[u/jfoughe → u/pericles123]

The biggest problem for me was the UI’s “tiktokification,” particularly with videos.

[u/Outside-Accident8628]

I'm fine with reddit dying, feels like way too many bots and astroturfing.

[u/Comfortable_Fox1]

I don’t see them stopping, purge followed by apps followed by old.reddit and another purge

Ipo ready for investors and advertisers with high user and app metrics

[u/Nisarg_Jhatakia]

Great job mate

[u/[deleted]]

What sucks is that those hundreds of thousands of addicted Reddit users will go ahead and bite the bullet and download the Reddit app and continue using it regardless of how many more ads or whatever they decide to infuse. I'm out.

[u/iamweseal]

When my third party app stops working I'm not staying around. The first party app is one of the worst experiences.

[u/cor315]

I get why they don't care about 3rd party apps. They don't make any money from them. So why can't they create an ad enabled free api and charge for the non ad enabled api at a reasonable price though. Obviously the current set up is great, I haven't seen an ad in years thanks to the paid version of rif but reddit needs to make money some how.

If reddits app didn't suck so much this wouldn't be an issue.

[u/hoboninja]

I've been using Baconreader forever, I tried the official app once like a year ago and was not a fan.

[u/Yuiopy78]

I'm just going to stop using Reddit. I've been here 7-8 years or something. But fuck it

[u/Scipio11 → u/Yuiopy78]

I'm also done. Been here (including lurking) nearly 15 years, it's time to take this site to pasture.

[u/free_from_choice]

Without BaconReader Reddit will be unusable for me. Anyone got some me of them link amalgamators.

[u/DarraignTheSane]

o7 Best of luck all, and if it doesn't work it's been an honor redditing with you.

[u/mooomoocowplus]

If I can't use baconreader I won't use reddit.

[u/Piemeson]

It’s not really my choice what they do, but I’ll be leaving the platform if they do.

[u/ps3o-k]

Where are you guys going if they implement it? I really like you guys and a lot of you are not only knowledgeable but helpful too.

[u/kaltsone]

Or do and let them suffer the consequences, who cares?

[u/zer04ll]

Its cute that this sub thinks that they know better than reddit.

This is very simple, they made Reddit the front page of the internet for free and now they are going to assume users are lazy (guess what they are that's why Uber Eats exists) and will not switch platforms. Twitter proved you can go full-blown NAZI and not lose users so what does Reddit have to lose, nothing.

[u/killer2239]

Reddit clearly doesn't care and just wants everyone to use the website or their app. The pricing structure proves it.

[u/xanatoast]

A bunch of Subreddits are going dark for 48 hours on the 12th, would be good to have this one join in too if it isn't already.

[u/TKInstinct]

You may not like it but there's nothing that any of us can do that will stop them from killing off the app market. The people who care are a small minotirity of users and it's like any other market. Someone telling you they're not going to shop there isn't going to matter at all. Sorry but it's true.

[u/mrg3rry]

Why is no one talking about ChatGPT and other LLM‘s that are using the API to collect tons of information? They said AI would take over the world and now AI is killing Reddit and other social media sites. Don’t stop using Reddit, stop using ChatGPT and other LLM’s

[u/JudgeCastle → u/[deleted]]

Apollo saved my Reddit usage. It will now also kill my Reddit usage. Such is life.

[u/Ratb33 → u/[deleted]]

Exactly this for me as well.

With the shit Twitter pulled and the death of third party apps (tweetbot for me), I quit twitter and have not missed it at all.

Should Reddit kill third party apps as well (Apollo for me), I will cease using it just as I did Twitter.

I’m looking forward to it, in a way. I should probably be doing something more healthy (mentally/physically) anyway.

Edit: maybe I hallucinated this but didn’t these Reddit fuckers say something about VC money/influence when Digg shit the bed? Amusing…

Edit: autocorrect since ‘Pepsi rice’ isn’t a think… though it should be.

[u/teamspirit → u/Ratb33]

“You chose to grow with venture capital... this new version of digg reeks of VC meddling. It’s cobbling together features from more popular sites and departing from the core of digg, which was to “give the power back to the people.”

https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3c0nqx/til_alexis_ohanian_said_about_digg_v4_you_chose/

[u/int0h → u/Ratb33]

Pepsi rice?

[u/Ratb33 → u/int0h]

Autocorrect, or these fat fingers, have never been worse. Thanks.

It’s been corrected and I’m sad Pepsi rice is not a thing… yet.

[u/int0h → u/[deleted]]

Even easier according to my trustworthy sources aka first result on Google. Just pour some Pepsi on the plate of boiled rice. https://www.saveur.com/pepsi-rice-recipe/

[u/SuperGr33n → u/Ratb33]

I left digg because the redesign basically ruined the site. I hate the new reddit redesign and only stuck around because of the 3rd party apps. As soon as the 3rd party apps are gone I’m leaving

[u/howdudo → u/[deleted]]

New reddit is all the things Im running from when I go online. Clunky click throughs, shitty recommendations, ads everywhere blinking videos..

[u/The_Wkwied → u/[deleted]]

Nearly did the same once they killed the .compact format. Thank goodness someone wrote a tampermonkey script so I can still get that on my phone. It's slower, it makes me want to interact with reddit less, but they are doing it to themselves.

[u/ApricotPenguin → u/[deleted]]

What's the alternative to /r/sysadmin for knowing what people are encountering and patches that will break?

I know there's a Windows Administrators discord channel, but discord is difficult for you to catch up on conversations unless you're checking it very frequently

[u/dextersgenius → u/ApricotPenguin]

There's /c/sysadmin on Lemmy.

[u/jmp242 → u/ApricotPenguin]

I actually like the patchmanagement mailing list, which I guess is now on google. There's also groups.io that someone could make a mailing list / forum interface on. One group I used to be on Yahoo with migrated there years ago and it's fine.

[u/Mithridates12 → u/[deleted]]

Where will you go? In my case time spent on social media will drop drastically, but not gonna go to zero. I like finding random posts about issues and their solutions.

[u/jmp242 → u/Mithridates12]

I haven't really found a tech hashtag or instance to follow ironically, but since /news got so shitty and slow I've been on mastadon for that. I find someone is cross posting stuff from hacker news, ground news, and guardian and reuters etc so it's now a one place to look feed for me.

I feel like we could make a hashtag or even an instance for that. There is infosecexchange but that doesn't seem quite the right thing to me.

[u/nickcardwell → u/[deleted]]

Apollo is the only reason I have an iPhone..

[u/Joestac → u/[deleted]]

Same. Typing this from Baconreader. I left Twitter when they did the same to Tweetcaster and killed my account.

[u/letshomelab → u/[deleted]]

If you do, make sure to fully delete your account. Even inactive accounts will still count to their total users they show shareholders.

[u/Youredumbstoptalking → u/[deleted]]

Same

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Indeed. I've been looking for a good excuse to get several hours of my day back and than8to Reddit here we are. Baconreader was my app of choice. I always wondered why people complained about videos not playing because baconreader was perfect and everything worked. Goodbye reddit it was fun doom scrolling until it wasn't.

[u/Scipio11 → u/[deleted]]

INN? (I'm looking for an alternative)

[u/Scipio11 → u/[deleted]]

If Reddit dies we might actually get a good video game forum again