[HN Gopher] Hundreds of subreddits plan to go dark indefinitely ...
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Hundreds of subreddits plan to go dark indefinitely after Reddit
CEO's memo
Author : de6u99er
Score : 75 points
Date : 2023-06-14 21:21 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| dsir wrote:
| Just to add to the list of alternatives, I've been working on a
| platform with a bit of a different take on the online community
| space. It's sort of a Reddit/Discord/Patreon hybrid. We've built
| a place to monetarily incentivize ownership over the communities
| created on the platform. It feels like the people curating the
| communities should be rewarded for the work that they do.
|
| Here's an example community:
| https://sociables.com/community/Sports/board/trending
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is unfortunate for the long tail of communities since places
| like /r/hardwareswap do rely on automation significantly to drive
| their functionality. Reddit is a little bit like a Craigslist in
| that sense: it is hard to unbundle, but also it is hard for the
| bundle to capitalize on the market flow through it.
|
| Interesting puzzle, for sure, and I will be curious to see if
| there will be a new meta-community that can create the wide range
| of communities like /r/tipofmytongue, /r/hardwareswap,
| /r/changemyview, etc.
|
| Reddit may be unable to justify its valuation without being able
| to drive more revenue but there is a place for a meta-community
| that is more focused like that without having any of the complex
| pieces of functionality like federation, etc.
| Kiro wrote:
| I see a lot of backlash on reddit right now. A few of the top
| voted comments in a couple of the threads on my current
| frontpage:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/149cq9f/comment/jo4...
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/149cq9f/comment/jo4...
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/148xygd/comment/j...
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/148xygd/comment/j...
| xanderstrike wrote:
| By definition anyone posting/commenting/upvoting right now
| doesn't support the blackout. I don't think it's fair to say
| these comments represent the opinions of those communities.
| hackerlight wrote:
| > I don't think it's fair to say these comments represent the
| opinions of those communities.
|
| The gaming subreddit, relative to other subreddits, is going
| to be demographically tilted towards the "anti-SJW" types who
| find collective action intrinsically distaseful regardless of
| the validity of the cause.
| hgsgm wrote:
| anti-SJW love collective action like vandalizing stores and
| bridgading forums.
| danudey wrote:
| I've noticed that the "anti-SJW" types are inherently
| opposed to anything that inconveniences them even slightly,
| no matter how beneficial it is to anyone else (including
| themselves). If the entire world isn't focused entirely on
| them they throw a fit.
| EscapeFromNY wrote:
| I mean, you linked a comment with 700 votes in a thread where
| the top comment has over 9000 votes. Maybe read through the
| thread without cherry picking comments:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/149cq9f/reddit_were...
| Kiro wrote:
| > _A few of_ the top voted comments
|
| Not the literal top comment. My point was to show that the
| threads now have highly upvoted comments like that, which was
| not the case for the initial blackout.
|
| How is it possible not to cherry pick when _picking_
| examples? Would you rather have me pick completely random
| comments and say "one of these may show what I'm talking
| about but I don't know"?
| [deleted]
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Thanks, but not going there. The reddit break has been great
| for me, apart from agreeing with 'the cause'. As much as I will
| miss the content, I will now do other things. I never saw it as
| an addiction, but a pleasant habit, and a very easy one to
| break. Bye, bye 5k+ points (in about c4 months). I was actually
| quite proud of that. Now, it can all rot in hell.
| worrycue wrote:
| Reddit has been kind of bad for my mental health. Like many I
| refresh the various front pages hoping for my next dopamine
| fix - addicted to the low commitment required and instant
| gratification. I let the little karma number affect me way
| too much - I have started to hate such gamification of
| forums.
|
| Guess I will get my fix elsewhere now and hopefully someday I
| will stop altogether and make better use of my time. Reddit
| going bad just makes it a tad easier.
| Whatarethese wrote:
| These people strike me as those who will just take everything
| lying down. Just because it doesn't impact them it's a lost
| cause. The reason reddit works like it does today is because of
| some of those protests.
| hn_thrwn wrote:
| Mods don't want to be reminded that they are the most hated
| people on reddit. I've had the displeasure of talking to spez
| once. I've had the displeasure of talking to mods dozens of
| times. Hell I was one when there were only 20 default subs.
| cmdli wrote:
| In most of the polls that I have seen, people are supporting an
| indefinite blackout. There is definitely some backlash, but
| overall it seems like people support the protest.
| Kiro wrote:
| Can you link any of those polls? I saw a lot of polls with a
| vast majority voting for the initial blackout but the tone of
| the response to this indefinite blackout feels way different.
| cmdli wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/cremposting/comments/149a7ge/poll_
| s...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/148w58w/vote_
| s...
|
| https://reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/148suem/rtennis_blacko
| u...
|
| https://reddit.com/r/SipsTea/comments/148sk76/further_prote
| s...
|
| https://strawpoll.com/polls/e7ZJGVOXBy3 (/r/stardewvalley)
|
| A decent number of them show that people support an
| indefinite blackout, though there are some exceptions (like
| /r/tennis), where there is more support for opening back
| up. It's not universal, but generally people seem to be in
| favor of keeping the pressure on Reddit this way.
| Izkata wrote:
| Only today did I spot any poll in the ones I visit
| regularly, and they voted to stay open for even the initial
| blackout. Seems like it was mostly mod decisions in the
| first place.
| vladsiv wrote:
| As they should. As far as I can see, the second they ban the
| third party services, they will start pushing ads, hard.
| You'll be stuck with their official app and their website
| will use anti ad-blocking tech like YT is testing right now.
| So at the end, it's all about getting more money on the back
| of the community.
| CrossWired wrote:
| Something is afoot over there. I updated and then removed all
| comments, like, everything on my account, and then deleted the
| account a few days ago. And now its back with the previous
| comment I updated everything to intact. They did some form of
| rollback.
| agilecobol wrote:
| Based on the interview Christian Selig gave, Apollo has enough
| active and paying users, that he could continue to make this work
| with adjustments to the backend code as well as paid products
| offered by Apollo. Understandably, it seems there is little will
| after the relationship between Christian and Reddit soured.
|
| My guess is, Christian is content that he can now fully focus on
| Pixel Pals.
| briffle wrote:
| In the interview, he said his biggest problems are timing, and
| annual plans.
|
| 1. He has 30 days from the announcement of what the price was
| going to be, to implement new paid only plans, that follow some
| new rules. When the app store can take days to approve a new
| build, that is not much time to re-iterate and test something
| that being wrong could be very, very costly.
|
| 2. He has many people who paid literally a few dollars a year
| for apollo, and have months left on their subscription. He can
| give up $250k refunding their money, or spend a few millionn
| paying the API fees for them until its renewal time, and hope
| they renew.
| timeagain wrote:
| I'ma lurker on Reddit. No account, I just browse the top threads
| to kill time on the bus.
|
| From my perspective absolutely nothing has changed other than
| some new subreddits hitting the front page. The topics are the
| same. Maybe a little more international content----I can't recall
| "ich_iel" ever making it to the top before.
|
| I understand most users are lurkers like me. With that in mind, I
| don't believe these blackouts will accomplish much. They'll
| probably accelerate the homogenization of the platform and the
| race to the bottom in terms of quality, but that is happening
| anyway. I already know Reddit is mind-numbing days-old TikTok
| memes, I use it anyway because I like the interface more.
|
| Edit: it isn't that I am against the blackout, I just think in
| realpolitik terms it is not effective since most people are
| really not that invested or interested in participating in
| activism for their memes.
| baby wrote:
| Reddit is not alienating the lurkers. It's much worse, it's
| alienating the power users, the content creators, the sub
| moderators, etc.
| timeagain wrote:
| Right. And my point is that it won't affect their bottom line
| at all. The power users think they have "communities" but
| they do not. To us plebs it is mostly an afterthought that
| there are different subreddits at all. Reddits front page
| could be totally AI-generated and i bet most users wouldn't
| notice. Another day, another "what's something underrated you
| think everyone should know" thread.
|
| The power users probably have a higher rate of block
| installed anyhow, so maybe Reddit will see a little uptick in
| "engagement"
| bbor wrote:
| I think you're focusing on your usecase a bit too much -
| consider the whole "add 'reddit' to your google search for
| better results" dynamic, and the effect of invested users on
| it. I totally agree with everything you said tho, just not that
| /r/popular lurkers interested in 15 minutes of memes are the
| only users important to their bottom line.
|
| After all, it's important to remember the network effects that
| made Reddit big could just as easily make something else big to
| replace it. And think about how my shitty websites there are
| for midtier memes, and how they don't hold a candle to Reddit
| in terms of size or cultural impact - 9gag, Imgur, and even
| 4chan immediately come to mind
| hgsgm wrote:
| ich_iel has been on the front page for years.
| vinayan3 wrote:
| How are the reddit mods communicating and coordinating? Is it on
| Discord?
| dsir wrote:
| Ironically using a sub-reddit created for this
| realitythreek wrote:
| That makes sense though. Realistically it's more important
| that they can communicate and there wasn't time to set up an
| alternate channel.
| dsir wrote:
| Yeah fair enough. It definitely was the quickest and
| easiest approach to organizing fast given the circumstances
| monero-xmr wrote:
| I mean they can just force reopen them and new moderators who
| don't care about API stuff will take over.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| My friend shut down his subreddit and a mod complained to
| Reddit admins that my friend wasn't even active, and Reddit
| admins gave that mod the subreddit.
|
| Great system.
| sshine wrote:
| It just means: if you create a subreddit, you don't own it in
| any way. You're granted permission to be its custodian. If
| your behaviour does not create value / if you anger the
| Reddit gods, you will be replaced.
| weinzierl wrote:
| I support this, but as someone who doesn't have a Reddit account
| currently it also makes me want to create one again, just to be
| able to read threads that come up in my search results.
|
| But then again I would be supporting Reddit (the company, not the
| community), which would be counterproductive to the initiatives
| objective.
| IceWreck wrote:
| Private subs are private for everyone, even members.
|
| Only sub moderators and admins can access private subs. You
| won't be able to see the threads that come up in your search
| results either way unless they become public again.
| mongol wrote:
| As a lowly redditor I feel this has become a fight between a
| nomenclatura of moderators and Reddit. The moderators believe
| they are taking the rightful fight, but as far as I am concerned,
| they they don't represent a community since they are not elected
| by it. They elect themselves, right? So this is less of a grass
| roots movement than it may appear.
| bbor wrote:
| Many communities did hold votes on this issue. And it would be
| very very hard to organize a moderator election on a free
| online forums with hundreds of thousands of members...
| mongol wrote:
| It wouldn't be _that_ hard. It would not meet the bar for
| true democracy but accounts older than X months with a karma
| > Y and more than Z comments could be eligible to vote for
| example.
| jerdthenerd wrote:
| Reddit can always bring subs back online - the question is if
| they can find dedicated mods for those subs that were previously
| ran by volunteers.
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(page generated 2023-06-14 23:02 UTC)