I agree it stung, my oldest was 7 years and I had contemplated keeping it but ultimately I deleted it just as I did the other two accounts I used regularly.
I've had about half a dozen reddit accounts over the last 13 years and I've been active posting guides, obscure technical fixes, and other high effort content on all of them. I just retire accounts every 2-4 years because I don't want to accidentally reveal too much personally identifiable information, so rather than delete all the content people find helpful, I just make a new account to compartmentalize things a bit.
I think I'm going to log back into 13 years worth of accounts over the next couple days and delete all that helpful stuff so that reddit doesn't benefit from it anymore. It isn't a lot by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not nothing, either.
Think of it like this, if reddit suddenly does a 180 and goes back to the old ways, you can just make another account. Another chance to experience it again.
I get what he's saying about how the blackout likely won't succeed, but I feel that's the wrong way to view it. First of all, it's at least something, and it's much of the site, showing solidarity. I understand that having most users instantly and indefinitely stop using the site would send a stronger message, but it's just not realistic. Even among those that support the protest, many have gotten used to doom-scrolling Reddit as a bad habit.
But this also just the first step. I do not imagine these communities just rolling over and accepting Reddit killing 3rd-party apps. So I expect more, longer, sustained blackouts, content poisoning, and deletions before 3rd-party apps are gone and completes its IPO. But who knows, I know many won't be back regardless...
I am one of those addicted to doom-scrolling. I started browsing kbin exclusively since saturday, for sure theres less content and its growing pains (downtimes, ddos checks etc) but also less outrage, pessimism, pointless arguments etc. Over all it has been a really nice and refreshing experience, im less anxious and less angry and I think I feel a bit better. I think, form me, leaving reddit is not only about the API changes but about peace of mind and I believe there has to be others like me looking to get out of the "doomer" cycle that will start considering coming here as it grows. My only concern is if this places wont become like reddit eventually and I will just be sitting it my chair staring blankly at the screen while thinking "What a shithole of a world we live in".
IDK, Im not good with words, But I know I like it here and Im staying. Thanks to everyone who makes this possible, devs, mods, commenters and lurkers. c:
It's convinced me. I'm going to delete my account later today. Luckily, I was never an overly active poster and my username is very 2015. So I don't mind too much. But I empathise with those who made great content that will be letting it all go.
I’ve just put down my account of 12 years. Sad times as it was a snapshot of my formative years, with all the hobbies and interests I’ve picked up in the last decade.
I would argue that you should keep your account and just ignore it. Could potentially save your handle from being taken over by someone else and actively using it, or assigning it to a bot to pretend the account is active. Better to have a grave yard than a ghost town.
I think taking what makes reddit a great place to go to like all the help and info is the best way to show your disapproval, they are working with unpaid mods and all user submitted info, and that is the whole biz. Now they want to control the community, they want to monetize the mods and users time for solely their own benefit and while they are at it, they want to force their app so they can gather even more info,to do even more of the above. They even ran a test on some users to not allow mobile users to use the website and app only (I dont know if forcing desktop mode worked around it).
I would argue that infact a ghost town, nothing left for them to market, would be the best outcome. While we would lose a great resource for information, many of those topics can be reborn or directly moved over to federated services.
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