is that old.reddit? if it is, you can try using teddit.net instead. gives reddit less data i think. i mean, avoid reddit, but if you do go on, using teddit.net is "harm reduction" (and not judging, i have caved a few times myself!!!!!)
Oh, I'll be coming back. Under old.reddit, with adblockers, to subs that didn't blackout, and my comments aren't going to be exactly... productive. May as well rack up a few bans before deleting the account.
It turned out that the moderators of Reddit, while not enthusiastic about having their tools for tracking down problem users gimped and willing to take subreddits dark, were also not enthusiastic about users spamming "fuck spez" on their subreddits.
Seen a lot of people express this sentiment. This isn't going to be as destructive as you think it is. Genuinely the best thing anyone can do to protest is simple: don't go to reddit.
The biggest thing that's come from this for me is that I now know the Fediverse even exists and so too have many others. If it can keep up even a bit of this momentum I'll be happy regardless of what Reddit ends up doing.
deleted my 12 year old reddit account, there'll definitely be (and there have been) some growing pains, and the ease of use (funnily enough implemented by the very 3rd party apps affected today) will be sorely missed. if we're the product they intend to use to increase their valuation, they sure did a good job shitting all over what made a lot of the oldheads stick around for so long. no doubt it's going to be bots and trolls galore going forward, or at least, even more so.
I did the same thing with my 12+ account. They sure showed where their priorities are, and it’s not with the community that makes their site what it is. It’s gonna be even more of a cesspool if the mods leave.
It's funny because with their over 40% valuation drop from the change they would have been better off just buying out the third party apps. Most of those apps were made with super slim teams. A couple mil and they would have sold. The API cost increase could have stood, people on 3rd party apps would have been brought into the fold and not counted towards it, and they would have then just slowly tweeked the apps towards the same user experience over time. It would have been the ultimate win for reddit and would have avoided this entire situation. Instead they decided to burn it all down.
The valuation drop by Fidelity took place over time, mostly last year, so it's unrelated to the API changes. That said, I agree the admins have chosen very poorly. With the amount of money on the table, buying out 3rd party apps would have been a steal compared to the massive hit to goodwill among their users and mods they're taking now.
They didn't even need to keep the API access free/very cheap. Hell, their specific "fuck you" price wasn't even the big issue.
The big issue was dealing with people dishonestly. Lying both before, during, and after the crisis, over and over. For example, repeatedly saying devs would get months of notice and then giving them only 30 days' notice, guaranteeing no business model could be built in time. Libeling the Apollo dev. Overtly telling the community their opinions meant nothing and only profitability mattered. Keeping secret their real current financial situation (which is presumably goddamn DIRE and which will soon be public regardless).
It's completely possible that this API change actually was necessary for the continuing health of the site. Maybe there was some real calculus used to arrive at it (though the only way that could possibly be true is if the free API was costing them hundreds of millions of dollars, which seems absolutely impossible).
But they dealt with the community dishonestly. It's very hard to come back from that. In my opinion, impossible, which is why my account is redact.dev'd
I think they are trying to convince themselves that there is some hundreds of millions of revenue they're missing out on, with the whole "it's valuable to train language models" argument.
This is definitely their attitude. When spez came back he said his biggest regret when he left previously was "leaving money on the table" and that he thinks Reddit should be in the same league as Facebook and Twitter (before Musk stomped that into mulch). They're not appreciating what they have, they're obsessing over all the things they're think they're missing out on.
Starting to look like the only way to move forward is to abandon ship! I'm sure a heap will stay with Reddit regardless but I'm pretty much over the piss poor attitude from Reddit admins that this situation has highlighted, time for something new!
You've got to be the change you want to see... or use the tech you want to see, more accurately. I remember when I left Facebook, people said "But how will you get updates from your sports league, and all your friends communicate on there". Yeah, it was inconvenient. But it's fine.
If people aren't willing to suffer small inconveniences to make technology better, then everything will definitely continue to get worse. But it's like voting... of course one persons actions don't matter. You have to trust that you're not just one person.
The Teamsters do not organize strikes that end after 48 hours whether or not demands are met. Because that shit is stupid.
A 48-hour blackout after which the subs come back clearly tells the admins that the community WILL put up with their bullshit. That they are not prepared to fight. That the abuse is tolerated and accepted.
Even if we can’t see it immediately, I'm sure potential investors are watching this all unfold very closely. Both from what the communities can do, very quickly, to damage the “product” they are looking to buy, and the corporate response to the situation. That AMA was a colossally bad idea, and continuing to double down, in the media, isn’t going to be instilling any confidence in the money people.
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