If Reddit phased out 3rd party apps gradually and tactfully, do you think this would have gone the way it has? The Reddit app is terrible, but is it any worse than navigating and learning the fediverse so far? Be honest.

I've been thinking a lot about why I decided to come here and I know it started off as a "they can't make me use their shitty app!" while simultaneously using test apps that crash and navigating less content than Reddit. What is the primary motivation for all of this anymore? Is anger enough of a motivation to keep people away from a platform long term?

I have a feeling that most folks are more loyal to their communities than they are the company themselves - meaning that no matter how bad the corporation is, sacrificing what they truly care about is not really worth it no matter how poorly they are treated.

If the community goes away, THEN reddit goes away.

But if the only way to access their community is through some shitty app, I don't see it stopping many people.

ppb1701,
ppb1701 avatar

@Haan. I imagine if they'd said we're phasing out xyz from the api or 3rd party support over say the next year or so, it would likely had a bit less of an uproar. Especially if they addressed the tools for the mods in that timeframe and accessibility. There still would have been a notable backlash though. Their own app has not been historically that great and their mobile web is irritating in its "use the app" pushiness.

Friend,
Friend avatar

mobile web is irritating in its "use the app" pushiness.

This has created so much bad will for me.

abff08f4813c,
abff08f4813c avatar

It depends on the what and how.

The first time they did something like that, they bought out Alien Blue.

Sellig would have been will to sell Apollo - he even brought it up in a call that he had with reddit. So reddit buys Apollo and the other top apps like RiF, rebrands them as official reddit apps, and includes more telemetry and ads. But the basic functionality that makes accessibility and moderation better remains.

Add the above into the mix and I think there's not be that much uproar at all. People would mostly be happy to continue using the mostly-their-apps as they had before. Other 3rd party apps perhaps do get phased out, but they'd just move on to some of the bigger ones. Certainly nowhere near enough outrage to blackout.

Haan,

It is baffling to me the timeline they chose for this. If I were an investor I would see this as complete desperation. What stable company makes these decisions seemingly on a whim?

I completely agree.

abff08f4813c,
abff08f4813c avatar

I think this must be it. Desperately looking for new sources of revenue to get into profitability quickly - so they can meet their timeline on the IPO and make up for lost value in their recently cut valuation.

Givesomefucks,

It's gaming an algorithm.

Big deals like this aren't made off one person's decision, there's all these metrics that are supposed to show the health of a company. But like anything, if you know the metrics you can just focus on that even if it's the literal worst thing to do. It pumps the metrics.

They're not trying to keep reddit alive forever, they want to juice the metrics so it's worth the absolute most on IPO day. It's all they care about.

Heresy_generator, (edited )
Heresy_generator avatar

I'm sure if they had handled it with more honesty and been up front about the fact that they're choosing to kill third party apps for business reasons some of the frogs who left would probably have stuck around to be boiled for a little longer, but I personally believe that it's the ethos behind the decision that most people are responding to more than the decision itself or the way it was communicated.

The creep of enshittification just became too much to ignore at that point and the enshittified path forward became crystal clear. Reddit signaled to everyone paying attention that decisions will continue to be made based on what makes money rather than what's in the interests of users.

Yes, my KBin experience is worse than my Reddit experience as it is today but I have confidence that my KBin (or other ActivityPub based platform I may choose to migrate to) experience will improve as time moves on while my Reddit experience would have continued to degrade. When that became undeniable to me I choose to pull the cord and start fresh now rather than wait until the rise of one met the fall of the other.

Devi,

I wouldn't have left. I use Apollo as my way to access reddit, I've tried the official app but it's dreadful and when I heard Apollo was closing I was already set to protest. When I read the post from Apollo about everything that went down, well, I don't think I want to go back.

tate,

I love learning and navigating the fediverse! Reddit had become unbearably stale for me.

INHALE_VEGETABLES,

For me anyway, the first nail in the coffin was removing the downvote/upvote counter, second nail was old.reddit... They were on their way to being shit long ago.

can,

Reddit has never been the same to me since the algorithm changed and the front page was the same all day.

HobbitFoot,

They would have lost users, but it would have been a fraction of what is happening now.

They first could have decided to restrict the API to certain licensed uses, which by itself would have forced a lot of apps to change how they do things. Reddit could also use the AI scrapers as a good reason. Then, they could have continued to do what they've been doing, make new features that don't work in third party apps to push people off.

words_number, (edited )

I much rather use a platform that tries to offer the best possible user experience but isn't fully there yet than one that had a decent user experience in the past but decided to make it much worse because they can. Especially if platform A is based on free (as in freedom) software and doesn't run on servers controlled by a single entitiy.

I would have switched earlier but there wasn't much content on lemmy, so this was just a great opportunity to do it. Apart from that I have to say I don't really miss much functionality after the switch (using jeroba).

Glaive0,

I’m here because Reddit told me they view me as a wallet, not a participant, contributor, or anything else.

The fediverse isn’t and may never be strictly “better”, but neither will Reddit. Reddit has a singular vision of worse quality and worse management going forward. They may claw BACK some of what they’ve chucked out the window, but they’ve shown they’re not going to make the product better. Ever. Just different versions of bad.

Had they taken a boiled frog approach, I’d be there a lot longer. I wasn’t excited to pay, but it would become a decision of “pay for a better experience or get something worse for freeTM”. That’s a different choice than “use my worsening app or screw off.” They made the choice relatively easy where they could have made it a lot more nuanced.

meggied90,

For me it's not about the immediate abilities to use Reddit/Lemmy, is about my projected ability.

Yeah the Reddit app sucks and it's slightly better than the iOS apps for Lemmy... for now.

Reddit has had years to improve their app and has not made much, if any effort to do so.

Meanwhile I've had two updates today to my beta iOS app for Lemmy, fixing bugs before I've even had a chance to find them and enabling new features literally every day.

The future only looks promising for one of these platforms, and that's why I'd rather weather Lemmy's growing pains instead of endure Reddit's stagnant state.

Computerchairgeneral,

Honestly? Yeah, I probably would have stuck around. I think if they had given more notice then the protest would have been a lot more muted and you wouldn't have seen as many people jump ship for the fediverse. Although, it's not really anger or spite that's been keeping me on the fediverse and away from Reddit. When I learned RIF was shutting down I was more annoyed than anything else. But every action Reddit has taken since then has convinced me that it's just going to become a worse platform as time goes on. Yes, the fediverse is hard to navigate at first and a lot of sites are struggling under a user base that was never expected to grow so rapidly. Still, I appreciate the smaller communities here and I've been more active here in a week than I was during how many years I've been on Reddit. There's a novelty to figuring things out that I never really had with Reddit.

can,

Exactly, this is hardly about API pricing anymore.

keeb420,

it feels like watching a friend unexpectedly emotionally abuse their spouse in front of you. like what do you do. in this case all you can really do is walk away.

Raji_Lev,
Raji_Lev avatar

Honestly, being one of the dozen or so people who still prefers to do his internetting with a computer rather than a smartphone, the whole app drama doesn't really bother me one way or another. What DOES bother me is Reddit deciding that they need to force a miserable ad-ridden experience on the people viewing and contributing to their site, plus knowing that if and when this goes through, old.reddit is almost certain to be next on the chopping block. Everything that's happened after that announcement has only reassured me that getting off of Reddit now is the right choice

livus,
livus avatar

Honestly? If Reddit had phased out third part apps gradually and tactfully I would have phased out my redditing gradually and tactfully.

I only browsed reddit on old or rif because otherwise it's just too slow, not info-dense, and has a facebook feel.

Being part of a mass migration instead of having to gradually move accross has been a steeper learning curve, sure, but it was always going to happen to me once reddit ditched old.reddit, and this way at least I have fellow noobs.

Mintyytea,

If this stuff hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t even known how theyve been treating the mods badly since forever xD I definitely would have kept using the app, I was starting to do a lot of doomscrolling on there. I just didn’t know there was anything wrong with the company.

However, them messing up like this opened me to the idea of a social media that isn’t for profit. Even if this stuff hadn’t happened, it would happen later. It happens to all the social medias, and it happened to twitter. Because of this event this time, I learned the term “enshittification”, and I think it’s eventually not possible for the social media companies to continue to be profitable without hurting the user experience more and more.

It’s great to me that this stuff with reddit happened because more is gonna happen anyway. If they get to ipo, they’ll probably give more ads, they’ll probably try to push it even more as a tik tok/youtube shorts experience, which I still think those platforms overtake reddit on this field anyway.

I never thought a social media that isn’t for profit was possible and it’s exciting to me that it might be the direction we go in. I’m excited for both fediverse stuff and also the wikipedia non profit app “trust cafe” wt___something.

Xperr7,
Xperr7 avatar

Kbin has been so much better than what I've seen of the official app. I see what I want to see, not recommendations, and, more importantly, I can see a lot more posts at once compared to new reddit and the reddit app. That's why I don't use Squabbles, and it's why I used Baconreader and old reddit.

Friend,
Friend avatar

Yep kbin feels like a forum/discussion/community from the outset. Official reddit app feels like a poor man's Instagram.

terath,

I'm not sure I would have ultimately left even due to the current API drama. But the subsequent comments by their CEO caused me to not only leave but delete all my content from their site. What an arrogant self important stupid jackass.

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