After weeks of burning through users’ goodwill, Reddit is facing a moderator strike and an exodus of its most important users. It’s the latest example of a social media site making a critical mistake: users aren’t there for the services, they’re there for the community. Building barriers to access...
What Reddit (proper, not individual mods or subs) got wrong is profitability at any cost. Many, many people are fine with paying 3rd party devs for their app, and those devs would be fine paying a reasonable price for API access. What Reddit saw was the opportunity to push people into their ecosystem, to see their served ads, to purchase only their subscription, and provide value to only their shareholders.
It's literally the definition of biting the hand that feeds them. People were willing to overlook a lot to stay in the community that was built there. When they plainly put in the open that they can do as they choose, and we're gonna stay, and we're gonna like it, the relationship between company and user gets much more confrontational and hostile. Now I'm not going back out of spite, and spite is a strong motivator.
I would have gladly paid for Reddit Premium for the ability to use 3rd party apps. After seeing the way they've responded to this, they won't ever get a dollar from me.
The real kick in the teeth would be for one or more of the third party app developers to switch to a subscription at $5-6/month and market it with "Already paying for Reddit Premium? Cancel that and it'll basically cover your cost for using $THIRDPARTYAPP!"
Yup. Offer Reddit Premium through the 3rd party. Reddit premium $3.50, 3rd party premium $5. I'd pay that too. I already bought the 3rd party apps, and donated to the makers multiple times. Reddit is/was a huge part of my day, not even for the community, just in how I learned about stuff.
Same here. I’ve used Apollo since it came out. I’ve bought the lifetime subscriptions and still donated a few bucks here and there. In the end, though, I’m sure we’re the vocal minority. I think some communities on Reddit will migrate but I think a majority will end up just fine, sadly.
Its weird, I've had this feeling of "loss" ever since the subreddit lockdowns started. I'm not upset that the subs went dark, because I think protests can be a powerful way to make our voices heard. The feeling was more a recognition that no matter what happens, reddit is likely never going to be the place that it was prior to the changes.
I've learned so much from the communities I'm subbed to. I built the entire solar power setup for my camper based on tutorials, videos, and threads in /RVLiving and /VanLife. I learned how to block ads on my home network from /pihole. Those communities will probably continue, but it stinks knowing that a lot of the members of those communities will likely not return.
I think however, that the transition is inevitable. During the first Musk induced influx into Mastodon, friction ensued from individuals who had used Twitter to promote their crafts (and support their livelihood). The friction got sorted out, but I the lesson I took from it, is its a Bad Idea to place essential needs like communication and e-commerce into the hands of near-monopolistic privately help for-profit platforms.
It is no different than submitting to a bridge Troll. Or a feudal lord.
I've been talking up Reddit having subscription-based paid access since this started - probably a base annual plan at $18-24/year to reduce credit card fees, and higher tiers available with improvements like higher API usage limits, family/sub/shared accounts (e.g. for people with multiple signins for different purposes), gold, etc. Reddit would get to keep more of the money by doing it themselves, they already have the basics needed in the Premium program anyway, and they wouldn't even have to deal with app store cuts if they didn't want to.
I love old reddit, I'd been a gold subscriber from as soon as that was a thing (not anymore though). I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it and I'm happy to pay to ensure the services I use can exist. But I'll be damned if I'm just going to go along with the owner-class taking a giant dump on the mods who've worked for free to manage the communities I've enjoyed over the years.
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