A poster on one subreddit dedicated to saving the third-party apps broke it down succinctly: “Never forget how Reddit began as an empty website, which its founders populated with hundreds of fake accounts to give the illusion of activity and popularity—Remember that without us, the users, Reddit would be nothing but [Hoffman’s] digital dollhouse.”
At least kbin and lemmy sites are populated by hundreds of fake accounts. And with us on those sites, they won't be doll houses.
Web traffic will continue. A couple apps have already been selected(?) by reddit (or chosen to) continue with a subscription model. narwhal and I forget the other, along with reddit’s own app. There was no shortage of people mocking the protest and/or “IDK why everyone is upset, I like the Reddit App…”
I think there'll be a similar amount of users to begin with but over time a poorer quality of moderation. People who want quality will experiment with other places like here until something takes off; the others will stick around for the memes.
What it will live or die by is whether its niche subs keep going or wither on the vine. Its big subs like music, gaming, funny, can be replaced by literally any other social media next big thing to take off. What still attracts people to Reddit is the 'oh, there's a sub for that' hook.
Reddit as a company has too much influence and control over the platform for the protests to work effectively on the 'average user'. People have been conditioned over the past decade to accept all forms of exploitation for a small convenience.
I don't think there will be a great migration that people are expecting, but it's a good opportunity for others to start something new. I think the overall adoption will be similar to Mastodon, where it's good enough but nowhere near representative of the Twitter engagement or userbase.
Well, my 1st thread on Kbin, proves people do not understand business.
It is a numbers game. And my question is a valid one, meant to encourage people NOT to go back to Reddit.
The reality is simple. In business, it's a numbers game.
If people go back to Reddit, even as unhappy people, the numbers will still reflect people browsing, posting, etc... That translates into ad revenue.
Even if many of those people who joined Lenny or Kbin, lurk in the shadows, that will show traffic and be viewed in a positive light.
If you really want to hurt Reddit, stay away from Reddit. Anything less, and the CEO of theirs is going to laugh to the bank.
I get that's not the popular viewpoint...
There is something about the underdog taking on the big, evil corporation and shaking their fist and the big guy folding.
But this is The Internet, and traffic means money. Period.
Some people make money just holding onto a domain name with a simple cover page (domain parking). So long as the site is regularly viewed by thousands or millions, they'll turn a profit. Add in everyone anyone who still post, adding to that content, more profit.
Of course, the CEO and admins were going to de-mod anyone who did not play ball.
Is that fair? Of course, not! But business is not always fair.
The true "protest" was for people to leave. To pack your bags and go elsewhere without returning. To adopt sites like Mastodon, Kbin, Lenny, or what have you, and leave Reddit in the dust.
That was the only thing that was ever going to mean anything. The question is, will people keep away or not?
Honestly what would have worked better is to completely stop moderating. Let the trolls run ramped and porn fill the front page. Mods do what they do for free for a sense of community. Force Reddit to pay modders and they system they built crashes. Only then would the IPO fail and idiot Spez would be out.
I thought this was well and I don't know why they didn't do it sooner. I did hear some valid viewpoints from mods saying they actually cared about their subs and didn't want them to be shut down.
And pretty soon - as of tomorrow in fact - a lot of mods won't be moderating as much so that scenario will no doubt happen anyway...
Yeah, me too. I'm fine with KBIN. And there's already Lemmy as well. spezless is just a proposal. It's got a long way to go before it's viable.
And this bothers me: "90% of revenue will go to moderators & power users". So, there's going to be advertising? I don't think anyone is going to want to see advertising. Or is it a subscription? I don't think that will work either.
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