The Reddit protest was doomed to fail

You can be right and have a good idea, but you cannot make someone listen or believe in your way of thinking.

Reddit, being a private company, always meant they were going to do what they wanted, regardless of how the moderators cried foul. They had made up their minds before they informed the user base, and they were going to double-down no matter if people liked it or not.

I suspect, they believed most people used the main website (new or old) and the default app. I suspect their analytic data may even have suggested that fact. The mods who spoke out, may have not done so alone, but Reddit was committed, and I suspect they believe they will recover in due time.

The only solution was not so much to protest, but to leave. Those of us who joined either Kbin or Lenny, and who choose not to come back, is what will speak volume. As a corporation, numbers are everything. Even unhappy people who visit will mean success, as it means ad revenue and justification in their eyes.

At the end of the day, that is what it will come down to... numbers. Do people leave Reddit and stay gone, or do curious minds lurk in the shadows and in time rejoin?

muftiboy,

reddit wants you to leave so they can replace you with AI. that's why they don't give a shit and that's the bigger game that many don't see.

https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/111509/Hot-take-18-years-of-user-contributions-to-reddit-will

1chemistdown,
1chemistdown avatar

I don’t believe it failed. It’s just not a capitulation by the CEO and board begging us to come back. Lasting damage has been done and it takes time for that effect to be seen. Give it time.

FYI- ads have been down 50% since protests began and they continue further down with time. Plus, Minecraft’s announcement is going to affect things further.

czech,

I'm not sure what people expected to happen. The protests did what they needed to do: they seeded the threadiverse with enough users for a general feed.

Reddit is not going to advertise its internal struggles. We've already seen they can't follow through with their threat to replace moderators when they shutdown "TIHI". Last I checked 3/6 subreddits with 30+ million subs were in some kind of locked or troll state. Another sub mentioned they've had to turn off comments because they dont have the tools to address the 200k+ submissions of backlogged flagged content.

MrFahrenheit,

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.

Linux-Is-Best,
Linux-Is-Best avatar

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?

syphe,

Well, my 1st thread on Kbin, proves people do not understand business

Huh? You got one response and blanket suggest people don't understand business?

CaptainCoble,

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.

HipPriest,

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...

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