Apologies if this is the wrong place for this. A few subs opened up and were discussing the possibility of extending the blackouts. The majority wanted the blackout to end to keep the influx of content. That was to be expected.
There was a disturbing tone in some of the messages though. It was a form of cynicism essentially backing Reddit to do whatever it wanted to the devs, and that it was wrong to protest the rule changes as we should be okay with whatever Reddit wanted. It was almost like learned helplessness. I genuinely found it to be disturbing. Is anyone else noticing this in their communities/subs?
I’ve noticed some of this in non-reddit forums, where we’ve discussed the situation at some length. I agree; it’s quite disconcerting.
Some people have even made it clear that they’re incensed at Christian Selig, like the situation is somehow his fault, and they consider him to be a gold digger who is just profiting off of the platform that Reddit generously provided, and they even go so far as to suggest that Selig needs to “pay his dues!!!11!!1” Even a well-reasoned argument (including a full explanation of the actual math) was ineffective at convincing them that maybe they don’t quite grok the situation… one person actually stated bluntly that he doesn’t even care; he basically just wants his subreddits back.
The mindset behind these kinds of comments just utterly baffles me. (shrug)
That is what shocked me the most. They are going out of their way to make him look like a gold digger who apparently made a fortune. This is insanity. What’s more is that they think that the charges are good business for app devs to pay up. The issue is that if the apps are gone, no one is paying Reddit anymore. It’s odd how they skim over that part.
Well… I think your conclusion is absolutely right, but it’s actually more complicated than that.
Executive summary of the math from the conversation to which I alluded: If all things went absolutely perfectly for Selig, he couldn’t possibly have made more than about $450K per year, (gross) at the peak of Apollo’s popularity. The app was around for less than six years. Therefore, excluding expenses, his maximum theoretical gross income was still somewhere short of about $2.5 million. (There was a lot of math stuff that led to that figure.)
Reddit is demanding fees essentially equivalent to seven times that figure… per year.
That math doesn’t add up – unless you assume that those existing third-party devs aren’t the target audience at all, for that proposed fee structure. At no point did Reddit ever think that these small time devs were going to be able to cough up those exorbitant fees; the target audience is and always has been large language models.
The thing is, I don’t actually think there is much chance that the LLMs are going to be any more likely to accept the new fee structure than those third party add on developers. Thus, as you’ve stated, there will ultimately be no payday for Reddit.
Time will tell, but maybe this will create the great growth of Reddit alts whatever they may be.
People who mention the Broken Stair usually get accused of Rocking the Boat by people who don’t want to do anything about the Broken Stair. This is always the way.
It doesn’t mean the Broken Stair doesn’t need to be replaced.
Most people on reddit are American, and from what I’ve seen of the people in that country, 90% are bootlickers and the remaining 10% escape to better countries
Average redditor lol
I implore you to rethink your usage of wide sweeping generalizations for the sake of an argument that fits your opinion. If we don’t want Lemmy to turn into a negative cesspit like reddit we gotta focus on civil discussion instead of ‘enrage to engage’.
This is my favorite post.
… The people who don’t leave the country are poor, who exactly do you think the boot is stepping on?
Not even “are poor”, just “aren’t rich.” Immigrating is expensive, both in actual costs and in loss of stability.
I’m disabled, no country will have me. I’m stuck in the US for good even though I hate it.
Keep 2 things in mind
/r/conservative assholes are running amuck across all of reddit at the moment.
And, Reddit has been known to astroturf comments in the past and I 100% guarantee that they are probably working on that to some extent right now.
Why would /r/conservative support killing third-party apps though? I don’t really see the connection.
I don’t think people are united in their views about Reddit. I’ve seen a bunch of conservatives complaining that Reddit is a “woke leftist hive-mind cesspool” and that it deserves to die. So I guess they support the blackouts because it’ll lead to Reddit’s death. Oh, and they also claim that Twitter is great now that all the “leftists” fled the platform because they were getting banned by Elon Musk.
The Internet is weird sometimes.
Probably because they are less conservative and more … Contrarian?
They view protesters against suthoritarian moves as whiny liberals, so they will always take the opposite position - and like it.
They see “take charge” and “fuck you” activities as real turn one, they don’t even stop to assess what is happening. They get raging boners over it.
Yeah, I guess they just want to “pwn the libs” by being made to use the awful first party app and have all the adverts etc.
I think the decentralised nature of lemmy, kbin etc. is much more in line with the libertarian ideals that some of the right have though.
What you’re realising here is right wing libertarianism isn’t real, it’s an excuse to allow people to do horrible things to eachother. They’re still very happy to ban things they don’t like.
I mean it’s also /r/conservative not /r/libertarian or whatever. So I wouldn’t necessarily expect them to hold those libertarian values in any case.
Yeah, but take a look in any thread and they’re 24/7 jerking off about how they’re freedom lovers or whatever.
Yeah, it’s not really a coherent worldview. I don’t entirely agree with libertarianism but at least it’s much more coherent. They aren’t like all for freedom, but then against gay rights or whatever.
That’s kinda true. Then again, consider the history of any right-leaning sub or sub that makes fun of the left: Admins force unwanted mods into their subs. New accounts make “threatening” posts faster than mods can stomp them out, and get screenshots to other subs as proof the whole sub is terrible. T_D banned fir a post arguably advocating for violence against police… a few weeks before BLM kicked off, and every left sub was loaded with advocations for violence towards cops. Cringeanarchy got flooded with CP posts from AgainstHateSubs alt accounts and promptly shut down. (Cite: https://youtu.be/yUV9TyfYaEQ ) All this was, overtly or covertly, supported by reddit’s admins.
Now, if you’re still a r/conservative mod on Reddit after ALL THAT… you’re controlled opposition installed by reddit admins, or you want to a reddit mod so bad, you’ll compromise your values for it.
Uh, what? How did admins ‘overtly or covertly’ support false flag attacks?
AHS was definitely doing this, and there were several examples of admins being in close communication with AHS leaders, including some leaked chat logs (which arent totally verifiable but are pretty consistent). If nothing else, the fact that reddit admins had their eyes on “bad” posts in right-leaning subs faster than mods could, and yet also would ignore similar posts in lefty or “neutral” subs like r/politics that don’t allow any remotely right wing opinions, was very observable to anybody in an effected sub.
Citation needed, sorry.
If people generally to the left support something they automatically oppose it, and a lot of the big leftist and liberal sites were the first ones on this blackout train.
Like this isn’t being mean, they’ll admit they do that. They’re proud of it.
Yeah, that sub seems pretty dumb tbh so it doesn’t surprise me.
I lean to the right in my political views yet I do not exhibit any of the behaviors that you are subscribing to an entire population. Consider being more exact with your words lest you alienate people with vitriol.
You’re right, right wing politics is primarily propagated by the desire to be evil.
I haven’t been on Reddit to see for myself however I believe I heard someone on Lemmy say that /r/conservative was making a big deal about NOT blacking out? I have no context and no clue why I just know I’ve heard people say that.
100% guarantee … probably … to some extent
Hedging your bet there I see. :-)
Always never commit fully to something,
Sometimes always never commit fully to something in most cases
Maybe
My one regret, Is that I have…Bonitis
Most of us wildly underestimate the number of our peer accounts that are corporate shill bots.
also the people still on reddit are the ones that never joined the protest in the first place
I think now it’s just a matter of building up the alternatives. The blackout was enough of a push for me to find and explore this place, and many of my regular subs look set on staying private, so I’m hoping that means more people will be looking around, especially once it lasts through the weekend.
There is a distribution bias. The people commenting are the people who didn’t leave. Those that did might not have come back, or are not checking regularly.
This. I’m not posting on reddit anymore. I haven’t even loaded RiF except to see if my post history is showing so I can edit all traces of my presence there.
Accidentally opened it a couple times from Google but luckily the subs were closed. Unluckily the thread had the answer to an Ubuntu issue I was looking for… I did figure it out eventually but it made me realize that having those communities primarily be on Reddit doesn’t particularly fit the FOSS ethos at all.
Same, I haven’t opened Reddit except for accidently on Google images when trying to find images for a game I run.
Yep! Or the occasional cited source in a recent news article that I blindly tapped on mobile
I mean, I can understand some people not supporting the blackouts (not the third-party api fiasco)- Reddit is an info powerhouse, some subs going dark means some info won’t be accessable, which for important subs, can be a problem (I know not all the subs went dark and some health-critical ones are up btw) alternatively, maybe some people just don’t want to see Reddit die, not for corporation reasons, but maybe due to certain sentimental reasons- in which case Lemmy is still the spiritual successor of Reddit, the good part atleast- and we can say that Reddit is already “dead”, as in, it no longer is the Reddit as it is known anymore, unless if they like the modern day extra-consumerist hivemind Reddit, in which case, it is better we let them enjoy themselves…
Reddit is an info powerhouse, some subs going dark means some info won’t be accessable, which for important subs, can be a problem (I know not all the subs went dark and some health-critical ones are up btw)
reddit was something of a resource in itself.
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I’ve moved on. Lemmy is where it’s at. I only post on reddit to promote lemmy now :-) It’s my new game. Polite and respectful suggestion of an alternative. But, it’s better to just be here, get to know people, figure out how it works and enjoy the learning experience
Same! I am posting a polite comment when appropriate about the fediverse and Lemmy explaining how it works and responding to respecful comments/questions. There are some vicious people in the replies but I just report and don’t engage.
Lemmy is great! Let’s gooooooo!
Yep, its helpful to just let people know there are alternatives. While everyone was angry it just didn’t feel like there was anywhere else to go and it felt kinda hopeless. Lemmy is not the same as reddit, but to me its a viable alternative and the people that will want to put in effort on it are the people I want to help and see posts and comments from
hear hear!
i LOVE it here. I was just in reddit then, for old times sake, after reading this thread ;-) and the anger and negativity is real. It’s SO good here. This is like the old days of the net, with modern tech. I LOVE it
I really think that we should have picked an alternative before the blackout protest. I didnt find Lemmy until the blackout and then there was no where to talk about it or tell people to come here. Oh well 130k + people still found there way here.
you gotta remember that the constant consumption of media is similar in many respects to addiction - people need their media back, preferably in an easy to swallow pill. the vast majority of the reddit userbase is unwilling to search for other methods/platforms to satiate that desire.
I guess i didn’t think it would be this bad. Like in one of my favorite subs, some of the user base is turning on the moderators, who have been excellent and have developed the community from nothing. It’s just unbelievable to see some of them turn that quickly.
yeah. not much can be done about it - gotta get the community moved to a new platform - this one, or others.
It doesn’t need to be this bad. People are inherently capable of ugly, self-destructive behaviors like this.
But it’s ultimately a reaction to an environment which is profoundly inhumane. Although these people are physically unharmed, they have been mentally disfigured by the mechanical claws of corporations, manipulating their needs and desires in order to extract wealth. They are not themselves. And thus I pity them, because I have also done ugly things as a result of pressures applied to me by our resident corporate overlords. They know not what they do.
Some people are actually just assholes though. But not that many. Most are being led by the mob rn.
There were reports reddit was using bots to influence the conversation
I would not put it past them. They tried banning accounts promoting alternatives.
I have witnessed these bad responses on different soccer-related threads as well. They all behave like junkies who really need their fix of reddit desperately that they get toxic against those who protest and dare to take their precious fix away. A bunch of “no one cares, trust me bro”-responses, mods get attacked for having too much power. It’s sad really how addicted they are to reddit. I personally hope most, if not all the subs that went dark will do so indefinitely. Might be good for the mental health of those who are dramatically addicted as well.
“No one cares, trust me bro”…until their dealer (corporate Reddit) decides to start charging for their fix, or else nukes their favorite subreddit to make the whole place more investor-friendly. Then, it will be “HOW DARE THEY???”
Yeah, it’s embarrassing how shortsighted these people are. Reddit will be an absolute mess riddled with ads in the near future, especially when they force mobile browser users into the app and I would not put it past Spez to disallow adblockers being used on their website as well. Then you get spammed with ads unless you buy Reddit premium, which surely will rise in price as well. And then it will be too late to protest. So silly to not see the direction that reddit is taking and to complain about protests now.
Most of us have been seeing it for years but failed attempts like voat were discouraging. The type of users they decided to alienate this time was their greatest error. Don’t fuck with the mods and the app devs lmao… that’s why this exodus is like the absolute opposite of voat.
Honestly subs should offer alternative places other than reddit
@possiblylinux127 @lemmyworld They probably would but are in fear of getting banned or muted or worse. I think people don’t care anymore and post to lemmy and other instances
I actually logged in just to vote yes on the subreddit polls asking to extend the blackout, and… yeah. It manifested as acknowledging that a 2-day blackout wasn’t going to do anything, and after that they would continue to argue that we shouldn’t proceed.
