You can read through all of /u/spez's replies here [0]. It won't take long, because the most striking thing about this AMA wasn't that he said very many controversial things but that he barely said anything at all. There's one moment where he gives a sarcastic jab about how Reddit isn't profitable while some of the third party apps are, and an earlier one where he repeats some of the things he said about the Apollo dev. But mostly he just avoided even moderately controversial questions.<p>He put in an appearance for about an hour, ignored all the most upvoted questions, then disappeared.<p>[0] <a href="https://old.reddit.com/user/spez/comments/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://old.reddit.com/user/spez/comments/</a>
The same story it always is.<p>Reddit, like so many other places, believes it has a right to extract the value the community creates.<p>But it doesn't. It didn't create the value, the community did. It convinces itself it has a right to profit here, but it really created almost none of the value.<p>It is then surprised when it can't just sit and extract value from the community without pushback.<p>This kind of value extraction only works (If at all), when the value being provided by the company is somewhere near that being provided by the community.<p>Then people are a little more willing to feel like you deserve something.<p>In reddit's case, it's very uneven. Despite providing the website and bandwidth, Reddit feels to most of its community like a large scale freeloader, as funny as that may sound.<p>That sort of relationship eventually goes south, though it takes a while sometimes.<p>All of these places eventually discover that they are not the thing driving real value.<p>Those that are smart realize this early on, try to make as much as they can while they can, and diversify before it all goes to shit.<p>Reddit is not one of those.
I highly doubt anything of substance will occur after this going dark period. Remember Ellen Pao, and the firing of Victoria? There was similar drama then, and lo and behold, nothing happened, quite the opposite as Reddit's userbase increased. The average user uses new Reddit and the official app, they simply do not give a shit about any of this drama. In a year's time, most people won't care anymore.<p>People who use third party apps are outliers. They do not make Reddit any money so Reddit would be glad to be rid of them while also saving on API costs. No other online service allows freeloading millions upon millions of API requests in addition to allowing third party apps to a large extent. Facebook, Whatsapp, Discord, Instagram, Slack, Twitter all don't, so it's a wonder that Reddit did all this time, for free.<p>If subreddits go dark for 48 hours, then from the perspective of Reddit, they'd think, great, then it returns to normal. If they go dark indefinitely, Reddit admins will wait a few days then force the subs open and demod everyone involved. There is a long list of mods who are willing to contribute.<p>In the end, consumer boycotts like this simply don't work.
Someone here in HN suggested that what Reddit should have done is to make API acccess a benefit of a Reddit premium account. That way Reddit would directly collect money from app users and would not have to rely on app developers to do it, and app developers would not have to shoulder risk in the same way. It seems so clear to me that that would have been a better approach.
Yeah I don't know, this seems so simple. All spez had to do was:<p>1. Identify the core value of reddit's service (community of communities who upload posts, videos, images, etc.)<p>2. Identify the cost factors associated with operating those services (app servers, CDNs, bandwidth, employees, etc.)<p>3. Identify 3rd party clients as competitors that impact reddit's ability to maintain and improve those services (reddit pays the cost of running the services, competing 3rd party clients do not.)<p>4. Extend an olive branch to the third party devs by offering them jobs (+ big bonuses if they onboard their respective apps' users onto the official app), and an opportunity to integrate users' favourite features from the third party apps into the official app.<p>It's not a total win, it was never going to be. But good lord, what an intensely poorly managed situation. Typically you get paid a lot as a CEO for moments like this, if you can't handle this then what are you being paid for?
I've been getting more and more active on the largest instance of lemmy - <a href="https://lemmy.ml" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://lemmy.ml</a> - and its crazy how many popular subreddit names have been created on lemmy.ml in the last week.<p>I'm not sure if the philosophy of the fediverse really meshes with the idea of social media. It feels like if it caught on it would push people farther and farther into smaller echo chambers (and that seems bad!). However, adopting one large instance seems like a drop in replacement for reddit (and the least painful for the average joe).
Discord should put out a quick Reddit clone. I imagine they already share a lot of the same users. How much would it take? Make the forum feature more like a subreddit for the server, improve discoverability of discord servers, make a “front page” that aggregates threads from popular servers...
Yea the CEO's response was tone deaf and not tactful at all.<p>However, it seems insane that people are complaining about this for the following reason:<p>1. Reddit is not profitable, it is literally bleeding money.
2. No Reddit = No 3P apps to access Reddit.
3. The discussion that should be had is whether it is sustainable for Reddit to keep running it's servers and whether the recent decisions are made in favor of additional growth or survival.
none of this will have any impact. the subs need reddit as much as reddit needs them. collectively sure the subs can control reddit; for a short time. but new ones will appear. and the subs make money by being online so none of them will risk pledging more than 2 days
Its the end of an era. It doesn't matter if reddit survives this (which it will obviously do) and goes on to a lucrative IPO and milking the unwashed masses for a few more years.<p>Because of the moderators reddit felt like a more human place, a least bad option.<p>For anybody with two firing neurons it is clear now that these centralized ad-driven platforms are where humanity's conversation goes to get annihilated.<p>The new thing will be the fediverse. Its still unclear how it will get funded etc. It may well be that <i>parts</i> of it will have the same or similar pathologies. But it wont be <i>all</i> of it.
I found this image funny. <a href="https://i.redd.it/616ijgmgb75b1.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://i.redd.it/616ijgmgb75b1.jpg</a><p>Reddit... It's never been high quality content, but it's something to read when I'm bored. But I think I'm done with it.<p>For me it was probably this little exchange. Where Spez doubles down on claiming that the creator of Apollo was in some way being shady, without providing any evidence.<p>Behavior like this shows me that Spez is used to lying and getting away with it. Long ago, Spez was caught editing user comments. Sort of shows that in 15+ years in a leadership role he hasn't learned how to be a better human...<p>Spez -5264<p>> His “joke” is the least of our issues. His behavior and communications with us has been all over the place—saying one thing to us while saying something completely different externally; recording and leaking a private phone call—to the point where I don’t know how we could do business with him.<p>iamthatis +5727<p>> Please feel free to give examples where I said something differently in public versus what I said to you. I give you full permission.<p><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/jnk45rr/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_...</a>
In one comment, he neglected to remove the "A:" at first, presumably while copying from a pre-written document. It shows how little he cares.<p><a href="https://archive.ph/X6EJq" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://archive.ph/X6EJq</a>
I, for one, really hope that on June 30 Apollo goes dark and so does my use of Reddit.<p>It would be an ethical thing to do on my part. At least Covid-19 days taught me to stick to ethical decisions.
People using Reddit essentially laid their eggs in someone else’s nest, on purpose and with intent to get value for zero investment.<p>Reddit offered in the free market and everyone chose. Those who didn’t choose Reddit are still out there not on Reddit… nothing was taken that wasn’t given by choice in the past.<p>You can’t moan and complain your way into owning Reddit, or it’s api or web services, etc.<p>Just take your invaluable content elsewhere.
To me this whole thing is about whether it's ok for a failing tech company that users depend on to pivot, and whether this applies to reddit currently. Failing would be any company that can't continue in its current direction. I think it's not ok to ruin a product or service people depend on for no reason. I also think Reddit is failing in a sense and has good reasons to do most of what they're doing. Perhaps what would make it ok with me is if they had made the API change in such a way that supported freemium business models for third party app developers. For instance accounts could be limited to 20 subreddits unless the app pays some amount per user that would be a fraction of a reasonable charge to the user. Like say 50 cents a month.
This unsubtle reminder that if you don't control the iron your community is platformed on you're someone else's product has been brought to you by the letter M and the number 8.
remember when people needed enough brains to get online that most of them were capable of figuring out Usenet and IRC? Seriously, if you're a "mod" or "dev" whose life's work rotates around the good graces of a private company that doesn't give a flying f** about you, you're basically just a tapeworm in the colon of the consumer internet. Good luck with your protest; you sold your soul years ago.
I don't use web reddit.
Tried old and new and it's horrible on both side!<p>But I use Relay Pro some pros :<p>-Gallerie View
-List view
-better comments section
They said that each Oauth based auth user/key will have 100 requests/min.<p>So is it not possible for third party apps to create a process which generates Oauth token for each user when they sign up/join in via their app ?<p>In that manner, each user have their own token and each user can have their own 100 req/min, which should be sufficient for most if not all users.
Isn't reddit source code open? Don't we already have an archive of its content? Aren't there even other open source alternatives (lemmy).<p>Sorry, I really don't get why people are so concerned. If reddid wants to shoot themselves in the foot, nothing is stopping people from self hosting alternatives.
Is it just me or have we lost the ability to collectively move to competitors in social networks?<p>I remember the day when digg was overthrown, MySpace, livejournal... there's a long list. But in recent memory, Twitter, reddit, and more(eg twitch) are calling people's bluff and they seem to be at least partly getting away with it (at least they've maintained the market leader position).<p>Any ideas why?<p>One guess: These markets have matured into a monopoly with fragmented competition so that the only competitors that are in position to accept new users are niche products and not ready to absorb or capitalize on these collapses (eg federated products or alt right platforms).<p>Anyways, it's a bit of a pipe dream but I would love if we had something like a non-for-profit which could come in and create a better long-term home and single ecosystem to compete with these monopolies when they start misbehaving. I think signal did a really good job at this. I've been able to move a number of my messaging groups onto it. Pipe dream but Signal or Wikimedia foundation run social networks might be interesting.
And thousands new ones will arise . I think it's about time. And reddit might even want this. One of the worst things about current reddit is the same moderators moderating multiple subreddits for more than decade , it has gotten really old while its audience is always young.
I guess it’s a good time to mention this: <a href="https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/</a>
Its unfortunate for Reddit, they have been forced in between a rock and a hard place.<p>They need to become profitable asap since the markets have dried up but users have gotten so used to being subsidised.
Reddit is pretty much dead to me after they decided to put a paywall on their API and after their CEO's embarrassing AMA. I'll keep using my libreddit instance until the API lasts, and then just delete any presence I have over there.<p>"Profitability" is killing the internet. Either you scoop up as much user data as possible, or charge users for basically anything more than the basis (RyanAir model coming to haunt IT?), or investors think that it's just not worthing putting money into you.<p>Investors are a negligible minority of Internet users, most of them don't even know how TCP/IP works, yet they have the biggest say on how the Internet should be designed. And they're killing it. These big pocketed motherfuckers who put their money into things they don't even understand aren't welcome anymore.<p>It's time to develop open forums based on open protocols, so all this shit about profitability, walled gardens and centralization goes out of the window for good by design. We need an ActivityPub for forums too - and, who knows, maybe ActivityPub itself with a few tweaks will suffice?
Still doing this CPS style. Recent and related:<p><i>Thousands of subreddits pledge to go dark after the Reddit CEO’s recent remarks</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277814">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277814</a> - June 2023 (232 comments)<p><i>Reddit bans subreddit detailing how to move to competitor Kbin</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36268458">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36268458</a> - June 2023 (188 comments)<p><i>Ask HN: Where are Reddit users migrating amidst the API fee controversy?</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36267206">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36267206</a> - June 2023 (15 comments)<p><i>Reddit CEO Spez AMA Overview</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36265027">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36265027</a> - June 2023 (22 comments)<p><i>Reddit CEO doubles down on attack on Apollo developer in drama-filled AMA</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264232">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264232</a> - June 2023 (470 comments)<p><i>Thousands of Reddit communities will be inaccessible on Monday in protest</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36263059">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36263059</a> - June 2023 (16 comments)<p><i>Addressing the community about changes to our API</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369</a> - June 2023 (364 comments)<p><i>Ask HN: Are there alternatives to the subreddits which will go dark next week?</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259785">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259785</a> - June 2023 (14 comments)<p><i>Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086</a> - June 2023 (361 comments)<p><i>Reddit announces plan to lay off 90 workers as subreddits plan mass protest</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36237285">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36237285</a> - June 2023 (38 comments)<p><i>Addressing the community about changes to our API</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36261369</a> - June 2023 (320 comments)<p><i>Archive your Reddit data before it's too late</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259930">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259930</a> - June 2023 (341 comments)<p><i>Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36257981">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36257981</a> - June 2023 (221 comments)<p><i>Ask HN: Anyone else disinterested in Reddit API drama?</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256545">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256545</a> - June 2023 (26 comments)<p><i>Apollo Back end just made public</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256167">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36256167</a> - June 2023 (229 comments)<p><i>Ask HN: You are given 100M to launch a new Reddit competitor</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36255767">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36255767</a> - June 2023 (23 comments)<p><i>ArchiveTeam has saved over 11.2B Reddit links</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254172">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254172</a> - June 2023 (150 comments)<p><i>Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254086</a> - June 2023 (352 comments)<p><i>Using unmodified third-party Reddit apps with a custom server</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36252061">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36252061</a> - June 2023 (20 comments)<p><i>Power Delete Suite for Reddit</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250785">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250785</a> - June 2023 (31 comments)<p><i>Apollo will close down on June 30th</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36245435">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36245435</a> - June 2023 (1568 comments)<p>Continuation:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36251707">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36251707</a>