hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout, its aftermath, and what’s happening going forward, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! thanks! we’ll see if we need to cycle the thread again before the end of this week, but i don’t know that we’ll need to
https://mastodon.social/@robotdeathsquad/110543755195398954
Every time you hear the Reddit CEO talking about how they need to become profitable, remember they raised $250m and then spent the last couple years building this: https://nft.reddit.com
Yeah they’ve been completely inept for years.
A nice summary of why everyone is so angry, by Christian Selig:
https://mas.to/@christianselig@mastodon.social/110572053161618054
Redditinc.com’s fact(oid)s about the API changes.
Includes such BS as
100,000+ active communities
Technically true. But it’s estimated that between 1/3 and 1/2 are NSFW. That is, the subs they don’t want shown at their (mythical) IPO.
Supporting these apps is not free for Reddit; they incur both infrastructure and significant opportunity costs.
Technically true. But so does the official app, and web browsers. API calls are not some sort of special magic that causes extra wear on the systems. If the users never had the third party apps they’d be using something else, causing the same traffic and usage - or using nothing at all.
Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use from our API.
Again, third party apps are no more of a drain on data use than anything else. It’s been proven, but Spez keeps pushing this lie.
Many other platforms have chosen to stop supporting apps like these altogether.
Objection! Facts not in evidence.
more than 98% of apps do not pay and will continue to access the Data API for free so long as apps are not monetized […].
Emphasis mine. This is the real story.
Our pricing is based on usage levels comparable to our own costs
Either this is an outright lie or Spez is admitting that the official Reddit app is an inefficient, data monching, piece of garbage.
We’re working to improve the mobile mod experience
Spez has been promising rainbows for years but all we ever get is poop. Or just the smell of poop. That the mobile apps were released without proper moderator tools tells you what he thinks of moderators.
We have a unique system of checks and balances, and we respect the communities right to protest.
Clearly a lie, given that Spez is going to change the rules to force out moderators who choose to follow their sub’s wishes to protest.
r/nottheonion is asking users to vote, including a fun option that encourages people to take Tuesdays off
The “fun option” is an official means of joining the protest. Can he stop lying for 10 seconds?
We conducted an accessibility audit with an external consultant and have been working on improving accessibility on the site and in our apps.
Yes, much smarter than actually TALKING TO YOUR OWN USERS AND SEEING WHAT THEY WANT. Oh, they want what you refuse to do? Gee, what a surprise!
Nothing says ableism more than telling people with disabilities that they have no agency in how or if they get accommodations. (Sadly, the ADA does not apply to Reddit as a website.)
In summary, Spez needs to be fired. Preferably out of a cannon, into the sun. (Edit to add, because I am newbie here: This is hyperbole. I do not actually advocate violence against anyone.)
This article is absolutely scathing, great read.
To be honest, maybe I should care about Reddit politics but I don’t really. And so I feel like the mods of the communities I enjoyed are forcing me into protest against my will. But seemingly they have the power to effectively shut Reddit down and so here we are.
The biggest loss is tech support topics. Most useful Google searches lead to Reddit.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reddit-to-wayback-machine/
this fixes the problem for me, while helping me contribute to the protest.
Welp.
Looks like a lot of mods are caving.
The excuse: “if the mods didn’t open the sub, they’ll replace them with shills”. 'Kay. And now that we know these mods will do what the admins ask when their precious power is threatened?
Well, I guess sabotage is valid approach, so I give the mods who are doing that at least a bit of credit.
/r/pics is making a stand in its own weird way.
/r/Steam just caved without much of a fight, if their sticky is anything to go by. While the mods aren’t doing anything, it does seem like there’s a bit of a user revolt where a few people are just posting pictures of literal water vapor (ie. “steam”).
/r/piracy mods seemed to give them enough of an issue that the admins de-modded the top mod and forced the sub open, but the mods seems to be taking the approach of “only sticking around to give you the coordinates to our new island”.
Honestly, though, it’s kind of hilarious that reddit considers /r/piracy of all subs to be integral to the site. How many times have they tried to shut it down now?
Everyone on that sub should just spam Nintendo stuff. Like, nothing else. Watching reddit piss off Nintendo and getting C&Ds from them would be oddly cathartic.
One of two things happens if people do that: A) the mods trying to “save” it have to actually keep it restricted to prevent getting DMCAs (lol, the irony), or B) admins just nuke the sub. Either are a win, IMO. Seems like they’re giving their users enough time to migrate and they’re probably going to jump ship soon.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/15/reddit-blackout-third-party-apps/
Loving the Reddit dumpster fire thumbnail image they included. Mostly covering TheVerge’s Huffman interview and pointing out how dumb he sounds as CEO.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/16/23763661/reddit-rif-is-fun-developer-ceo-steve-huffman
RIF developer pushing back on Huffman’s claims that RIF didn’t want to work with Reddit by releasing emails.
inb4 spez rants about him releasing private email conversations.
I am a waiting for the slander and libel suits to land. Seems like RIF and Apollo devs have a good case. It would be epic if Reddit had to pay them each $20m.
BlackCat claims they hacked Reddit and will leak the data
Operators broke into Reddit on February 5, 2023, and took 80 gigabytes (zipped) of data. Reddit was emailed twice by operators, once on April 13 and one again on June 16.
There was no attempt to find out what we took.
In our last email to them, we stated that we wanted $4.5 million in exchange for the deletion of the data and our silence. As we also stated, if we had to make this public, then we now demand that they also withdraw their API pricing changes along with our money or we will leak it.
We expect to leak the data.
Woah. I mean, that article nails his whole attitude. It’s so depressing to see what was such a great site come crashing down because of one tech-bro’s hubris.
It stopped being an interesting site years ago, although there were some communities that were an exception. But generally those were the ones with intense moderation and/or small user bases.
Any sub that was regularly on the front page was moronic and close minded and the subs that were their political opposite were the same plus even more hateful and vile.
