The landed gentry are only in charge until the king comes to town and chops off a few heads. At least that seems to be the case at Reddit, where CEO Steve Huffman pretended his complaints about current moderators — who were protesting his decision to effectively cut off API access to tons of useful…

  • maple@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    At the end of the day, Reddit is just a message board. The absolute hubris to think that one could seriously go public with a message board website… It’s baffling.

    Honestly, Reddit missed the ship to IPO. They should have done it a decade ago if at all.

    Without mods, Reddit will become overrun with bots, rendering the precious data Reddit so desparately tries to monetize practically useless.

  • majere@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    WE made the content. The community. No doubt the majority of level-headed folk would have accepted ad requirements in 3rd party apps. Hosting isn’t free, something needs to be monetized.

    But that’s not what it’s about. It’s about locking down content from the new wave of AI models and charging for it. Charging for content we created freely to be shared.

    • KairuByte@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Ads? No, I would not accept ads. What I would have accepted was a subscription payment. Hell, I went so far as to purchase Apollo lifetime ultimate.

      I am more than willing to support things I use. I am not willing to deal with ads though. Especially when they sneak in like they are posts, and take up entire scroll widths.

      • Koopa_Khan@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t get how people put up with that either. My wife said that we were being over dramatic about the 3rd Party Apps protests, but will agree that the ads are annoying. Hopefully she’ll convert over here before to long and get a taste for how a message board should be.

        • YarRe@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Stockholmed into thinking ads are acceptable. They’re not. No social contract says that you have to put up with ads, they’re simply unregulated in the USA and people have mostly given up.

  • lobut@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    For June 20 and 21, the most recent days for which Similarweb has estimates, the ads site got in the range of 7,500 to 9,000 visits, Carr explained, meaning that ad-buying traffic has continued to drop.

    I’m glad Reddit is feeling something from this, however, at the same time. I kinda don’t care. It’s a shame it went the way that it did. But spez can’t take back his terrible attitude and decision making on what happened. Most people were sympathetic and wanting Reddit to be profitable and rooting for Reddit. However, spez just decided to come out swinging from nowhere hitting his allies in the face.

    • bkmps3@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      Yeh I’m in the same boat. The day the internal memo came out about how everything will blow over, I deleted Apollo. I haven’t been back to reddit since and after the first week, I don’t even miss it now.

      I wish lemmy was a bit busier, but outside of that the general atmosphere and quality here is better. Even if everything was reversed and Spez was booted, I won’t return now.

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Actually, I like the small community vibe of Lemmy. It’s the dead sub vibe I have a problem with. There are lots of really interesting communities, but you don’t see people posting anything yet.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I like a lot of the tiny vibe but I miss girl Reddit. It was such a unique social media atmosphere and I haven’t managed to find it here. I hope more of the women from Reddit come here

          • rookie@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I miss GirlGamers, honestly. It was such a refreshing perspective compared to the constantly angry/circlejerky dudebro vibe of 90% of gaming communities

          • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            Are you looking for more girly communities? Maybe consider starting one if you can’t find what you’re looking for.

      • ThinlySlicedGlizzy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Just wait till the third party apps shut down tomorrow, loads of people will be rolling in here. Then when the RIF and Sync developers release their Lemmy apps (with the same names) even more people will come. If you want there to be content right now though just keep contributing to posts you see. The more content we make right now, the more likely it is for new users to stay,

          • bobbysq@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            As far as I know, talklittle is focused on making a Tildes app called Three Cheers for now, and had been working it even before the announcement from Reddit. As much as it would be nice to have a Lemmy successor to RIF, the closest we’ll probably get any time soon is an app that’s just inspired by the RIF design.

    • Deemo@bookwormstory.social
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      1 year ago

      The only thing reddit can do is improve the first party app and mod tools. The rest is lost.

      That being said I doubt the protests are reddits biggest priority. Even if reddit ipo’s perfectly and gets a injection of capitol (which might itself be difficult since investors don’t seem to care about userbase growth anymore) they are going to need to find ways to increase profits each year (like every other publicly traded tech company).

      Advertising revenue is also limited given trend to cut “unnecessary expenses”.

    • toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      reddit is just a frame. it always was and will always be, despite the efforts of a few dumb cunts.

      the content is the people. that’s the secret sauce. just provide people with a framework, and they’ll fill the empty space. try to monetize that, and you’re just a dick.

      i have faith in defederisation. my autocorrect says that isn’t a word. let’s make it a word.

      • DriftingDeep@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The thing is, they COULD’VE monetized it and still kept it alive. What they’re doing instead is killing the golden goose for a quick cash-out.

        Edit: I hate your username. A lot of trauma associated with that failed tongue-twister.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve barely been back to Reddit recently and with Apollo gone, I’ll only ever duck my head in when I really have to. I find it a lot easier to leave Reddit behind than Facebook. On FB I’m connected to real world relatives and friends who I just would lose contact with otherwise. On Reddit I converse with strangers and that’s easy to replace. Lemmy has already done it. Is there anything unique about the hobby forums on Reddit? No. They can be reassembled or restarted elsewhere. In some ways it’s probably good to dump the old structures and shake things up. Some subs were better managed and some really just coasted on their name.

      • fidodo@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I was an early adopter of Reddit back during the digg days and I had over a decade of post history there and to see that go… I couldn’t care less. It was all ephemeral bullshit.

      • Bear@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        The only thing that had me back on Reddit was searching for something on DDG and getting 99% Reddit results. I see why they are un-deleting people’s comments and posts when they close their accounts. Hopefully other forums take those spots.

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    1 year ago

    However, Similarweb told Gizmodo traffic to the ads.reddit.com portal, where advertisers can buy ads and measure their impact, has dipped. Before the first blackout began, the ads site averaged about 14,900 visits per day. Beginning on June 13, though, the ads site averaged about 11,800 visits per day, a 20% decrease.

    For June 20 and 21, the most recent days for which Similarweb has estimates, the ads site got in the range of 7,500 to 9,000 visits, Carr explained, meaning that ad-buying traffic has continued to drop.

    This is the only metric that matters to Reddit, so it’s nice to see!

    • silverbax@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So they really are following Twitter’s example. Twitter’s lost 59% of ad revenue since Elon took over, now Reddit ad revenue is plummetting. It’s stunning how stupid companies can be.

      • Vipsu@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Just noticed today that Twitter requires one to log-in to read posts. It’s like these two platforms are competing on which one can destroy their reputation first.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    Imagine that once upon a time (5-15 years ago), I actually had addblocker disabled on reddit, because I considered it worth supporting. lol

    • Paradox@lemdro.id
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      1 year ago

      We even used to run “thanks for not using adblock” ads in rotation, when there were no other ads to run. I had a picture of a squirrel that was in rotation there

    • AlecSadler@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Dude, I paid for Reddit Premium or Gold or whatever the fuck it’s called for 5+ years just to support. I wish I could claw it all back.

      • Einar@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Same curve with Netflix. Pirating went down when they started. They themselves, but all the other Streamers as well have gone so greedy that the good product is no longer supported. Reputation ruined, war with customers ensues.

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        1 year ago

        These guys aren’t happy with some support. They want all the support i.e. money. Feels like no tech corporation thinks about its products long term anymore. Just the most readily available cash grabs possible, even if it means possibly losing future revenue.

        • catwhowalksbyhimself@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Well, as other people have said, it looks like they were preparing to sell Reddit, or take it public, or whatever, and they wanted to make it look as profitable and purchaseable as possible.

          The end result is the same, but the reasoning is a bit different.

          Anyhow, if that’s true, I dare say they’ve achieved the opposite result now.

          • alaphic@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            So, shall we start calling this ‘the Reddit Effect?’ We haven’t had anything new to supplant the Streisand Effect for awhile, I feel like something like this is overdue

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    1 year ago

    The beatings aren’t improving morale, you say? I guess we just need to increase the beatings then.

    • pfannkuchen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Good people do good things and get punished by bad people.

      Bad people do bad things and get rewarded.

  • g0zer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I feel like old af now that I’ve watched two huge sites implode due to mismanagement. I was a Digg refuge way back, and now here I am on lemmy…

    • adinfinitum@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      3 sites if you include Twitter . Twitter and Reddit seem to be in a mismanagement competition right now. Not sure who’s winning

      • Wailzy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Tumblr also kind of got ruined a few years ago too for some people if you were into that platform.

        • tinysalamander@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I was in art school when Tumblr was at its peak. Looking back it was dumb, just resharing pictures and gifs but I had so much fun. I met so many people through Tumblr that I’m still in contact with.

          • Wailzy@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I really enjoyed tumblr in a way I don’t really understand now. I think I enjoyed creating something to share of my own out of bits and pieces of everyone else. Idk.

  • Nausiyan@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    I came from days of dialup and gone through yahoo groups, Myspace, tons of geocity sites, ask jeevs, LiveJournal, and so on. Sites will only be an attraction tell something comes that offers more. With federation and decentralized systems coming up, the hold on people and corporations trying to use you as a commodity will only tarnish the shine that it once was. When companies hold a noose around your neck thinking there isn’t another option, telling you to go ahaid and jump, thinking no one will and when something comes by that makes the jump just a step down and you can take off the noose, there is nothing that they can hold onto anymore. They cannot say you have nowhere else to go. With the choice around in a federated system, you cannot be held hostage by a single entity. When people have the freedom of choice, the people win.

    • Ephur@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve got a similar history and agree. Platforms may seem to big to fail, but they really aren’t. Sometimes growth is slow, but once a platform hits a critical mass it’ll explode. I’m new to Lemmy, but Reddit has done the platform a favor, it’s got some great ideas. And with wefwef it feels great to use already. Reddit just payed forward the favor digg did for them ;)

  • GustavoM@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    “Oh yeah Plebbit? What are you gonna do next, hack my PC and force me to read nothing else than random reddit content for the rest of my life?”