What these guys don’t realize is the “value” of their website is their users content. They tend to feel like they’re the value, that they’ve done something great. You see this in both Musk and Zuck. They feel like they’re the heroes of the internet. Except what is Reddit exactly, what is it’s value? It is only the users. These guys parade around the knowledge of other people as if it’s their own value and want to become rich off it. I’m sick of this Silicon Valley bullshit, honestly. That whole mindset is toxic from start to finish. And we see the finish on all of them: screw over the people who create the content for the next round of VC cash, or IPO.
I hope Lemmy or whatever comes next can resist this culture of “burn it to the ground for the payday”.
I think the difference that spez failed to realize when he decided to turn the enshittification dial up to 11 is that, unlike facebook, whatsapp, instagram, etc, we were not on reddit because of people we know. There was no peer pressure or awkward conversations. We did not rely on reddit as a means of communication that was irreplaceable. When the whatsapp drama happened, we couldn’t really up and leave, because grandma doesn’t know how to download signal. because the local market down the road has whatsapp set up for orders and doesn’t really give a shit. the family group has important starred chats that we refer to, etc etc.
This is not at all the case with reddit. Reddit is where we went for content. But whether the content is on reddit, lemmy, or the back of a shampoo bottle in the bathroom, it made no difference whatsoever. In my jump from reddit I’ve had to explain to exactly zero people why I’m making this decision. You cannot do that with instagram or whatsapp; and it took me years to convince people that I will not use facebook (thankfully that’s now a little more acceptable of a concept, but i digress). they wanted to play like the big social media boys, but they forgot that, in their core, they are not a social media platform.
Yup, perfectly said.
When the site treats you as product, but forgets you create the content they are trying to sell.
Well if Reddit thinks that the people contributing to Reddit’s content are wasting resources, I agree.
The stupid part is nobody really cares howuvh they want to charge to organizations wanting to train AI models. Literally all they have to do is offer a reasonable price for third party app developers. It’s not that hard to have different price tiers for different use cases.
So the article states that spez has made this decision in order to prevent/capture ai from taking data from his business for free. So to monetize reditor work to train AI models, and provide data. I am sure that there is an EULA out there that says reddit owns your contributions on the plate form. But ultimately that will be for the content creators to decide on if they want to participate in that, especially considering that they threw the baby out with the bath water if they didn’t intend to target this party apps.
But lets be honest here, he wants people to use the reddit app for the same reason he wants AI capture.
I’m really dying to find out if this blackout continues past the first 48 hours and if it has any impact on their decision.
It sort of doesn’t matter to me since the Apollo dev already said he wasn’t going to keep his app up due to how spez handled the whole situation.
Several large subs are not private anymore according to https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/ 80 not private anymore out of 372 ones that went private (of the top 500 by number of subscribers).
Apollo, Sync, RIF and others have all announced that they are closing permanently. Some of the big subs have done the same.
I fully expect others to join. There were more subs that went dark by the end of yesterday than began the day!
I hate to be a pessimist, but it’s not gonna work.
Most big subs will reopen, and those that don’t will get their moderators replaced. The bulk of the user base is gonna switch to the official app and meme about how bad it is right on Reddit and get Reddit Gold for it.
I’m still gonna stick to either Lemmy or Kbin. I like the smaller community here; it reminds me of Reddit’s olden days when everyone wasn’t a cynical asshole.
I agree that it probably won’t work but I’m trying to be hopeful that people will see that there are other places to post content and interact with each other that don’t view us as cattle.
I can’t stand the stock Reddit app and more importantly I think it’s disgusting the way Reddit has treated the Apollo dev so I won’t be going back regardless of what happens. If people go to lemmy or kbin or whatever other alternatives I’ll join but if not I guess I just won’t participate and this kind of content anymore.
I think he said June 30 it’s done, barring spez changing his mandate ofc.
I deleted every comment, every upvote and every post I ever made on Reddit. Fuck /u/spez, fuck Reddit.
Eye-watering? That’s such a strange way to put it.
It’s a pretty common turn of phrase that describes the pricing pretty well. It’s common in the UK at least don’t know about elsewhere in the world.
Canada uses it as well, which is to be expected as we were a British colony.
Having mainstream news sources reporting on this – especially more financially-oriented ones like Forbes – is actually a pretty good sign. Even though I am enjoying Lemmy more now that I have tried it anyway.
Having mainstream news sources reporting on this – especially more financially-oriented ones like Forbes – is actually a pretty good sign.
I thought so too. Been searching news sites since yesterday waiting to see when investors were going to chime in.
Betcha spez is in a well-deserved crisis mode rn.
Still ain’t gonna back down.
Humans are paradoxically really good at adaptation, and also not admitting mistakes. Dude is singularly responsible for the biggest PR fumble in Reddit history and seemingly has zero self awareness despite being at the center of it.
Just a heads up that with their loosely moderated contributor model, you can find anything on Forbes these days. Up to and including outright scams and misinformation. It’s a far cry from the reputable source it once was.
Oh thank you, that is good to know.
