A mass user protest six months ago over technical tweaks had big downstream effects, and now the ‘front page of the internet’ is changed for ever
‘Front page of the internet’: how social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit::A mass user protest six months ago over technical tweaks had big downstream effects, and now the ‘front page of the internet’ is changed for ever
I personally had no problem with them charging for API access, the rate was my bigger issue. I suspect they were basing it off of the money and hype behind the large language models that were previously training using their data for free rather than the relatively few 3rd party app users. I don’t get how there weren’t more people using them considering how bad the official Android app is, but there’s no way it was substantially impacting their bottom line.
Charging comparable rates or even 2-3x what they would get from users of the official app seeing ads also wouldn’t be an issue to me, paying to support software is generally good as it aligns user and developer interests. But with 20x higher rates than they’d get from the user using the official app that couldn’t genuinely be the case.
This is a terrible thing for most social networks, which are expected to grow continually. When the IPO hits, who wants to buy stock in a stagnant social network? Especially one that has been described as stifling creativity?
Crickets on the fact that so many users of 10+ years left, deleting their content on the way out? Seems writer didn’t dig very deep. Not that Rodent would give them accurate numbers or anything.
I think that conspiracy grew out of bugs in the mass-deletion tools. I found and reported a few on my way out. I wound up rewriting big chunks of an FOSS tool because Reddit was quietly throttling delete calls to the API. The requests would return 200 codes, but the payloads themselves would include ambiguous “error” text about the throttling behavior. So while the mass delete tool insisted that content had been deleted, large chunks had NOT.
Once I got the scripts running it took nearly a week for the scripts to fully delete and replace all my content.
Yeah, I don’t see anything there about reddit undeleting their deleted posts/comments. Many of us burned our profiles to the ground when we left, but I hadn’t heard of them reverting our edits. I would expect that news to blow up as much as the last time Spez did something like that (may the gods erase his soul and the people forget his name).
Oh, nice. Yeah, I’m fine with my content being searchable on the great uneddit databases. That’s just the nature of the internet – anything you make public should be assumed to be forever public. It sounds like my deleted content won’t be making Spez advertising dollars when people search my old subreddit haunts, which was my goal in deleting my stuff in the first place.
I think the most important problem with how this worked out is that many of those who left Reddit by deleting their content didn’t find a place to transfer it to on Lemmy or other platforms…
I personally have been intentionally starting conversations recently…
While traffic has not changed substantially, many users report the quality of content and the kinds of posts that are surfaced on user homepages now seem different. RamsesThePigeon said the content on some of Reddit’s most-followed pages, which he moderates, had “gone sharply downhill”.
This has been a long term process. I was on reddit since 2012 or so. In the early days I used it to help me change careers and grow as a developer, and keep track of tech and space news and other topics that mattered to me. But the reality is it wasn’t even the API stuff that drove me away. The first thing that really got to me was when I couldn’t get rid of r/all as a subscribed sub, and that was full of quick dopamine hits and clickbait. Then every sub seemed to go downhill in terms of content, filled with outrage and pictures of tweets as if I would use twitter if it only used images of text instead of raw text. By the time the blackout happened reddit had become a net negative time sink in my life and I figured it was time to cut it off for good.
I used to be a daily Reddit doomscroller, but now I just vibe on Lemmy. I only ever visit reddit now to experience my niches that don’t yet have a community here, and that’s just to watch, not contribute.
I look forward to the future, where communities aren’t corralled into one website, where different interests can be free of anything overarching.
I somehow end up doom scrolling here on Lemmy. Seems all my feed is news and technology is doom and gloom. I wish there were more discussions and jokes in the comments like ask reddit had. I participate every once in a while but I miss lurking and reading this type of content on my phone.
I used to love Reddit, but I’ve totally abandoned it. It’s not one particular reason, but the broad effect is that I and many others no longer feel welcome.
We lost a lot of good users; people who contribute to topics, make good posts and comments. We also lost good moderators; people who cared about the content quality and vibe. The Reddit-appointed replacement mods by and large are not people who ran or SHOULD run communities.
Add in the fact that both subreddit mods and Reddit admins are going hog wild with the ban hammer on both subs and users, and it’s hardly a wonder that users aren’t having it. They’re trying to turn it into a gentrified Disneyland and that’s not what we want.
I’m hoping we can grow the Fediverse and prevent it from getting fucked by people with bad motives.
I only use reddit for tech related inquiries, but besides that I quit it.
I went from 8 hours of screen time a day to an average of 2 to 3 hours and Lemmy often isn’t on the top. For me it has to do with a lack of content at some point, but I started enjoying it like that. If there’s nothing new, I shouldn’t have a reason to stick around in an app
Exactly. I still occasionally land there due to google searches for obscure tech issues, but that’s only to read and lurk. I used to be a regular poster, (I had ~1.2m karma between all my various accounts) but haven’t even commented since the API lockout.
I was on reddit for 12 years. My time spent on that platform and posting directly correlates to when I first found it (posted a lot) vs. when I quit earlier this year.
Reddit in it’s infancy was great and the users and the subreddits, with a few notable exceptions were great too.
Once it got too big/popular… About 6 years ago you could note the decline and quality of the posting
Well that’s the issue. Reddit as a tool/service is fine. The only thing that I have an issue with is the api / third party app stuff and their leadership. Subs like Homelab , league , etc are ones I used heavily and they still function the same more or less. I just lurk more and use Reddit in browser with an extension that helps.
Lemmy and the various instances and apps are cool, but the lack of content(or content creators rather) is what makes it a little depressing. Outside of memes and discussions like this, it doesn’t replace Reddit because the user base is like 10+ years behind. I can show up and find posts from days ago which just leads me to keep using Reddit and rss for new content
I left Reddit to call their bluff. I stay away from Reddit because I want to help grow the fediverse. It’s already better than when I joined. And I believe, perhaps naively, that it will continue to get better. I’d rather be the part of the beginning of something great than lingure around as a great thing rots.
I still use reddit on the browser, but I don’t want their app. I simply don’t enjoy the experience.
As long as old.reddit stays arround I’ll still be there from time to time. But my commenting dropped from ~5 comments per day to ~5 comments per month and my clicks drooped to ~1% of what it used to be. I simply used it much more on mobile.
I use an app on Android called stealth to view Reddit but I cannot vote or comment. I’d like to see Lemmy/kbin grow enough that the niche communities move here.
On the note of traffic, I still browse Reddit because it has niche communities that I want to interact with. However, I don’t comment, post, or even up/downvote anymore. My interaction is now purely browsing, and I imagine it may be similar for other once-power users.
Unfortunately Reddit became such a database of niche information it’s damn near unavoidable when it seems to comprise most of my search results nowadays.
I redirect from reddit to lemmy in my main web browser. I wish there were some sort of proxy so I could read reddit without that information being lost - but that’s exactly the sort of service the API changes have killed. Fuck them for what they did to reddit.
archive team runs a distributed effort to scrape and archive all of reddit, it gets uploaded to archive.org, so at least a large amount of it is accessible through there
Well that’s good at least but ideally I’d like some way of automating it like through an extension. I try viewing an answer to a question on reddit, and I get redirected to somewhere that stores the answer without giving reddit any traffic.
Same here. I actually went a step further and decided to browse the site permanently logged off. I do not wanna access my old account anymore (which I still didn’t delete).
This is what I do. Also, I mostly access reddit from a RSS feed so I don’t even really visit the site much. I read everything I want in my feed reader, and maybe look at the comments on the site if a particular post looks interesting. Never logged in, never comment, never vote on a post.
Despite spending around 15 years on Reddit, I found it surprisingly easy to quit. I do miss some niche subreddits that just won’t get traction here, but overall my switch to Lemmy worked out for the best.
With that being said, Reddit is still going strong, and you’re deluded if you think this will change their IPO fortunes. The quality will plummet, but once the shares are owned and sold they won’t care.
I’ve been having trouble finding another site with so many sub topics.
I’d use discord - but you have to manually find each room. There’s no generic search function (not that I’ve found on mobile anyway - feel free to correct me)
If there’s another large site I could use (other then lemmy which lacks the numbers) let me know. I’m watching reddit die and I genuinely feel the void it’s leaving in my heart.
Damn I hate Discord for information. It’s not open. It’s nice as a chat (except for the whole thing with using Electron), but not for having information available.
It will definitely affect the ipo. Ipo’s are all based on expected growth. Any loss of users, mods, content, etc affects that. It was already in the news that whatever company wrote down the value of their holdings.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I personally had no problem with them charging for API access, the rate was my bigger issue. I suspect they were basing it off of the money and hype behind the large language models that were previously training using their data for free rather than the relatively few 3rd party app users. I don’t get how there weren’t more people using them considering how bad the official Android app is, but there’s no way it was substantially impacting their bottom line.
Charging comparable rates or even 2-3x what they would get from users of the official app seeing ads also wouldn’t be an issue to me, paying to support software is generally good as it aligns user and developer interests. But with 20x higher rates than they’d get from the user using the official app that couldn’t genuinely be the case.
This is a terrible thing for most social networks, which are expected to grow continually. When the IPO hits, who wants to buy stock in a stagnant social network? Especially one that has been described as stifling creativity?
Crickets on the fact that so many users of 10+ years left, deleting their content on the way out? Seems writer didn’t dig very deep. Not that Rodent would give them accurate numbers or anything.
removed by mod
I think that conspiracy grew out of bugs in the mass-deletion tools. I found and reported a few on my way out. I wound up rewriting big chunks of an FOSS tool because Reddit was quietly throttling delete calls to the API. The requests would return 200 codes, but the payloads themselves would include ambiguous “error” text about the throttling behavior. So while the mass delete tool insisted that content had been deleted, large chunks had NOT.
Once I got the scripts running it took nearly a week for the scripts to fully delete and replace all my content.
Do you have evidence or just conspiracy theory gossip?
Here are some comments about this occurring: https://programming.dev/comment/6051878
Yeah, I don’t see anything there about reddit undeleting their deleted posts/comments. Many of us burned our profiles to the ground when we left, but I hadn’t heard of them reverting our edits. I would expect that news to blow up as much as the last time Spez did something like that (may the gods erase his soul and the people forget his name).
I remember seeing posts made on Lemmy and Reddit during the great migration where people reported this. Found this post discussing it on Reddit though it seems to be about comment/post history being saved by third parties: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/14av2z3/reports_of_reddit_restoring_deleted_commentsposts/
Oh, nice. Yeah, I’m fine with my content being searchable on the great uneddit databases. That’s just the nature of the internet – anything you make public should be assumed to be forever public. It sounds like my deleted content won’t be making Spez advertising dollars when people search my old subreddit haunts, which was my goal in deleting my stuff in the first place.
I think the most important problem with how this worked out is that many of those who left Reddit by deleting their content didn’t find a place to transfer it to on Lemmy or other platforms…
I personally have been intentionally starting conversations recently…
Biggest issue with reddit are the abusive mods with no oversight.
That place has become nothing but a propaganda mill for whoever is in charge.
no oversight and ability to permaban your account from the whole platform through the automated anti evil bot
This has been a long term process. I was on reddit since 2012 or so. In the early days I used it to help me change careers and grow as a developer, and keep track of tech and space news and other topics that mattered to me. But the reality is it wasn’t even the API stuff that drove me away. The first thing that really got to me was when I couldn’t get rid of r/all as a subscribed sub, and that was full of quick dopamine hits and clickbait. Then every sub seemed to go downhill in terms of content, filled with outrage and pictures of tweets as if I would use twitter if it only used images of text instead of raw text. By the time the blackout happened reddit had become a net negative time sink in my life and I figured it was time to cut it off for good.
I deleted a 13 yr old account due to spez’s fuckery and I haven’t been back. I used to be very active in several subs but now I want fedi to happen.
I used to be a daily Reddit doomscroller, but now I just vibe on Lemmy. I only ever visit reddit now to experience my niches that don’t yet have a community here, and that’s just to watch, not contribute.
I look forward to the future, where communities aren’t corralled into one website, where different interests can be free of anything overarching.
I somehow end up doom scrolling here on Lemmy. Seems all my feed is news and technology is doom and gloom. I wish there were more discussions and jokes in the comments like ask reddit had. I participate every once in a while but I miss lurking and reading this type of content on my phone.
I used to love Reddit, but I’ve totally abandoned it. It’s not one particular reason, but the broad effect is that I and many others no longer feel welcome.
We lost a lot of good users; people who contribute to topics, make good posts and comments. We also lost good moderators; people who cared about the content quality and vibe. The Reddit-appointed replacement mods by and large are not people who ran or SHOULD run communities.
Add in the fact that both subreddit mods and Reddit admins are going hog wild with the ban hammer on both subs and users, and it’s hardly a wonder that users aren’t having it. They’re trying to turn it into a gentrified Disneyland and that’s not what we want.
I’m hoping we can grow the Fediverse and prevent it from getting fucked by people with bad motives.
I only use reddit for tech related inquiries, but besides that I quit it.
I went from 8 hours of screen time a day to an average of 2 to 3 hours and Lemmy often isn’t on the top. For me it has to do with a lack of content at some point, but I started enjoying it like that. If there’s nothing new, I shouldn’t have a reason to stick around in an app
Exactly. I still occasionally land there due to google searches for obscure tech issues, but that’s only to read and lurk. I used to be a regular poster, (I had ~1.2m karma between all my various accounts) but haven’t even commented since the API lockout.
Damn! That’s an insane amount of dedication lost to greed :(
Reddit having a huge audiences feels more like a disadvantage than a advantage
I was on reddit for 12 years. My time spent on that platform and posting directly correlates to when I first found it (posted a lot) vs. when I quit earlier this year.
Reddit in it’s infancy was great and the users and the subreddits, with a few notable exceptions were great too.
Once it got too big/popular… About 6 years ago you could note the decline and quality of the posting
Well that’s the issue. Reddit as a tool/service is fine. The only thing that I have an issue with is the api / third party app stuff and their leadership. Subs like Homelab , league , etc are ones I used heavily and they still function the same more or less. I just lurk more and use Reddit in browser with an extension that helps.
Lemmy and the various instances and apps are cool, but the lack of content(or content creators rather) is what makes it a little depressing. Outside of memes and discussions like this, it doesn’t replace Reddit because the user base is like 10+ years behind. I can show up and find posts from days ago which just leads me to keep using Reddit and rss for new content
I left Reddit to call their bluff. I stay away from Reddit because I want to help grow the fediverse. It’s already better than when I joined. And I believe, perhaps naively, that it will continue to get better. I’d rather be the part of the beginning of something great than lingure around as a great thing rots.
I still use reddit on the browser, but I don’t want their app. I simply don’t enjoy the experience.
As long as old.reddit stays arround I’ll still be there from time to time. But my commenting dropped from ~5 comments per day to ~5 comments per month and my clicks drooped to ~1% of what it used to be. I simply used it much more on mobile.
I use an app on Android called stealth to view Reddit but I cannot vote or comment. I’d like to see Lemmy/kbin grow enough that the niche communities move here.
On the note of traffic, I still browse Reddit because it has niche communities that I want to interact with. However, I don’t comment, post, or even up/downvote anymore. My interaction is now purely browsing, and I imagine it may be similar for other once-power users.
I am the same - I obliterated all my posts and comments, and try to see whatever answer I can’t find elsewhere, and run.
It was much easier than I thought it would be, which was a nice surprise. :)
Unfortunately Reddit became such a database of niche information it’s damn near unavoidable when it seems to comprise most of my search results nowadays.
I redirect from reddit to lemmy in my main web browser. I wish there were some sort of proxy so I could read reddit without that information being lost - but that’s exactly the sort of service the API changes have killed. Fuck them for what they did to reddit.
archive team runs a distributed effort to scrape and archive all of reddit, it gets uploaded to archive.org, so at least a large amount of it is accessible through there
Well that’s good at least but ideally I’d like some way of automating it like through an extension. I try viewing an answer to a question on reddit, and I get redirected to somewhere that stores the answer without giving reddit any traffic.
Same here. I actually went a step further and decided to browse the site permanently logged off. I do not wanna access my old account anymore (which I still didn’t delete).
This is the way.
I’m still glad Reddit actually lets you browse their site logged off.
That’s something that Twitter-I mean X doesn’t do anymore.
This is what I do. Also, I mostly access reddit from a RSS feed so I don’t even really visit the site much. I read everything I want in my feed reader, and maybe look at the comments on the site if a particular post looks interesting. Never logged in, never comment, never vote on a post.
Good.
“Technical tweaks”
Omg, understate much?
Despite spending around 15 years on Reddit, I found it surprisingly easy to quit. I do miss some niche subreddits that just won’t get traction here, but overall my switch to Lemmy worked out for the best.
With that being said, Reddit is still going strong, and you’re deluded if you think this will change their IPO fortunes. The quality will plummet, but once the shares are owned and sold they won’t care.
I’ve been having trouble finding another site with so many sub topics.
I’d use discord - but you have to manually find each room. There’s no generic search function (not that I’ve found on mobile anyway - feel free to correct me)
If there’s another large site I could use (other then lemmy which lacks the numbers) let me know. I’m watching reddit die and I genuinely feel the void it’s leaving in my heart.
Damn I hate Discord for information. It’s not open. It’s nice as a chat (except for the whole thing with using Electron), but not for having information available.
It will definitely affect the ipo. Ipo’s are all based on expected growth. Any loss of users, mods, content, etc affects that. It was already in the news that whatever company wrote down the value of their holdings.
deleted by creator
And people are getting wise to traffic numbers being inflated by bots.