just so this doesn’t overwhelm our front page too much, i think now’s a good time to start consolidating discussions. existing threads will be kept up, but unless a big update comes let’s try to keep what’s happening in this thread instead of across 10.

developments to this point:

The Verge is on it as usual, also–here’s their latest coverage (h/t @dirtmayor@beehaw.org):

other media coverage:

  • TopHat@compuverse.ukEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    It’s simply disappointing to see the disaster for the AMA. Saddens me to see Reddit go down like this. At least we got the Lemmy-proxy being a community project. Would love to still use Infinity as my main “reddit” browsing app, after all.

  • Hyperz@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Man that whole situation really sucks. Reddit was by far my most visited site before they decided to light the house on fire. On mobile I always used Boost because the official app is terrible and (at least the last time I looked at it) would drain my battery like it was nothing even when the app was closed. RIP. At least we’ve got Lemmy. I just wish these 3rd party apps would take their users to the fediverse instead of shutting down entirely. As a developer it really sucks when you have to shut down a project you’ve put so much work into.

  • rimlogger@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Hello. While what Reddit is doing isn’t great, it’s the reality of running a site that’s now owned by venture capital to make some kind of economic return for its owners. Running a site like that isn’t free, and advertising dollars alone are probably not enough to generate the sort of return that its owners are looking for (or even pay for the its costs).

    The core issue is twofold: Big Tech has devalued online services to the point where users are inured to not paying for them, and because of this inurement, most users are unwilling to pay for most online services if they don’t seem to be offering a value add. Gaming services like Steam have managed to get their users to pay but that’s because they are offering a service that’s generally superior to piracy, such as immediate downloads, achievements, and other online services. But no one is ever going to pay to use a message board, and I doubt gimmicks like Reddit Gold bring in much money.

    Perhaps the future is found in the past - people migrating back to self-hosted message boards - there used to be thousands of these back in the 1990s and 2000s. Some of them were run as small businesses, others were run as hobbyist projects by their owners. But I doubt there’s going to be a mass exodus, and unfortunately, centralization has increasingly become the norm for the Internet.

    • mobiuscoffee@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Perhaps the future is found in the past - people migrating back to self-hosted message boards - there used to be thousands of these back in the 1990s and 2000s. Some of them were run as small businesses, others were run as hobbyist projects by their owners.

      I kind of feel like lemmy combines both of these worlds. It is different but allows for people to self host their small communities while choosing to be a part of the larger network (or not).

    • Camus@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      undefined> Perhaps the future is found in the past - people migrating back to self-hosted message boards - there used to be thousands of these back in the 1990s and 2000s. Some of them were run as small businesses, others were run as hobbyist projects by their owners. But I doubt there’s going to be a mass exodus, and unfortunately, centralization has increasingly become the norm for the Internet.

      I’ve been looking out for message board forums for some time after realizing that they really felt different from modern Reddit. The appeal is definitely there, and will probably convince at least a small percentage of Reddit’s current user base (which would still mean thousands of users) to move to those pastures.

      • rimlogger@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        The issue is that a lot of them died when Reddit became mainstream. Go back to some of the ones still standing - the activity isn’t what it used to be. You see a post every few days on some of them. Why would I post on such sites if no one is going to reply? Might as well post on Reddit lol, where I will get a response within an hour at least.

        • Camus@beehaw.orgEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          Very true. I still visit one daily, but that’s really the exception. To complete what we previously said, I guess that instead of 2000s message boards, people will gradually move to Lemmy instances, or other alternatives such as kb.bin. The experience is closer to Reddit, and allows for more conversation potential (threads vs chronological order)

          • rimlogger@beehaw.orgEnglish
            0·
            2 years ago

            IDK. I think Reddit will survive this controversy. Most people have really short memories. Lemmy’s growing but still doesn’t offer the level of activity that most users are looking for - people don’t want to want hours or days with no replies to their post.

            • Camus@beehaw.orgEnglish
              0·
              2 years ago

              undefined> people don’t want to want hours or days with no replies to their post.

              True, but at the same time the people replying to them the most are probably the ones that are going to move away, leaving only an empty land lacking actual value. I wasn’t there when Digg died, but I guess it was a similar process.

              • _pete_@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0·
                2 years ago

                The thing with the digg death was that there was already a Reddit community there; it was smaller perhaps but there would almost always be someone to read your post.

              • mustyOrange@beehaw.orgEnglish
                0·
                2 years ago

                Theres a line of popularity that matters, sure, but the % activity of a place is much more important than just sheer numbers

          • Treevan 🇦🇺@beehaw.orgEnglish
            0·
            2 years ago

            I hope it continues to be worked on.

            I could see a resurgence of discussion and some real niche communities hiding behind that layout. Perhaps some themes to recreate other old forum styles too.

    • ApathyMoose@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      The thing about it is its not like people were against paying. these apps are willing to pay. I mean, read the Apollo Devs post if you havnt. He has audio recordings and transcripts

      https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/

      They are just pricing out third-party apps because they dont want them around. The problem is noone is going to sign up for Reddit Gold. They will just use old.reddit.com with a pop up blocker on the desktop. They wont make ad income from them either.

    • gnoop@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I’m going to say that Big Tech hasn’t devalued online services. They’ve always been devalued. In the days of BBSes, most had both paid and free options. The free users might get bumped when the board was busy but that was it. You were often still able to dial in at all times and do everything on the board.

      Honestly, that concept just carried forward. Usenet access was simply part of your internet access payment to your ISP. Free to join. You just needed a free NTP app. Many web forums were the same - completely free to use and maybe there were some ads, donations, or whatnot to help fund the site. Some even used forums as loss leaders - Harmony Central had their main page along with forums. Ditto other sites like Something Awful and Bodybuilding.com.

      Right now the short-term is a mix. The reality is that the major jumps have been to Discord, not other forums, or so it seems. Subreddits already have their own Discord servers in many cases and there’s a load of them on top of that. Beyond that, it seems a mixed bag of people trying to find a new home. Talks have varied outside of the Lemmy / Tildes mentions; Fark, Hacker News, City-Data, and various smaller forums.

      Seems we’ll be split on to at least a few if not many disparate forums and sites to fill various needs.

      • rimlogger@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Yeah. I imagine most people will continue to use Reddit. I know I plan to, but it’s always good to explore alternatives.

        • gnoop@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          As someone else said, Reddit will die a death of a thousand cuts. The big hits will be the 3rd party apps loss followed by the expected old.reddit.com loss. That said, the majority of users don’t use either of those. I’m seeing some general large site / social media fatigue combined with a lot of mentions of Discord. Given they’ve even got forum channels now, it seems Discord may be one of a few new smaller web forum options like we had in the late early 2000s with the start of software like vBulletin and phpBB. It’s not looking like the Digg to Reddit migration. It’s more the Usenet to web forums migration. Reddit is the Usenet 2.0. We’re now scattering and waiting for the Usenet 3.0 contenders before a new champion is crowned.

  • varoth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I hope this bullshit kills their site. Monetization is necessary in some ways, but this is just pure greed.

  • Luvs2Spuj@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Reddit just feels dirty to me now, not in a good dirty way… Just dirty, I want nothing to do with it. I see no coming back from this even if the backlash leads to Reddit reversing the decisions. Kind of new the IPO would do something like this. Looking forward to seeing this place bloom.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      We’ve all said for years that we’ve seen a slow decline but never knew when it was time to leave. Now all of a sudden here we have the giant sign saying “We’ve gone full corporate and don’t care about the users anymore”

      • Austin-Philp@kbin.social
        0·
        2 years ago

        yeah this isn’t such a huge thing on it’s own (tough it is shitty), it’s this combined with the years of other steady decline in a thousand small ways. Most people on reddit have agreed for some time now that the site has gone to shit, but there haven’t really been viable alternatives or enough of a reason to pick up stakes and leave. Now there is, and hopefully enough people leave for good to Lemmy, Kbin, or others so that the change can stick

    • HrBingR@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I kinda feel the same way. I’ve used the official Reddit app before, and I might’ve considered using a modded version of the official client, but I just feel gross even having a Reddit account after what they’ve done. Despite the fact that I use old.reddit as well, once Apollo is gone I reckon I’ll delete my account.

    • V ‎ ‎ @beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I predict that as the blackout goes into full swing, Reddit is going to start taking over major subreddits from their mods to keep the site going. Things are going to become ugly very fast.

      • CleoTheWizard@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Iirc one of the mods said that the blackout was designed to prevent that. If it’s 2 days, they likely won’t bother taking them over. But an indefinite lock down they probably will. Even then though, that disruption in content will likely be too large to handle for most users

        • V ‎ ‎ @beehaw.orgEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          If it’s only temporary then I as an admin would just wait it out, then go about my comically evil business. Reddit staff can’t realistically moderate the entire site, so the best way to get the message across is to stop moderating and let things burn until the bean counters can’t take the heat. Just my opinion, not that I want that to happen.

    • setsneedtofeed@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      A lot of mucky feeling about it has been partitioned by Apollo for me. I specifically didn’t want to interact with online politics so I set up tons of keyword filters and blocked honestly a few thousand subreddits. I turned off awards and things. I could actually browse r/all and see cool and unique content. It felt really close to classic Reddit and it insulated me from a lot of the passing drama.

      Drama around the thing I used to make that space for myself was inescapable. The entire saga, from the evasiveness on details in the initial post, to the insane pricing, to the blackmail accusations make it impossible not to see how rotten the leadership is at the very top. Even if all the API stuff gets reset (it won’t) I can’t feel good about Reddit anymore.

      At least the Internet Historian video about this will be absolutely lit.

  • SanityFM@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Joey is currently canvassing for whether people would be willing to pay a subscription. As an average Joey user, the answer is no.

        • The Silence Noise@beehaw.orgEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          I wish people would do this with more platforms in general. However I did pay for the original paid Joey app and would support them if Reddit going down the typical enshittification path.

    • daniel@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      “If you do a better job than us at something we don’t care about, have fun*”

      *as long as blind users will have reddit ads read to them (probably)

  • 00111000@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    With how vast the third-party ecosystem is, one would have imagined a full year countdown but it’s become obvious that this is nothing more than digital gentrification, one that kicks out the very people who gave it the spirit that is being monetized into an IPO.

    Those 30 days were meant to break the ecosystem.

    EDIT: Grammar

    • NightAuthor@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Digital gentrification is an interesting term. But yeah, TPA users have to be a particular type of users. Like power users, or just generally more discerning people who don’t want to use a crap interface. And they’re just happy to be rid of us it seems.

      Edit: Why does it say “bot account” next to my name?

  • Kaiser@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    It’s sad to see Reddit go down this path, but the writing has been on the wall for awhile now. Losing Apollo is what had me make the jump to Lemmy.

    Hopefully we build a strong community here.

    Edit: typo