User visits and time spent on the social media platform normalize after traffic to Reddit briefly dipped last week during the blackout, according to SimilarWeb.
    • what_is_a_name@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I am sure some of it is spam bots. But also - a big value of Reddit is indeed in the long tail of niche communities. Many did not join the protest.

      • s_s@lemmy.oneEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Using bots to replace users-lost-to-protest has always been the goal. All that matters is that the numbers go up.

        This is good for the sale (IPO).

        Twitter had the same plan–keep counting bots. Elon (or some advisor on his team), rightfully argued this point and eventually it lead to a lawsuit, that was then settled out of court.

        Google and facebook have been selling “ad impressions” of questionable human-ness for decades. None of these sites have any real incentive to find out how many bots are on their platform.

    • Noedel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      A lot of people simply don’t give a shit. Look at the amount of people still on Facebook.

    • nottheengineer@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Bots mostly. Take a look at the site, you’ll notice many usernames consisting of a random adjective or noun in front of a random noun and a random number at the back. Sometimes they are in camel case, sometimes they are separated by dashes or underscores.

      Go to the profiles of those. Bot accounts display that they are 6-12 months old and have no activity for the first few months. The activity starts with out-of-place comments on reposts made by other users (they never comment on OC), so they are likely copied from other users that commented below the original post.

      After the initial commenting phase, they start posting. It’s never OC, just reposts and they never reply to questions in the comments.

      At this point I’m convinced those bots are deployed by reddit themselves because they are so easy to spot and no action is taken against them.

      Then there’s also the porn bots which collect properly tagged material from other sites and post it to the corresponding subreddits. You can spot them by looking at their profiles, they post 20-30 images an hour without pause. I’m pretty sure those are made by users, we’ll see once the API changes go live.

      Edit: Typos

      • fuzzybee@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Take a look at the site, you’ll notice many usernames consisting of a random adjective or noun in front of a random noun and a random number at the back. Sometimes they are in camel case, sometimes they are separated by dashes or underscores.

        That’s the format of the usernames that Reddit suggests. That doesn’t really mean much.

        • bionicjoey@lemmy.caEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          It always struck me as odd that so many users on Reddit were using the default generation scheme. No other site I’ve been on has so few people caring about the name they pick

        • nottheengineer@feddit.deEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          Yes, that’s why you need to check the profiles and look for the criteria I listed.

          I remember just one time where I falsely accused someone to be a bot based on that and I’ve done it about a hundred times.

  • Eddie Trax@dmv.socialEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    The people who continue to say “I’m just on Reddit because ___ but as soon as ___ I’m out” were\are honestly part of the problem.

  • CCatMan@lemmy.oneEnglish
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    2 years ago

    I left and haven’t logged in for a few weeks now, so I know at least my traffic is gone.

  • Baggins [he/him]@lemmy.caEnglish
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    2 years ago

    Well I’m just loading up Lemmy for the first time today and this seems like a fine replacement — even more so than mastodon was for Twitter.

  • Sethal@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I think traffic is gonna plummet after June 30th. A lot of people are still using Apollo, Sync, etc. like business as usual, but once they stop Reddit will probably take another hit.

    • impulse@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Possibly. However, it would be really interesting to see how many download the official app. Personally, the telemetry and ads are enough to keep me away, but I fully understand people, who say that Lemmy’s content just isn’t there yet.

  • lynny@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Tumblr is still alive, but it’s a shell of what it used to be. Given the behavior of Spez, it’s only a matter of time before Reddit ends up the same.

    Imagine the kinds of fuckery that will happen when Reddit has shareholders.

  • jerieljan@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I think it’s par for the course for user traffic to normalize since the platform gets visitors just by simply existing.

    But if they actually matched that against old users of the site, then it actually means something. Most of the users that left are usually power users and have used Reddit long enough to use third-party apps and can’t stand the bullshit changes.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    My first reaction was one of questioning the statistics.

    Then I realized that the way they were generating their stats wouldn’t have counted me for the most part.

    Then I realized that I wasn’t really all that unique; most power users wouldn’t have shown up in those stats.

    At that point, the stats made more sense.

      • imaqtpie@kbin.social
        0·
        2 years ago

        It explains in the article. Found the redditor xD.

        But yeah looks like daily unique visitors and average visit time, which was around 8 minutes apparently. (rookie numbers psh)

  • Ben@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    As I expected.

    I’m not sure it it’s just Reddit that makes me sick, or Google. It’s the way that society is getting dumber and more subservient.

    I definitely get angry when I hear people are ‘googling’ everything they want to ‘search’ for. Similarly that people simply wish to protest Reddit - when they don’t really care, they’re just jumping on the RANT bandwagon.

    With the advent of instant gratification, smartphones/internet access, I welcome the lack of need for a paper dictionary.

    However, people go further - they love the way the big tech can aggregate their content and dish it up to them.

    They don’t care that they are being spoonfed solent green, and increasingly denied the ability to find actual answers to their questions.

    If you do disturb them, like a borg they will become disoriented. They start to drown until they can feel the comforting caste of blue light on their faces as they dive back into their familiar environment.

    Reddit’s CEO is not stupid - he knows that most of it’s users are sheep, and the escapees will be a minority. The mods, addicted to their power trips, will return and take whatever shit they have to… what else is their life good for?

    Reddit is not ‘crushing’ the protests. The protests were mostly a flash in the pan - now most folks got bored, and just wanna go back to reading their joke of the day.

    Moving Forward

    A couple of problems. Firstly, even if I’ve been talking on Fediverse somewhere about a topic - if I search that topic, it will not take me to the Fediverse - I get taken to Reddit.

    Unless the Fediverse content is getting included in search engine data, it’ll never be driven from that direction.

    I know personally that the reason I created my Reddit account is that I would find answers there, and then end up discussing them where I found them.

    • adderaline@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      i try to push back against this notion when i see it: misanthropy is not the proper response here. people aren’t sheep, they aren’t stupid, they just aren’t living in the same context as we are. for a lot of people (and a lot of older people especially), the politics of the internet are a black box, not because they’re too stupid to comprehend this stuff, but because its simply out of scope for what they want to achieve online. there’s tons of things to care about, and while the internet is a pretty important thing to care about in modern life in my opinion, lots of people simply don’t live enough of their lives online to give a shit.

      i dunno, i just get kinda pissed off with the whole “sheeple” bullshit. not everybody has your priorities, and not everybody knows what you know. that doesn’t make them bad people, or stupid people, or subservient people, it just makes them people.

      • neo (he/him)@lemmy.comfysnug.spaceEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Most people, by default, are not sheep; you are not wrong about this. But most people have allowed themselves to be domesticated as if they were (relevant thread attached at bottom).

        this is not a “we are forcing normal people to understand scary programming things” problem.

        this is a “corporations are doing everything to make people so strongly anti-learning and so against trying new things that they voluntarily refuse to use anything except for their own product” problem

        source: https://eldritch.cafe/@AgathaSorceress/109296512790347301

        • adderaline@beehaw.orgEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          like, maybe that’s true, but i’m unsure if we have enough data to back that up as the main explanation for why people are hesitant to changing platforms, or if they are. maybe people have been brainwashed into staying on Facebook or whatever else, or maybe it was the first of its kind, and all its competition has been subsumed into it by monopolistic business practices, and people haven’t had any alternatives for a long time. maybe institutions and systems are very difficult to stop once they get going.

          i dunno, i’m really just not convinced by arguments like this. its taken quite a bit of time for our understanding of social media and its impact to become evident, and movements like the fediverse are building up steam for a reason. its seems more likely to me that you and i are simply early to the party.

          my position isn’t “we are forcing normal people to understand scary programming things”. that would imply i think that people can’t understand this stuff. its “we are engaged in communities where the structure and function of internet infrastructure is a topic of concern, and most people aren’t”. they aren’t being exposed to challenges to corporate infrastructure. they aren’t engaging with critiques of for-profit industry. but that is changing. people are more aware of the ills of social media platforms today than five years ago. hopefully, that trend will continue. i think that the only problem really is that more people don’t know there are other options.

  • Fickle_Ferret@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I am not sure I believe that, it might be that bots can be active again now that the subreddits are reopened, but I know that I am not back. And I won’t be back, and I think a lot of people are staying away as well. That the traffic is now normal seems a bit sketchy.

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

      If Reddit experience a drop a 5% of its user base I doubt they would immediately notice. And even if they did sites like this (pcmag) would not consider that a major drop and so wouldn’t even report it as such.

      But we all know that 5% of the users produce 90% to the content.

    • Daftman@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      It’s interesting to see how the traffic is after 1st of July. I hate to speculate but I wouldn’t be surprised when an article will comes out, stating traffic has not changed after 1st of July.

    • Spzi@lemmy.clickEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I know that I am not back. And I won’t be back, and I think a lot of people are staying away as well. That the traffic is now normal seems a bit sketchy.

      I’m afraid that’s just bubble bias. Most people just don’t care or haven’t found a viable alternative yet. These +43k active users on Lemmy are huge for Lemmy, but not even a scratch for the other site.

      After the initial exodus at the start of this month, you could see more and more comments demanding returning to business as usual.

      • Fickle_Ferret@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        [I’m afraid that’s just bubble bias.] Huh, hadn’t heard of that one before. But yeah 43.000 is not a lot next to 52.000.000. I am still staying here tho