When those users voice opinions on other things, it's called content. When those users voice their opinions against reddit, it's noise.
Hoffman continues to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what Reddit is.
The very people that give your platform its value are revolting against you, and you think it's noise.
What's your product? What do you create? In what way will Reddit thrive only with what you put into it? Where do you think the content you lace your ads between comes from?
To be completely honest, if a two-day blackout is proven to be the most serious "protest" the community can do, I'll buy Reddit stock when it IPO.
The protest could end today, the 3rd party apps go...and if the volunteer mods go with it, then the site as a whole tumbles onto a decline that eventually kills it.
If it's just the nerd audience I'll bet Reddit win without thinking. But it's more than that: they're ditching some mods who rely on 3rd party apps, and some users who stay on Reddit for NSFW content.
So yeah, I still think Reddit will be fine, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
I am genuinely curious how this is going to work going forward.
But that's probably fine with them. Reddit seems to have taken that the position that users are fungible, which (particularly when they depend on volunteer moderators) seems somewhat dubious to me.
Because much as some folks here seem to believe, there IS actually more to reddit, reddit as it exists today, than just ad impression counts. I'm not some social media genius but the way that this being talked about by some people, who I guess haven't been a part of reddit over 17+ years, I am flabbergasted at how y'all think these things grow and thrive.
What's the market value of 9gag? iFunny?
Digg?
> then its niche and generalist subreddits alike will lose their culture and quality faster than one can blink an eye
reddit chaotically overriding subreddit moderation decisions has had that effect for a while.
Also, let's not keep conveniently leaving out that a growing number of subs are pledging to continue the protest.
They are great fun with cat pictures and other stupid content. And you'll have the occasional laser-focused sub-reddit (that will be a loss).
But the vast vast vast majority? Utter stupidity.
It does look like more of a hybrid between Twitter and Reddit with the threaded conversations and nerd-friendly API layer i.e. ActivityPub.
No, you and others' wishful thinking lead you to a fundamental misunderstanding of what Reddit and Hoffman are. This is just the standard "how to run a business" MBA crap at play. The website you think Reddit is doesn't exist; and that doesn't even matter, as for them it's just another black box that makes money.
Reddit has grown and has thrived, now the company is prioritising turning on the money tap. They’re prepared to lose X users if it means they can monetise the remaining users by Y amount.
I’m not saying this as a defence, I’ve also been using Reddit for 15+ years and I’m disappointed by what I see. I’m just clear eyed about the game plan.
Fun stuff I had to deal with include: The admin's "Anti-Evil Operations" frequently deleting user comments with no explanation. A persistent pedophile who just wouldn't go away. Getting guilt tripped by a severely mentally ill guy whenever we had to ban him (and his many alts) for breaking the rules. Doxx. Gore. Brigading. White supremacists. Racists with their "racial crime statistics". An impossible to moderate Reddit Chat (there were no chat moderation logs at all). And much more.
I completely checked out of moderation when I remembered that I wasn't getting paid to deal with any of the above. And since then, I've had much more appreciation for all the moderators who were willing to put in time and effort into maintaining a community for free.
they're already struggling with worse service on the way.
at least Google and meta have world-class programmers. what's reddit's moat?
Reddit has always tried to thread the needle of having 4chan-like freedom without 4chan-like anarchy. That’s the secret to its success.
It's a slow process, but an inevitable one. Twitter has demonstrated this, where it isn't this instant switch, but a slow burn. We're only now getting Meta's take on such a replacement for example. Same will happen with Reddit now people are aware how fragile it really is. I just don't see direct replacements happening this year.
Anecdotally I do see far more aggressive displacement on Reddit than I did with Twitter however, perhaps due to how impersonal Reddit is where most feel they can abandon it much easier than a Twitter account with many professional colleagues attached.
I guess I just find it baffling that people think that the site will have the same value it had today (to users and advertisers) if it is loses its soul. I don't even think I'm being idealistic. I've been through this before. Reddit is more than a view count, or else people wouldn't care they way we do. Did? Something.
That is a pretty low reduction and imo shows how those of us who care are not a majority, and the whole thing might end up being nothing more than a gamer-protest.
edit: back up, peak comments from below 7k to below 6k; peak posts from about 1.2k to 1.1k
In some sense, as a non-share holder who wants to see people build these communities in the open, I appreciate this approach.
It's a massive circle jerk and echo chamber of regurgitated opinions. So in other words: exactly like the rest of Reddit.
hoffman founded reddit ... together with btw aaron swartz.
I think it has stopped being that a long, long time ago, and Steve kept track better than us what the new demographics of reddit are. I am sad that the reddit I enjoyed is no more, but I am looking forwards to the new crop of discussion platforms (or whatever else) that will crop up.
I never access /r/popular or /r/all or any of the default subreddits, all my usage on reddit is from niche communities about my hobbies, and through the past 15 years each new hobby I started there was a subreddit to kickstart it full of information and a community. That's going to be the biggest loss.
Most of reddit the past 10 years has been shifting towards new users just lazily scrolling /r/popular but those users are not profitable, they don't generate value, the ads will be poorly targeted. The laser-focused subreddits is where the value of reddit as a platform comes from, I don't like advertising but I could tolerate targeting on those subreddits as it'd be relevant without invading users' privacy (like the old days of AdSense using the context of the page for ads, not profiling the user).
The vast majority is utter stupidity, I agree, but that is a part of reddit that you can completely avoid if you are a bit more of a power user... It will suck when it dies.
It can be also a massive circle jerk but if that's the only thing you can see from niche subreddits you are coming into this with a massive bias and ignoring the good parts, and these good parts are missing from most of the rest of the web.
I feel that your opinion is the same, just an attempt at a massive circle jerk about how terrible reddit is. It is, but it's also not and if you sincerely can't see how useful reddit is for a wide range of hobbies it's probably because you're a little myopic.
You can try to do a bottom-up estimate, but how much do you think it costs to moderate the (8th?) largest domain on earth? More or less than that? More or less than what Reddit's current operating income is?
A conversation is always at some level about voicing your opinion or showing something you've done or bought and basically ask for feedback/reactions.
I've read about some people calling for a return to forums. That lacks the one-stop-shop-for-all-interests feel, though - besides, subreddits are quick to tell you about other online communities you should hit up. For some of the older folks on here, how were the old newsgroups compared to reddit? From the little I know - and I mean "I learned about newsgroups from a joke on the Simpsons" little - it kind of sounds like Reddit...