Technology

IDK, I think there are enough people, like me, that just left, and didn't go back (at least intentionally) after the 11th. Then there are the casual users that have left/reduced usage because of the bullshit (see all the malicious compliance and blackouts) to other similar sites like tiktok or meta that they can get their dopamine from.

The numbers I have seen have been daily users, and engagement time. I'm curious to see, a week out, what those numbers look like. I can say that I accidentally logged in a few times on the 12th. Either muscle memory, or clicking a link, not realizing it was going to reddit. Those two things count toward daily users AFAIK, and I know I'm not the only one (I think the numbers are inflated because of that). I also think that 8 min average (or whatever it was) will plummet as the bigger users (like me, or the mods) stop going there.

We also haven't see what happens when the 3rd party apps shut down. I feel like even more of the casual users will leave, to avoid ads, and the bigger users, that see Apollo as reddit will stop altogether. Then, with the mods, core users, contributors split/gone it'll be even more overrun with spam/porn bots. The user experience will continue to do what all the rest of the social medias have already done before them.

All that is to say, I agree that Reddit isn't going away, like facebook hasn't gone away, BUT I think this whole thing has done a lot more damage to reddit than a lot of people seem to realize. And I think once we get into July, we will see the real toll it's taken. The longer the fight goes on, and the more maliciously compliant people get, the more it's going to hurt reddit.