this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
4 points (59.1% liked)

Technology

34778 readers
344 users here now

This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.


Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.


Rules:

1: All Lemmy rules apply

2: Do not post low effort posts

3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff

4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.

5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)

6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist

7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I keep thinking this would have been a much better sell to devs and to users. I have always used Sync, and Boost. I tried the official app a few times, but really only used it for the chat feature. I didn't want to pay for it, but (I am embarrassed to admit it) I would pay premium to keep my app. I think this would have worked out better for Reddit than the garbage they are pulling right now.

Would that have been a more reasonable solution in your opinion as well?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] heartlessevil@lemmy.one 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I would have considered that at the start, but at this point they've damaged their ecosystem so much, and correspondingly Lemmy has grown a lot, so I don't see why I would go back either way.

[–] HERRAX@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the fact that he seems devoted to following musk's business practices leaves litte faith for Reddit to ever get back on the right track again. Besides, I'm loving my time here at the fediverse and will probably start selfhosting my own private Lemmy server soon!

[–] Fubarberry@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah exactly. My trust and relationship with reddit has been damaged. Even if they roll back all the API pricing changes the damage is already done.

At the very least they would need to fire spez for me to think anything has changed or is going to get better.

[–] phlemmy@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago

They've showed extremely bad faith. That's hard to recover from.

[–] Fickle_Ferret@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Hah, no. Are you asking if I want to pay for access to a platform that is already dependant on its users to create or aggregate content, while they are already making ad money off my eyeballs? Heck, no, never. If that site cannot make enough money on ads alone, while being one /were of the most visited non-porn sites on the internet, then maybe they should reconsider their other expenses. E.x. Is it really necessary to have a downtown office in an expensive us city, or pay out high CEO wages. I can only really conclude that they are being stupid about this. If they want me back, they are going to have to beg.

[–] Thanks4Nothing@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

But that is exactly the problem with third party apps ..they don't show ads so they make no add revenue on people using apps like Sync and Apollo or RIF.. The official app does. I understand why they are trying to push people to their app, but the route they took was worst case scenario.

[–] ShadowRunner@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You're ignoring the other effects of third party apps - which is to have significantly added to the number of users they have to show ads to in the first place.

Making their API free encouraged active development which increased user engagement. So it absolutely did increase their revenue because it helped to increase the popularity of their site in the first place.

[–] DreamerofDays@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This.

Put more explicitly:

  • 3rd party apps bring more people to the site, or keep them there longer.

  • Those people create content in the forms of posts proper and comments— hell, even down to just voting— that feeds the site engagement for users through 1st party interfaces(the ones getting ads), keeping them there longer, and seeing more ads.

  • Better moderation tools help mods keep online communities healthy, and the kinds of places we are happy to spend unhealthy amounts of time on.

[–] whofearsthenight@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lest we forget how dumb reddit is, they didn't have a mobile strategy in 2014, which necessitated buying Alien Blue.

If you look at the history of reddit, it has succeeded entirely in spite of management decision. Gotta say, even being on the site since 07-08, even I got this wrong. I expected reddit to do something dumb, I just didn't expect them to do the most dumb thing.

[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

They took the best Reddit client and turned it into the current abomination.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] 1chemistdown@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Third party app users generate content that make adds possible. Get out of here with this pitty reddit problems.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] whofearsthenight@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

They took a 250m funding round and used it to build an nft site. reddit's problems are 100% self created. Think about how ama's used to be and how they managed to kill that. They could have had several revenue streams just based on ama's.

[–] tsp@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Those are big ifs, but: if the API prices would have been reasonable and if the Reddit leadership hadn’t acted as they have, I think I might have been willing to pay for Premium. As it stands, Reddit leadership has destroyed a lot of trust, so for me that ship has sailed.

[–] Thanks4Nothing@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I was thinking more like ...3rd party apps only function when users have an account with premium. Skip the API pricing all together but reddit still makes mo ey since 3PAs dont show reddits ads

[–] dvdnet90@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If Reddit want to settle this conflict peacefully. I want to do that. But, with recent news today I don't think so

[–] ulu_mulu@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't go back to reddit even if they paid me to do it.

[–] roofuskit@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Lol, not anymore.

[–] FrickAndMortar@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Three weeks ago, I totally would have… Apollo was life! Now, I don’t think anything could lure me back…

With Spez’s comments about how Reddit has all this data, and “we’re not going to just give that away for free”, I think anyone left on that platform is going to get sold so hard to anyone with two nickels to rub together, that they will effectively have zero privacy or anonymity… no thanks, Spez.

[–] lrabbt@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the problem rn is that Reddit is shitting on its users, sometime ago, I'd pay, but now I'm gone for good, even if they revert everything

[–] mrecondo@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago
[–] AttackBunny@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you had asked me a month ago, I’d have said absolutely, as long as it keep Reddit alive.

Now? Absofuckinglutely not. I’m a firm believer in putting my money where my mouth is. I haven’t accessed Reddit (intentionally) since the 11th. And my original plan was to see how it all played out, and still probably browse only when I’m at my desk, on my laptop. Watching it all unfold, I’m absolutely disgusted with the choices they are making, and more so with how they are treating everyone, privately, and publicly.

I won’t be going back to Reddit. And I’m ok with that. It was honestly already a bit too……money-grubbing anyhow, and all this last week just solidified that for me.

[–] LifeInOregon@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

The intentionally part is my only difficulty. I’d not realized until last week just how many search results were Reddit threads. I need to start excluding Reddit from my search results.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago

If they had given us a heads up that we would need a subscription, early enough in advance.

If they didnt limit the content we could access.

If the price wasnt ridiculous - Im not paying Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Game Pass money to access a web forum.

Then sure.

But Spez fucked it up. Hes shown that he really doesnt care about the communities, the people that make it up, or even reddit itself. Hes too bent on making that IPO and bailing out as soon as he can.

[–] Obstruct7794@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I never paid for it before and I wouldn't start now. Especially not after how they've been handling the whole situation.

I do agree with what you're saying, though. Many people would have been fine with paying to keep their favourite apps.

[–] Moonrise2473@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't have paid for, but i would have accepted much better. "API usage is ad free hence only premium users can access it" is much better than "API users are freeloaders that take more than they are giving, fuck them!"

[–] kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago
[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think if they'd framed it properly, in that by using Apollo I'm bypassing their ad revenue and costing them money, I'd see it as a reasonable compromise that I pay for Premium to support the company and carry on using Reddit in the way I preferred.

Now? Fuck u/spez

[–] garretble@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah. Like two or three weeks ago if they said third party apps need to create a couple dollar per month subscription, then I probably would have bit. Now, with the current leadership? Nope.

[–] WorldieBoi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No way. I've lost all faith in Reddit as a company.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Burndown@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, the reason I left Reddit last week has little to do with with third party app issue. I left because the CEO has shown he isn't interested in listening or addressing community concerns.

[–] NutWrench@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

This. He's just another arrogant authoritarian who doesn't understand where Reddit's value comes from. It's the users who will decide if Reddit survives or not, NOT the CEO's. We've seen this attitude before. Hollywood has been destroying franchises for years because they think they know better than the fans.

[–] primaryuser@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

No. Even if they decided to do something to placate us today, they've shown their hand and demonstrated they don't give a shit about their userbase. I have no plans of going back. Period.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe before spez dug his heels in the ground. But now he's said too much. He admires Elon? Fuck off.

[–] Thanks4Nothing@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Exactly...I think from the start it would have been an understandable approach. They want to make money but understand people like their apps l.

[–] somniumx@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

If you had asked me one week ago, I guess the answer would have been a yes. With the way Reddit and its CEO behaved the last few days, right now you would need to pay me to used Reddit again. Fingers crossed the feediverse will keep enough users to make it a real alternative for lots of people.

[–] Onii-Chan@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

lmao fuck no. I was on reddit for 12 years until recently, but at this point, there's nothing they can do to win back my trust. Reddit is just another corporate giant these days, and has been for a long time. Huffman is the reason I no longer wish to support reddit in any form, and they can make promises all they want - I've happily jumped ship and will be staying here.

[–] Badabinski@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Not at this point. I don't want to give bad faith actors my business, and Mr. Huffman has shown himself to be a big ol' penis. At the beginning? With unadulterated access (i.e. NSFW content) and gentler rules for 3rd party apps? Sure, I would have been ok with that.

[–] small44@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

No i don't want another subscription. Never had a problems with ads as long as they are not abused

[–] Mojojojo1993@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

No reddit is dead to me. Anything that is used by ceos to fuck over the people. Let it burn for all I care.

Actually scratch that. Let it pump to obscene levels and after all those rich riches have bought in. Dump that thing into the Earth's core.

Far too much money and corruption in this world.

[–] Jacobp100@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I would have

[–] JRepin@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Absolutely not. If I learned something from Twitter and Facebook and Reddit fiascos then it is to never ever let youself be trapped into a closed-source, centralized for-profit platform. So NO, unless they make it completely open source and decentralised so anyone can setup their own instance. But then again we already have Fediverse and Mastodon and Lemmy... so why bother with that, let's improve what treasure we already have.

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I would have IF it had been the solution Reddit had came up with in the first place AND they hadn't destroyed my trust in them with their handling of the protests.

I have an issue with your proposed solution though: it does not address the use case of moderation / accessibility / utility tools and bots.

[–] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago
[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago

At this point, no. I took June as a Lemmy test drive, and turns out I like it better. The API change doesn't affect me too much, as I primarily interacted with Reddit through a web browser, but generally things have been going downhill for Reddit. I found a viable alternative, I'm sticking with it.

[–] Aaron-Davis363@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago
[–] lixus98@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Not anymore, they lost me with all these interviews, spez showed his true colors, he is a piece of shit and doesn't deserve my money. I rather support kbin or lemmy, I've always been a FOSS enthusiast.

load more comments
view more: next ›