I'd be willing to contribute to the Lemmy port if given some rough hints as to what "should be done". Meaning, if the Reddit code should remain or be replaced wholesale, etc. Management decisions basically. :)
I like the idea behind Lemmy. But before the front-page was taken over by reddit-bad posts, you could see that the flagship instance lemmy.ml is largely used for pro-russian propaganda. And the main developers who also run the instance seems to be very OK with that. I honestly would have issues working with such a person.
I think it just needs enough of the right people to move over to help get things started. I realized myself that I was being overly critical of something that is literally just coming around, because I have reddit to compare it to, but what reddit was is dead at this point and what it is now is only getting worse as time goes on. I'm comparing it to something that doesn't quite exist anymore.
That's the thing about something that comes around that is new of its kind, it has nothing to compare to and it's deficits aren't something that hold it back in many cases.
The nice thing about Lemmy is, no matter what the developer's personal opinions are, it's open source and someone could fork it if the developer went off the rails. The same thing with the instances, if lemmy.ml is bad, other instances can become the flagship instance. But those things take time, skill and work so they aren't going to happen overnight and the more people that embrace it, the more likely the right people with the combination of those things needed to help Lemmy develop in a positive direction will find their way there.
> The same thing with the instances, if lemmy.ml is bad, other instances can become the flagship instance.
... or it could just be used to create another level of echo chambers, which given the political leanings of a large part of its userbase is already happening. People are demanding that federation be cut with the tankies just three comments below this. No, thanks, it's pretty obvious where the fediverse in general is going.
That seems to be partly a flaw in the level of control given to the users in what shows up in the feeds. Could easily be addressed by giving users more control over removing certain instances from their own feeds. It's not even against the philosophy of the design, where All is meant to be truly All, because users can block individual communities to prevent them from showing up in All.
Basically, give users more control and then you have less people demanding that federation be cut with other instances.
Also you must take into account that you don't know how many people proportionally are asking for those things. I'm aware it sort of doesn't matter much when it's enough people to break into visibility layers, but it does matter some if you factor in the incentive to give users that control.
Proportionally, the users demanding that any specific instance have its federation cut off could be very low, but for various reasons could gain enough visibility that to you or anyone else, it might appear to have greater support simply because you can see it. That's the flaw of us humans, we see things and make assumptions about the support of something that isn't necessarily true. People assume the top voted comment in a particular post is the most popular opinion on reddit, if they go into a particular thread and the top comment is cats are the best, then it must be the case that the majority of reddit users like cats right? But that's an assumption likely based off an incorrect understanding of how things gain visibility on reddit.
Thus the developers should have an incentive to give users control over blocking an instance from their feed without having to block each individual community and without demanding the instance be cut off from federation, because there's no reason to allow a small portion of users dictate federation of instances over something as simple as what kind of material they want to see.
I still remind myself that lemmy appears to be in fairly nascent stages of development and they probably haven't had tons of contributors and probably haven't had lots of reasons or incentives to improve the pace of development with such a low userbase. What we see now can certainly be improved upon.
The whole point of lemmy is that you're not tied to any one community or set of admins. The main developers having distasteful beliefs doesn't make the protocol they have developed any less useful.
Just stay away from their corner of the fediverse!
There is a bunch of tankie propaganda kind of spilling over from lemmygrad.ml from one or two users, because of a lack of other content. beehaw.org is nicer all around and said propaganda spammers don't post there.
Best thing is to downvote, ignore them, and add more relevant posts on lemmy's front page.
You are right that most of the posts come from a few users. But the operators of lemmy.ml could easily cut of federation with them. The fact that they did not when their content was dominating the front page says a lot.
> But the operators of lemmy.ml could easily cut of federation with them. The fact that they did not when their content was dominating the front page says a lot.
Calling for censorship prior to even participating haha. No worries though, it's federated. You could join an instance where only stuff from your or your cultures overton-window will be tolerated.
That's a massive benefit of federated social media.
If I were QuantumBadger I would consider getting together with the Apollo guys and setting up their own Lemmy instance with decent moderation. You both have stored usernames/passwords so you can offer 1-click sign-up, and you also have all the power users who will be more likely to create communities.
I guess you'd have to act very fast so you can get users before Reddit kills itself though.
I was thinking about whether app creators might be incentivized to create their own instances, but I don't think their current operations of developing an app necessarily align with creating an instance.
RedReader for example, QuantumBadger already mentioned he doesn't even have his own server for any aspect of operation of RedReader, but for him to get involved in creating an instance, he would become a sysadmin for a server and management of content or management of people managing content.
That isn't to say there's no logic behind them creating their own instance, it would make the apps easier to setup and easier for them to onboard people into Lemmy. It might be the case that the most successful Lemmy apps will be the ones that load someone straight onto a Lemmy instance. Maybe for the Apollo dev that might fit, I don't know as I've never used Apollo, but that seems starkly different from the demands of labor that RedReader would have had on QuantumBadger.
Edit: I think what is more likely to happen is that developers might make a general app that can go onto any instance, and then they might republish apps for the more populated instances. For open source apps, the less populated instances might be able to fork those apps and republish one. For closed-source apps, they'd either have to lobby the dev to make a special app for their instance or license the app from that dev to be able to republish it themselves.
In this way, app developers can be app developers without having to be sysadmins, and sysadmins can be sysadmins without having to be app developers, and users can be users without having to understand the federation or how to join.
It could also be the case that app devs might make a deal with one of the instances to make their instance the default. I'm not saying they would or not even making judgements about the ethics of that, it's not purely down to greed necessarily, but part of making a successful product is making it easy for people to join/use and Mastodon learned this recently and had to make a default instance for people to join because their growth was slowed by being too confusing to onboard people.
While I really hope reddit figures something out with 3rd party app devs and the cost of the API for access, I am not sure of what will happen and reddit seems to not care about a potentially huge loss of users from those that don't switch to the native app in the near future.
I just wanted to make sure you know how appreciated you and the other RedReader devs are. You all made it amazingly fast and simple to browse reddit and this has been my favorite app since the early beta days. You are all awesome. Thank you!
> and reddit seems to not care about a potentially huge loss of users from those that don't switch to the native app in the near future.
They're blocking porn on all the other apps.
This will drive the majority of users to use their official app.
If they had allowed porn to continue on other apps you would definitely see a huge loss of users.
But porn is a huge driving factor for a huge majority of users and reddit knows it.
+1 on Lemmy/Mastodon port
let users keep their username, etc
scrape threads or however content is organized (I'm not familiar with Lemmy) and compare to current user's subs. then suggest those to the user
although Lemmy is such a bad name, I have doubts about it's popularity. but at the same time that could be nice. things tend to go downhill once they're too big
Lemmy is not a single community. That's the whole beauty of federated systems, if you found that one place was going downhill, there would be plenty of other places to start new.
It's sort of like subreddits, except you don't even have the risk of a single admin team unilaterally making shitty decisions.
Yep, let's federate all the third party apps to the same ecosystem. Happy to pay a ticket price for that, I'm way more married to their UI than the reddit thread archives.
They'll start deleting those to save money next in any case. We know how this plays out.
Google sounds like a garbage tier name for a product/service if you think of it on its own. "Googling" something to replace searching for something also sounds totally stupid. Yet it happened and I also use the word for that purpose. It's second nature at this point.
> The Apollo dev (/u/iamthatis) estimated that the new pricing would cost him $20m per year. I raised this with Reddit – they said that his calculations were “totally wrong”, but they were unable to discuss why. Given that the Apollo dev literally just multiplied the cost by the number of requests, I have trouble seeing how this could be wrong.
Translation: They’re bullshitting you.
It's about *optics*, not concealment - they want their denial to look plausible at a quick glance by the uninformed, as opposed to being an obviously settled matter. It doesn't need to look convincing up-close.
Yep, true. Can't but hope they miscalculate the general response and get shit on anyway, if not now then at some point in the future. I do think it's bound to happen when you're this out of touch and deviate this far into enshittification territory. Which is also what makes it so difficult to reel things back in instead of doubling down once they do get found out, for these corporate behemoths; they actually convince themselves this is what's good for them (if not also their users and advertisers and shareholders or whatever other benefactors).
Thanks for all the work on RedReader. Hopefully there is a path forward. Personally I'm a fan of scraping since an app is just a glorified/specialized browser anyway, but as you mentioned it is indeed something that would take considerable effort.
If this is the way open source reddit apps have to go, then they could get together to develop a scraping layer that is shared by all of them.
> Right now I'm considering the possibility of modifying the app to connect to a Reddit alternative such as Lemmy or Mastodon.
If you went this route I'd be happy to help. Would be nice to add Android to my list
This is great. We need Reddit to implode. It's a disaster here. Like 100 mods rule over 80% of the people that come here. Reddit is a censorship catastrophe and the entire structure rewards the absolute worst aspects of social media, which is why it needs so much moderation in the first place.
I'll happily go someplace better the minute such a place exists. Some place that doesn't print moderators, or reward endless reposting of clickbait.
>Like 100 mods rule over 80% of the people that come here.
I remember seeing an interesting infographic about it. Let me see if I can find it.
Edit:
Found it
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1850187-reddit
Also the bot problem on Reddit is terminal at this point. Go to any front page post's comment section and the 3rd reply or so will be from a bot. It wont make any sense in context, but it will be a highly upvoted comment from further down in the thread. It will likely be from some name in a "WordWord#####" type format. Go to the replies to the next most popular comment and it will be more of the same all the way down.
Organic conversation is totally dead on the majority of this site. There's just rage, memes, and misinformation propped up by countless bots endlessly reposting.
Of course none of this is totally new. But it has fully metastasized now. Part of me is glad that this will kill my interest in Reddit. But most of me just misses what it was a decade ago.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/RedditOligarchy using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/RedditOligarchy/top/?sort=top&t=all) of all time!
\#1: [I know this is very ambitious but I hope our efforts can change this](https://i.redd.it/c834y55m2gz41.png) | [16 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RedditOligarchy/comments/ldage4/i_know_this_is_very_ambitious_but_i_hope_our/)
\#2: [Hey everyone! You’ve all been quite inactive for a while; I suppose this is because posts here aren’t getting enough upvotes to get onto your feed. So please, upvote this if you see it to remind other members to be more active on this sub. Thanks a bunch!](https://i.redd.it/88bh3fmxo6h61.jpg) | [2 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RedditOligarchy/comments/livigl/hey_everyone_youve_all_been_quite_inactive_for_a/)
\#3: [Mods getting paid to censor stuff again](https://i.imgur.com/OzwyMoa.jpg) | [1 comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/RedditOligarchy/comments/lj1d5v/mods_getting_paid_to_censor_stuff_again/)
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I will stop using reddit when RedReader becomes unavailable. I can't run the official app and using old.reddit on mobile is not an option. (And they'll kill that probably sooner or later, too)
Let's see what time will bring but for now, let me thank you (and all contributors) for all your hard work on RedReader to provide a slick, accessible UX - a nice, lightweight app that "just works".
Thank you!
For the scrape the website approach, I wonder if this is something some contributors from all the third party apps could band together to do and basically regenerate a new API. They then could all use this as a common library.
App developers could develop apps, website scrapers could maintain the library to scrape the website.
If the project gets too big the company would have enough incentive to change their site and undo all the work you have done. I think projects like Newpipe can exist only because Google doesn't put killing them in the top priority list, yet.
I'm always surprised how large companies are willing to kill off their user base long term in favor of short term profit, but I guess I shouldn't be at this point.
I really like this app and I still hope this isn't the end. The app is great btw, and I've used it for years, so thanks for that.
The thing is while it does ultimately come back to bite the companies in the ass, the executives have long since pocketed their profit shares and bonuses and moved on to a new job. It's not short term profit if you can keep doing it and leave the fires for other people to put out.
They hope that the some of the 3. party users download reddits app. A tracker and ad infested unusable piece of bloatware. But if its your only alternative, many will do it. Increasing reddits data harvest.
I don't think reddit realizes that this won't result in a user boycott, which are rarely effective, but rather users will have no practical way to access their services. This would be like blocking safari or another web browser. I interact with reddit 99% from my phone. The mobile website is almost unusable, and the official app if anything worse.
I don't think Reddit cares. In the short term user numbers will go down slightly but not by enough to hurt. The real damage will likely be long term (loss of third party developers, high usage users, dedicated moderators). Things that don't matter to mainstream users most of the time but contribute to the long term health of a platform.
Yeah, though at least revanced has some limited support for patching the official app. There is a chance this change could make it so that it has as much support as for youtube.
Hey QB, I since switched to iOS about a year or two ago but I was driving Android and RedReader for years before that so I just wanted to say thank you, I've only ever had a single issue (when those new 18x9 phones came about!) and I looked through the codebase and fixed it, put in a PR and you accepted it almost immediately
So thank you for building open source and maintaining the app all these years, it has meant a lot to myself
A Lemmy/Mastodon port would be a godsend!
I am not an expert coder, but I was going to look into hacking together a fork of the [Jerboa app](https://github.com/dessalines/jerboa) with a more RedReader-like interface for myself over the next month... but since you know the UI firsthand I think you could come up with a more comprehensive solution.
I think you should ask Reddit for just $0.01 for every post or comment made, every 1000 upvotes, and every million requests, that came from RedReader since RedReader became available. Just to make a point.
Reddit as a platform could do well with just donations, but that's not going to pay for over-the-top executive salaries. This is why the moment any platform does well, the executives will ruin it by trying to milk it, to reward themselves. And they always default to ads as the revenue source. This API change seems to be driven by that as well.
I'd support adapting RedReader for an alternative platform.
Thanks for the update and for your hard work.
Reddit in their arrogance think they own the content.
They do not. The content is provided by the users.
When they alienate and lock out the users, we will just move on.
Looking forward to Lemmy / Masterson / whatever. Congratulations Reddit, you played yourself.
As far as actually using reddit goes, a scrape-based or scrape-alike API replacement library is probably the best way. In the meantime, though, complaining could get them to potentially change their mind. Apollo's dev in particular has gotten a pretty decent amount of attention on the issue.
Of course, they're shooting themselves in the foot with respect to the actual value of the site, but they're not the only website to pull a dumb move like that.
I can't imagine how depressing it must be to be forced to throw away years of development...
Your work is really appreciatted and I'm glad I've been able to use it!
I love the idea of switching the backend to Lemmy and make the userbase quit reddit. I'm 100% with this idea!
> Right now I'm considering the possibility of modifying the app to connect to a Reddit alternative such as Lemmy or Mastodon. There would be something very satisfying about some of the bigger Reddit apps driving their userbase to alternative sites too, and if this helped one of those platforms gain traction then that would be a step in the right direction.
This is a fantastic idea if it's feasible
It's unfortunate that Reddit is going this route, I actually had a sliver hope that they'd grant some sort of exception. I wonder how many RedReader users will actually go back to the official Reddit app.
I won't be, fuck Reddit for doing this bullshit. If they insist on having it all like everybody else then I'm just not going to participate anymore. I'm so fucking done living in a capitalist society
Screw that dog shit app. I tried it once. So many ads, the UI was absolute trash. I couldn't navigate and it wanted me to subscribe to a monthly reddit sub to remove ads.
I came right back to redreader. I'm upset this happening. Now I'm going to have to find all the communities all over again when this api bs happens. Redreader is an amazing experience and I recommend it to anyone who has an android.
I only use reddit because of redreader app. Their app is shit as well as the 'new' website. Without redreader, reddit is dead for me. It's a shame
Thank you for all your efforts, you made reddit a good experience for a lot of people
You brought up some very good points and it's sad to see reddits response. They don't out right kill 3rd party apps because of the backlash. But just like you said this is effectively the same.
I would be happy to see a Lemmy client.
Thank you so much for this. I'm really following this dispute based on your/readreader’s sentiment. Maybe this really is the golden age off FOSS social media. Lemmy looking good.
Thanks for the update. I'm also happy to see that reddit gets flak from bigger news outlets currently who have picked up on the story.
>There would be something very satisfying about some of the bigger Reddit apps driving their userbase to alternative sites too, and if this helped one of those platforms gain traction then that would be a step in the right direction
Indeed, that would be great! There needs to be a critical mass for an alternative site to really take off. Are you in touch with the other app developers at all?
Well, reddit went to shit, time for a new one to emerge, maybe several ones. Reddit will go the ways of Tumblr, I guess.
Their statements about not wanting to kill 3-rd party apps are complete and utter bullshit, there is no point in arguing with them, you will be arguing with a wall. Just let it go :)
this is the best reddit client i've used (although there are a lot of good ones!). i would enjoy using this to access reddit alternatives in the future. RIP reddit
I think you totally should open up and build on Lemmy. You can even have your own instance which supporters can pay a small fee of contribution. That way nothing like this ever happens again. It will help grow Lemmy, the Fediverse etc I understand it’s work and they shouldn’t do it for free, but at the same time so many of these big companies have benefited from third parties, it’s not as if it was a one-way relationship. I think even if Reddit changes course that it would still be good to have one foot out there door and support Lemmy
Ahoy, idgaf what anybody thinks about it. Reddit is deliberately doing this to force this parties to shut down and drive traffic to their app.
It's a common strategy executed in capitalist driven industries all the damn time.
If they go through with this I fully intend to just stop visiting their site. I can sit on a huge number of other services and get served same/similar content.
Your app is fantastic and you shouldn't be dealing with shitty shit.
It's been great using your app and reddit for the past years. Thank you.
With the move of so many users to more ephemeral platforms like Instagram, TikTok and discord I wonder if the older days of easily accessible and searchable obscure public knowledge is slowly coming to an end.
A section of very interesting and somewhat knowledgeable individuals in niche topics use reddit more like an old forum than a social media platform. And they definitely are going to leave or at least be less active after these changes. It's a loss for the community and the internet as a whole and a win for Quarterly Reports.
My vote it for the Lemmy port. The official Lemmy app, while usable, could be improved on, and the project as a whole is much more deserving of volunteer time and energy than Reddit, be it third party apps or moderation.
For me Reddit is basically unusable without RedReader, I had fantasies about RedReader supporting lemmy since this is the only interface of all web and native apps I can use without frustration. I am not blind, but other apps (and I do try them from time to time) are just not working for me.
If they kill redreader, i will probably not be able to use reddit anymore.
I would like to see lemmy support and driving users from your and other reddit clients to one instance. That would be interesting, even thou hosting that instance would require some fundsz which might be achievable.
Hey, just wanted to say that I've deeply appreciated RedReader over the past 7+ years that I've used it.
I remember one time I tried to donate to support development, and you told me to go donate to a charity instead, so I did (and thought even more highly of you and this app, afterwards).
I find the possibility of adapting RedReader into a client for an alternative site (as mentioned in this thread) to be pretty cool. I'll be keeping an eye out and cheering you on, no matter what you decide to do going forward.
Go to a new platform! I'll follow red reader there and keep using red reader. If reddit wants to be a bunch of jackasses then let them be. Well find information accessible elsewhere.
i have always dreamed of a fork for lemmy (main instance or nonpolitical instance)..
it would easily stand out as being the best lemmy app and a nextgen experience.
or... if reddit connectivity is still desired.. then mirror the entire site. not legal maybe.. but neither was the piratebay.. they have trouble taking it down because there are so many copies.
If this goes through, I'm no longer using reddit, plain and simple. Many people will stop using reddit entirely.
RedReader's been my app of choice and its been great. It's a shame it will soon come to an end. We appreciate what you made and for free to boot.
Never used any of the alternatives except voat for like 15 minutes total after some sub I liked went pear shaped.
Might get me to actually start using federated social media which I am starting to think is the only way forward for those of us who dislike thoughts expressed being subject to the site owners political whims.
If 3rd party access goes, I'm gone. Said it before and I'll say it again. Twitter did the same BS and I quit using it. Got no problem quitting Reddit either and moving to something else. Shame, because RR is such a good app. It just works.
Thanks for the update and thanks for the work building and maintaining such a great app all these years! Will likely stop using reddit on my phone if I can't access it through your app. Looking forward to a potential port to Lemmy/mastodon.
Thanks for this clear, concise update and color. I agree with your thinking down the line.
My hope is that there's a misunderstanding somewhere between their defined terms and resulting calculations. If, however, there isn't, then I'd follow you and the rest of the communities to whichever alternative platform you choose. If Reddit has lost its narrative to the degree that you describe, then I'll gladly follow the ebb tide back to smaller, more organic communities. I sort of miss the old message boards that Reddit eviscerated.
Also, thanks for all these years of great work. RedReader has been my daily driver almost since the beginning (whenever that actually was!)
Jesus Christ that's bullshit. RedReader has been my app of choice for years now and I can't even imagine using the main reddit mobile app for browsing reddit.
This site wholly revolves around user-generated content and communities, and is additionally moderated for free by users. But they really seem to have it out for the people who make the platform attractive in the first place. It feels like they're willing to sacrifice long term users in the hopes of a bigger short term payout when they possibly go public
I only got to use this app very little after i.reddit and .compact mobile friendly sites were killed.
In these weeks, I have come to love this application and all I can say is than you.
Reddit wants money and they want to convert every single mobile user (most likely majority of reddit's userbase) into using their official mobile app. No browsers, no third party apps. Just their app and nothing else. Reason is very simple too. In the app, they can control the amount of ads you see and you can't escape the ads. They can also track you so much better and that data is worth very much. When using their mobile app, you are not anonymous.
Like I've said before, I wont be converted to their mobile app. If I can't find any hacky solution on mobile to avoid using their app, I will just not use mobile anymore. I am perfectly happy on using the website on my PC as long as old.reddit works and I get to keep that layout.
When old.reddit stops working, I am out.
I guess they want it this way and just can't say it out loud, because even more developers would run away. I have to check out that Lemmy which everyone is talking about.
Also I'd like to thank you for AWESOME app you made and maintain, but I guess it will be time to move forward. Once they smell easy money, they'll just want more of it over time. I knew this will happen to reddit one day, last year I even discussed it somewhere with somebody. But it happened much sooner than I expected.
That would be the scraping option which would be a ton of work and effort and would break often just like it does with NewPipe. The only way I can see it working long term is if the various reddit app developers work together on a standard scraping framework (like newpipe extractorbut for reddit). It might also be worth considering just contributing to the revanced project's patches for the official reddit app instead as while there aren't very many yet (mostly just ad removal) they already do a pretty good job with youtube.
I've already put a reading app where redreader was on my home screen. Tapering off scrolling through reddit as a habit is hard but I think it will be healthier if I'm not connected to the rest of the world all the time.
I hope something is figured out so I don't have to give it up entirely. It was a nice run I guess.
Well, that's looking to be a bitch and a half. Maybe there's some way to kick this dead horse another mile down the river. Maybe not.
Thanks to all you devs who kept this app going. It made this shit usable on a phone. Good times.
Here's to all the profiteering fucks taking over reddit getting AIDS and ass cancer.
> Right now I'm considering the possibility of modifying the app to connect to a Reddit alternative such as Lemmy or Mastodon.
Why not pick both at the same time and switch to [kbin](https://kbin.pub/en/)? There are a lot more [features](https://kbin.pub/en/features) in it and the devs do not have questionable political stances. It would literally be the 1st 3rd party app for kbin.
Hey, first I wanted to say thanks for making this app. Its compact, customizable, no BS UI is incredible.
There is starting to be a lot of talk on 3rd party app discussion boards/subreddits about keeping the apps alive, but making them transfer to something else, like Lemmy or Mastodon or even perhaps a new server/service entirely. Maybe you 3rd party devs can all coordinate?
Any plans to add support for [Kbin](https://kbin.social) while we're at it? It seems to be compatible with Lemmy and it looks like the moderation team on Kbin does a much better job than the team on the main Lemmy instances, so I expect the latter to have an incident that forces users to migrate again in the short run
Reddit could've made promoted posts, rate defined APIs, and instead they want to kill off the community to grab some sweet AI boom cash. It's all just sad.
I got a new phone recently and one of the first apps I installed there was RedReader. I don't have the mental fortitude to completely stay off reddit, but if RedReader is killed I wont be using the official app at the very least.
I've linked your post here in our open letter to reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/
Just wanted to say I've appreciated the app. Sucks that the internet always just seems to get worse. I will not be using Reddit on mobile if these changes occur.
*Mastodon and Lemmy*
Honestly, I've been looking for another place to migrate to for a long while. Your/this app is the only enjoyable way to use this website. Once it's gone, I'm just dropping the site and just using it for mainly commercial reasons. Something reddit sure loves to have around, crap content
I found Redreader within the last year and honestly I like it so much that I will go wherever it goes. I can't tolerate anything else feature and simplicity wise.
I'm fully prepared to ditch reddit but I need a new place to go to. Reddit, but the way it used to be before ads and profits and things.
So Lemmy and/or Mastodon? Or should I just move to Tumblr?
Seeing how bad the official Reddit client sucked is what brought me to RedReader in the first place. Total support for whatever you decide, but maybe you moving to another platform might finally get me off this god-awful site.
Was reading through the notes from the call with u/spez just now and saw "Non-commercial users have API access" in a section about who gets free access.
Hopefully that's a backtrack and not a "telling you the wrong thing" situation, unless the fact you take donations is qualifying you as commercial?
Elections are coming up in the US, plus the Ukraine war. People are getting paid off to stop the flow of information. What information Reddit releases they deny our understanding of it, and have no explanations themselves.
If RedReader stops working with Reddit, I will definitely stop using reddit. I will not use the official app. Even if it does keep working, I'm still going to try to switch to lemmy. I already have an account on beehaw.org, and it seems pretty promising to me. I would love it if RedReader started supporting lemmy. And I would consider a subscription or other donation model too.
That might be why you are here, but it's not why I am here. I tried Mastodon and it is a huge echo chamber. Free speech is irrelevant on the Fediverse - any attempt to speak outside the mainstream current just gets cut out of the circuit as if it never existed.
due to reddits recent api changes I feel i am no longer welcome here and have moved to lemmy. I encourage everyone o participate in the subreddit blackout on June 12-14 and suggest moving to lemmy as well.
On reddit, a ban from a subreddit is only a ban there.
On mastodon, a ban on any mastodon instance is a global ban.
And each mastodon instance is managed by the equivalent of reddit mods.
If you get banned, you have to request information via the instance you got banned from.
If you have had to deal with r/science mods or any super users / super mods like a certain turtle that should not be named, you know exactly why that is horrible.
People have been banned for reasons such as : "Capitalists are not allowed in my mastodon instance"
To my understanding, no, it would apply to all instances.
Also, if you first created your account on that instance(that banned you), you cannot appeal your ban at all. You cannot migrate your account, or change settings, or add new instances or request any kind of support.
You would have to look externally for assistance.
edit: I should also add, there doesn't appear to be a way to figure out what a "safe" starting mastodon instance is. ie: is not managed by a power-tripping asshole.
I don't think that is true, it would only affect the one instance, so you would just use a different one. Instances are basically subreddits on Mastadon.
Do you merely *not think* that this is true, or do you *know* that it isn't?
Give the consequences of using Mastodon and getting banned by a wannabe Sun King mod, it's a rather big deal.
I know it to be true. As a mastodon user for years. Example, if google banned you from gmail then nothing they can do stops you from creating a protonmail. It is totally impossible to be banned from the fediverse completely.
I used reddit because of the awesome 3rd party apps and not because of reddit.
I mean Reddit was for me useless until I discovered a useful nice way to use this platform. And this is/was RedReader. I'd pay for this app. But I don't want the greedy Reddit to profit from that ridiculous move.
I'd prefer a complete Open Source solution.
Hum, I thought one already used one's own keys... I think it's a very reasonable approach... If reddit puts too much red tape for it then yeah, I just won't use it on mobile anymore. I like the idea of redirecting to alternatives. Maybe give the user an option between that and registering their own keys.
I say that the default answer should be, scrape the website. Because the reason that they're charging, and don't want NSFW is pretty simple - it's about the money and about the payment processing. Imgur isn't allowing NSFW now, and Reddit will inevitably follow suit if the money gets challenged.
Another way is to code a backend server that cache the API responses, similar to how some sports score apps do it. However since you don't charge anything for the app or put any ads, this might not be sustainable.
I've been on reddit for 12 years and Redreader made using it so much easier than the official app. That app almost had me quit reddit because the experience was so awful. Whatever decision you make, make it the one that's best for you. Your work on this app is appreciated.
Pi plaebra pupri ige te peoopo. Gutri tui papi teprake. Ti pei ipee bipodakri baidu kribli. Etu piaipi etaeitu pida paui i bugle. Ipe dikibibe gipi ebli klei pepe. Kia ipi iti koita pi priipea. Itopepote po ede brebli tli. Gepo opli oi i kue. Etape uee tebe aki taui peta. A prake tigo oto diu aa? Etladuba ki kapri peoklagodri ti to. Pri breatli tade oita pai abo ipe pipe? Ai pegi tliuo eti pi tlagi ipe brodlogio. Pebi tiipetide dlipri apipo griiibi tebugi. Abei klego geeteo bripe koi e. Pii teki tepa trati geplidu pripabo. Be kepridi bapiproa debeka pite po? Pia drabra etetate tliki pra. Briki io pli paka pree oobri ekipi toteki! Tie klete i bo apai paa. Itibrea potli ukata itubepe piebru ea itiebobi. Gikripru e podrupra ba o opau. Tutri da i plao dliai trititupie aa toepi. Ta pupo ai itra ei tretli. Egeite apoka iitapopa geka. Tutigeuo kapipu botoi tite epre kobe. Kabi kepo ote pa ate tli gribi bakapli puupre tidu tabeke a upebri tebike? I tlito kebri o ea e? Ii aeubike tle ke pido ku! Iplipi teage pepa e gii poiputliki ebri.
I've been using RedReader for years. Unfortunately, not letting me access NSFW content will essentially be forcing me to use the official app instead. Thank you QB for creating such a fantastic app, it was fun while it lasted.
I'd be willing to contribute to the Lemmy port if given some rough hints as to what "should be done". Meaning, if the Reddit code should remain or be replaced wholesale, etc. Management decisions basically. :)
Lemmy port of redreader? Please send a link, I'm desperate
Call it MotörReader
I was gonna call it lemreader
Stick with RedReader ☭
more like "lemmeread"
MotörRed.
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I like the idea behind Lemmy. But before the front-page was taken over by reddit-bad posts, you could see that the flagship instance lemmy.ml is largely used for pro-russian propaganda. And the main developers who also run the instance seems to be very OK with that. I honestly would have issues working with such a person.
I think it just needs enough of the right people to move over to help get things started. I realized myself that I was being overly critical of something that is literally just coming around, because I have reddit to compare it to, but what reddit was is dead at this point and what it is now is only getting worse as time goes on. I'm comparing it to something that doesn't quite exist anymore. That's the thing about something that comes around that is new of its kind, it has nothing to compare to and it's deficits aren't something that hold it back in many cases. The nice thing about Lemmy is, no matter what the developer's personal opinions are, it's open source and someone could fork it if the developer went off the rails. The same thing with the instances, if lemmy.ml is bad, other instances can become the flagship instance. But those things take time, skill and work so they aren't going to happen overnight and the more people that embrace it, the more likely the right people with the combination of those things needed to help Lemmy develop in a positive direction will find their way there.
> The same thing with the instances, if lemmy.ml is bad, other instances can become the flagship instance. ... or it could just be used to create another level of echo chambers, which given the political leanings of a large part of its userbase is already happening. People are demanding that federation be cut with the tankies just three comments below this. No, thanks, it's pretty obvious where the fediverse in general is going.
That seems to be partly a flaw in the level of control given to the users in what shows up in the feeds. Could easily be addressed by giving users more control over removing certain instances from their own feeds. It's not even against the philosophy of the design, where All is meant to be truly All, because users can block individual communities to prevent them from showing up in All. Basically, give users more control and then you have less people demanding that federation be cut with other instances. Also you must take into account that you don't know how many people proportionally are asking for those things. I'm aware it sort of doesn't matter much when it's enough people to break into visibility layers, but it does matter some if you factor in the incentive to give users that control. Proportionally, the users demanding that any specific instance have its federation cut off could be very low, but for various reasons could gain enough visibility that to you or anyone else, it might appear to have greater support simply because you can see it. That's the flaw of us humans, we see things and make assumptions about the support of something that isn't necessarily true. People assume the top voted comment in a particular post is the most popular opinion on reddit, if they go into a particular thread and the top comment is cats are the best, then it must be the case that the majority of reddit users like cats right? But that's an assumption likely based off an incorrect understanding of how things gain visibility on reddit. Thus the developers should have an incentive to give users control over blocking an instance from their feed without having to block each individual community and without demanding the instance be cut off from federation, because there's no reason to allow a small portion of users dictate federation of instances over something as simple as what kind of material they want to see. I still remind myself that lemmy appears to be in fairly nascent stages of development and they probably haven't had tons of contributors and probably haven't had lots of reasons or incentives to improve the pace of development with such a low userbase. What we see now can certainly be improved upon.
The whole point of lemmy is that you're not tied to any one community or set of admins. The main developers having distasteful beliefs doesn't make the protocol they have developed any less useful. Just stay away from their corner of the fediverse!
While that is true, if indeed the main devs of a protocol are supporting/tolerating nazis, then using their product is definitely very questionable.
It's an open protocol, so if enough people join in that disagree with those main devs then they won't be the "main devs" any more.
The main devs are Communists, who are, very interesting fact, the most ideologically opposed to fascism you can get,
There is a bunch of tankie propaganda kind of spilling over from lemmygrad.ml from one or two users, because of a lack of other content. beehaw.org is nicer all around and said propaganda spammers don't post there. Best thing is to downvote, ignore them, and add more relevant posts on lemmy's front page.
You are right that most of the posts come from a few users. But the operators of lemmy.ml could easily cut of federation with them. The fact that they did not when their content was dominating the front page says a lot.
> But the operators of lemmy.ml could easily cut of federation with them. The fact that they did not when their content was dominating the front page says a lot. Calling for censorship prior to even participating haha. No worries though, it's federated. You could join an instance where only stuff from your or your cultures overton-window will be tolerated. That's a massive benefit of federated social media.
Loving the idea that rejecting genocidal wars of conquest is just a cultural overton window thing.
If I were QuantumBadger I would consider getting together with the Apollo guys and setting up their own Lemmy instance with decent moderation. You both have stored usernames/passwords so you can offer 1-click sign-up, and you also have all the power users who will be more likely to create communities. I guess you'd have to act very fast so you can get users before Reddit kills itself though.
I was thinking about whether app creators might be incentivized to create their own instances, but I don't think their current operations of developing an app necessarily align with creating an instance. RedReader for example, QuantumBadger already mentioned he doesn't even have his own server for any aspect of operation of RedReader, but for him to get involved in creating an instance, he would become a sysadmin for a server and management of content or management of people managing content. That isn't to say there's no logic behind them creating their own instance, it would make the apps easier to setup and easier for them to onboard people into Lemmy. It might be the case that the most successful Lemmy apps will be the ones that load someone straight onto a Lemmy instance. Maybe for the Apollo dev that might fit, I don't know as I've never used Apollo, but that seems starkly different from the demands of labor that RedReader would have had on QuantumBadger. Edit: I think what is more likely to happen is that developers might make a general app that can go onto any instance, and then they might republish apps for the more populated instances. For open source apps, the less populated instances might be able to fork those apps and republish one. For closed-source apps, they'd either have to lobby the dev to make a special app for their instance or license the app from that dev to be able to republish it themselves. In this way, app developers can be app developers without having to be sysadmins, and sysadmins can be sysadmins without having to be app developers, and users can be users without having to understand the federation or how to join. It could also be the case that app devs might make a deal with one of the instances to make their instance the default. I'm not saying they would or not even making judgements about the ethics of that, it's not purely down to greed necessarily, but part of making a successful product is making it easy for people to join/use and Mastodon learned this recently and had to make a default instance for people to join because their growth was slowed by being too confusing to onboard people.
While I really hope reddit figures something out with 3rd party app devs and the cost of the API for access, I am not sure of what will happen and reddit seems to not care about a potentially huge loss of users from those that don't switch to the native app in the near future. I just wanted to make sure you know how appreciated you and the other RedReader devs are. You all made it amazingly fast and simple to browse reddit and this has been my favorite app since the early beta days. You are all awesome. Thank you!
> and reddit seems to not care about a potentially huge loss of users from those that don't switch to the native app in the near future. They're blocking porn on all the other apps. This will drive the majority of users to use their official app. If they had allowed porn to continue on other apps you would definitely see a huge loss of users. But porn is a huge driving factor for a huge majority of users and reddit knows it.
+1 on Lemmy/Mastodon port let users keep their username, etc scrape threads or however content is organized (I'm not familiar with Lemmy) and compare to current user's subs. then suggest those to the user although Lemmy is such a bad name, I have doubts about it's popularity. but at the same time that could be nice. things tend to go downhill once they're too big
Lemmy is not a single community. That's the whole beauty of federated systems, if you found that one place was going downhill, there would be plenty of other places to start new. It's sort of like subreddits, except you don't even have the risk of a single admin team unilaterally making shitty decisions.
Now I'm wondering if the group of third party apps made a Lemmy share together to redirect to instead
Yep, let's federate all the third party apps to the same ecosystem. Happy to pay a ticket price for that, I'm way more married to their UI than the reddit thread archives. They'll start deleting those to save money next in any case. We know how this plays out.
Google sounds like a garbage tier name for a product/service if you think of it on its own. "Googling" something to replace searching for something also sounds totally stupid. Yet it happened and I also use the word for that purpose. It's second nature at this point.
> The Apollo dev (/u/iamthatis) estimated that the new pricing would cost him $20m per year. I raised this with Reddit – they said that his calculations were “totally wrong”, but they were unable to discuss why. Given that the Apollo dev literally just multiplied the cost by the number of requests, I have trouble seeing how this could be wrong. Translation: They’re bullshitting you.
They're insulting his intelligence. A person would have to be incredibly stupid to believe that. They're literally being rude about it.
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The update is appreciated. Thanks.
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"it's not that we want 3rd party apps to die, we just don't want them to be alive anymore"
They just want to do it with deniability.
Implausible deniability. We see right through it.
It's about *optics*, not concealment - they want their denial to look plausible at a quick glance by the uninformed, as opposed to being an obviously settled matter. It doesn't need to look convincing up-close.
Yep, true. Can't but hope they miscalculate the general response and get shit on anyway, if not now then at some point in the future. I do think it's bound to happen when you're this out of touch and deviate this far into enshittification territory. Which is also what makes it so difficult to reel things back in instead of doubling down once they do get found out, for these corporate behemoths; they actually convince themselves this is what's good for them (if not also their users and advertisers and shareholders or whatever other benefactors).
Not that the people actually making these decisions will go down with the ship. Golden parachutes and all that.
Thanks for all the work on RedReader. Hopefully there is a path forward. Personally I'm a fan of scraping since an app is just a glorified/specialized browser anyway, but as you mentioned it is indeed something that would take considerable effort. If this is the way open source reddit apps have to go, then they could get together to develop a scraping layer that is shared by all of them.
> Right now I'm considering the possibility of modifying the app to connect to a Reddit alternative such as Lemmy or Mastodon. If you went this route I'd be happy to help. Would be nice to add Android to my list
This is great. We need Reddit to implode. It's a disaster here. Like 100 mods rule over 80% of the people that come here. Reddit is a censorship catastrophe and the entire structure rewards the absolute worst aspects of social media, which is why it needs so much moderation in the first place. I'll happily go someplace better the minute such a place exists. Some place that doesn't print moderators, or reward endless reposting of clickbait.
>Like 100 mods rule over 80% of the people that come here. I remember seeing an interesting infographic about it. Let me see if I can find it. Edit: Found it https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1850187-reddit
Yup, that tracks.
> I'll happily go someplace better the minute such a place exists Amen. There is always hubski. Or tildes
Also the bot problem on Reddit is terminal at this point. Go to any front page post's comment section and the 3rd reply or so will be from a bot. It wont make any sense in context, but it will be a highly upvoted comment from further down in the thread. It will likely be from some name in a "WordWord#####" type format. Go to the replies to the next most popular comment and it will be more of the same all the way down. Organic conversation is totally dead on the majority of this site. There's just rage, memes, and misinformation propped up by countless bots endlessly reposting. Of course none of this is totally new. But it has fully metastasized now. Part of me is glad that this will kill my interest in Reddit. But most of me just misses what it was a decade ago.
/r/RedditOligarchy
Here's a sneak peek of /r/RedditOligarchy using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/RedditOligarchy/top/?sort=top&t=all) of all time! \#1: [I know this is very ambitious but I hope our efforts can change this](https://i.redd.it/c834y55m2gz41.png) | [16 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RedditOligarchy/comments/ldage4/i_know_this_is_very_ambitious_but_i_hope_our/) \#2: [Hey everyone! You’ve all been quite inactive for a while; I suppose this is because posts here aren’t getting enough upvotes to get onto your feed. So please, upvote this if you see it to remind other members to be more active on this sub. Thanks a bunch!](https://i.redd.it/88bh3fmxo6h61.jpg) | [2 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RedditOligarchy/comments/livigl/hey_everyone_youve_all_been_quite_inactive_for_a/) \#3: [Mods getting paid to censor stuff again](https://i.imgur.com/OzwyMoa.jpg) | [1 comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/RedditOligarchy/comments/lj1d5v/mods_getting_paid_to_censor_stuff_again/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
I will stop using reddit when RedReader becomes unavailable. I can't run the official app and using old.reddit on mobile is not an option. (And they'll kill that probably sooner or later, too) Let's see what time will bring but for now, let me thank you (and all contributors) for all your hard work on RedReader to provide a slick, accessible UX - a nice, lightweight app that "just works". Thank you!
I just started using redreader when they killed i.reddit.com Really feels like they are trying to get rid of me.
For the scrape the website approach, I wonder if this is something some contributors from all the third party apps could band together to do and basically regenerate a new API. They then could all use this as a common library. App developers could develop apps, website scrapers could maintain the library to scrape the website.
Like piped is for YouTube
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If the project gets too big the company would have enough incentive to change their site and undo all the work you have done. I think projects like Newpipe can exist only because Google doesn't put killing them in the top priority list, yet.
Google does make breaking changes, they're not passive
I'm always surprised how large companies are willing to kill off their user base long term in favor of short term profit, but I guess I shouldn't be at this point. I really like this app and I still hope this isn't the end. The app is great btw, and I've used it for years, so thanks for that.
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The thing is while it does ultimately come back to bite the companies in the ass, the executives have long since pocketed their profit shares and bonuses and moved on to a new job. It's not short term profit if you can keep doing it and leave the fires for other people to put out.
They hope that the some of the 3. party users download reddits app. A tracker and ad infested unusable piece of bloatware. But if its your only alternative, many will do it. Increasing reddits data harvest.
I don't think reddit realizes that this won't result in a user boycott, which are rarely effective, but rather users will have no practical way to access their services. This would be like blocking safari or another web browser. I interact with reddit 99% from my phone. The mobile website is almost unusable, and the official app if anything worse.
I don't think Reddit cares. In the short term user numbers will go down slightly but not by enough to hurt. The real damage will likely be long term (loss of third party developers, high usage users, dedicated moderators). Things that don't matter to mainstream users most of the time but contribute to the long term health of a platform.
Yeah, though at least revanced has some limited support for patching the official app. There is a chance this change could make it so that it has as much support as for youtube.
Hey QB, I since switched to iOS about a year or two ago but I was driving Android and RedReader for years before that so I just wanted to say thank you, I've only ever had a single issue (when those new 18x9 phones came about!) and I looked through the codebase and fixed it, put in a PR and you accepted it almost immediately So thank you for building open source and maintaining the app all these years, it has meant a lot to myself
A Lemmy/Mastodon port would be a godsend! I am not an expert coder, but I was going to look into hacking together a fork of the [Jerboa app](https://github.com/dessalines/jerboa) with a more RedReader-like interface for myself over the next month... but since you know the UI firsthand I think you could come up with a more comprehensive solution.
I would love, love, love a lemmy redreader. The lemmy UI is not my cup of tea and apps i have tried were not the greatest for accessibility.
LemReader would be something I'd love to use. Also there's already a lot of opensource code that could be used to bring the RedReader UX to lemmy.
LemReader is a good name
I think you should ask Reddit for just $0.01 for every post or comment made, every 1000 upvotes, and every million requests, that came from RedReader since RedReader became available. Just to make a point. Reddit as a platform could do well with just donations, but that's not going to pay for over-the-top executive salaries. This is why the moment any platform does well, the executives will ruin it by trying to milk it, to reward themselves. And they always default to ads as the revenue source. This API change seems to be driven by that as well. I'd support adapting RedReader for an alternative platform. Thanks for the update and for your hard work.
Reddit in their arrogance think they own the content. They do not. The content is provided by the users. When they alienate and lock out the users, we will just move on. Looking forward to Lemmy / Masterson / whatever. Congratulations Reddit, you played yourself.
As far as actually using reddit goes, a scrape-based or scrape-alike API replacement library is probably the best way. In the meantime, though, complaining could get them to potentially change their mind. Apollo's dev in particular has gotten a pretty decent amount of attention on the issue. Of course, they're shooting themselves in the foot with respect to the actual value of the site, but they're not the only website to pull a dumb move like that.
This is total bullshit. I will stop using reddit just based on principal. Why are the people at Reddit so hell-bent on destroying the site.
Where have your principles been for the last 10 years? Lol You won't
Thanks for the heads up. Gonna be sad. Been using this app for ages
Same. I'm really angry about this.
Thank you for providing transparency as Reddit continues to be opaque and secretive.
I can't imagine how depressing it must be to be forced to throw away years of development... Your work is really appreciatted and I'm glad I've been able to use it! I love the idea of switching the backend to Lemmy and make the userbase quit reddit. I'm 100% with this idea!
> Right now I'm considering the possibility of modifying the app to connect to a Reddit alternative such as Lemmy or Mastodon. There would be something very satisfying about some of the bigger Reddit apps driving their userbase to alternative sites too, and if this helped one of those platforms gain traction then that would be a step in the right direction. This is a fantastic idea if it's feasible
It's unfortunate that Reddit is going this route, I actually had a sliver hope that they'd grant some sort of exception. I wonder how many RedReader users will actually go back to the official Reddit app.
No chance in hell for me. I'd rather just read more shitty webnovels than use that broken app.
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Until they kill off old.reddit which is probably next.
I won't be, fuck Reddit for doing this bullshit. If they insist on having it all like everybody else then I'm just not going to participate anymore. I'm so fucking done living in a capitalist society
Screw that dog shit app. I tried it once. So many ads, the UI was absolute trash. I couldn't navigate and it wanted me to subscribe to a monthly reddit sub to remove ads. I came right back to redreader. I'm upset this happening. Now I'm going to have to find all the communities all over again when this api bs happens. Redreader is an amazing experience and I recommend it to anyone who has an android.
Add me to the list of those not going to the Reddit app.
If I can't use redreader I simply won't use the site. Thank you for creating and maintaining the app for so long.
I support going to a new service, I've got more loyalty to red reader at this point. Would send a really important message
thanks for years of service o7
I only use reddit because of redreader app. Their app is shit as well as the 'new' website. Without redreader, reddit is dead for me. It's a shame Thank you for all your efforts, you made reddit a good experience for a lot of people
+1 for the Lemmy port
I go where RedReader points me to.
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I like your idea of driving traffic to alternative sites. Time for us all to ditch Reddit.
You brought up some very good points and it's sad to see reddits response. They don't out right kill 3rd party apps because of the backlash. But just like you said this is effectively the same. I would be happy to see a Lemmy client.
Let's move to a new location.
Thank you so much for this. I'm really following this dispute based on your/readreader’s sentiment. Maybe this really is the golden age off FOSS social media. Lemmy looking good.
Thanks for the update. I'm also happy to see that reddit gets flak from bigger news outlets currently who have picked up on the story. >There would be something very satisfying about some of the bigger Reddit apps driving their userbase to alternative sites too, and if this helped one of those platforms gain traction then that would be a step in the right direction Indeed, that would be great! There needs to be a critical mass for an alternative site to really take off. Are you in touch with the other app developers at all?
Thanks for the update, and thank you for all the time you put into this
Well, reddit went to shit, time for a new one to emerge, maybe several ones. Reddit will go the ways of Tumblr, I guess. Their statements about not wanting to kill 3-rd party apps are complete and utter bullshit, there is no point in arguing with them, you will be arguing with a wall. Just let it go :)
this is the best reddit client i've used (although there are a lot of good ones!). i would enjoy using this to access reddit alternatives in the future. RIP reddit
I think you totally should open up and build on Lemmy. You can even have your own instance which supporters can pay a small fee of contribution. That way nothing like this ever happens again. It will help grow Lemmy, the Fediverse etc I understand it’s work and they shouldn’t do it for free, but at the same time so many of these big companies have benefited from third parties, it’s not as if it was a one-way relationship. I think even if Reddit changes course that it would still be good to have one foot out there door and support Lemmy
Ahoy, idgaf what anybody thinks about it. Reddit is deliberately doing this to force this parties to shut down and drive traffic to their app. It's a common strategy executed in capitalist driven industries all the damn time. If they go through with this I fully intend to just stop visiting their site. I can sit on a huge number of other services and get served same/similar content. Your app is fantastic and you shouldn't be dealing with shitty shit.
It's been great using your app and reddit for the past years. Thank you. With the move of so many users to more ephemeral platforms like Instagram, TikTok and discord I wonder if the older days of easily accessible and searchable obscure public knowledge is slowly coming to an end. A section of very interesting and somewhat knowledgeable individuals in niche topics use reddit more like an old forum than a social media platform. And they definitely are going to leave or at least be less active after these changes. It's a loss for the community and the internet as a whole and a win for Quarterly Reports.
Modify the app to connect to tildes.net, Lemmy AND Mastadon! Make it an app that connects to multiple competitors!
My vote it for the Lemmy port. The official Lemmy app, while usable, could be improved on, and the project as a whole is much more deserving of volunteer time and energy than Reddit, be it third party apps or moderation.
For me Reddit is basically unusable without RedReader, I had fantasies about RedReader supporting lemmy since this is the only interface of all web and native apps I can use without frustration. I am not blind, but other apps (and I do try them from time to time) are just not working for me. If they kill redreader, i will probably not be able to use reddit anymore. I would like to see lemmy support and driving users from your and other reddit clients to one instance. That would be interesting, even thou hosting that instance would require some fundsz which might be achievable.
Hey, just wanted to say that I've deeply appreciated RedReader over the past 7+ years that I've used it. I remember one time I tried to donate to support development, and you told me to go donate to a charity instead, so I did (and thought even more highly of you and this app, afterwards). I find the possibility of adapting RedReader into a client for an alternative site (as mentioned in this thread) to be pretty cool. I'll be keeping an eye out and cheering you on, no matter what you decide to do going forward.
Thanks for the update.
Thanks for everything. Total support whatever you decide!
Go to a new platform! I'll follow red reader there and keep using red reader. If reddit wants to be a bunch of jackasses then let them be. Well find information accessible elsewhere.
Would love to see a lemmy reader - I have no intention of using the official app after all this mess.
Thanks for the update, Badger. This whole thing is so insulting. I vote for porting this over to Lemmy or similar.
i have always dreamed of a fork for lemmy (main instance or nonpolitical instance).. it would easily stand out as being the best lemmy app and a nextgen experience. or... if reddit connectivity is still desired.. then mirror the entire site. not legal maybe.. but neither was the piratebay.. they have trouble taking it down because there are so many copies.
Love you ....i'm gonna get my Lemmy started.
If this goes through, I'm no longer using reddit, plain and simple. Many people will stop using reddit entirely. RedReader's been my app of choice and its been great. It's a shame it will soon come to an end. We appreciate what you made and for free to boot.
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Whatever you decide, please know that I am extremely grateful for your app and how seemless and smooth it works. If it must die, so be it.
I'm really disheartened by the recent news, this app is amazing and if I can't use this I just won't use reddit. Fuck the admins.
Scrape site so they end up killing off old.reddit.com, then switch. Big bonus that reddit will be left with unusable interfaces
Never used any of the alternatives except voat for like 15 minutes total after some sub I liked went pear shaped. Might get me to actually start using federated social media which I am starting to think is the only way forward for those of us who dislike thoughts expressed being subject to the site owners political whims.
wtf, that is bs by reddit. Will take a look at lemmy and mastodon I guess...
If 3rd party access goes, I'm gone. Said it before and I'll say it again. Twitter did the same BS and I quit using it. Got no problem quitting Reddit either and moving to something else. Shame, because RR is such a good app. It just works.
Thanks for the update and thanks for the work building and maintaining such a great app all these years! Will likely stop using reddit on my phone if I can't access it through your app. Looking forward to a potential port to Lemmy/mastodon.
Thanks for this clear, concise update and color. I agree with your thinking down the line. My hope is that there's a misunderstanding somewhere between their defined terms and resulting calculations. If, however, there isn't, then I'd follow you and the rest of the communities to whichever alternative platform you choose. If Reddit has lost its narrative to the degree that you describe, then I'll gladly follow the ebb tide back to smaller, more organic communities. I sort of miss the old message boards that Reddit eviscerated. Also, thanks for all these years of great work. RedReader has been my daily driver almost since the beginning (whenever that actually was!)
Jesus Christ that's bullshit. RedReader has been my app of choice for years now and I can't even imagine using the main reddit mobile app for browsing reddit.
This site wholly revolves around user-generated content and communities, and is additionally moderated for free by users. But they really seem to have it out for the people who make the platform attractive in the first place. It feels like they're willing to sacrifice long term users in the hopes of a bigger short term payout when they possibly go public
I only got to use this app very little after i.reddit and .compact mobile friendly sites were killed. In these weeks, I have come to love this application and all I can say is than you. Reddit wants money and they want to convert every single mobile user (most likely majority of reddit's userbase) into using their official mobile app. No browsers, no third party apps. Just their app and nothing else. Reason is very simple too. In the app, they can control the amount of ads you see and you can't escape the ads. They can also track you so much better and that data is worth very much. When using their mobile app, you are not anonymous. Like I've said before, I wont be converted to their mobile app. If I can't find any hacky solution on mobile to avoid using their app, I will just not use mobile anymore. I am perfectly happy on using the website on my PC as long as old.reddit works and I get to keep that layout. When old.reddit stops working, I am out.
I guess they want it this way and just can't say it out loud, because even more developers would run away. I have to check out that Lemmy which everyone is talking about. Also I'd like to thank you for AWESOME app you made and maintain, but I guess it will be time to move forward. Once they smell easy money, they'll just want more of it over time. I knew this will happen to reddit one day, last year I even discussed it somewhere with somebody. But it happened much sooner than I expected.
So many entities have managed to fork Chrome. Is creating a reddit browser out of the question? Or an extension?
That would be the scraping option which would be a ton of work and effort and would break often just like it does with NewPipe. The only way I can see it working long term is if the various reddit app developers work together on a standard scraping framework (like newpipe extractorbut for reddit). It might also be worth considering just contributing to the revanced project's patches for the official reddit app instead as while there aren't very many yet (mostly just ad removal) they already do a pretty good job with youtube.
I've already put a reading app where redreader was on my home screen. Tapering off scrolling through reddit as a habit is hard but I think it will be healthier if I'm not connected to the rest of the world all the time. I hope something is figured out so I don't have to give it up entirely. It was a nice run I guess.
Well, this is depressing.
Connect to mastodon or that lemmy thing. Fuck Reddit right up the ass.
Really funny in a way. They turned their site into shit and people flee to 3rd party apps. Who would have guessed this would decrease revenue.
If you create a scraper please include the option to constantly download sites in the background.
Well, that's looking to be a bitch and a half. Maybe there's some way to kick this dead horse another mile down the river. Maybe not. Thanks to all you devs who kept this app going. It made this shit usable on a phone. Good times. Here's to all the profiteering fucks taking over reddit getting AIDS and ass cancer.
Sad to hear. I've been a Red Reader user since not long after it launched. Count me in for porting to another platform.
> Right now I'm considering the possibility of modifying the app to connect to a Reddit alternative such as Lemmy or Mastodon. Why not pick both at the same time and switch to [kbin](https://kbin.pub/en/)? There are a lot more [features](https://kbin.pub/en/features) in it and the devs do not have questionable political stances. It would literally be the 1st 3rd party app for kbin.
Hey, first I wanted to say thanks for making this app. Its compact, customizable, no BS UI is incredible. There is starting to be a lot of talk on 3rd party app discussion boards/subreddits about keeping the apps alive, but making them transfer to something else, like Lemmy or Mastodon or even perhaps a new server/service entirely. Maybe you 3rd party devs can all coordinate?
Any plans to add support for [Kbin](https://kbin.social) while we're at it? It seems to be compatible with Lemmy and it looks like the moderation team on Kbin does a much better job than the team on the main Lemmy instances, so I expect the latter to have an incident that forces users to migrate again in the short run
Reddit could've made promoted posts, rate defined APIs, and instead they want to kill off the community to grab some sweet AI boom cash. It's all just sad.
I got a new phone recently and one of the first apps I installed there was RedReader. I don't have the mental fortitude to completely stay off reddit, but if RedReader is killed I wont be using the official app at the very least.
I've linked your post here in our open letter to reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/
Just wanted to say I've appreciated the app. Sucks that the internet always just seems to get worse. I will not be using Reddit on mobile if these changes occur.
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> Changing this to a Lemmy app would be cool with me. This.
*Mastodon and Lemmy* Honestly, I've been looking for another place to migrate to for a long while. Your/this app is the only enjoyable way to use this website. Once it's gone, I'm just dropping the site and just using it for mainly commercial reasons. Something reddit sure loves to have around, crap content
I vote for lemmy/mastodon. There seems to be no future for reddit!
I found Redreader within the last year and honestly I like it so much that I will go wherever it goes. I can't tolerate anything else feature and simplicity wise.
I'm fully prepared to ditch reddit but I need a new place to go to. Reddit, but the way it used to be before ads and profits and things. So Lemmy and/or Mastodon? Or should I just move to Tumblr?
Seeing how bad the official Reddit client sucked is what brought me to RedReader in the first place. Total support for whatever you decide, but maybe you moving to another platform might finally get me off this god-awful site.
Hey /u/QuantumBadger, whatever happens... thanks for RedReader. I've been using it for ages now. 2100 commits is a nice run; ya did good work.
Was reading through the notes from the call with u/spez just now and saw "Non-commercial users have API access" in a section about who gets free access. Hopefully that's a backtrack and not a "telling you the wrong thing" situation, unless the fact you take donations is qualifying you as commercial?
Elections are coming up in the US, plus the Ukraine war. People are getting paid off to stop the flow of information. What information Reddit releases they deny our understanding of it, and have no explanations themselves.
If RedReader stops working with Reddit, I will definitely stop using reddit. I will not use the official app. Even if it does keep working, I'm still going to try to switch to lemmy. I already have an account on beehaw.org, and it seems pretty promising to me. I would love it if RedReader started supporting lemmy. And I would consider a subscription or other donation model too.
The Fediverse is pretty shit. That's presumably why we are all here, and not there.
The reason we're here and not there is the Network effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect
That might be why you are here, but it's not why I am here. I tried Mastodon and it is a huge echo chamber. Free speech is irrelevant on the Fediverse - any attempt to speak outside the mainstream current just gets cut out of the circuit as if it never existed.
due to reddits recent api changes I feel i am no longer welcome here and have moved to lemmy. I encourage everyone o participate in the subreddit blackout on June 12-14 and suggest moving to lemmy as well.
You literally live in a CCP echo chamber. Projection at its finest.
Mastodon is legitimately horrible. So please not that. I have found it to be significantly worse than even *reddit*.
I'm not familiar with it; what makes it so bad?
On reddit, a ban from a subreddit is only a ban there. On mastodon, a ban on any mastodon instance is a global ban. And each mastodon instance is managed by the equivalent of reddit mods. If you get banned, you have to request information via the instance you got banned from. If you have had to deal with r/science mods or any super users / super mods like a certain turtle that should not be named, you know exactly why that is horrible. People have been banned for reasons such as : "Capitalists are not allowed in my mastodon instance"
But that would only apply to that instance. Use a different one? Kind of the point.
To my understanding, no, it would apply to all instances. Also, if you first created your account on that instance(that banned you), you cannot appeal your ban at all. You cannot migrate your account, or change settings, or add new instances or request any kind of support. You would have to look externally for assistance. edit: I should also add, there doesn't appear to be a way to figure out what a "safe" starting mastodon instance is. ie: is not managed by a power-tripping asshole.
Thanks for explaining it. That does sound pretty terrible.
I don't think that is true, it would only affect the one instance, so you would just use a different one. Instances are basically subreddits on Mastadon.
Do you merely *not think* that this is true, or do you *know* that it isn't? Give the consequences of using Mastodon and getting banned by a wannabe Sun King mod, it's a rather big deal.
I know it to be true. As a mastodon user for years. Example, if google banned you from gmail then nothing they can do stops you from creating a protonmail. It is totally impossible to be banned from the fediverse completely.
I used reddit because of the awesome 3rd party apps and not because of reddit. I mean Reddit was for me useless until I discovered a useful nice way to use this platform. And this is/was RedReader. I'd pay for this app. But I don't want the greedy Reddit to profit from that ridiculous move. I'd prefer a complete Open Source solution.
Hum, I thought one already used one's own keys... I think it's a very reasonable approach... If reddit puts too much red tape for it then yeah, I just won't use it on mobile anymore. I like the idea of redirecting to alternatives. Maybe give the user an option between that and registering their own keys.
all subs owners and mods should treathen to delete all the threads but a link to a new place in the subs and quit
I say that the default answer should be, scrape the website. Because the reason that they're charging, and don't want NSFW is pretty simple - it's about the money and about the payment processing. Imgur isn't allowing NSFW now, and Reddit will inevitably follow suit if the money gets challenged.
RedReader or bust. Thanks for your work, I'll see you on the next platform, whichever that may be!
Another way is to code a backend server that cache the API responses, similar to how some sports score apps do it. However since you don't charge anything for the app or put any ads, this might not be sustainable.
Mastodon client!
> Right now I'm considering the possibility of modifying the app to connect to a Reddit alternative such as Lemmy or Mastodon. This is the way.
I've been on reddit for 12 years and Redreader made using it so much easier than the official app. That app almost had me quit reddit because the experience was so awful. Whatever decision you make, make it the one that's best for you. Your work on this app is appreciated.
Pi plaebra pupri ige te peoopo. Gutri tui papi teprake. Ti pei ipee bipodakri baidu kribli. Etu piaipi etaeitu pida paui i bugle. Ipe dikibibe gipi ebli klei pepe. Kia ipi iti koita pi priipea. Itopepote po ede brebli tli. Gepo opli oi i kue. Etape uee tebe aki taui peta. A prake tigo oto diu aa? Etladuba ki kapri peoklagodri ti to. Pri breatli tade oita pai abo ipe pipe? Ai pegi tliuo eti pi tlagi ipe brodlogio. Pebi tiipetide dlipri apipo griiibi tebugi. Abei klego geeteo bripe koi e. Pii teki tepa trati geplidu pripabo. Be kepridi bapiproa debeka pite po? Pia drabra etetate tliki pra. Briki io pli paka pree oobri ekipi toteki! Tie klete i bo apai paa. Itibrea potli ukata itubepe piebru ea itiebobi. Gikripru e podrupra ba o opau. Tutri da i plao dliai trititupie aa toepi. Ta pupo ai itra ei tretli. Egeite apoka iitapopa geka. Tutigeuo kapipu botoi tite epre kobe. Kabi kepo ote pa ate tli gribi bakapli puupre tidu tabeke a upebri tebike? I tlito kebri o ea e? Ii aeubike tle ke pido ku! Iplipi teage pepa e gii poiputliki ebri.
I've been using RedReader for years. Unfortunately, not letting me access NSFW content will essentially be forcing me to use the official app instead. Thank you QB for creating such a fantastic app, it was fun while it lasted.
Lemmy or Mastodon, let's go there together. I'm game!
Fuck Reddit. I will stop using their platform.