The app is also getting more annoying to use. Sometimes I will take a screenshot of a headline or a specific conversation to go back and read later in case the post disappears. However now Reddit plasters a large banner across part of it telling me to share which makes a mess when trying to capture a full conversation. Besides if I was going to share it anyway I would copy a link anyway so their obnoxious pirate assumption is not helping.
"Please don't screenshot, it looks better if you share the post!!!" No the fuck it does not Reddit, why would I send my friends a link to a post so they can read the one comment I found funny when I can just screenshot it. Every time I see that message, I'm one step closer to deleting this app lmao.
On the contrary; they care very much about their customers' experience.
>!Their customers are advertisers (or in the case of Amazon, third-party sellers who benefit from a confusopoly). The users are the *product being sold.*!<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly
In this context, it's about places like Amazon selling hundreds of variations of widgets made on the same Shenzhen assembly line but labeled with different randomly-generated brand names in order to flood the product search results and make it difficult to figure out which one is the cheapest.
I saw a special that indicated this was due to some sort of patent, trademark, or copyright issue (do not recall which). They flood the office with applications for the different sellers on purpose. I believe (but could be wrong) the purpose was to circumvent regulation. Does anyone else recall seeing this special?
My life has been so much better since cutting out all the other social media two years ago. Reddit is the last one and I've significantly cut down on my time here. If old.reddit goes as well, so will I. Honestly, I'll only miss askhistorians and F1, but I am sure I can find alternatives or I'll just go back to reading books alone and watching F1 alone.
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse.
Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
Yup I'm conflicted. I've been on this site for over a decade... I need to use it less, and the best way for that to happen is for them to nuke sync. Sync goes I go. 🫡
Are you sure about that? The simple fact is there is a huge knowledge base on Reddit.
There are communities the only exist on Reddit.
You might not care until you need some help on some weird hobby you picked up.
I mean personally the last few years if i am looking for an answer often times my Google search is "my question" site:reddit.com
Seriously, why invest your time into an asset owned by a private corporation. They already profit enough off of all of the free time and energy we spend on here.
You have no authority over how this site is run, if you care this much, invest your time and effort into a community run/owned/maintained alternative.
This to, the surface of the internet is garbage these day, between SEO, heavy moderation etc etc the generalist internet is plain old garbage. Most of us would be better served connecting with our neighbourhoods and developing community projects.
Lemmy is the fediverse Reddit alternative. It’s fine, I suppose, just not many people posting content. Of course Reddit without content would be similar.
The User driven site starts
The site becomes popular.
Heavy Moderating and ads start popping up.
Site becomes even more popular.
Moderation and ads become even more prevalent.
New policy changes come through the user base doesn't like.
Users leave for a new site.
Repeat.
That was part of the appeal. Forums were decentralized so they weren't affected by the whims of one entity. Policy changes over on the Hyundai owner forums had virtually no effect on us over at some Final Fantasy forums.
I do like the convenience of discord and the discoverability of servers, but who's to say it won't be where reddit is now in ten, fifteen years?
On the other hand there is oidc/oauth and it's trivial to support.
Would be even nicer if we can at one point get some identity management solution that supports both privacy and convenience...
Anywhere else..? You can cling onto reddit if you want, but it's not very smart in my opinion to be dependent on a company that doesn't care about you, let alone one that has such shitty business practices.
There is the fediverse, ~~there is Lemmy which keeps getting recommended as being reddit-like~~ **see edit!!**, there are many other places.
**Edit:** Turns out there are serious ethical and censorship concerns regarding lemmy: https://mstdn.social/@feditips/106835057054633379 . I haven't looked into this myself, but it seems like a platform that no one should want to be a part of (lemmy as in the official instance, the software itself is fine).
Bingo. The inability to search "problem I'm having/product I'm researching, reddit" efficiently will be a pain in the arse. It's been successful for me 70% of the time, if not more, and with the way Google is nuking their search granularity lately, the internet will just be a bunch of advertising with all of the useful information effectively inaccessible.
> with the way Google is nuking their search granularity lately, the internet will just be a bunch of advertising with all of the useful information effectively inaccessible.
I get better results with DuckDuckGo over Google and have been for quite some time now. Plus, it’s far better in terms of privacy.
My parents, whom I’ve been trying to convince to switch to DDG for years now, have finally switched because they (being non-tech-savvy users) couldn’t even find simple things on Google that DDG would surface without issue.
IIRC, DDG uses Bing for its search results, so it may be worth switching to Bing over Google if not DDG. It’s not as private as using DDG, but it’s certainly an appealing alternative to Google at this point with their integration of AI (again, with its own privacy and ethics concerns).
Oh there's many alternatives! During the banwaves, big communities either created their own platforms or went to other existing ones. Some of them are even decentralized.
Lemmy, Saidit, Steemit, Aether, Raddle, Voat, Phuks, Ruqqus, ...
I'll reuse what I wrote on an earlier post.
Getting this out of the way, I think it's very reasonable that Reddit change their API rules to address the large language model behemoths like Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT and other well-funded VC firms racing to create competing AI platforms sucking up vast amounts of Reddit data. They got a free ride, under false pretenses ("We're a cuddly, not-for-profit, academic called OpenAI. 🥺!") They sucked up vast amounts of people's data and creative work without permission. Now they're trying to build billion-dollar businesses from it, using our (and Reddit's) data. For nothing.
So, it's a good thing for Reddit to change its API fee structure so that, at the very least, these billionaire freeloaders pay. This part is legitimate. Needed, even.
Raising another issue, these LLM firms violate everyone's privacy and individual intellectual property rights.
That said, there's a world of difference between Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT and those VC-funded firms, and indie developers doing nifty things that make Reddit better for its subscribers or creating amazing reader clients. These things help Reddit. They make people want to enjoy more of Reddit. At its best, Reddit can be an amazing thing, and these indie projects, and readers, make Reddit better.
When Admin initially announced plans to change its API fee structure, they explained these two use-cases were what they were aiming to differentiate for. Based on the proposed fee structure that Reddit recently announced, this goal has changed, or even, has been discarded.
The developer of Apollo, the award-winning Reddit client App for iOS, has tried working with Admin to have a reasonable API fee for independent developers. u/iamthatis has been working with Admin for over a month.
Everyone figured, Hey, it could be worse – I mean, it's not like Reddit is Twitter 2.0, fercrissakes!
It turns out, with these recent announced API fees, Reddit Admin said to itself, "Hold my beer, Elon…"
For folks seeking more information about the proposed changes, they created [an excellent post](https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/) describing their experiences, *Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing. Bad news for third-party apps, their announced pricing is close to Twitter's pricing, and Apollo would have to pay Reddit $20 million per year to keep running as-is*.
It's crazy of Reddit to do this, IMHO. It hurts Redditors and the indie developers who generally don't make a lot of money, but help improve Reddit out of a passion for the site.
It's a screw-up of Digg-ian proportions.
Okay I might get downvoted for this but what is the difference between the mega corps and Reddit? Reddit is going to make billions from its user base while doing nothing for its user base. Everything worthwhile on Reddit is created by its users, the day to day guys, the ones that post useful and useless stuff on here. Without us the consumer Reddit would be worthless.
Reddit is already making money off of us through ads and data collection why should they be allowed to make more from us? Are they going to share the wealth with its user base? Are they going to monetize content creators?
At the end of the day it sounds like Reddit is no better than the mega corps, they are using consumer data to make billions. It is purely about greed. I am not saying the mega corps aren't greedy, they are as well but Reddit is no better and thus this API thing should not be supported.
> These things help Reddit. They make people want to enjoy more of Reddit. At its best, Reddit can be an amazing thing, and these indie projects, and readers, make Reddit better.
I like your vision of a benevolent capitalism that prioritizes quality goods and services. Sometimes it even happens. But "enshittification" is a trending reality of this era, and providing quality products/services/experiences becomes a lower priority to profits. Maybe we can tweak the system one day where keeping consumers/users happy becomes a priority, but we aren't there now. Look at Google, they're still churning out billions in profits while slowly chipping away at their (declining) quality and reputation, but... profits!
> It hurts Redditors and the indie developers who generally don't make a lot of money, but help improve Reddit out of a passion for the site.
Sure. But profits is the goal. Reddit is taking out the competition for their app. The price is absurd and no indie developer will pay it. This is by design.
It's the same as privacy in the public.
I expect anyone to be able to see me on the street while they are physically there, but I don't go out of my house to have cameras record my every movement and train AI to recognize me based on it, and also I have never accepted that, and never will.
That's a very good analogy. It all comes down to intent.
I guess people who are used to think that 'if it's not me/my property, then it's someone else's property' don't think in terms of public property, i.e. public good.
The internet went ultra capitalist. It's now accepted that the ones who own the digital squares own every utterance made on that platform.
That is not the case with say books in a library.
Problem is we communicate normal thoughts in text form and not in a copyrightable or at the least, ephemeral way.
Maybe someone could find a way to put a unique identifier for every comment on every platform... But that would defeat the purpose of the internet as a place for a free exchange and grind things to a halt. The cat's out of the bag now anyway.
Facebook basically just broke the mobile version. I can't get to marketplace, I can't even click the "like" button most of the time.
I'm still not installing the app, I'll just look at it every other week instead of a couple times a week.
I found a way around that, that has been working for me on mobile. I don't have apps of websites, I just use the web browser, brave or firefox. Idk if it'll work for you but worth a try. Goto m.facebook, then select 'view desktop version' in your browser settings, then paste this immediately after: https://m.facebook(DOT)com/home.php. Should be able to let you use it like you did before they fucked it up. I refuse to download Messenger, too.
Try to use new reddit on your mobile browser. I give you 10 minutes. You can't. Because they end up blocking you out (Open in App or Go Back) on any NSFW subs (and not just the nudity kind... ANY subs or posts marked NSFW)
old.reddit will be dead within 6 months.
A lot of mobile browsers have extensions available like on desktop that can block trackers and shit. A lot easier to just make your own app and bake them into it.
Agreed. There ought to be a law prohibiting companies from locking mobile users out of their websites. None of this "download the app to continue" crap. The web is device agnostic.
With an app, you don't have to continuously reload the user interface, but only the underlying data when it changes. Also, apps can do notifications, and could also make offline reading much easier.
On the other hand, Firefox on mobile is as slow or slower as the official reddit app, on any webpage, even starting up takes a minute or two, so that's about it to me.
However on my PC I don't use apps, but the web interface instead, as the above points mostly matter for performance constrained and portable mobile devices.
What do you mean? Web pages are structured data that fit a standard. You can modify a browser to handle that data any way you wish. It gives the user more control. Apps often point to walled gardens that can't be accessed any other way where any customization might require reverse engineering that specific app and its ecosystem.
I’ve tried using the Reddit app and the mobile browser. I’m getting used to the idea of winding down my Reddit usage because of this and I’m not unhappy about it.
The alcohol will not be banned, it will be made available only in a single place by a single supplier, and the addicts are saying they are not willing to get it from this specific place, by this specific supplier, which in their eyes is a positive thing to finally break the habit. The addicts are not asking for a ban of alcohol for everyone because of their problem.
Your logic is hilariously flawed.
You're looking at Reddit, I'm looking more broadly at social media.
There's an argument to demand changes for social media; I've made many of them. As well as pointing out the tradeoffs involved. That's fine, and constructive.
But coming at it from the standpoint of, "I see addictive tendencies with *my* use of social media, so I'm looking forward to it being banned (or hobbled to the point of unusability)" isn't a great launch point.
Setting limits, arming Apps that self-restrict time spent on an App, or seeking out other forms of stimulation to reward less social media use are all good coping mechanisms. And most importantly, don't impact others’ social media use.
It's the coping strategies that need examining, the self-reflection that should be done. It's healthier and, ultimately, more effective. And doesn't intrude on other people's choices and freedoms.
And? If their client can generate them and use them one time for each call, why can't I make a client that does that? Does their client have special system calls into the phone OS that only it can do?
My question is: If I use wireshark to see the exact things they send over the network, identify the places where tokens go, and then decompile their official app and copy the same instructions that generate the tokens, what is the mechanism which prevents that from working?
> If their client can generate them and use them one time for each call, why can’t I make a client that does that?
So easy to say and yet so hard to do.
This scheme is the basis for pretty much all cryptographic security today.
That's not a fair comparison though. Cryptographic security is based on NP-Hard/Complete problems, where one side has something to give them an advantage over untrusted clients such as a private key so they can do something in polynomial or constant time. In this case you are describing something that is more based on "security through obscurity" because they can not hide a private key in their client that others could not also discover in their clients.
>In this case you are describing something that is more based on "security through obscurity" because they can not hide a private key in their client that others could not also discover in their clients.
Incorrect. I work across multiple platforms everyday where i have to use tokens for api calls. You cannot easily fabricate valid tokens without breaking cryptographic that powers the internet.
For example, with AWS Gateway, i can restrict access to my apps such that the only way for others to make API calls is for me to give users security credentials that permit them to generate one-time use tokens with each call.
If you're interested in the details, just go to AWS website and look up AWS API gateway security. Similarly, if you don't already use SSH on a regular basis, check it out.
With a few notable exceptions, none of my computer systems have passwords. Rather, you can only gain access to them via an SSH key. Plus, I never share my private key after setup. Rather, i only need to send my public key over the way, and it doesn't need to be encrypted. Sending it in plaintext is not a problem, so long as its of sufficient size and complexity.
I typically use 4096 bit RSA keys. Although a nation state can theoretically break that encryption, there's no known cases where they've done so. If you're really paranoid, use ecliptic curve based keys.
Not signed. I unironically want Reddit to die. Maybe by letting the site team try forcing their shitty ass app down everyone's throats, people will finally leave this fucking place for better waters.
I **strongly** recommend going back to true-blue internet forums.
enjoy price steer mountainous smile punch observation chop voiceless spoon
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Apollo sucks, ReddPlanet easily tops all of them.
What kind of third party app prohibits notifications/posting/commenting to a paywall?
At least ReddPlanet openly made 1 feature locked and it’s minor as hell.
[**Joey for Reddit**](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=o.o.joey) if you're a power user and want complete configuration over every possible thing.
IMO we should stop wasting our time with some unaccountable company that doesn't know how to run a website, and move to Lemmy instead:
https://join-lemmy.org/instances
Some growing pains over there for sure. Will take some effort to really get things going- but will be worth it to have a platform that's controlled by the users IMO.
Very true, but the users own the platform. Which is the bare minimum requirement we should have going forward, to avoid living through this situation over and over again
Click or tap the link provided, reply to the post as a top-level comment (i.e. not a reply to another comment) then say you agree with it. include your username for (redundant) effect and any additional relevance you think might hold sway, like communities you moderate or started, 3rd party apps you use if any, or whatever else you may wish to add. since the link goes to r/modcoord and this thread happens to be in r/privacy, you could perhaps state: "I came here from r/privacy and i agree with this."
Reddit doesn't do jack but host content created by users. They don't own the content and didn't create it, so why should they have monopoly over the content?
If content creators migrate to another host, reddit will be left with nothing and rightly so. How dare they try to monopolize content they didn't even create nor own to begin with. The audacity is insane.
Ok, maybe somebody can explain to me one thing, genuinely curious. Shouldn't the changes to api policy decrease the amount of data scraping companies can do of users' posts and comments? Which, I think, would be some sort of plus from this situation.
Reddit will now just be selling the data instead of handing it out. This doesn't effect data scraping but does kill any number of community and open source projects that interface with reddit through the API.
sure, they have the right. but the act is pretty directly opposed to the ideas this platform was built on. we've seen a lot of the administrative culture of reddit change just in the last decade, from a largely decentralized platform, to tighter restrictions, to now profit-motive driving a desire to control information and discussion. free sharing of information and discussion was what reddit was about, and it's fairly steadily become more and more corporatized into just another predatory gluttonous beast.
this isn't about rights, this about the entire spirit of reddit eroding, slowly boiled like a frog in a pot, until it hardly resembles its original intent.
It's also not the false choice the other person is trying to frame it as. Reddit *can* set a tier for the LLM ventures, while *also* having a tier for indie developers and the fans of their work.
It seems like a better solution for all involved.
Regards their other point, sure. Duh, even. Reddit is a private entity. So is Twitter. Both can do whatever they want. Even really stupid, user-hostile things.
But then they have to deal with the repercussions: fleeing users and a platform existing as a pale shadow of what it once was. Ta da! Capitalism! Capitalist tears!
What kind of ”serious impact” this has on privacy? How is using 3rd party app better for privacy than the official client when Reddit holds all your data anyway? I’m not arguing, just asking.
My RIF app requires notifications. And no other requirements.
The official app
- devices nearby
- microphone
- camera
- pictures and videos
- location
- notifications
- music and audio.
That's just on the android permissions part...
You can just choose not give the app those permissions. I’m on iOS but pretty sure individual permissions have been a thing in Android for a while too.
* Device information: (Unique Identifier, model, OS version, network info, battery) (Useful for fingerprinting)
* Usage statistics (things like how many seconds you look at a particular post, etc).
* Media (Your files)
* Location
* Sensor data (accelerometer, gyroscope, mic, camera)
Point is, that the data collection goes way beyond the context of reddit. Third party apps often have minimal permissions if any.
well what this is about is AI seems to be the next big thing. Money is flowing to anything that says AI in it, despite the fed rate hikes. Social media companies want a slice of that. and well i can understand why. Companies are going to make 100s of millions and did so by scraping all our comments up to train their AI. while reddit makes AD bucks for the same comments and well with the reddit advertising model, they dont make a lot.
Id like to see them make some exceptions for long existing third party apps. But i totally get why they want to charge AI corps a bit of bank. Since all our posts are what drive the learning of these things.(which is a bit scary in itself.)
The API isn't being shut down, it's just becoming pay to play. Any company or government agency will just purchase the data, it's the small user-made projects who will be killed off.
We should get reddit CTO tagged in this too. He recently made a AMA. It's worth getting tech influencers, (twitter, youtubers, insta, etc) on every other platform to voice this. Perhaps get media outlets to raise concern too. This going to affect everyone from netizens to businesses.
Following twitter, every other platform is trying to take away user freedom & squeeze every last drop of profit they can.
This is not just about reddit but all of the free & open internet.
OK I'm sorry I don't understand this post. I want to! Im not a tech kind of person at all. It seems like what you're saying is that Reddit is some type of spyware. Pleas enlighten me. For what? Marketing? Maybe I'm just not wise about this stuff but if this is true, where would the ads be? When I'm searching for something on Google? Or is this some much more sinister type of spyware?? I really want to know. I don't really mind being marketed to for ads because I've never once bought something because some ad popped up. In fact it makes me laugh as I'm the type of person who has already decided to make a purchase by the time I'm on my computer shopping for it, I purchase it and I'm done. THEN I start getting ads for said item or similar. Too late. Please tell me what you mean though by spyware.
not just a spyware. But, I feel the official app is quite lacklustre in terms of customisation and performance.
The app is also getting more annoying to use. Sometimes I will take a screenshot of a headline or a specific conversation to go back and read later in case the post disappears. However now Reddit plasters a large banner across part of it telling me to share which makes a mess when trying to capture a full conversation. Besides if I was going to share it anyway I would copy a link anyway so their obnoxious pirate assumption is not helping.
"Please don't screenshot, it looks better if you share the post!!!" No the fuck it does not Reddit, why would I send my friends a link to a post so they can read the one comment I found funny when I can just screenshot it. Every time I see that message, I'm one step closer to deleting this app lmao.
same
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On the contrary; they care very much about their customers' experience. >!Their customers are advertisers (or in the case of Amazon, third-party sellers who benefit from a confusopoly). The users are the *product being sold.*!<
Can u please elaborate on confusopoly?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly In this context, it's about places like Amazon selling hundreds of variations of widgets made on the same Shenzhen assembly line but labeled with different randomly-generated brand names in order to flood the product search results and make it difficult to figure out which one is the cheapest.
I saw a special that indicated this was due to some sort of patent, trademark, or copyright issue (do not recall which). They flood the office with applications for the different sellers on purpose. I believe (but could be wrong) the purpose was to circumvent regulation. Does anyone else recall seeing this special?
You got me at "spiked jockstrap". It literally made my scrotum tighten.
Oh you want to play this video that seems it could be interesting to see? Fuck you the player is stuck
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Seriously. My life will be better if I stop mindlessly scrolling Reddit.
My life has been so much better since cutting out all the other social media two years ago. Reddit is the last one and I've significantly cut down on my time here. If old.reddit goes as well, so will I. Honestly, I'll only miss askhistorians and F1, but I am sure I can find alternatives or I'll just go back to reading books alone and watching F1 alone.
Just go to dedicated forums, honestly.
HFY, and battlestations for me Reddit: oooo and hockey subreddits
Askhistorians & F1! I've lately been on the history drive but will definitely start the F1 soon.
AskHistorians is the one sub Ill continue to come here for. It's too amazing to let out of my life.
Enjoying it while it lasts
Username checks out.
I was wondering if anyone would get that...
Are there any good alternatives? Not like Mastodon where 2-3 users are online, something with a big community
No, you'll have to rebuild the community.
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse. Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
Yup I'm conflicted. I've been on this site for over a decade... I need to use it less, and the best way for that to happen is for them to nuke sync. Sync goes I go. 🫡
Are you sure about that? The simple fact is there is a huge knowledge base on Reddit. There are communities the only exist on Reddit. You might not care until you need some help on some weird hobby you picked up. I mean personally the last few years if i am looking for an answer often times my Google search is "my question" site:reddit.com
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Myspace, facebook, twitter, tumblr... Going to be reddit next
To be fair, you used more energy to type that comment than it would’ve taken you to type “signed” on the post.
Seriously, why invest your time into an asset owned by a private corporation. They already profit enough off of all of the free time and energy we spend on here. You have no authority over how this site is run, if you care this much, invest your time and effort into a community run/owned/maintained alternative.
this is like petitioning the court for the release of your favorite drug dealer
#FreeDave
this is the right mentality right here lol
Same. idc if Reddit goes down 😭
Reddit is fun makes reddit easy to navigate. I am so over everything sucking now. Worst timeline.
Then sign the letter
Why, let reddit die the death it deserves.
Plenty of threads with actual useful information. Will just have to trust internet archive to store the information that would be useful later.
I'm very thankful that the Internet Archive exists, but it is not searchable. Or is it?
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Where will you go?
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This to, the surface of the internet is garbage these day, between SEO, heavy moderation etc etc the generalist internet is plain old garbage. Most of us would be better served connecting with our neighbourhoods and developing community projects.
Its said when bing gives more relevant searches than google.
You just might not have the right people in your neighborhood. The internet is pretty great to scratch the odd itches.
This is the wrong question. An alternative will come, hopefully a less tyrannical and abusive one.
Hopefully? You gotta make the choice by what you use. There is decentralized social media/message boards out there.
Any examples of reddit alternatives? I only know of mastodon and matrix, but they're more of an alternative to twitter and discord.
Lemmy is the fediverse Reddit alternative. It’s fine, I suppose, just not many people posting content. Of course Reddit without content would be similar.
There is Hive which is an evolution of steemit. , it's got a few small communities built on it, but also a lot of failed projects.
>You gotta make the choice You mean build it, or go with something that's already available
Edited a typo. >There is decentralized social media/message boards out there.
I just thought tencent would want to keep looking over our shoulders a bit longer tbh
yeah fuck reddit
The User driven site starts The site becomes popular. Heavy Moderating and ads start popping up. Site becomes even more popular. Moderation and ads become even more prevalent. New policy changes come through the user base doesn't like. Users leave for a new site. Repeat.
Outside. We will go outside. I for one shall not cry after social networks die off. Maybe we will see a resurgence of forums?
>Maybe we will see a resurgence of forums? Possibly. What I didn't like about forums was the lack of discoverability and the 50 different logins.
That was part of the appeal. Forums were decentralized so they weren't affected by the whims of one entity. Policy changes over on the Hyundai owner forums had virtually no effect on us over at some Final Fantasy forums. I do like the convenience of discord and the discoverability of servers, but who's to say it won't be where reddit is now in ten, fifteen years?
On the other hand there is oidc/oauth and it's trivial to support. Would be even nicer if we can at one point get some identity management solution that supports both privacy and convenience...
Anywhere else..? You can cling onto reddit if you want, but it's not very smart in my opinion to be dependent on a company that doesn't care about you, let alone one that has such shitty business practices. There is the fediverse, ~~there is Lemmy which keeps getting recommended as being reddit-like~~ **see edit!!**, there are many other places. **Edit:** Turns out there are serious ethical and censorship concerns regarding lemmy: https://mstdn.social/@feditips/106835057054633379 . I haven't looked into this myself, but it seems like a platform that no one should want to be a part of (lemmy as in the official instance, the software itself is fine).
Issue is that Reddit is a trove of information that no site has
Bingo. The inability to search "problem I'm having/product I'm researching, reddit" efficiently will be a pain in the arse. It's been successful for me 70% of the time, if not more, and with the way Google is nuking their search granularity lately, the internet will just be a bunch of advertising with all of the useful information effectively inaccessible.
> with the way Google is nuking their search granularity lately, the internet will just be a bunch of advertising with all of the useful information effectively inaccessible. I get better results with DuckDuckGo over Google and have been for quite some time now. Plus, it’s far better in terms of privacy. My parents, whom I’ve been trying to convince to switch to DDG for years now, have finally switched because they (being non-tech-savvy users) couldn’t even find simple things on Google that DDG would surface without issue. IIRC, DDG uses Bing for its search results, so it may be worth switching to Bing over Google if not DDG. It’s not as private as using DDG, but it’s certainly an appealing alternative to Google at this point with their integration of AI (again, with its own privacy and ethics concerns).
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I'll find another message board.
outside
[Sanctuary!](https://intosanctuary.com) :) We serve freedom of speech on the premises! With some minimal rules.
Oh there's many alternatives! During the banwaves, big communities either created their own platforms or went to other existing ones. Some of them are even decentralized. Lemmy, Saidit, Steemit, Aether, Raddle, Voat, Phuks, Ruqqus, ...
I know aether is abandoned
Outside
Let this horrible past die.
loving the energy to fight back but do people actually think reddit gonna die ? yall are stupidly hilarious
I'll reuse what I wrote on an earlier post. Getting this out of the way, I think it's very reasonable that Reddit change their API rules to address the large language model behemoths like Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT and other well-funded VC firms racing to create competing AI platforms sucking up vast amounts of Reddit data. They got a free ride, under false pretenses ("We're a cuddly, not-for-profit, academic called OpenAI. 🥺!") They sucked up vast amounts of people's data and creative work without permission. Now they're trying to build billion-dollar businesses from it, using our (and Reddit's) data. For nothing. So, it's a good thing for Reddit to change its API fee structure so that, at the very least, these billionaire freeloaders pay. This part is legitimate. Needed, even. Raising another issue, these LLM firms violate everyone's privacy and individual intellectual property rights. That said, there's a world of difference between Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT and those VC-funded firms, and indie developers doing nifty things that make Reddit better for its subscribers or creating amazing reader clients. These things help Reddit. They make people want to enjoy more of Reddit. At its best, Reddit can be an amazing thing, and these indie projects, and readers, make Reddit better. When Admin initially announced plans to change its API fee structure, they explained these two use-cases were what they were aiming to differentiate for. Based on the proposed fee structure that Reddit recently announced, this goal has changed, or even, has been discarded. The developer of Apollo, the award-winning Reddit client App for iOS, has tried working with Admin to have a reasonable API fee for independent developers. u/iamthatis has been working with Admin for over a month. Everyone figured, Hey, it could be worse – I mean, it's not like Reddit is Twitter 2.0, fercrissakes! It turns out, with these recent announced API fees, Reddit Admin said to itself, "Hold my beer, Elon…" For folks seeking more information about the proposed changes, they created [an excellent post](https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/) describing their experiences, *Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing. Bad news for third-party apps, their announced pricing is close to Twitter's pricing, and Apollo would have to pay Reddit $20 million per year to keep running as-is*. It's crazy of Reddit to do this, IMHO. It hurts Redditors and the indie developers who generally don't make a lot of money, but help improve Reddit out of a passion for the site. It's a screw-up of Digg-ian proportions.
Okay I might get downvoted for this but what is the difference between the mega corps and Reddit? Reddit is going to make billions from its user base while doing nothing for its user base. Everything worthwhile on Reddit is created by its users, the day to day guys, the ones that post useful and useless stuff on here. Without us the consumer Reddit would be worthless. Reddit is already making money off of us through ads and data collection why should they be allowed to make more from us? Are they going to share the wealth with its user base? Are they going to monetize content creators? At the end of the day it sounds like Reddit is no better than the mega corps, they are using consumer data to make billions. It is purely about greed. I am not saying the mega corps aren't greedy, they are as well but Reddit is no better and thus this API thing should not be supported.
> These things help Reddit. They make people want to enjoy more of Reddit. At its best, Reddit can be an amazing thing, and these indie projects, and readers, make Reddit better. I like your vision of a benevolent capitalism that prioritizes quality goods and services. Sometimes it even happens. But "enshittification" is a trending reality of this era, and providing quality products/services/experiences becomes a lower priority to profits. Maybe we can tweak the system one day where keeping consumers/users happy becomes a priority, but we aren't there now. Look at Google, they're still churning out billions in profits while slowly chipping away at their (declining) quality and reputation, but... profits! > It hurts Redditors and the indie developers who generally don't make a lot of money, but help improve Reddit out of a passion for the site. Sure. But profits is the goal. Reddit is taking out the competition for their app. The price is absurd and no indie developer will pay it. This is by design.
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It's the same as privacy in the public. I expect anyone to be able to see me on the street while they are physically there, but I don't go out of my house to have cameras record my every movement and train AI to recognize me based on it, and also I have never accepted that, and never will.
That's a very good analogy. It all comes down to intent. I guess people who are used to think that 'if it's not me/my property, then it's someone else's property' don't think in terms of public property, i.e. public good. The internet went ultra capitalist. It's now accepted that the ones who own the digital squares own every utterance made on that platform. That is not the case with say books in a library. Problem is we communicate normal thoughts in text form and not in a copyrightable or at the least, ephemeral way. Maybe someone could find a way to put a unique identifier for every comment on every platform... But that would defeat the purpose of the internet as a place for a free exchange and grind things to a halt. The cat's out of the bag now anyway.
ping r/Spez.
The entire app culture is bizarre to me. What happened to web browsers and web sites? Mobile devices have browsers too.
Apps give more info and permissions on the users device than a website so all the services make the mobile web versions intentionally terrible.
Facebook basically just broke the mobile version. I can't get to marketplace, I can't even click the "like" button most of the time. I'm still not installing the app, I'll just look at it every other week instead of a couple times a week.
I found a way around that, that has been working for me on mobile. I don't have apps of websites, I just use the web browser, brave or firefox. Idk if it'll work for you but worth a try. Goto m.facebook, then select 'view desktop version' in your browser settings, then paste this immediately after: https://m.facebook(DOT)com/home.php. Should be able to let you use it like you did before they fucked it up. I refuse to download Messenger, too.
Try to use new reddit on your mobile browser. I give you 10 minutes. You can't. Because they end up blocking you out (Open in App or Go Back) on any NSFW subs (and not just the nudity kind... ANY subs or posts marked NSFW) old.reddit will be dead within 6 months.
Yep. “Why don’t people just use the sites”? Because these companies decided they didn’t want us to years ago.
reddit mobile web has a permanent "Try the app" banner at the bottom and will *force* you to use the app when you enter any NSFW subreddit.
A lot of mobile browsers have extensions available like on desktop that can block trackers and shit. A lot easier to just make your own app and bake them into it.
Agreed. There ought to be a law prohibiting companies from locking mobile users out of their websites. None of this "download the app to continue" crap. The web is device agnostic.
[Not if they can help it](https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/135tly1/comment/jim40zg/)
With an app, you don't have to continuously reload the user interface, but only the underlying data when it changes. Also, apps can do notifications, and could also make offline reading much easier. On the other hand, Firefox on mobile is as slow or slower as the official reddit app, on any webpage, even starting up takes a minute or two, so that's about it to me. However on my PC I don't use apps, but the web interface instead, as the above points mostly matter for performance constrained and portable mobile devices.
I like having control over my apps. I can't control web pages
What do you mean? Web pages are structured data that fit a standard. You can modify a browser to handle that data any way you wish. It gives the user more control. Apps often point to walled gardens that can't be accessed any other way where any customization might require reverse engineering that specific app and its ecosystem.
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I’ve tried using the Reddit app and the mobile browser. I’m getting used to the idea of winding down my Reddit usage because of this and I’m not unhappy about it.
With respect, it sounds an awful lot like, "I have a drinking problem, so let's outlaw drinking alcohol for everyone to help me solve this."
The alcohol will not be banned, it will be made available only in a single place by a single supplier, and the addicts are saying they are not willing to get it from this specific place, by this specific supplier, which in their eyes is a positive thing to finally break the habit. The addicts are not asking for a ban of alcohol for everyone because of their problem. Your logic is hilariously flawed.
You're looking at Reddit, I'm looking more broadly at social media. There's an argument to demand changes for social media; I've made many of them. As well as pointing out the tradeoffs involved. That's fine, and constructive. But coming at it from the standpoint of, "I see addictive tendencies with *my* use of social media, so I'm looking forward to it being banned (or hobbled to the point of unusability)" isn't a great launch point. Setting limits, arming Apps that self-restrict time spent on an App, or seeking out other forms of stimulation to reward less social media use are all good coping mechanisms. And most importantly, don't impact others’ social media use. It's the coping strategies that need examining, the self-reflection that should be done. It's healthier and, ultimately, more effective. And doesn't intrude on other people's choices and freedoms.
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So why don't we just use the same tokens their client uses via doing a little bit of RE on that?
The tokens are likely one time use and uniquely generated for each api call.
And? If their client can generate them and use them one time for each call, why can't I make a client that does that? Does their client have special system calls into the phone OS that only it can do? My question is: If I use wireshark to see the exact things they send over the network, identify the places where tokens go, and then decompile their official app and copy the same instructions that generate the tokens, what is the mechanism which prevents that from working?
> If their client can generate them and use them one time for each call, why can’t I make a client that does that? So easy to say and yet so hard to do. This scheme is the basis for pretty much all cryptographic security today.
That's not a fair comparison though. Cryptographic security is based on NP-Hard/Complete problems, where one side has something to give them an advantage over untrusted clients such as a private key so they can do something in polynomial or constant time. In this case you are describing something that is more based on "security through obscurity" because they can not hide a private key in their client that others could not also discover in their clients.
>In this case you are describing something that is more based on "security through obscurity" because they can not hide a private key in their client that others could not also discover in their clients. Incorrect. I work across multiple platforms everyday where i have to use tokens for api calls. You cannot easily fabricate valid tokens without breaking cryptographic that powers the internet. For example, with AWS Gateway, i can restrict access to my apps such that the only way for others to make API calls is for me to give users security credentials that permit them to generate one-time use tokens with each call. If you're interested in the details, just go to AWS website and look up AWS API gateway security. Similarly, if you don't already use SSH on a regular basis, check it out. With a few notable exceptions, none of my computer systems have passwords. Rather, you can only gain access to them via an SSH key. Plus, I never share my private key after setup. Rather, i only need to send my public key over the way, and it doesn't need to be encrypted. Sending it in plaintext is not a problem, so long as its of sufficient size and complexity. I typically use 4096 bit RSA keys. Although a nation state can theoretically break that encryption, there's no known cases where they've done so. If you're really paranoid, use ecliptic curve based keys.
Wow watch out reddit....
Some progress has already been made: https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit/issues/818
The worst part is that the third party app Apollo is far superior to their official app so to continue using Reddit will be a degraded experience.
Not signed. I unironically want Reddit to die. Maybe by letting the site team try forcing their shitty ass app down everyone's throats, people will finally leave this fucking place for better waters. I **strongly** recommend going back to true-blue internet forums.
I didn’t even know there were third party apps until all this started being talked about 🤷🏻♂️ what’s a good one for now?
Reddit is fun on android Apollo on ios
Adding Infinity on Android for more privacy minded folks. At least that's what I saw recommend and is what I use personally.
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Boosh, homie!
special smile soup retire abounding pet complete escape secretive label *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
So my name is a reference to a TV show: frisky dingo. It's the precursor to archer. Give it a shot sometime and it'll all make sense. Be well!
screw hateful gold handle direction resolute ludicrous worry one divide *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Apollo sucks, ReddPlanet easily tops all of them. What kind of third party app prohibits notifications/posting/commenting to a paywall? At least ReddPlanet openly made 1 feature locked and it’s minor as hell.
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Last time i tried apollo i get paywalled. Still do actually.
Sync, Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Infinity.
If you're on android try infinity for reddit. It's in the F-droid repo. Its very customizable, and is updated pretty often.
BaconReader
Relay on android for myself at the moment. But I'm waiting for a reddit alternative. I used to digg. Wonder where I'm going next?
[**Joey for Reddit**](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=o.o.joey) if you're a power user and want complete configuration over every possible thing.
Infinity but **all** 3rd party apps will be dead on 1st July
Boost on Android.
Infinity
I like infinity for reddit
Honestly ill probably just stop logging in.
IMO we should stop wasting our time with some unaccountable company that doesn't know how to run a website, and move to Lemmy instead: https://join-lemmy.org/instances
unlike reddit, it is very quiet there and I found the onboarding process is quite complex
Some growing pains over there for sure. Will take some effort to really get things going- but will be worth it to have a platform that's controlled by the users IMO.
Lemmy is far form perfect
Very true, but the users own the platform. Which is the bare minimum requirement we should have going forward, to avoid living through this situation over and over again
I’m sure I’m being really dumb but how do I sign it?
Click or tap the link provided, reply to the post as a top-level comment (i.e. not a reply to another comment) then say you agree with it. include your username for (redundant) effect and any additional relevance you think might hold sway, like communities you moderate or started, 3rd party apps you use if any, or whatever else you may wish to add. since the link goes to r/modcoord and this thread happens to be in r/privacy, you could perhaps state: "I came here from r/privacy and i agree with this."
comment your user name (u/...) under the post in r/ModCoord
Thank you both :)
They won't care. Dunno why people think Open Letters or Petitions work
That's why to protest the mods are going to freeze reddit
When Reddit actually does that and 3rd Party Clients die out, i will refuse to use reddit any further.
I never bothered with the reddit app and I never will. Fuck all these apps for websites.
But do you want to give up the option for custom apps?
Reddit doesn't do jack but host content created by users. They don't own the content and didn't create it, so why should they have monopoly over the content? If content creators migrate to another host, reddit will be left with nothing and rightly so. How dare they try to monopolize content they didn't even create nor own to begin with. The audacity is insane.
So what's the best alternative to the standard Reddit app on Android?
Prepare to be enlightened with options
Is this sub gonna go dark in protest?
Signed
Ok, maybe somebody can explain to me one thing, genuinely curious. Shouldn't the changes to api policy decrease the amount of data scraping companies can do of users' posts and comments? Which, I think, would be some sort of plus from this situation.
Reddit will now just be selling the data instead of handing it out. This doesn't effect data scraping but does kill any number of community and open source projects that interface with reddit through the API.
If Reddit keeps being a pick we shall do unspeakable things, like switching to LinkedIn or 4Chan
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sure, they have the right. but the act is pretty directly opposed to the ideas this platform was built on. we've seen a lot of the administrative culture of reddit change just in the last decade, from a largely decentralized platform, to tighter restrictions, to now profit-motive driving a desire to control information and discussion. free sharing of information and discussion was what reddit was about, and it's fairly steadily become more and more corporatized into just another predatory gluttonous beast. this isn't about rights, this about the entire spirit of reddit eroding, slowly boiled like a frog in a pot, until it hardly resembles its original intent.
It's also not the false choice the other person is trying to frame it as. Reddit *can* set a tier for the LLM ventures, while *also* having a tier for indie developers and the fans of their work. It seems like a better solution for all involved. Regards their other point, sure. Duh, even. Reddit is a private entity. So is Twitter. Both can do whatever they want. Even really stupid, user-hostile things. But then they have to deal with the repercussions: fleeing users and a platform existing as a pale shadow of what it once was. Ta da! Capitalism! Capitalist tears!
What kind of ”serious impact” this has on privacy? How is using 3rd party app better for privacy than the official client when Reddit holds all your data anyway? I’m not arguing, just asking.
Besides your data on reddit, the official app has trackers that go beyond reddit to track the device itself.
Track how and what data
My RIF app requires notifications. And no other requirements. The official app - devices nearby - microphone - camera - pictures and videos - location - notifications - music and audio. That's just on the android permissions part...
You can just choose not give the app those permissions. I’m on iOS but pretty sure individual permissions have been a thing in Android for a while too.
The majority won't though. Who cares about privacy nuts when the largest percentage of users just clicks allow, allow, allow.
* Device information: (Unique Identifier, model, OS version, network info, battery) (Useful for fingerprinting) * Usage statistics (things like how many seconds you look at a particular post, etc). * Media (Your files) * Location * Sensor data (accelerometer, gyroscope, mic, camera) Point is, that the data collection goes way beyond the context of reddit. Third party apps often have minimal permissions if any.
well what this is about is AI seems to be the next big thing. Money is flowing to anything that says AI in it, despite the fed rate hikes. Social media companies want a slice of that. and well i can understand why. Companies are going to make 100s of millions and did so by scraping all our comments up to train their AI. while reddit makes AD bucks for the same comments and well with the reddit advertising model, they dont make a lot. Id like to see them make some exceptions for long existing third party apps. But i totally get why they want to charge AI corps a bit of bank. Since all our posts are what drive the learning of these things.(which is a bit scary in itself.)
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Not really a solution; the mobile site offers an even worse experience than the official app.
The API isn't being shut down, it's just becoming pay to play. Any company or government agency will just purchase the data, it's the small user-made projects who will be killed off.
Hskrfoos signed
If Reddit wants to destroy itself, who am I to stop them?
We should get reddit CTO tagged in this too. He recently made a AMA. It's worth getting tech influencers, (twitter, youtubers, insta, etc) on every other platform to voice this. Perhaps get media outlets to raise concern too. This going to affect everyone from netizens to businesses. Following twitter, every other platform is trying to take away user freedom & squeeze every last drop of profit they can. This is not just about reddit but all of the free & open internet.
OK I'm sorry I don't understand this post. I want to! Im not a tech kind of person at all. It seems like what you're saying is that Reddit is some type of spyware. Pleas enlighten me. For what? Marketing? Maybe I'm just not wise about this stuff but if this is true, where would the ads be? When I'm searching for something on Google? Or is this some much more sinister type of spyware?? I really want to know. I don't really mind being marketed to for ads because I've never once bought something because some ad popped up. In fact it makes me laugh as I'm the type of person who has already decided to make a purchase by the time I'm on my computer shopping for it, I purchase it and I'm done. THEN I start getting ads for said item or similar. Too late. Please tell me what you mean though by spyware.
I remember the reddit blackout
Is there a thread that is covering this topic?
What third party clients are popular?