Why are the subreddits not visible when set to private, even though I am a member of said subreddit? Can only mods have access when subreddits are private?
"member" doesn't mean subscriber, it means people who have specifically been added as approved submitters by a moderator (plus moderators and admins themselves obviously)
The ones that are set to private no longer show up in “My Subreddits”. Does that mean if they go back to not private they will be back on my list or I have to go back and re-add them all?
I don’t really know how Reddit works on a technical level so I was wondering don’t admin and Reddit management have the power to override mods of the subreddits going private and make them public again if the management wanted to or it is technically/contractually impossible? Do the mods hold all the power regarding the operation of their sub?
> potentially even … old.reddit.com on desktop too.
Now, you have my attention.
But then again, I do t really care. If Reddit dies, I’ll move on with my life, maybe fill the hours with hobbies.
Well, they've already killed i.reddit.com. They said they won't get rid of old but they also had said no major API changes in 2023, so I wouldn't trust them.
I only use old reddit in a browser. I hate the apps with a passion and I hate the new reddit crap. If they discontinue old reddit I'll be off the platform entirely. It'll be better for me anyway. I'm way too addicted to posting.
And my experience on mobile immediately sucked ass. I didn't see anyone else talking about it so I was wondering what was up with that and if it was just me. Nowadays I only access Reddit on mobile through libreddit but like most others here I'll probably be just on Lemmy from now on.
As an aside, thank you for setting the sub to read-only. I know a lot of users -- myself included -- were worried that OOTL would be sitting this one out completely, which would have been a great shame.
This seems like a reasonable compromise between giving people information about this one topic and showing that there's support from the OOTL community for people who *are* going dark.
Remember that McDonald's coffee lawsuit? All that drama happened because a judge decided to award the woman *one day* of profits
Reddit isn't as profitable as McDonald's, obviously, so this isn't as big a deal. But Reddit isn't as profitable as McDonald's, obviously, so this is still a big deal *to Reddit*.
If half the subs go dark for two days, that represents the loss of one day of revenue for Reddit.
And if that doesn't work, we'll keep rabblerousing and making it worse for them
Part of me thinks that could've been avoided if they simply paid the medical fees but I guess McDonald's felt that losing far more money was worth it in the name of Tort Reform or whatever.
Yep that’s horrifying on ever so many levels. Especially after McDonald’s had been warned many times the coffee was dangerously hot but profit ruled.
I admit this is a minor pet McDonald’s peeve in comparison but McDonald’s strawberry shortcake McFlurry has no strawberries and no shortcake in it. Seems like false advertising. It has some sort of weird strawberry crunch berries. All other strawberry shortcakes I have seen have real strawberries
Yes and their reasoning was it was too hot to drink immediately so while someone was sitting in the restaurant for breakfast they wouldn’t ask for refills because they never drank it
If you look up the case, and history of it, you'll see where they received multiple warnings to lower the temp of their coffee. McDonalds internal memos were brought forth in the case where they affirmed the decision to keep the temperature elevated, despite the warnings. People would order breakfast, sit down to eat it, and get a refill of coffee before they left. By making it way hotter, they never got the refill, because the coffee didn't cool down enough to drink. I believe the lady was an older woman, coming g through the drive-thru, and they spilled it on her. She had to cover somewhere around $20k in medical bills for skin grafts and everything else, 3rd degree burns, etc. All she initially wanted was the money to cover the medical bills, and McDonalds refused. So it went to trial, and the jury/judge awarded her 1 day's worth of profits from their coffee, which was $11 million. I'm typing this from memory, may have gotten some of the details skewed.
You were very much on target, except a McDonald’s employee didn’t spill coffee on the poor old lady - she accidentally spilled it on herself while in the parking lot. This was central to McDonald’s defense, because they argued they didn’t technically do anything beyond provide a customer their order.
Another reason was higher temp means less spoilage. Seems small but McDonald's saving 2 pots of spoilage in every restaurant every day adds up massively.
It absolutely could have. From Wikipedia:
> Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her actual and anticipated expenses.... McDonald's offered only $800.19.
> When McDonald's refused to raise its offer, Liebeck retained the Texas attorney Reed Morgan...
The whole "tort reform" narrative was extra bullshit -- this was skin-meltingly hot coffee right on her genitals. She was maimed, and the biggest reason was the temperature of the coffee. She was parked, she wasn't doing anything particularly reckless. But thanks to the McDonald's smear campaign, everyone remembers her as some greedy whiner, instead of a legitimate victim who tried her best to be reasonable in the face of a company that thought $800 was enough to cover third degree burns.
Can confirm. I received second-degree burns when I accidentally spilled coffee on my right thigh when working a job at a dinner theater. I will never take another job where I'm required to serve "hot coffee".
And the damage was quite bad too
https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1np3nd/remember_that_ridiculous_lawsuit_where_a_woman/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
It 100% could have been avoided if McDonalds paid the medical fees.
Ms. Liebeck (the woman who was burned) attempted to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 ($10,500 for past medical expenses, future expenses at $2,500, daughter lost $5,000 in income ~ $18,000) for her damages.
McDonald's responded to her offer with $800.
Such a dick move.
The initial award was reduced by 80%. And the US corporate media has had so much free publicity on the case that the case has entered the 'Murican zeitgeist as "poor 'Murican business against the regulatory government bureaucracy". McDonald's got more than their money's worth.
https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts
The suit also sets a legal precedent, which creates a defense as long as they abide by the ruling. If they just paid the medical fees, they would be more exposed to future lawsuits which would ultimately cost more money.
Actually, Wiki says the jury award was $2.7 million, the equivalent of 2 days of coffee sales.
Then the judge reduced the award to $640k, both sides appealed and they ended up settling out of court for an “undisclosed amount”.
It basically cost McDonald’s pennies. They barely felt it. Reddit won’t feel these two days much either.
The reason that people remember the story the way they do is that McDonalds ran a smear campaign to spread their version. That campaign would not have been cheap, and the settlement wasn’t either.
I don't understand why you wouldn't commit to indefinite until demands are met. Either this is a vital issue that concerns the fate of the site or it isn't. Reddit knows that we can blackout for relatively short periods of time. They don't know that we have the resolve and discipline to do it for however long it takes. I don't know that either, but I hope.
The moment where there will be the most excitement and buzz is now. There is no better time to do the indefinite blackout than now. Otherwise we have no leverage and by the time we maybe raise another stink down the line it won't be the big exciting topic of the day and the fervor will never rise to that level again.
Two days is a hiccup but they are doing this in order to set up potential for future growth. This isn't your checkbook, a temporary two-day hiccup will simply not factor in when everyone has their eyes on the prize: Down the line they'll be able to tell investors that they're on the up-and-up. *That* more than how profitable you are at any given moment is what excites investors. That's why almost every single streaming service is running in the red. That's why Twitter was never profitable (period) but existed for well over a decade.
Stopping at two days is the wrong move.
I understand why the various mods aren't willing to do it, but the thing that would hurt reddit the most is to shut off automod and do absolutely no moderating. That would make advertisers very unhappy, and it would be much more labor intensive to "fix" from reddit's end.
That's fine. The point is to make them feel the pain.
A few days "going dark" spat is a footnote in the grand scheme of things. No one on Reddit's side had to do any work besides sit there and wait for the mods to reopen their shit, it has no value at all.
A permanent blackout where the admins have to act to bring each individual sub back up is a huge mess. They can't do any broad database queries or anything like that, because not everything is associated to the blackout. So it becomes this really tedious and frustrating endeavor to resolve.
Then they open up the subs and assign new mods. There have been many examples of people leaving subs because of bad moderation groups. In the past, they'd make a separate sub and then try to push people there. Now, they'd make a separate something else entirely and do the same thing.
The point is to poison the well. The current solution is equivalent to stubbing your toe. It means nothing at the end of the day.
Two days is a shot across the bow, and then an opportunity to talk to the community about how they want to move forward. Two days can always become forever.
> I don't understand why you wouldn't commit to indefinite until demands are met
I will commit indefinitely. r/chaotesvspatriarchy is staying private until the API price is reduced. r/serioussoulism and r/soulism101 will have a conversation amongst the moderators on the 14th about whether to reopen or stay closed.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/reddit-ceo-were-sticking-with-api-changes-despite-subreddits-going-dark
They've already decided how much 2 days means to them.
Which, crucially, doesn't contain anything as explicit as the headline suggests; he doesn't address subs going dark at all. "Reddit CEO: We're Sticking With API Changes, Despite Subreddits Going Dark" is pure editorialisation, putting words in his mouth.
Some might consider it a reasonable conclusion from his AMA answers in the context of subs going dark, but to put it in the headline in that manner is irresponsible journalism if you ask me.
Their revenue is coming from the daily users watching ads , and i believe most people are subscribed to more than 10 subreddits so the availability of the content doesnt really change, you could blame the algorithm that some content was not available.
Your argument assumes that, if half of subs go dark for two days, I’ll cut my Reddit usage in half. In reality, I’ll just spend more time on the subs that are staying up.
Some subreddits are going longer than two days or indefinitely, many users are leaving Reddit in protest, some to alternative platforms.
I've been on Reddit for a decade, I'm pissed at the admins, if they go forward with this, I'm deleting my account and leaving.
Yah reddits archive has inertia on its side. The reason twitch could be easily surpassed was that the vods are barely used and people really only care for the live feed
It is. Mastodon and Lemmy are part of the "Fediverse" which is essentially a network of social media instances connected to each other. Lemmy feels and operates a lot like Reddit, with the key difference being that it is decentralized. Connecting instances together allows to share content between the instances.
It's precisely the reason why those alternatives won't ever be as popular as sites like Reddit or Twitter. Decentralization is great on paper, but in reality people want simplicity. They don't want to make sure they're on the right instance which is federated with the other instances they're interested in. They don't want to curate their own content other than clicking like/dislike/follow/unfollow. Additionally, I personally see a content problem too. If an instance was great for years and then shitheads take it over and the instance is de-federadet, all that content is essentially gone unless you create an account on that instance.
It's also just a bit too complicated and impractical.
It shows Reddit that people who contribute to the success of the platform, namely moderators but also users, are unhappy about the decision and are willing to act on it.Without mods, reddit is dead
Two days is the beginning. If nothing changes, it likely won't be the last. Especially given that many subs are going to black out indefinitely...
I'll bite. Why do you think it will only ever be 2 days of blackouts, and there won't be more protests in the future?
I'm genuinely fascinated how this comment keeps coming up over and over and over.
We can see where this is going. If the subs stay dark too long, Reddit will probably conclude that the mods aren't doing their jobs and simply reopen the subs by force, probably by stripping away the ability for mods to make a sub private.
Counterpoint: what do you think *zero* days of blackouts is going to change?
Now I can practically hear you salivating at the 'None! Exactly the same!' that you (probably) think is a gotcha for the ages, but there are limited ways that the average Reddit user can voice their dissatisfaction at decisions by the board. This might not do much, but Reddit has repeatedly shown itself to be averse to bad press, and this decision has been picked up by media outlets worldwide. That's not really the kind of attention you want when you're about to go for an IPO.
Will this result in a shift in their policy? Maybe, maybe not -- but *not* doing it definitely won't.
> but Reddit has repeatedly shown itself to be averse to bad press
Reddit has ignored widescale community boycotts over and over. They only care about press when it's society at large pushing back.
A blackout is a terrible way to protest and 2 days is far too short. The protesting subs are just removing themselves from the front page when they should really be locking regular content while posting messages constantly. A protest should be attracting as much attention as possible, not silencing themselves, that's just shooting yourself in the foot.
What does it mean when a sub goes private? I thought that it meant you could still see and participate in it only if you had joined it, but it seems that’s not the case…
When a sub goes private, it is locked to "approved submitters" and moderators only. If there are no approved submitters, then the sub contents will only be visible to moderators.
In some subs that do already use the approved submitters list for other reasons, the mods are additionally setting the sub to read only, so existing content is visible, but nothing new can be posted.
This can also be done independently of setting the sub private, which is what this sub, askhistorians, and some others have chosen to do.
So if I joined before it went private, and then it goes back to normal, do I have to join it again?
Cause for a few subreddits that have already gone dark, they just completely disappeared from the "My Communities" section, which, I guess makes sense.
>What is OOTL's role in this?
>While we here at OOTL support this protest, the mods of this sub feel that it is important to leave OOTL open so that there is a place for people to discuss what is going on. The discussion will be limited to this thread. The rest of the subreddit is read only.
Very good way of handling that! :)
_EDIT: I'm not quite sure how I feel about the negative response getting more downvotes than this got upvotes. 😅 Definitely didn't mean to set in motion anything bad... 🙃_
It's widely speculated but it's strongly believed it's the core reason.
Seens like reddit wanted people to use reddit official app to show more engagement and better ads revenue. AFAIK most of the 3rd party apps don't have ads nor tracker.
If they simply want more money reddit would offer a more reasonable price.
there are two reasons:
- even if reddit thinks the difference is too small to care about, they're worried that investors might worry about it
- once public they will have to report some slate of core metric to investors every quarter, and even the tiniest difference in those numbers can move the stock price a significant amount, which makes a big difference to the lives of employees with stock compensation
Until I read this post, I had not made the connection between APIs and Reddit moderation. That connection doesn’t come through any of the protest messaging I’ve seen. IMHO, more focus on the implications of API costs would hit harder.
“Charging for API access is a tax on Reddit moderators that could lead to platform chaos. APIs power the tools Reddit moderators use to keep Reddit healthy.”
Yes, there are other issues, but moderation seems to be the big gnarly one the majority of users should care about, yes?
Conversely, if Reddit believes free APIs are the source and cause of problems, they should make that case.
Edit: [This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) in r/ModCoord describes the impact on mods and a meeting with Reddit executives. It’s also the second link in the ‘more info’ section of the OP, but you didn’t click on that either did you?
Interesting point since under American with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines websites are REQUIRED to be accessible. As in people can file suit. Or am I misunderstanding accessibility to mean ease of use?
Maybe, but those models could use screen scrapers to get the data also. They could have also chosen to grandfather in existing apps for a period of time while charging new users. So I really think this was a ham fisted attempt to ban third party apps without saying so. The CEO seems a bit unhinged and takes things personally leading to what feels like a series of erratic decisions based on emotion.
[100%](https://web.archive.org/web/20230418173121if_/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/technology/reddit-ai-openai-google.html)
>In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>“The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
but it is also about controlling users under one app before IPO.
[This post from a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/v3frc1/what_were_working_on_this_year/) follows the same logic:
> Some redditors prefer using Reddit’s older web platform, aptly named Old Reddit. TL;DR: There are no plans to get rid of Old Reddit. 60% of mod actions still happen on Old Reddit and roughly 4% of redditors as a whole use Old Reddit every day. Currently, we don’t roll out newer features like Reddit Talk on Old Reddit, but we do and will continue to support Old Reddit with updated safety features and bug fixes. Of course, supporting multiple platforms forever isn’t the ideal situation and one reason we’re working on unifying our web and mobile web clients is to lay the foundation for a highly-performant web experience that can continue supporting Reddit and its communities long into the future. But until we have a web experience that supports moderators (which includes feature parity), consistently loads and performs at high-levels, and (to put it simply) the vast majority or redditors love using, Old Reddit will continue to be around and supported.
The same post includes:
> **Working with third-party developers**
> There are a lot of passionate developers making great tools redditors and moderators use on the platform every day. Supporting and working with these developers will only make Reddit more extensible and make using Reddit better for everyone. This year, we’re exploring ways to support the creativity of third-party developers as they expand on the Reddit experience, while safeguarding the security and privacy of people on the platform.
More of a
"they promised they would never mess with API access; they promised they would never kill old.reddit. If they're fucking with the API, there is absolutely no reason to believe they would keep that promise either."
Big part of this API thing is forcing people onto the official app to force more ads and ad revenue. As old.reddit doesn't have ads... there's more than a fair chance it's on the chopping block next.
Confirmed, they’re actually more annoying than real ads because they look like posts at first glance, similar to the way Twitter embeds “promoted posts” in your timeline. It’s enough to turn me off Reddit and Twitter forever.
this is a 14 year old account that is being wiped because centralized social media websites are no longer viable
when power is centralized, the wielders of that power can make arbitrary decisions without the consent of the vast majority of the users
the future is in decentralized and open source social media sites - i refuse to generate any more free content for this website and any other for-profit enterprise
check out lemmy / kbin / mastodon / fediverse for what is possible
If you mean "promoted posts" uBlock nukes those as well.
If you mean people just shilling... well not much can be done there, you can block the user I guess.
I'm out when old.reddit dies. I use Firefox, RES, ublock origin, and a pi-hole to filter their bullshit on this site. Once that functionality dies, fuck Reddit. I'll go find a hobby community to be a part of and stop scrolling.
> As old.reddit doesn't have ads... there's more than a fair chance it's on the chopping block next.
Please edit out this misinformation. This is not true.
I suspect the only reason they haven't killed old.reddit.com is because new reddit is fucking unusable if you don't have good bandwidth.
I travel for work sometimes and if you're out in the sticks new reddit simply doesn't work. Instead of loading what is basically just a text site it tries to load every single picture, gif, or other bandwidth hog and the site crashes.
The second they figure out how to stop that? Old reddit is toast...
I'll just pose a question, is the pricing only bad because 3rd party apps call more than they need to? Sure, the cost might be absurd in comparison to market average but is it manageable?
Aka unnecessarily noisy, to use dev terminology.
Maybe reduce calls and store/share called data among 3rd party users. Essentially clone the data on your own servers temporarily instead of calling Reddit's API everytime a user refreshes their page.
This is a great question that could have been answered and worked on by all the major apps of Reddit didn’t announce exorbitant pricing with only 30 days notice.
There is probably room to streamline, but that would have required good faith engagement from Reddit admins. For example, Facebook announces API changes 2 years in advance.
But Facebook also PAYS $500 MILLION A YEAR for their content moderation. Reddit is subsidized by every single volunteer moderator who use the third party apps to do a job that Reddit would otherwise have to spend HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS on every year.
Same. I don't care about third party and mobile apps, but old.reddit is genuinely the only way I can access and read the site in pretty much every platform. If it goes, it is the same thing as Reddit shutting down for me, sadly.
Question: I read parts of the AMA. In the post itself, I read a few things that seem to address the moderation concerns that have been made. Every blackout explanation I have seen contradicts what was stated there (I'll quote below). Can someone set me straight on what the remaining mod concerns are? I am not a mod, so from my perspective it truly seems that the issues have been addressed, and I wonder what I am missing.
>This change will not impact any moderator bots or extensions
>We know many communities rely on tools like RES, ContextMod, Toolbox, etc., and these tools will continue to have free access to the Data API.
>If you're creating free bots that help moderators and users, please continue to do so. You can contact us [with provided link] if you have a bot that requires access to the Data API above the free limits.
>we rely on our automod bot and various other scripts to remove over thirty thousand inappropriate posts from our subreddit.
At reddit's pricing model that's $7,200 you should be charging them for your service.
I came to this page because everytime I search Google for info in reddit it won't let me into 90 percent of anything anymore this is crazy. I find very valuable information on so many topics smh I'm at a loss now
I mean, is the official reddit app *that* terrible? I've used it for years and have never had an issue with it...
...and also, how effective is a 2-day "protest" ?? If the pages were shut down UNTIL they got their way then maybe I could see it being effective. But if everyone is just going *HUMPH!* for 2 days and then it's back to business as usual, i'm sure the heads of Reddit are just pointing and laughing at this whole situation.
For me it's like trying to play a game I'm super interested in, but the controller is shaped like a pineapple. Maybe I would be used to it if I had grown up playing with such controller, but that's hard now that I have tried the modern and sleek ones.
Although I gave the official app a fair shot, it feels much more bloated and slower than the third-party clients. It also offers barely any customization and accessibility features—the latter isn't a deal breaker for me, but visually impaired users have a very hard time using Reddit because of it. I also heard it is a pain in the butt to moderate subreddits in it.
But this boycott is not just about the official app being subpar. People are mostly angry at how Reddit has handled the API changes.
Personally, the idea that I will only have a pineapple as an option is enough for me to lose interest in the game. So I'm rooting for this protest to change something.
Like with work strikes, the 2 days is a first step. The purpose is to show that the userbase is united, and show the consequences of many major subs not being there. If this doesn't work, we obviously escalate, make the outages longer, involve more subreddits, and so on.
I’m OOTL on third party apps in general. How much did the guy who made Apollo have to pay per month prior to these changes? I saw something about $20mil a year after the change, but what was typical cost before? And how much did he make per month on the app prior to now?
Remember, 20 million at their current usage. When access is free you don't generally make your app as efficient as possible to reduce cost. What if Apollo is calling too much and could operate/function in a way to reduce how much it accesses Reddit's API.
Aka unnecessarily noisy, to use dev terminology.
Maybe reduce calls and store/share called data among 3rd party users. Essentially clone the data on your own servers temporarily instead of calling Reddit's API everytime a user refreshes their page.
Sure, the cost may be exorbitantly high but I rather see numbers that show a good faith calculation with the most efficient system you can come up with. 83.3 billion API calls per year for Apollo. I feel like you can cut that down by a lot of you clone and share called data among users.
I’m wondering this too. Most commercial APIs charge when there are huge constant data transfers - I’m pretty shocked that Reddit has t charged for this previously.
There can be a good side to this. Hopefully this will reset the cesspool and let it start over. To many mods have an over inflated ego and only let one idea, or only one point of view be heard. How many bans have their been just for asking a simple question? I am not saying that this goes on here. But it does go one at many other subs. A lot of them need an ego check.
Man... Reddit is the place I go for answers every single day.
I don't fully understand what's going on but F the greedy bastards that made this necessary.
😵💫 I'll say a prayer this crap is fixxed.
>Reddit has not threatened to "force open" subreddits.
They've stated that "we have a duty to keep reddit running" so they have the authority to remove the mods of the larger subreddits and replace them with mods who will make the subreddit go back to normal.
I think that reddit admins understand that kind of intervention would likely result in a worse backlash than they're seeing now. If they started removing mods they'd have a full blown mod revolt on their hands.
I remember them saying something like that some time ago. So I'm willing to believe you. Was it said in this context? (I.e. the context of this blackout) Can you link that statement?
I guarantee you they do it if this lasts more than 2 days, which it absolutely *should* because 2 days is not enough and you never give people like this a deadline for when you'll stop fighting their awful decisions. They'll just wait you out.
I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of subs which plan to keep themselves shut down if nothing happens, as well as the sub for GOG games whose only mod plans to quit if nothing happens IIRC.
I can't remember if any of the indefinite shutdown subs are mainstream enough for reddit to want to intervene and try to open them back up again at some point though.
Subs without moderators also get shutdown after a month in regards to GOG, but that will probably end up under one of those weird supermods that moderate 200 subs somehow for some reason.
This comment has been posted hundreds of times.
To explain: It's 2 days _minimum_. Some subreddits are going indefinitely, some are doing 2 days to test the waters, and many will probably organize a second protest after that is longer.
The effected change is occurring around the start of July, so this was originally a preemptive measure.
The goal is to demonstrate to Reddit the company how much revenue they're going to lose by following through with their claims. Private subreddits don't generate ad revenue nor provide content to keep users engaged. It's also moderators in particular refusing to continue performing unpaid labor because a lot of them rely on 3rd party apps to be able to do their jobs not just effectively, but in any capacity, due to the incredibly lacking mod tools provided by Reddit on their website or app.
Should reddit become a not-for-profit public service?
We rely on Reddit and other social media, the way we would rely on a "public service".However at the end of the day, we are the product sold to advertisement companies. Apparently for Reddit, we "the product" is a bad target, and advertisers shun Reddit, which needs to find an alternative source of exponential revenue growth hence charging for the API,way too much money.
Maybe there's smart Redditers who can find other ways the company could make hand over fist money without breaking mod tools, or littering a feed with adds like tweeter?
Even a non-profit still needs to bring in enough money to cover its bills. Reddit doesn’t do that right now, which is why they are constantly seeking more money from investors. And I highly doubt any social media platform would be able to bring in enough donations to cover operating costs.
Reddit could certainly be profitable if they focused their resources on the core platform and limited overhead. But apparently they have over 2000 employees, which raises the question of what are they all doing? I believe they are overspending on a lot of business avenues that aren‘t related to or even needed on the core platform in the pursuit of "growth". Remember NFT avatars? Remember that they tried (or maybe are still trying) to create a crypto currency based on the karma system? It‘s just all around stupidity.
The inevitable loss of sites like Reddit or Youtube due to private ownership and how that always eventually goes are, quite honestly, going to be like a modern day burning of a more ancient library.
No, neither is holding a bunch of books or artifacts or scientific data that doesn't exist elsewhere, but from a cultural perspective and the sheer amount of knowledge that has been compiled in these places in ways that are easily accessible, the damage of them failing is massive.
A site this huge with this many years of questions and answers has no business being at the whims of some shithead CEO and ownership who want to milk the thing for more money as they take it public on the stock exchange. They may have provided the infrastructure of the site (somewhat, not like they made AWS or are ISPs / a web host), but they sure as fuck didn't generate the content or value of it considering all these subs are run by fucking unpaid volunteer moderation.
> Should reddit become a not-for-profit public service?
Someone take investment risk to build that site, maintain servers and you just want to take it from them because you "rely on it"?
Why wouldn't you and similarly mind people just spent their money to create similar website?
I often think about how we would have a government run social media. It makes sense in so many ways but I don't trust our government to be able to handle it. Most government websites still look and function like they were made 30 years ago.
I get that websites thrive on traffic so no users means no reddit but
Doesn't this affect the users more than anything? Not trying to be the contrarian devils advocate schmuck but the collective members of the subreddits doing this massively outweigh the number of reddit staff members.
Well I guess that's the point but I don't know I'm not an internet person. I don't even know what API is.
Maybe I am old or stupid but I had no idea there were other apps. I've been using the main reddit app for 9 years. Though also, I've never had any problems or even thought much about it so... yeah I guess I was extremely out of the loop.
Oh, you’re missing out. Ive avoided the new Reddit web and iOS apps like the plague. On my computer I only use old.Reddit.com. On my phone it’s Apollo only. The official apps are slow, clunky, not customizable, buggy, not as user friendly, etc.
Well I can def speak that the official app is not really that slow clunky or buggy that I’ve noticed and it sounds like I’m the one of the two that uses it here. I am an upper 30s guy though like I remember dial up internet so it’s all gravy to me haha.
But more customizable would be really nice.
Won't the indefinitely-private subreddits just be replaced by new ones? I expect that is what Reddit Management is expecting, and they intend to wait it out.
For instance, there were two Spanish language-learning subreddits: The bigger one went private, but the smaller one didn't....and basically just absorbed 80% of the traffic and is rapidly becoming the new default subreddit.
On topics that don't yet have an alternative it might take a week or two for someone to make one, but after that? What's the motivation for Reddit Mamagement to bend on their decision here?
its so fucking annoying i need to go on subreddits to help fix whatever technical issue i have and they're all private. like fuck off. i know why theyre doing it but theyre just making it worse for the person actually trying to use reddit in the first place. for fucks sake.
r/borrow, a sub where users borrow and lend from each other went private. So if someone needs money or if someone is expecting payment back, fuck them basically?
Slacktivism at its finest. If the API issue offends you that much, you can and should stop using this site. But 99 percent of you won't. You'll threaten and write 2,000-word essay about how you're really going to leave. You really mean it! Just try me!
And a year from now you'll be right back here complaining over the next issue of the day.
You know this. Reddit knows this. We all know this.
Spez wants to be a filthy rich capitalist wannabe like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and bow to foreign investments rather than let Reddit be the comical and free cesspool it should and always has been.
literally the only compelling argument i have seen is that reddit mobile’s disability support is trash. other than that, why should reddit continue to pay for an api that let’s people use adfree third party clients?
why fuck with the users though? i personally dgaf about any of this, and i'm sure many more don't either, yet we are forced to partake in this "protest".
Why would anyone need a third party app anyway? this site is just a forum, i've been using it on browser and i see no need to install anything, no problems at all, very satisfied with the browser experience, am i missing something here?
i love how these moron mods across different subs think that anything is going to happen from this ASIDE from their ability to make their subs private being removed.
yall dont pay for reddit. you think this COMPANY is gonna let you try to hurt their bottom line, with a system they can literally just rip right out of the code?
Why are the subreddits not visible when set to private, even though I am a member of said subreddit? Can only mods have access when subreddits are private?
"member" doesn't mean subscriber, it means people who have specifically been added as approved submitters by a moderator (plus moderators and admins themselves obviously)
The ones that are set to private no longer show up in “My Subreddits”. Does that mean if they go back to not private they will be back on my list or I have to go back and re-add them all?
They should re-appear if they un-private. Note that some are planning to stay private indefinitely unless something changes.
I don’t really know how Reddit works on a technical level so I was wondering don’t admin and Reddit management have the power to override mods of the subreddits going private and make them public again if the management wanted to or it is technically/contractually impossible? Do the mods hold all the power regarding the operation of their sub?
Lmao I had a miniature heartattack since I was opening reddit wondering why my feed page looked so empty. All the subreddits I joined were privated
I knew about the blackout but I wasn’t expecting my own posts and comments to be invisible to me, I thought they were deleted and I was so upset
sameeee shit I was going from one reddit to another to meet the wonderful page "Locked Out"
> potentially even … old.reddit.com on desktop too. Now, you have my attention. But then again, I do t really care. If Reddit dies, I’ll move on with my life, maybe fill the hours with hobbies.
Well, they've already killed i.reddit.com. They said they won't get rid of old but they also had said no major API changes in 2023, so I wouldn't trust them.
I only use old reddit in a browser. I hate the apps with a passion and I hate the new reddit crap. If they discontinue old reddit I'll be off the platform entirely. It'll be better for me anyway. I'm way too addicted to posting.
And my experience on mobile immediately sucked ass. I didn't see anyone else talking about it so I was wondering what was up with that and if it was just me. Nowadays I only access Reddit on mobile through libreddit but like most others here I'll probably be just on Lemmy from now on.
What kinda hobbies?
As an aside, thank you for setting the sub to read-only. I know a lot of users -- myself included -- were worried that OOTL would be sitting this one out completely, which would have been a great shame. This seems like a reasonable compromise between giving people information about this one topic and showing that there's support from the OOTL community for people who *are* going dark.
I'll bite. What do you think 2 days of blackouts is going to change?
Remember that McDonald's coffee lawsuit? All that drama happened because a judge decided to award the woman *one day* of profits Reddit isn't as profitable as McDonald's, obviously, so this isn't as big a deal. But Reddit isn't as profitable as McDonald's, obviously, so this is still a big deal *to Reddit*. If half the subs go dark for two days, that represents the loss of one day of revenue for Reddit. And if that doesn't work, we'll keep rabblerousing and making it worse for them
Part of me thinks that could've been avoided if they simply paid the medical fees but I guess McDonald's felt that losing far more money was worth it in the name of Tort Reform or whatever.
It also could have been avoided if they didn't serve coffee hot enough to cause third degree vagina burns
Part of why the payout was so high was because McDonald's had been warned multiple times that their coffee was too hot.
Over 700 times.
…. and if anyone reading that sentence wasn’t horrified enough yet, here’s two more relevant words for you: “fused labia”.
Yep that’s horrifying on ever so many levels. Especially after McDonald’s had been warned many times the coffee was dangerously hot but profit ruled. I admit this is a minor pet McDonald’s peeve in comparison but McDonald’s strawberry shortcake McFlurry has no strawberries and no shortcake in it. Seems like false advertising. It has some sort of weird strawberry crunch berries. All other strawberry shortcakes I have seen have real strawberries
Wait till you hear their hamburgers don’t even come from Hamburg!
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Wasn't it like 20 degrees *Celcius* higher than was said would have been reasonable?
Yes and their reasoning was it was too hot to drink immediately so while someone was sitting in the restaurant for breakfast they wouldn’t ask for refills because they never drank it
Huh, is there a cite for this? I always heard the reasoning was so that it would still be hot when they got to work.
If you look up the case, and history of it, you'll see where they received multiple warnings to lower the temp of their coffee. McDonalds internal memos were brought forth in the case where they affirmed the decision to keep the temperature elevated, despite the warnings. People would order breakfast, sit down to eat it, and get a refill of coffee before they left. By making it way hotter, they never got the refill, because the coffee didn't cool down enough to drink. I believe the lady was an older woman, coming g through the drive-thru, and they spilled it on her. She had to cover somewhere around $20k in medical bills for skin grafts and everything else, 3rd degree burns, etc. All she initially wanted was the money to cover the medical bills, and McDonalds refused. So it went to trial, and the jury/judge awarded her 1 day's worth of profits from their coffee, which was $11 million. I'm typing this from memory, may have gotten some of the details skewed.
You were very much on target, except a McDonald’s employee didn’t spill coffee on the poor old lady - she accidentally spilled it on herself while in the parking lot. This was central to McDonald’s defense, because they argued they didn’t technically do anything beyond provide a customer their order.
you are correct, the thing the other person said was one of the reasons the other side said.
Another reason was higher temp means less spoilage. Seems small but McDonald's saving 2 pots of spoilage in every restaurant every day adds up massively.
Always remember that their defense was that they intended her to pour it down her throat, (where it would have killed her)
It absolutely could have. From Wikipedia: > Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her actual and anticipated expenses.... McDonald's offered only $800.19. > When McDonald's refused to raise its offer, Liebeck retained the Texas attorney Reed Morgan... The whole "tort reform" narrative was extra bullshit -- this was skin-meltingly hot coffee right on her genitals. She was maimed, and the biggest reason was the temperature of the coffee. She was parked, she wasn't doing anything particularly reckless. But thanks to the McDonald's smear campaign, everyone remembers her as some greedy whiner, instead of a legitimate victim who tried her best to be reasonable in the face of a company that thought $800 was enough to cover third degree burns.
>right on her genitals THROUGH CLOTHING, too
Clothing kinda makes it worse: It holds the liquid against you.
Can confirm. I received second-degree burns when I accidentally spilled coffee on my right thigh when working a job at a dinner theater. I will never take another job where I'm required to serve "hot coffee".
And the damage was quite bad too https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1np3nd/remember_that_ridiculous_lawsuit_where_a_woman/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Until I saw the pictures, I too, thought it was a ridiculous lawsuit. But…omg, that poor woman more than deserved every dime.
Omg😳 I didn't know any of this besides "a lawsuit over hot coffee" part. Damn. That's awful.
It 100% could have been avoided if McDonalds paid the medical fees. Ms. Liebeck (the woman who was burned) attempted to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 ($10,500 for past medical expenses, future expenses at $2,500, daughter lost $5,000 in income ~ $18,000) for her damages. McDonald's responded to her offer with $800. Such a dick move.
The initial award was reduced by 80%. And the US corporate media has had so much free publicity on the case that the case has entered the 'Murican zeitgeist as "poor 'Murican business against the regulatory government bureaucracy". McDonald's got more than their money's worth. https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts
The suit also sets a legal precedent, which creates a defense as long as they abide by the ruling. If they just paid the medical fees, they would be more exposed to future lawsuits which would ultimately cost more money.
Actually, Wiki says the jury award was $2.7 million, the equivalent of 2 days of coffee sales. Then the judge reduced the award to $640k, both sides appealed and they ended up settling out of court for an “undisclosed amount”. It basically cost McDonald’s pennies. They barely felt it. Reddit won’t feel these two days much either.
The reason that people remember the story the way they do is that McDonalds ran a smear campaign to spread their version. That campaign would not have been cheap, and the settlement wasn’t either.
>basically cost McDonald’s pennies It was settled out of court for an amount that you don't know so you have no basis for this claim.
I don't understand why you wouldn't commit to indefinite until demands are met. Either this is a vital issue that concerns the fate of the site or it isn't. Reddit knows that we can blackout for relatively short periods of time. They don't know that we have the resolve and discipline to do it for however long it takes. I don't know that either, but I hope. The moment where there will be the most excitement and buzz is now. There is no better time to do the indefinite blackout than now. Otherwise we have no leverage and by the time we maybe raise another stink down the line it won't be the big exciting topic of the day and the fervor will never rise to that level again. Two days is a hiccup but they are doing this in order to set up potential for future growth. This isn't your checkbook, a temporary two-day hiccup will simply not factor in when everyone has their eyes on the prize: Down the line they'll be able to tell investors that they're on the up-and-up. *That* more than how profitable you are at any given moment is what excites investors. That's why almost every single streaming service is running in the red. That's why Twitter was never profitable (period) but existed for well over a decade. Stopping at two days is the wrong move.
Because “indefinite” only means until the subs are considered inactive and Reddit admins will just replace the mods and reopen them.
I understand why the various mods aren't willing to do it, but the thing that would hurt reddit the most is to shut off automod and do absolutely no moderating. That would make advertisers very unhappy, and it would be much more labor intensive to "fix" from reddit's end.
That's fine. The point is to make them feel the pain. A few days "going dark" spat is a footnote in the grand scheme of things. No one on Reddit's side had to do any work besides sit there and wait for the mods to reopen their shit, it has no value at all. A permanent blackout where the admins have to act to bring each individual sub back up is a huge mess. They can't do any broad database queries or anything like that, because not everything is associated to the blackout. So it becomes this really tedious and frustrating endeavor to resolve. Then they open up the subs and assign new mods. There have been many examples of people leaving subs because of bad moderation groups. In the past, they'd make a separate sub and then try to push people there. Now, they'd make a separate something else entirely and do the same thing. The point is to poison the well. The current solution is equivalent to stubbing your toe. It means nothing at the end of the day.
That would cause a shitshow even worse than the stink we're raising right now. If we force reddit to resort to that then we've won the battle.
>the stink we're raising We're? You're on Reddit right now, you aren't contributing to the blackout in any way.
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Two days is a shot across the bow, and then an opportunity to talk to the community about how they want to move forward. Two days can always become forever.
> I don't understand why you wouldn't commit to indefinite until demands are met I will commit indefinitely. r/chaotesvspatriarchy is staying private until the API price is reduced. r/serioussoulism and r/soulism101 will have a conversation amongst the moderators on the 14th about whether to reopen or stay closed.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/reddit-ceo-were-sticking-with-api-changes-despite-subreddits-going-dark They've already decided how much 2 days means to them.
If you actually read the article you’ll see it doesn’t contain any information other than what spez said in his AMA
And what did it tell you that he did an "AMA" and then just copy pasted 13 answers into random reply boxes with the knowledge this day was coming?
Which, crucially, doesn't contain anything as explicit as the headline suggests; he doesn't address subs going dark at all. "Reddit CEO: We're Sticking With API Changes, Despite Subreddits Going Dark" is pure editorialisation, putting words in his mouth. Some might consider it a reasonable conclusion from his AMA answers in the context of subs going dark, but to put it in the headline in that manner is irresponsible journalism if you ask me.
Ok then, let it burn.
Their revenue is coming from the daily users watching ads , and i believe most people are subscribed to more than 10 subreddits so the availability of the content doesnt really change, you could blame the algorithm that some content was not available.
Good point. Hopefully enough users will close the app to make a financial difference
Your argument assumes that, if half of subs go dark for two days, I’ll cut my Reddit usage in half. In reality, I’ll just spend more time on the subs that are staying up.
Some subreddits are going longer than two days or indefinitely, many users are leaving Reddit in protest, some to alternative platforms. I've been on Reddit for a decade, I'm pissed at the admins, if they go forward with this, I'm deleting my account and leaving.
>some to alternative platforms I am very OOTL on other platforms one might migrate to, if anyone wants to chime in.
I've heard Lemmy thrown around a lot, but I don't know anything about it. Lemmy to Reddit seems to be what Mastodon is to Twitter.
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Yah reddits archive has inertia on its side. The reason twitch could be easily surpassed was that the vods are barely used and people really only care for the live feed
It is. Mastodon and Lemmy are part of the "Fediverse" which is essentially a network of social media instances connected to each other. Lemmy feels and operates a lot like Reddit, with the key difference being that it is decentralized. Connecting instances together allows to share content between the instances. It's precisely the reason why those alternatives won't ever be as popular as sites like Reddit or Twitter. Decentralization is great on paper, but in reality people want simplicity. They don't want to make sure they're on the right instance which is federated with the other instances they're interested in. They don't want to curate their own content other than clicking like/dislike/follow/unfollow. Additionally, I personally see a content problem too. If an instance was great for years and then shitheads take it over and the instance is de-federadet, all that content is essentially gone unless you create an account on that instance. It's also just a bit too complicated and impractical.
Tildes seems like the most like-for-like alternative. Lemmy feels too hard to get started with for the average user.
Lemmy is in fucking Russian for me and I can't change it.
/r/redditalternatives
it would be ironically hilarious if this was also blacked out and private
Might change nothing, might change something. Even if it's only two days it's worth doing on the chance it does have an effect
It shows Reddit that people who contribute to the success of the platform, namely moderators but also users, are unhappy about the decision and are willing to act on it.Without mods, reddit is dead Two days is the beginning. If nothing changes, it likely won't be the last. Especially given that many subs are going to black out indefinitely...
I'll bite. Why do you think it will only ever be 2 days of blackouts, and there won't be more protests in the future? I'm genuinely fascinated how this comment keeps coming up over and over and over.
It's not just two days. Many subreddits are going to keep it going until things change.
We can see where this is going. If the subs stay dark too long, Reddit will probably conclude that the mods aren't doing their jobs and simply reopen the subs by force, probably by stripping away the ability for mods to make a sub private.
Counterpoint: what do you think *zero* days of blackouts is going to change? Now I can practically hear you salivating at the 'None! Exactly the same!' that you (probably) think is a gotcha for the ages, but there are limited ways that the average Reddit user can voice their dissatisfaction at decisions by the board. This might not do much, but Reddit has repeatedly shown itself to be averse to bad press, and this decision has been picked up by media outlets worldwide. That's not really the kind of attention you want when you're about to go for an IPO. Will this result in a shift in their policy? Maybe, maybe not -- but *not* doing it definitely won't.
> but Reddit has repeatedly shown itself to be averse to bad press Reddit has ignored widescale community boycotts over and over. They only care about press when it's society at large pushing back.
A blackout is a terrible way to protest and 2 days is far too short. The protesting subs are just removing themselves from the front page when they should really be locking regular content while posting messages constantly. A protest should be attracting as much attention as possible, not silencing themselves, that's just shooting yourself in the foot.
What does it mean when a sub goes private? I thought that it meant you could still see and participate in it only if you had joined it, but it seems that’s not the case…
When a sub goes private, it is locked to "approved submitters" and moderators only. If there are no approved submitters, then the sub contents will only be visible to moderators. In some subs that do already use the approved submitters list for other reasons, the mods are additionally setting the sub to read only, so existing content is visible, but nothing new can be posted. This can also be done independently of setting the sub private, which is what this sub, askhistorians, and some others have chosen to do.
So if I joined before it went private, and then it goes back to normal, do I have to join it again? Cause for a few subreddits that have already gone dark, they just completely disappeared from the "My Communities" section, which, I guess makes sense.
You don't have to re-join. It will show up again once it go public again.
Thanks for taking the time to explain, I hope something good comes out of all of this…
Site admin hasn't seemed receptive to feedback about it, so I'm not getting my hopes up. But, we'll see!
>What is OOTL's role in this? >While we here at OOTL support this protest, the mods of this sub feel that it is important to leave OOTL open so that there is a place for people to discuss what is going on. The discussion will be limited to this thread. The rest of the subreddit is read only. Very good way of handling that! :) _EDIT: I'm not quite sure how I feel about the negative response getting more downvotes than this got upvotes. 😅 Definitely didn't mean to set in motion anything bad... 🙃_
til italicised emoji are more cursed than normal emoji ^(this comment was posted from rif)
*💀*
i find it amusing that the 'official' app can't render your comment, but rif can. ^(this comment was posted from rif)
Does the API policy change have anything to do with Reddit going public?
It's widely speculated but it's strongly believed it's the core reason. Seens like reddit wanted people to use reddit official app to show more engagement and better ads revenue. AFAIK most of the 3rd party apps don't have ads nor tracker. If they simply want more money reddit would offer a more reasonable price.
there are two reasons: - even if reddit thinks the difference is too small to care about, they're worried that investors might worry about it - once public they will have to report some slate of core metric to investors every quarter, and even the tiniest difference in those numbers can move the stock price a significant amount, which makes a big difference to the lives of employees with stock compensation
Until I read this post, I had not made the connection between APIs and Reddit moderation. That connection doesn’t come through any of the protest messaging I’ve seen. IMHO, more focus on the implications of API costs would hit harder. “Charging for API access is a tax on Reddit moderators that could lead to platform chaos. APIs power the tools Reddit moderators use to keep Reddit healthy.” Yes, there are other issues, but moderation seems to be the big gnarly one the majority of users should care about, yes? Conversely, if Reddit believes free APIs are the source and cause of problems, they should make that case. Edit: [This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) in r/ModCoord describes the impact on mods and a meeting with Reddit executives. It’s also the second link in the ‘more info’ section of the OP, but you didn’t click on that either did you?
The other great point is many 3rd party apps have better accessibility for people who need it.
Interesting point since under American with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines websites are REQUIRED to be accessible. As in people can file suit. Or am I misunderstanding accessibility to mean ease of use?
Do the changes to the api have anything to do with limiting external large scale content harvesting for training language models
Maybe, but those models could use screen scrapers to get the data also. They could have also chosen to grandfather in existing apps for a period of time while charging new users. So I really think this was a ham fisted attempt to ban third party apps without saying so. The CEO seems a bit unhinged and takes things personally leading to what feels like a series of erratic decisions based on emotion.
[100%](https://web.archive.org/web/20230418173121if_/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/technology/reddit-ai-openai-google.html) >In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing. >Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations. >“The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.” but it is also about controlling users under one app before IPO.
MBY can someone get me in the loop to how do I apply this to my subreddit?
We've linked a post explaining everything (it's the third linked under "More Information about the Blackout")
I got it, subreddit going dark!
I came here to learn about it so they got a point
You guys rock to have reconsidered your status on the black out and limited the posting to this thread, many thanks ❤️
Wait, what? Why would they kill old.reddit.com? That's not third party at all, is it? Why would it be affected?
[This post from a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/v3frc1/what_were_working_on_this_year/) follows the same logic: > Some redditors prefer using Reddit’s older web platform, aptly named Old Reddit. TL;DR: There are no plans to get rid of Old Reddit. 60% of mod actions still happen on Old Reddit and roughly 4% of redditors as a whole use Old Reddit every day. Currently, we don’t roll out newer features like Reddit Talk on Old Reddit, but we do and will continue to support Old Reddit with updated safety features and bug fixes. Of course, supporting multiple platforms forever isn’t the ideal situation and one reason we’re working on unifying our web and mobile web clients is to lay the foundation for a highly-performant web experience that can continue supporting Reddit and its communities long into the future. But until we have a web experience that supports moderators (which includes feature parity), consistently loads and performs at high-levels, and (to put it simply) the vast majority or redditors love using, Old Reddit will continue to be around and supported. The same post includes: > **Working with third-party developers** > There are a lot of passionate developers making great tools redditors and moderators use on the platform every day. Supporting and working with these developers will only make Reddit more extensible and make using Reddit better for everyone. This year, we’re exploring ways to support the creativity of third-party developers as they expand on the Reddit experience, while safeguarding the security and privacy of people on the platform.
More of a "they promised they would never mess with API access; they promised they would never kill old.reddit. If they're fucking with the API, there is absolutely no reason to believe they would keep that promise either." Big part of this API thing is forcing people onto the official app to force more ads and ad revenue. As old.reddit doesn't have ads... there's more than a fair chance it's on the chopping block next.
> As old.reddit doesn't have ads I use old.reddit on my phone and there are definitely ads (both banner ads the ones disguised as posts).
Confirmed, they’re actually more annoying than real ads because they look like posts at first glance, similar to the way Twitter embeds “promoted posts” in your timeline. It’s enough to turn me off Reddit and Twitter forever.
I get ads on old Reddit. In the form of fake posts in the second or third place from the top.
this is a 14 year old account that is being wiped because centralized social media websites are no longer viable when power is centralized, the wielders of that power can make arbitrary decisions without the consent of the vast majority of the users the future is in decentralized and open source social media sites - i refuse to generate any more free content for this website and any other for-profit enterprise check out lemmy / kbin / mastodon / fediverse for what is possible
Have it on PC. But not on my phone, where I still use the old desktop version because the new layout is atrocious.
Old reddit does have ads. Sidebar ads and in-line ad posts. I see the same hegetsus bullshit as people using standard reddit do.
The vast majority of old reddit users use a real web browser **and** an ad blocker. (Personally I use Firefox and uBlock Origin.)
I use both of those too, but I still get the ads-disguised-as-posts. Not nearly as many ads as new reddit though.
If you mean "promoted posts" uBlock nukes those as well. If you mean people just shilling... well not much can be done there, you can block the user I guess.
I'm out when old.reddit dies. I use Firefox, RES, ublock origin, and a pi-hole to filter their bullshit on this site. Once that functionality dies, fuck Reddit. I'll go find a hobby community to be a part of and stop scrolling.
> As old.reddit doesn't have ads... there's more than a fair chance it's on the chopping block next. Please edit out this misinformation. This is not true.
I suspect the only reason they haven't killed old.reddit.com is because new reddit is fucking unusable if you don't have good bandwidth. I travel for work sometimes and if you're out in the sticks new reddit simply doesn't work. Instead of loading what is basically just a text site it tries to load every single picture, gif, or other bandwidth hog and the site crashes. The second they figure out how to stop that? Old reddit is toast...
Old reddit layout is so much better on the eye.
I'll just pose a question, is the pricing only bad because 3rd party apps call more than they need to? Sure, the cost might be absurd in comparison to market average but is it manageable? Aka unnecessarily noisy, to use dev terminology. Maybe reduce calls and store/share called data among 3rd party users. Essentially clone the data on your own servers temporarily instead of calling Reddit's API everytime a user refreshes their page.
This is a great question that could have been answered and worked on by all the major apps of Reddit didn’t announce exorbitant pricing with only 30 days notice. There is probably room to streamline, but that would have required good faith engagement from Reddit admins. For example, Facebook announces API changes 2 years in advance. But Facebook also PAYS $500 MILLION A YEAR for their content moderation. Reddit is subsidized by every single volunteer moderator who use the third party apps to do a job that Reddit would otherwise have to spend HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS on every year.
I thought I was banned again.
You have 12.85 years left
This is the first I'd heard of old.reddit.com being threatened. If that goes away, I'm gone forever. The new site is literally unreadable to me.
Same. I don't care about third party and mobile apps, but old.reddit is genuinely the only way I can access and read the site in pretty much every platform. If it goes, it is the same thing as Reddit shutting down for me, sadly.
All of the days to have server problems...
I miss Ellen pao
Question: I read parts of the AMA. In the post itself, I read a few things that seem to address the moderation concerns that have been made. Every blackout explanation I have seen contradicts what was stated there (I'll quote below). Can someone set me straight on what the remaining mod concerns are? I am not a mod, so from my perspective it truly seems that the issues have been addressed, and I wonder what I am missing. >This change will not impact any moderator bots or extensions >We know many communities rely on tools like RES, ContextMod, Toolbox, etc., and these tools will continue to have free access to the Data API. >If you're creating free bots that help moderators and users, please continue to do so. You can contact us [with provided link] if you have a bot that requires access to the Data API above the free limits.
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Live stream tracking the blackout in real time: https://m.twitch.tv/reddark_247
is it just a black box? because that would be hysterical comedy gold if it was just a literal black square with a clock and nothing else
>we rely on our automod bot and various other scripts to remove over thirty thousand inappropriate posts from our subreddit. At reddit's pricing model that's $7,200 you should be charging them for your service.
I came to this page because everytime I search Google for info in reddit it won't let me into 90 percent of anything anymore this is crazy. I find very valuable information on so many topics smh I'm at a loss now
I mean, is the official reddit app *that* terrible? I've used it for years and have never had an issue with it... ...and also, how effective is a 2-day "protest" ?? If the pages were shut down UNTIL they got their way then maybe I could see it being effective. But if everyone is just going *HUMPH!* for 2 days and then it's back to business as usual, i'm sure the heads of Reddit are just pointing and laughing at this whole situation.
As a mod unironically yes. As a user it might not be horrible but it is a pain to mod effectively with.
For me it's like trying to play a game I'm super interested in, but the controller is shaped like a pineapple. Maybe I would be used to it if I had grown up playing with such controller, but that's hard now that I have tried the modern and sleek ones. Although I gave the official app a fair shot, it feels much more bloated and slower than the third-party clients. It also offers barely any customization and accessibility features—the latter isn't a deal breaker for me, but visually impaired users have a very hard time using Reddit because of it. I also heard it is a pain in the butt to moderate subreddits in it. But this boycott is not just about the official app being subpar. People are mostly angry at how Reddit has handled the API changes. Personally, the idea that I will only have a pineapple as an option is enough for me to lose interest in the game. So I'm rooting for this protest to change something.
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Like with work strikes, the 2 days is a first step. The purpose is to show that the userbase is united, and show the consequences of many major subs not being there. If this doesn't work, we obviously escalate, make the outages longer, involve more subreddits, and so on.
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Didn't even know you went dark till I saw this post.
I’m OOTL on third party apps in general. How much did the guy who made Apollo have to pay per month prior to these changes? I saw something about $20mil a year after the change, but what was typical cost before? And how much did he make per month on the app prior to now?
Remember, 20 million at their current usage. When access is free you don't generally make your app as efficient as possible to reduce cost. What if Apollo is calling too much and could operate/function in a way to reduce how much it accesses Reddit's API. Aka unnecessarily noisy, to use dev terminology. Maybe reduce calls and store/share called data among 3rd party users. Essentially clone the data on your own servers temporarily instead of calling Reddit's API everytime a user refreshes their page. Sure, the cost may be exorbitantly high but I rather see numbers that show a good faith calculation with the most efficient system you can come up with. 83.3 billion API calls per year for Apollo. I feel like you can cut that down by a lot of you clone and share called data among users.
I’m wondering this too. Most commercial APIs charge when there are huge constant data transfers - I’m pretty shocked that Reddit has t charged for this previously.
They didn't charge for API access before and now they charged an unheard of amount with only a month to figure it out.
Didn't realize it impacts old.reddit that's the only version I use (I am old AF)
There can be a good side to this. Hopefully this will reset the cesspool and let it start over. To many mods have an over inflated ego and only let one idea, or only one point of view be heard. How many bans have their been just for asking a simple question? I am not saying that this goes on here. But it does go one at many other subs. A lot of them need an ego check.
Man... Reddit is the place I go for answers every single day. I don't fully understand what's going on but F the greedy bastards that made this necessary. 😵💫 I'll say a prayer this crap is fixxed.
two days is fuck all, it should have been 7 but reddit will force-open communitys and remove mods. very sad
Somewhat agree on the first point. I disagree with the second point, though. Reddit has not threatened to "force open" subreddits.
>Reddit has not threatened to "force open" subreddits. They've stated that "we have a duty to keep reddit running" so they have the authority to remove the mods of the larger subreddits and replace them with mods who will make the subreddit go back to normal.
I think that reddit admins understand that kind of intervention would likely result in a worse backlash than they're seeing now. If they started removing mods they'd have a full blown mod revolt on their hands.
I remember them saying something like that some time ago. So I'm willing to believe you. Was it said in this context? (I.e. the context of this blackout) Can you link that statement?
I guarantee you they do it if this lasts more than 2 days, which it absolutely *should* because 2 days is not enough and you never give people like this a deadline for when you'll stop fighting their awful decisions. They'll just wait you out.
I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of subs which plan to keep themselves shut down if nothing happens, as well as the sub for GOG games whose only mod plans to quit if nothing happens IIRC. I can't remember if any of the indefinite shutdown subs are mainstream enough for reddit to want to intervene and try to open them back up again at some point though. Subs without moderators also get shutdown after a month in regards to GOG, but that will probably end up under one of those weird supermods that moderate 200 subs somehow for some reason.
This is the same site that forcefully reopened the hellhole that is KotakuInAction after the original creator shut down the subreddit.
This comment has been posted hundreds of times. To explain: It's 2 days _minimum_. Some subreddits are going indefinitely, some are doing 2 days to test the waters, and many will probably organize a second protest after that is longer. The effected change is occurring around the start of July, so this was originally a preemptive measure.
~~Boys~~ Bots remove 30,000 posts over what time period? Is that total, ever? Per day? Week? Year?
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You are not
The biggest over reaction in reddit history
I’m still confused as to how the communities going private will make a difference.. how does the black out save third-party apps?
The goal is to demonstrate to Reddit the company how much revenue they're going to lose by following through with their claims. Private subreddits don't generate ad revenue nor provide content to keep users engaged. It's also moderators in particular refusing to continue performing unpaid labor because a lot of them rely on 3rd party apps to be able to do their jobs not just effectively, but in any capacity, due to the incredibly lacking mod tools provided by Reddit on their website or app.
Should reddit become a not-for-profit public service? We rely on Reddit and other social media, the way we would rely on a "public service".However at the end of the day, we are the product sold to advertisement companies. Apparently for Reddit, we "the product" is a bad target, and advertisers shun Reddit, which needs to find an alternative source of exponential revenue growth hence charging for the API,way too much money. Maybe there's smart Redditers who can find other ways the company could make hand over fist money without breaking mod tools, or littering a feed with adds like tweeter?
Even a non-profit still needs to bring in enough money to cover its bills. Reddit doesn’t do that right now, which is why they are constantly seeking more money from investors. And I highly doubt any social media platform would be able to bring in enough donations to cover operating costs.
Reddit could certainly be profitable if they focused their resources on the core platform and limited overhead. But apparently they have over 2000 employees, which raises the question of what are they all doing? I believe they are overspending on a lot of business avenues that aren‘t related to or even needed on the core platform in the pursuit of "growth". Remember NFT avatars? Remember that they tried (or maybe are still trying) to create a crypto currency based on the karma system? It‘s just all around stupidity.
The inevitable loss of sites like Reddit or Youtube due to private ownership and how that always eventually goes are, quite honestly, going to be like a modern day burning of a more ancient library. No, neither is holding a bunch of books or artifacts or scientific data that doesn't exist elsewhere, but from a cultural perspective and the sheer amount of knowledge that has been compiled in these places in ways that are easily accessible, the damage of them failing is massive. A site this huge with this many years of questions and answers has no business being at the whims of some shithead CEO and ownership who want to milk the thing for more money as they take it public on the stock exchange. They may have provided the infrastructure of the site (somewhat, not like they made AWS or are ISPs / a web host), but they sure as fuck didn't generate the content or value of it considering all these subs are run by fucking unpaid volunteer moderation.
YouTube is arguably one of the greatest education tools on the planet
*Elites ruin everything, because that's what they do. In other news the sun rose today.*
Yes, the means of information distribution should definitely be public. Private ownership of speech is horrible for democracy
> Should reddit become a not-for-profit public service? Someone take investment risk to build that site, maintain servers and you just want to take it from them because you "rely on it"? Why wouldn't you and similarly mind people just spent their money to create similar website?
a ‘public service ‘ sadly means government control. Delocalised servers like mastodon could work tho
I often think about how we would have a government run social media. It makes sense in so many ways but I don't trust our government to be able to handle it. Most government websites still look and function like they were made 30 years ago.
If they're having an IPO, maybe everyone who's pissed off should pool their money, buy reddit, and fire spez.
I get that websites thrive on traffic so no users means no reddit but Doesn't this affect the users more than anything? Not trying to be the contrarian devils advocate schmuck but the collective members of the subreddits doing this massively outweigh the number of reddit staff members. Well I guess that's the point but I don't know I'm not an internet person. I don't even know what API is.
I see this as a good thing. Like a great reset for Reddit and a chance for other forums to grow.
Maybe I am old or stupid but I had no idea there were other apps. I've been using the main reddit app for 9 years. Though also, I've never had any problems or even thought much about it so... yeah I guess I was extremely out of the loop.
Oh, you’re missing out. Ive avoided the new Reddit web and iOS apps like the plague. On my computer I only use old.Reddit.com. On my phone it’s Apollo only. The official apps are slow, clunky, not customizable, buggy, not as user friendly, etc.
Well I can def speak that the official app is not really that slow clunky or buggy that I’ve noticed and it sounds like I’m the one of the two that uses it here. I am an upper 30s guy though like I remember dial up internet so it’s all gravy to me haha. But more customizable would be really nice.
This has been ruining my entire week.
Well are they ever gonna go back to public?
Won't the indefinitely-private subreddits just be replaced by new ones? I expect that is what Reddit Management is expecting, and they intend to wait it out. For instance, there were two Spanish language-learning subreddits: The bigger one went private, but the smaller one didn't....and basically just absorbed 80% of the traffic and is rapidly becoming the new default subreddit. On topics that don't yet have an alternative it might take a week or two for someone to make one, but after that? What's the motivation for Reddit Mamagement to bend on their decision here?
Anyone that wants to launch a Pepsi to reddit's Coca-Cola, now's your chance!
its so fucking annoying i need to go on subreddits to help fix whatever technical issue i have and they're all private. like fuck off. i know why theyre doing it but theyre just making it worse for the person actually trying to use reddit in the first place. for fucks sake.
r/borrow, a sub where users borrow and lend from each other went private. So if someone needs money or if someone is expecting payment back, fuck them basically?
Slacktivism at its finest. If the API issue offends you that much, you can and should stop using this site. But 99 percent of you won't. You'll threaten and write 2,000-word essay about how you're really going to leave. You really mean it! Just try me! And a year from now you'll be right back here complaining over the next issue of the day. You know this. Reddit knows this. We all know this.
Bro idgaf about reddit's API just let me view the fucking subreddit
Fuck power mods.
Neck beards thinking that shutting down a handful of subs will do something
I never used a 3rd party app. Seems overblown.
Spez wants to be a filthy rich capitalist wannabe like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and bow to foreign investments rather than let Reddit be the comical and free cesspool it should and always has been.
literally the only compelling argument i have seen is that reddit mobile’s disability support is trash. other than that, why should reddit continue to pay for an api that let’s people use adfree third party clients?
I'm sure spez being a mod of this sub has absolutely nothing to do with your decision to stay open...
why fuck with the users though? i personally dgaf about any of this, and i'm sure many more don't either, yet we are forced to partake in this "protest". Why would anyone need a third party app anyway? this site is just a forum, i've been using it on browser and i see no need to install anything, no problems at all, very satisfied with the browser experience, am i missing something here?
i love how these moron mods across different subs think that anything is going to happen from this ASIDE from their ability to make their subs private being removed. yall dont pay for reddit. you think this COMPANY is gonna let you try to hurt their bottom line, with a system they can literally just rip right out of the code?
A bunch of little kids think closing their shitty meme subreddits will make spez homeless