Reddit’s crisis is a warning for all social platforms: when you trade community for profits, everyone loses. Will Reddit fix its mes...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19466667

Money, Mods, and Mayhem

The Turning Point

In 2024, Reddit is a far cry from its scrappy startup roots. With over 430 million monthly active users and more than 100,000 active communities, it’s a social media giant. But with great power comes great responsibility, and Reddit is learning this lesson the hard way.

The turning point came in June 2023 when Reddit announced changes to its API pricing. For the uninitiated, API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it’s basically the secret sauce that allows third-party apps to interact with Reddit. The new pricing model threatened to kill off popular third-party apps like Apollo, whose developer Christian Selig didn’t mince words: “Reddit’s API changes are not just unfair, they’re unsustainable for third-party apps.”

Over 8,000 subreddits went dark in protest.

The blackout should have reminded Reddit’s overlords of a crucial fact: Reddit’s success was built on the backs of its users. The platform had cultivated a sense of ownership among its community, and now that community was biting back.

One moderator summed it up perfectly: “We’re the ones who keep this site running, and we’re being ignored.”

  • Nytefyre@kbin.melroy.org
    782·
    3 months ago

    And Spez’s response?

    “OMG! STOP GOING DARK OR I AND MY LEGION OF SLIME ADMINS WILL REMOVE YOU FROM POWAH!”

    And so he did which is why some subreddits came back from being dark. Some subreddits submitted to their own fates. Other subreddits reluctantly came back, proving the protest was just a mere farce that amounted to a nothingburger.

    And what did Spez do after the whole fiasco? Why, he punched Reddit into now being Public. Completing what people had long speculated that he’d do.

    And what did Spez do after that? He’s now rolling out the concept that Subreddits will be monetized.

    Spez has ultimately learned nothing from these incidents and expects it to get better, with that stupid shit eating grin on his face because he huffs and breathes in all of Musk’s farts.

    • AtomicHotSauce@lemmy.worldEnglish
      262·
      3 months ago

      he huffs and breathes in all of Musk’s farts

      This is comedic gold. But the bad part? I envisioned it. Thanks a lot.

    • abbadon420@lemm.ee
      19·
      3 months ago

      And he’s getting rich off of it too. I mean, that’s his whole gain, right? Money! He’s given his soul for money. The whole community hates him, but at least he’s gotten rich now. I’m sure reddit’s annual founders parties must be a hoot.

      • Nytefyre@kbin.melroy.org
        142·
        3 months ago

        For a group of so-called intellectuals and rowdy revolutionists, Reddit users seem to have a knack for taking it up dry than doing anything about their problems.

        I guess that is truly Reddit’s nature.

        • OutlierBlue@lemmy.caEnglish
          7·
          3 months ago

          For a group of so-called intellectuals and rowdy revolutionists

          Those were the early days of Reddit. They’re long gone now that everyone has joined. Those so-called intellectuals and rowdy revolutionists have now abandoned Reddit. It’s mostly just the sheep left there now.

          It’s the same story with Twitter.

        • PlexSheep@infosec.pub
          1·
          3 months ago

          Well, it’s dort of an anti-survivorship bias. Those that still sick around seem to not care even if it gets as bad as the other Corpo sites.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        What does he care if a bunch of people that he thinks are losers hate him? He’s sitting on his private yacht, anchored just off his private country club, and eating lobster in the hot tub. He’s a major world player now. He doesn’t give a fuck what reddit users think of him.

    • ramble81@lemm.ee
      18·
      3 months ago

      Spez has ultimately learned nothing

      He’s learned he can do this shit and make money. It may not be a perpetual money machine. But he now has enough and will milk it for all that’s left. That’s what he’s learned.

    • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      Oh the irony getting removed by a mod here. Although its probably in the mod logs somewhere with an actual reason :)

      • laverabe@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        3 months ago

        actually it’s not … An admin banned OP (troll account). Seems that no record of comment exists. Kinda a bug in the Lemmy software where logs of banned accounts aren’t stored, or at least I don’t know how to see them.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      What do you think he would learn? He got like $190 million dollars in compensation last year, broke the protest, and only lost a small fraction of users. He doesn’t view the site with the same love that we did. It’s just a business to him, and he’s just a soulless executive.