this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 176 points 1 year ago (21 children)

Well, user traffic has returned to normal, but we also have to consider that it's just traffic. Some of that traffic is also a bunch of people talking about Reddit, protesting, etc.

That being said, I don't think Reddit will die from this, but it doesn't need to in order for the Fediverse to succeed. All it needs is to push enough people onto federated services and kickstart it, just like Twitter did with Mastodon. We aren't going to all switch overnight, it will be a gradual process.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (6 children)

My own reddit traffic has dropped right off since I discovered Lemmy. For now this place has the feel of the early internet: democratic, distributed and friendly. It really makes clear how repugnant Reddit has become.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

It really does have that feel!

As someone who was around back then, being in the fediverse actually makes me feel young and lighthearted again.

I hadn't fully realised quite how soul-sucking the corporate web 2.0 was until now I'm completely off it.

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[–] [email protected] 117 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

A lot of sentiment seems to suggest that for Lemmy or the fediverse to succeed Reddit has to fail.

I don't get that opinion at all. Reddit had become overwhelming bloated. A popular thread would have thousands of comments. Most of which would be near identical. Only the most up voted would ever be read and typically they had to have been commented while the thread was new.

The internet is vast, there is plenty of room for multiple social media to exist.

If you dislike what reddit has become then ignore it. If you still wish to use it then you can do so side by side with using Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agreed. To me, Lemmy (or the fediverse for that matter) succeeded because it offered me an alternative to reddit. It doesn't need to become the #1 to be worth something.

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[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (27 children)

I think that it's important to note the 1% rule.

Most of the traffic of any given platform will be created by people who interact with it only passively; they mostly lurk and, for good or bad, they don't care about it. Admins this, mods that, who the fuck cares, my cat pics sprout spontaneously from the internet.

In the meantime the people who actually contribute with the platform will be a tiny fraction of it. They don't add traffic, but they add value - because they're the ones responsible for creating the content (posting), aggregating value to the content (commenting), sorting the content (voting and moderating). The admins' decisions and the mod revolts affected specially bad this group. And... well, not even the stupid like to be called stupid, and that's basically what the admins did.

Now consider the link. The lurkers are back to Reddit because there's still content to be consumed there, but eventually it'll run dry - because the contributors are leaving the site. As such, you don't expect the mod revolts to have a short-term impact on the site, but rather a long-term one: the site will become less and less popular over time, as the lurkers are looking for content there and... well, nobody is providing them jack shit. Eventually the site will be forgotten by the masses, just like Digg was.

So Reddit will die, mind you. But it won't be a sudden death; it'll be a slow bleeding.

I just wish that this process was slightly faster, specially before the IPO.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This lurker won't (trying to not lurk here). I am happy to get away from there, enough content (and better quality) is here.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I'm not surprised, but you can't forget that a lot of people on reddit don't really post or comment a lot. I myself was one of them, I'm way more active here than I ever was on reddit though.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same.

I feel like the people here are way more open for discourse, which makes it a lot less scary to voice your thoughts.

Still haven't posted anything though, I'm not a conversation starter, but rather a participant. XD

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Am I the only one who thinks that having only a 7% dip in visits and a 16% reduction in time spent on site is really unusual when over 99% of the site was dark for 48 hours? To me, that suggests that something fucky is going on with the count of real users vs bots on the site.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (3 children)

https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/72348

Based on the numbers in this post it's fair to assume reddit is 90% bots.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

Huffman has fully torpedoed any credibility he held before this fiasco. I don't trust any statements he could exert influence over.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I'm going to continue using rif until it shuts down at the end of the month but there's no way I'm downloading their shitty app. I have a feeling a lot of people are in the same boat.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Enjoying the last week of Apollo, greatest app of all time!

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am at an over my dead body moment with reddit. I don't care what their numbers say I'm not going back.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I was on that moment for years, just there was no real substitute. Hopefully, lemmy will remain big enough.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The amount of content I'm seeing over here these days lets me know that despite whatever the numbers tell you reddit lost sizeable amounts of community members and content producers. What these statistics hide is the massive dent in reddits free labor pool of mods that are likely done with the platform.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Lemmy has beyond exceeded my expectations of quantity and quality of content. I will pass by reddit occasionally but its become clear that the Fediverse concept can actually work. It has issues that need to be solved, but the minds behind it are very smart and motivated to find a way to make it keep working. The rate of PR's getting merged into lemmy 0.18 are wild.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's fine. I'm sure the passive masses will show back up.

The real problem is content creators and such are or have already left. And well, I'm here, as are all of you!

Passive consumers are a massive force, and will go where the wind blows. But they actively do little. And, about them... Who cares?

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

On June 12, 2023, nothing happened on Reddit ~~Square~~ Forum. The so called "Moderator Purge" is a hoax invented by communist/fascist Lemmy propagandists. Reddit is a great platform, the best on the entire world wide web. Lemmy is a backward spam-filled/virus-infested/ad-ridden website filled with communists and fascists. Long live ~~Chairman~~ CEO Spaz.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Not completely normal. I deleted my account that was old enough to sign up for most websites on its own. I'm not the only one.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Haven't deleted either of both of my 14 yr accounts yet, but I haven't been on Reddit since the blackout and have plans to nuke it all after I navigate new subscriptions and think it through.

FWIW, I find the experience a refreshing re-start, just like when Digg and Slashdot fucked up and I'm already seeing shit posting, memes, and fresh content galore on Lemmy in just the last week. I doubt I'll go back to Reddit except for some esoteric solutions that I find in searches.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So to start with, who cares? Fuck Nestle and fuck Reddit. Stop giving them what they want, visibility.

Second is that I call bullshit. Either this is a straight up paid advertisement or Reddit just games the numbers to get them to where they wanted.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I absolutely think that the numbers are correct. If Reddit is a habit for you you will not break it immediately (unless you really dislike the changes). This is just time spent, not how much users enjoy it. And if they don't enjoy the content as much because the quality dropped they will start looking for alternatives. But for most that is a long term thing.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (8 children)

"Returns to normal"... minus one user.

[–] harbinger 26 points 1 year ago

And my axe.

Yep that's a reddit throwback but I deleted my 14yo account 2 weeks ago and have actively avoided them since.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why are all these posts about reddit being posted to /c/Technology? There are so many dedicated reddit communities. The "news" about whatever is going on (or not) over there doesn't need to keep cluttering up this community.

Especially when they are all the same thing. Either "zomg reddit is removing mods" or "zomg reddit is totally back to normal we promise, please come back if you haven't"

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know that is bs because I haven't been there in days and I probably added 100 visits a day to their stats. So they're at least a couple hundred shy. Suck my balls spez.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (11 children)

the people still on reddit after the 30th when the third party apps close down, i personally believe can stay there indefinitely. these people, and i, do not exist on the same wavelength.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I am not sure I believe that, it might be that bots can be active again now that the subreddits are reopened, but I know that I am not back. And I won't be back, and I think a lot of people are staying away as well. That the traffic is now normal seems a bit sketchy.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Don't know about you all, but I will continue to check reddit until Sync for reddit stops working. On July 1st, if it's no longer working, reddit is gone.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reddit bots and AI have returned Reddit traffic to Normal. They don't need no stinkin' human users causing problems.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Tumblr is still alive, but it's a shell of what it used to be. Given the behavior of Spez, it's only a matter of time before Reddit ends up the same.

Imagine the kinds of fuckery that will happen when Reddit has shareholders.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm very curious how this is going to play out. This mostly concerns the core userbase, as in mods and the people who are the most active on Reddit. If a significant portion of those wanders off (or is straight up banned), I could see the platform desolate slowly and painfully.

I mean, they lose content and moderation. I would be very surprised if they can replace the volunteers and still maintain the quality of the moderation.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My guess is that Reddit loses about 5% of traffic by shutting off API access. It isn't great, but it isn't bad either. Spez treats it as a win.

Mod burnout becomes a big thing in a year, with many major subs starting to lock threads and blanket ban harder as the more experienced mods leave and the new set isn't really prepared to handle the workload. A lot of the best of this new block are going to be alt-right, and you'll slowly see subs become more friendly to alt-right views. Mod abuse gets a lot worse.

As the entire site becomes r/conservative, expect the fights that happened with r/The_Donald to be worse and make the site more unusable. This will probably drive off more users as "everything is political". Reddit won't keep its promises on building better mod toolkits, and a lot of LBGT groups leave for other sites.

As the website starts to see a shrinking user base and still hasn't made money, either Spez or a successor goes full Twitter Musk and cuts staff to the bone in hopes of trying to keep some revenue.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Enshitification doesn't happen over night. It might be months before the needle moves. Platforms die because users seek alternatives, but everyone has a different threshold for when they decide to jump ship. Most people just are not paying attention and will only leave when they experience the shit of Enshitification first hand.

And that hasn't happened on Reddit. Yet...

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Without my daily traffic that's a fact.... Haven't been back there now for 3 to 4 weeks and was a daily consumer / contributor. My relationship with Reddit has ended and zero intention of going back. I have drawn my line in the sand and I'm not supporting the recent shenanigans ! They can kiss my ass.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Until the 30th, then we'll see who actually leaves

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I left and haven't logged in for a few weeks now, so I know at least my traffic is gone.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

I'm only using Reddit to check in on things until the 1st.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This article will age poorly in a week. And like milk in about a month.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I deleted everything and I've not been on for weeks now. Good riddance!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Sure, the party won't stop, but the fun people already left, they are here!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I haven't been on Reddit much since the protests started, and won't be on it once Sync for Reddit stops working.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I see an awful lot of people here who have quote left reddit, and yet they still go back to Reddit every day to see what's going on, or to grab popular posts so they can repost it here and try to get imaginary points or something. All they're really doing is helping inflate metrics like this.

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