Technology

I'll be real: I don't want to go back. I want a return to actual communities and comradery, and an exodus from "social" influencers, on ad-riddled and bloated soap boxes.

As someone who really only went on Reddit for memes and techie discussions, I think I can say this: for my use-case, there was nothing special about Reddit itself. In fact, one thing I have realized is just how little the nature of the host matters beyond ease of use. Sure, certain formats lend themselves better to certain use-cases, but ultimately humans are social creatures, and even in the most inconvenient of circumstances, we find a way to make it work.

And once you realize that, it becomes less about the medium, and more about the people who lead the discourse. From what I can gather, Reddit lost that discourse a long time ago. And as such, their downfall was only a matter of time.

• 100% backpedal on all controversial changes announced within the previous 6 months; including any changes announced at the same time as said controversial changes.
• Form a task force of admins and developers to backport all; critical moderation tools and changes introduced since the new.reddit launch; to old.reddit. (Complete this task within 1-2 years.)
• Irrevocably Hard remove with no severance /u/spez from his CEO position and any position of power at reddit.
• Hire a new CEO from the pool of the community team(s).
• Cease all Dickery at once
• CANCEL THE IPO!!!!! This shit needs to wait until reddit gets it's act together.
• Prioritize hiring humans to run reddit AEO; choose them from your MASSIVE FUCKING POOL OF SUBREDDIT MODERATORS! DO NOT USE AI OR HIRE ANYONE WHO HASN'T MANAGED AT LEAST 25K USER SUBS
• Ban all forms of facism; this is including forms of EXTREME viewpoints that grossly exceed reasonable discourse, peaceful free speech, advocate for extremist governmental regulation, violence or oppression of any kind against any group or subset of people.
• fuck /u/spez - Just make sure he never gets a C-Level job again please.
• continue to build reddit out in a way that allows for fair and ethically priced services from reddit (Ads, unlimited API access, rev sharing, premium features that are cosmetic items only, etc)
• Pick up the same "Do No Evil" ethos that Google abandoned; prioritize your users and revenue equally and balance the obligations better.

CEO resignation. A big fuck you to IPO? Apollo continuing. None of this will happen though.

I never considered going back. Lemmy is forward. More power to the users and the community and less from greedy shareholders. This is the way.

I've heard for a lot of time about these federated social media (lemmy, mastodon...) and I really like it. The interface is not bloated, no bullshit notifications, no ads, no damn algorithms that try so hard to spoonfeed me taking 60% of my feed, taking place for the communities I am actually interested into.

If I could put it into words, lemmy feels a lot like early 2010's social media, fewer people, less stakes, just a bunch of people enjoying some topic (it is ironic, since I started to use Reddit because it seemed to be the only mainstream place left where you can talk with real people). Anyways, I am enjoying it, more than "What would Reddit need to do to get you back?" I would prefer more posts like "What should Lemmy improve to keep you here?".

Honestly I really don't see much of a future for profit-driven social media. Time and time again we've seen that power over communication is just too much power for an individual company to have. The fediverse makes a lot of sense, but I'm not sure if it's the ultimate end state. It would be very nice if it were

Reddit was dead from the day Conde Nast bought it. Every day since then was a roll of the dice as to whether they'd attempt to seize more profits and ruin it, or not. This happens to essentially every public or aspiring public company eventually. The need for perpetual growth warps decisions and guts the original mission in the end.

We call it "autosarcophagy" or "self-cannibalism."

As I understand it, Reddit also took on a lot of external capital investment, which only makes the pressure to perform financially even greater. I can't fault them for making the decisions they have to make to keep their jobs, keep their executive salaries, and so on.

Long live the sustainable, community-driven, community-funded future! Nobody can screw this up for us if we are the ones footing the bill.

Reddit is not what it ought to be. It's overwhelming toxic environment just ruins what could have been a great forum. But it is what it is and for that reason, I'm out.

Going back at this point would be like returning to an abusive partner and thinking that the relationship could actually be better this time.

I'm done.

The subs I moderated have either gone dark, or are going dark in the next ciuple days.

And with that I let the mod teams I was a part of know that I am moving on. I hate what reddit did to the community, and my time feels better spent where it will be appreciated.

if reddit becomes federated I'll consider subscribing

Even if they revert the API changes, I know It's only going to get worse when the IPO happens, so I don't think I could ever come back. I also like the federated approach more anyways 🤷

Return in all aspects to how it used to be in 2014 or earlier, but it will never happen because enshittification cannot be reverted.

That includes the bloated inefficient new design that includes an intentionally hostile mobile website that shits the bed on 3G connections, the echo chamber machinery, random layout shifts, NSFW login walls, automated censorship and shadowbanning, the privileges for the big subreddits and the big sponsored powermods.

It couldn't. The enshittification has long since begun.

For a while I thought "fire Spez", but after giving it some more thought....

NOTHING! and I'll elaborate on why. The community of people makes or breaks social media platforms (see, Twitter as prime example). If the owner(s) aren't interested in the well being of the community / communities, then I have no interest in being there.

become a 501(c)(3)

I'll go back if Reddit:

• Makes it feasible for 3rd party apps to continue on the platform. This could be a revenue-sharing agreement, a set price that's not prohibitively expensive but still fairly compensates Reddit, a flat-out exemption from the Enterprising Pricing, doesn't matter. These apps have been around far longer than Reddit's own app, and provide tools (and general polish) the Official App has yet to match seven years in. They deserve to stay and to make a living off of their continued contribution to the community.
• Restores parity access to NSFW content via the API. It's essential for moderation bots to combat spam, it helps 3rd party apps stay afloat, and it serves a large part of the community. I get that Reddit wants to sanitize the site in preparation for an IPO. I get that advertisers are wary of NSFW posts. That's not an excuse for removing it from the API. The official ad-supported Reddit app will continue to serve up porn, and the currently proposed API prevents 3rd party clients from using ads anyway. Reddit is making a bad-faith argument that harms moderation bots' ability to do their job, and cripples any 3rd party app that isn't driven from the platform based on price (including 2 "accessibility only" apps they were forced to allow during the AMA).
• Apologizes to the Apollo dev for Spez's libelous statements, and starts a good-faith negotiation with developers to open access for things like the enhanced query system that the 1st party app enjoys, usage statistics that will help devs improve API request efficiency, and revenue sharing where devs can monetize using ads or any other method they choose so long as Reddit gets a cut.

Yes, these demands go further than a simple rollback of the new API policy, but at the same time they don't. Reddit's originally stated goal for this change was to keep 3rd party apps around because they add tremendous value to the ecosystem, while stopping the LLM training bots from getting off rent-free when they try to train their AI models off of our hard work. I love that goal. It's something we can all get behind. I just wish they'd actually do it.

But even if I go back, it will be with one foot out the door. The dam has broken, and I plan to campaign hard for alternatives and switch to whichever one hits critical mass first.

I think many people were looking for a reason to leave but kind of felt stuck seeing all the alternatives being either dead or abrasive.

Lemmy seems to have captured the soul of what a significant portion of people have already been looking for.

Spez resigning and free API access to all third party apps as it was before.

Honestly though? Lemmy is reminding me of old reddit and I'm enjoying it so who knows if I'd even go back if this site keeps growing at the rate that it is.

For me, it is too far gone at this point. The events of the last ~week just highlighted something that I was willfully ignorant of in that it has not been the website I joined back in 2007 for a very long time. VC-backed focus on monetization, profit, return on investment, and ipo (and everything that comes along with that) has ramped up tremendously in the last few years and I think this is now the tipping point of Reddit doing a Digg.

It's a bummer, but not shocking or surprising as it follows a long line of exactly the same pattern, across tech. I'll have fond memories for sure, but have accepted it and am ready to move on to something new.

Also, this is my first post. Happy to be here!

Reddit as an entity is just frustrating. Not just the recent debacle, but the pattern of getting slightly more awful with each passing minute. I'm hoping I enjoy my stay here well enough that I never feel the urge to go back. Unfortunately, it's less about what Reddit can do to get me back and more about what the Fediverse can do to keep me.

I liked seeing and engaging with unlimited new things with each passing moment. It would not be very satisfying for me to lose that. Time will tell.

I won't be back honestly.

The fact that they are "willing" to go this route is the writing on the wall.

I also find it so interesting that people and reddit themselves see the platform as "Social Media" and development is has been going that way.

I see it as a link aggregator and forum and treat it as such. I just want to find information, comment about it and have it as dense and "clean" on my screen as possible. but The fact that it looks like another Facebook and instagram clone and it is gonna be the only way to experience it is a hell no from me.

while i have been liking my time here, i can’t say i’ll never go on reddit again. i’d like for lemmy to become my primary browsing platform, but there simply isn’t my favourite niche communities on here- in particular r/namenerds, r/battlejackets, r/posthardcore, and all the bullet journalling subs. unless those communities migrate, i’ll still go on reddit (yes, mobile) to engage with them, since those are some of my favourite hobbies, even if i’m hoping to spend more time with lemmy.

If Reddit announced sustainable pricing for the APIs, backpedaled on the NSFW limitations and gave a timeline to make the official app accessible for the visually impaired and apologized to all the people who have been defamed I could consider going back.

Probably need to open source at least their core software and algorithm. Allow third party app to exist. It would be best if they turn into non-profit, but I am not against for-profit organization.

Allow rif or allow more customization for listview in app. I'm gonna stick around but only on desktop probably. That will be significantly less than my mobile usage.

It's too late, this is just the culmination of something that started a long time ago.

I mostly left when they killed the compact UI. Only using it on my laptop from time to time.

At this point, it's only going to get worse. It's a very large Venture Capital backed company, on track to IPO.

Large VC/public companies goals will follow more of what we see with "mainstream" sites and social media. It'd be against their goals and their business to have less ads, less agorithms showing what their partners want to see and not what the user wants to see, less bloat on their front end. Even if the CEO wanted to go that way, he'd quickly be replaced.

It's a self sustaining movement of capital now and users are annoyances that they have to deal to achieve their goals.

I'll be honest, I started using redding decade ago because most forums were very niche, specific, with weird to follow rules, very low on users, and reddit seemed to always have a community for each topic I had an interest on. It still does, but the end is approaching fast, and I don't want to search Discord servers, social media videos, or even ancient methods that are alternatives like IRC servers, mailing lists ; search results are useless in Google due to SEO and already affect other search engines

It all comes up to finding one or more sites that don't look ancient or too mobile focused, and if enough people are going to use it and stick to it. Otherwise it'll just be another corner of the web filled with a few crazy users

Frankly, right now I'm mostly doing this to spite Reddit. I'll probably use both interchangably later, for the smaller subs that won't suffer much.

Don’t think I’ll ever go back, no matter what they do going forward. The team at Reddit (or at least a good chunk of the “top dogs”) have shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted. They are slowly boiling the frog, and if they notice they’ve turned the temperature too high, they’ll lower it, and then try to increase it again, just more slowly than last time. They have been doing this for years, but this was a step too far for me

Tbh, if they undid the api change, and also stopped banning communities left and right, id consider it. Atm, lemmy seems like its becoming a farleft monoculture and that is one aspect where it is worse then reddit

A week ago: Bring down the API costs. I’d have begrudgingly accepted paying a few extra bucks a year for Apollo Ultra.

Today: Nothing. Reddit admins acted like smug children in the face of the Apollo Dev’s good faith questions, then the CEO and admins pulled the stunt of trying to act like the dev threatened them. Then the CEO doubled down on that story in the sham AMA. I don’t want to feed that machine anymore.

I have edited and then deleted all my posts and comments except for a few final ones that will go soon. I will keep the account but only as a point of contact for some people until I get them all contacting my email instead.

Nice try, /u/spez…!

But seriously, I guess none of any further actions to try to fix the whole thing would change that bad gut feeling of being held as a fool that I now have. Mostly due to how they treated Christian Selig.

i kind of want reddit to die now. people talking to one another shouldn’t be monetized or debased through some spyware algorithm run by antisocial dickheads.