Technology

Lemmy is also ad free. Love that.

Same here. Reddit had me going only on inertia for the past few years. Whether they revert their API lalala doesn't matter - the communities are broken and I don't feel like getting up again.

And even if through some divine intervention they manage to repair the communities, I'm like... eh. I went to sit over here now and it's comfy.

If they allowed RiF to continue, I'd still use it. I'll pop over on certain subreddits occasionally after July 1st. But I'm enjoying various lemmy instances right now, especially Beehaw.

Im pretty close to this as well. I think if they did a 180, and like, showed an ACTUAL attempt to right the ship, I would consider going back via Apollo.

But that said, I've been using Lemmy this week, and out of curiosity I've been comparing it with my reddit feed at the end of the day, and yeah. I really haven't missed out on anything important.

I mostly used Reddit as a way to waste time, or get info on the latest big things, like all the Trump stuff for example, and Lemmy is doing just fine getting me that kind of info.

I think we're gonna see another huge blow to Reddit in a few days when all the third-party apps go permanently offline. I'll bet that a lot of people who haven't been paying attention so far are definitely going to start having something to say about it very soon.

Or it becomes mostly unmoderated, near a major election, at the same time as twitter turns into disinfo central.

Sure, and Digg got its way with the redesign back in the day.

It looks like it is going to be a pyrrhic victory for Spez. You're right in that we don't know the knock-on effects of this decision, including if Reddit can get long time users to jump to the official app and if moderators will continue volunteering time.

I suspect a lot of subs are now going to create contingency plans for leaving Reddit, even if they don't implement them.

Depends, on what you call winning.

Sure, he will get his way. He will make his changes.

But- I do believe the original goals were profit-motivated.

I'd be willing to bet- the mass exodus of users, is going to hamper his plans pretty significantly.

The time frame up to the IPO (I don't know how that timing works) seems to be what is critical. Right now Reddit has been unprofitable. The CEO took on massive new levels of expenses via staffing with no real plan (or it didn't work?) for how to pay for those expenses. This bad faith "negotiation" on API seems aimed at... I guess trading 3rd party utility and to some extent the community for the ability to sell data to AI industry?

I guess we will see but pick a time frame and none of it looks good for Reddit.

They did say he's "the Kmart version of Elon Musk" which I thought was quite funny.

This point struck me too:

Reddit is under no obligation to make its API free. But, it seems, the company has overreached in enforcing the new policy. If its target is the largest AI firms, then it should focus on curbing their parasitic proclivities and not going after beloved and useful software its users and moderators depend on.

This is my feeling. I understand that it could cost something. But the eye-watering rates for the small fish and the speed of the extortion is the issue.

I mean he always has the power to strongarm everyone else.

But the consequence is giant boycotts and decay. Idk if winning is the right word. It's like going to war and declaring a win because both nations are destroyed.

I don’t think the ship is doomed yet but they’re definitely in ‘what is that ominous noise coming from the bilge’ territory. To carry on the analogy they’ll plug the leaks as best they can and try and make it to the safe harbour of the IPO (where she can sink at her mooring for all Spez cares) which they could still well do, but it’s also likely the captain and his officers being half-baked sons of lubberly farts will smash into several reefs on the way and sink their already damaged vessel.