Sorry, but I’ve just come over from nbacirlejerk and I’ve become convinced this is the stupidest shit in existence lol r/nba closed down during the biggest game of the season so that, like, a handful of developers could sell apps?
If you’re so into reddit that you have to download an app, it’s gulag time.
It's some lib ass protest that won't change shit.
Third party apps are essential for visually impaired users and moderation, as :reddit-logo: doesn't have a functional first party app.
As for me, I deleted my :reddit-logo: account and all this has done was lib up lemmy and give us some good dunk tank content.
People who moderate subreddits actually do use reddit enough to use an app. They're also the ones making these decisions.
Moderators are also unpaid laborers who are needed to make the site function, so it's neat that they're fighting back somehow. Though a limited time shutdown is a lib-ass protest that won't do anything.
:downbear:
Reddit's mobile site and official app have such terrible UIs that they're basically unusable.
AlienBlue was allegedly halfway decent before Reddit bought it out and twisted it into an ad delivery torment nexus. (They added the ad delivery part; :reddit-logo: was already a torment nexus.)
I think fucking up reddit is a noble, if doomed, cause.
I also think this was entirely predictable. APIs get put in place to help a small platform gain adoption. Once a company grows big enough, and they try to monetize, an API is just a liability so they tighten the screws. As soon as reddit announced an ipo, this was already written.
It's just one more example of capital making something intentionally worse so they can sell a solution.
The apps are either entirely or mostly free. They just allow for things like disability accessibility, a cleaner UI, and the bots moderators use to keep the website functional. Those three things are legitimate demands.
I think the strike is good whether or not it succeeds as long as it makes people hate reddit more, both as a company and as a platform. They're starting to really mishandle the response right before their IPO launch. We're seeing a user exodus to better websites and a lot of discontent from those remaining. Whatever becomes of that it's not good for reddit and risks expanding the strike as other moderators respond to the crackdown.
I mean the people that moderate and curate the communities use the third party apps and tools to work for Reddit for free, if Reddit wants moderators to only use the built-in Reddit tools they better start paying for moderation like any other social media platform.
The userbase of Reddit and subreddits like NBA circle jerk just want everything done and made for them with no effort, so they can post some silly meme or get a curated news feed while someone else does all the work in the background to make that possible.
Third party apps are pretty much all free, with usually a premium tier for an advertisement free experience. If Reddit is so concerned about losing ad revenue they could just return adverts from the API and force third party apps to implement them. The developers aren't just shilling apps, for some of them this is basically their job, and for Reddit to unfairly personally attack their work as "inefficient" is extremely unprofessional. Especially when the developers have been open the whole time, even publicly publishing their backend server code to debunk Reddit's claims.
I'm pretty sure the guy who made Apollo was willing to give it to Reddit for a few million, but they turned him down
and then said that his offer (which was more a joke along the lines of "these API changes are going to cost me $20 million a month to keep all these users on your website, but I'll sell my whole app to you for 10 lmao") was a blackmail threat
I think it is good that it happened. It has/will accomplish nothing for Reddit, but it will also demonstrate to the libs once again that their slacktivism is a dead end. Meanwhile, Lemmy is up to 120,000 users (plus another 10,000 on Kbin), which is an absolute sea change. Of course, they are Redditors, which isn't great for Lemmy, but the proliferation of AGPL federated social media is a victory none the less.
I think there is some potential for social media strikes like this. If this action took the form of a user/mod union, with actual organization, a negotiating committee, and more serious leverage at their disposal, it could have potentially did something. Although ultimately inconsequential, the blackout was a much better showing than anything which materialized on Twitter in protest of Elon's changes.
If you’re so into reddit that you have to download an app, it’s gulag time.
Yeah lets gulag disabled people who need the accessibility features to use the site lmao.
I really hope you were simply unaware of this angle OP.
Counterpoint: disabled liberals going onto Reddit to post how Chinese people need to die.
Yeah that'd be great! Loss of information online is my favorite!
This would have an unacceptable blowback on people who are not steve huffman imho. Archival is very important to me.
Relying on silicon valley corporations to archive useful information is def a fave
I dont want to rely on them but i dont really see other good options on the table. The forums are gone so all the info is on reddit.
IMO the fediverse is a good FOSSy option if it can get some momentum (probably during Reddit-fuckup 2.0 in like 2 or 3 years when more people leave, and the software is more resilient).
Its a stupid slapfight between extremely online nerds. It made reddit more usable though and all the left subs should have stayed open to capitalize on it, don't know why deprogram shut down. If they really wanted to do something that worked they would have shut-down indefinitely or left it open but simply stopped modding
"If you’re so into reddit that you have to download an app, it’s gulag time."
But some of my favorite maker blogs of old were subsumed into reddit and you can't use it for ten seconds before it harasses you once again to download their app :kitty-cri:
Old.reddit.com is the only way to access it tbh
And I'm sure they are gonna get rid of that next
I just want my Google reader rss feed with >300 personally curated little blogs back. My internet experience has never been more comfy.
Those hobbies used to be on independent forums before Reddit came and killed them all
The old forum format has to die, tree-based comment structures with up and downvotes makes it so much easier for people to find stuff. The old way of one long linear thread with breakout arguments playing out in the chain is just no way to present information.
and reddit was massively more convenient than dozens of forums
My big hope is that hexbear federating with lemmy brings more access to hobby-related stuff. I love this site, but it just doesn't have enough people to support hobby stuff, especially not niche hobby stuff.
Yeah, I mean look at c/sports. Like what the hell. It should be more active, but also the problem is that it's not specific enough either.
can't disagree more, the fact that every niche hobby community is now relegated to the hell that is reddit is one of the worst developments in the history of the internet
the format of reddit is just fundamentally terrible for fostering healthy communities, but very good at encouraging "debate" (petty arguments with insufferable nerds)
Very ineffective as far as protests go but it was cool that it meant that r/frasier was on the front page at one point
They're talking about making the "blackout" indefinite, like a real strike. I think there's a lot of agitated moderators who could be convinced to further organize there.
