I can’t wrap my head around this, it seems so bizarre. The only reason I’m here now is because I joined Apollo right after Reddit changed its app to remove the sort by rising feature. It completely changed my experience on the app for the worse and I sought out an alternative, and I know I’m not the only one that had this complaint. I was a faithful Reddit user/poster on the official app for 6 years until just a few months ago. Why would they make their app less user friendly a few months before announcing the crazy API changes. They drove me away from their app and then drove me away from the site altogether.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? It just makes no sense to me
Counter to what many will want you to believe, I think there may be a business case to what they’re doing… but how they’re doing it is completely dumb.
Imagine you run Reddit. You’ve got 15+ years of history and baggage (I.E. those of us who knew which sub /u/spez moderated). You’ve got handful of loyal users that have been very resistant to changes. They’ve been vocal about the new UI where you can spam ads. They’ve been vocal against chat in favor of legacy PM. But you’ve got no way to convert them to the new and shiny features which helps you monetize better that you’d want to focus more effort on.
So what do you do? You sunset older interfaces like the i.reddit.com / .mobile interface. You cripple old reddit. You don’t give new features to the API. You continue to build your new site and acquire new users who’s entire experience had been the new system with nothing to compare to. Old users resistant to change will either be forced to convert or leave… until eventually you get only users in the new system.
Killing the API and third party apps is just a very aggressive step. They’re pruning their old user base for the new.
Is it the best way? Heck no. The older users are active contributors. Their solution aren’t up to speed yet. And they’ve literally thrown decade+ of goodwill down the toilet. But, they have metrics, and I’m sure their bean counters have guaranteed their leadership that they will survive… and they almost certainly will. Just look at Twitter still limping along despite the mass exodus. Just like Digg before Reddit, Reddit will survive and continue to exist. It will be very different than what you and I are used to both in terms of look and feel, functionalities, and communities. But it will survive.
I don’t think I would’ve approached it the same way. But maybe that’s why I’m not rich and running big companies. 🤷♂️
FWIW, Reddit had a revenue sharing deal with rif, at the very least. Apparently when spez returned as CEO he shut it down.
Well aware; I’m sure it is almost certainly peanuts. Android users are well known in the industry as significantly less willing to pay than iOS users. Google also takes a significant cut of all transactions, as do third party payment processors. By the time everyone get their hands on it, there’s not much left for the dev to share with Reddit. Why have a liability of a “paying customer” that barely generate anything when you can actively work your magic to that “paying customer”'s detriment and steal their user base to where you can monetize better yourself? You could say Spez had this in mind from the get-go.
It’s cynical, but there’s probably some truth to this.
You’ve got handful of loyal users that have been very resistant to changes.
Let’s be real: almost all of the subs’ mods caved when they were threatened with loss of their precious power. A bunch of subs have been operating as business as usual this whole time. Give it a month, and scabs leading apathetic users (many of whom are children) will have settled the ruins and filled in the cracks.
Yes, after those of us who cares leaves, the gaps will be filled quickly, and eventually our existence wiped from the platform. This is why it is even more important for mods to re-open and direct the community to their new destinations, while maintaining the narrative while they still have the platform to do so. That window is rapidly closing, and I think by now it is clear Reddit Inc will not change their stance, no matter the public outcry and pressure.
I’m of the opinion that they should try to start as many fires and destroy as much of the value of the website as possible, all the while directing people to alternative communities. It’s not sustainable, but enough chaos and loss might cause the admins to reevaluate the risk of trying something like this in the future. There’s a reason some animals evolved poison that only works after they’re eaten.
A lot of the reopenings were decided with a user vote. I do think though that the people prepared to move on weren’t around for the vote, so it skewed towards those who didn’t care about the API drama.
I know /r/RPG wants more users to vote than they have any chance of getting before they’ll consider further closures, and /r/Minecraft wanted to respect the users that voted, but caved as soon as the admins said they’d be removed, despite the poll.
What sub did /u/spez used to moderate?
r/jailbait
Because reddit is run by a bunch of greedy losers who want to go public, pump, dump, and fuck off to wherever the next Little Saint James is.
I really just think they didn’t want the API user base anymore. They want a tightly controlled ecosystem of vanilla content by vanilla users to sell to vanilla investors. TLDR they sold out, and the fact that we’ve moved on so quickly means we were ready to move on anyway.
Spez wants to be facebook. That’s what it comes down to.
You can’t be facebook if your mods are engaged and dedicated. You can’t be facebook if the user base is doing more than scrolling brainlessly and hitting vote buttons.
Why do you think that the first targets are image based subs?
My guess is that they know they will lose their DieHard users that cost them the most money even though they produce the most content.
What will happen in the vacuum is that other users will rise up to fill in the gap that are more in line with modern Reddit and will make Reddit more money in the long term.
I mean of course they are selling their soul to their venture capitalists (or at least whatever remains of it) in the process but I guess as long as their primary shareholders go home with a fat wallet they’re okay with whatever happens.
Stove Hortman is arrogant and not as smart as he thinks. Plus he’s a Peter Thiel acolyte.
It’s probably pretty straightforward, if clicks are what they’re looking to increase as a metric, then sorting by rising was probably not meeting their expectations in terms of clickrate.
As breathtakingly stupid as what spez has been doing appears to be, I thinkthat the short term plan is a fast cash out, and the long term plan is to coast on the brand name while simultaneously stifling the reddit experience. Coasting, like Tim Horton’s, licensing out names and logos like Playboy, Harley Davidson, Schwinn. Sure, the product might be shit, but Facebook seems to be able to retain enough dipshits, so…
Bingo.
spez is acting non-sensical because his investors are done with the company. The era of free money is over, and there’s no more waiting for something like Reddit to turn the ship around and become profitable. His hansd are tied: It’s just job to see that the board of director’s wishes are enacted, and the VCs are pulling the plug, and demanding their money back.
And they want it back several times over. The AI hype has those investors seeing more than just Reddit gold in the company’s database. All of our posts and comments from the past 15 years is valuable right now in the light of the LLM buzz, but given the lifespan of recent Silicon Valley fads, they could be in the pile next to NFTs by Christmas. So, they need to sell the company now on the promise of limitless ChatGPT dollars before everyone stops giving a shit.
They acted in a hurry, and they didn’t think this API issue would set fire to anything. They thought they could paint Selig as a greedy and entitled nobody who was just trying to piggyback off of their success, but they didn’t seem to realize that no one actually likes Reddit: The Company. So, they were caught flat footed. They figured the protests would come and go, as they have before, and then it would be back to business as usual.
But then Selig spoke up, the faithful doubled down, and then the media took notice. Now, they have no plan, I’m sure the investors are getting fed up, and they’re just trying to force everything back to normal however they can so they can sell this bridge to some lucky tourists, but nothing’s actually working. So, it’ll just be an endless stream of nonsense while the engagement and ad numbers continue to slowly shrink, presenting an unpalatable downward trend leading up to their yet-to-be-announced IPO.
In short, they have their marching orders, but their platoon captain doesn’t have a fucking clue which way is up, let alone North.
You will enjoy the experience the way we intend.
To start, I don’t agree with what Reddit are doing. However, to play devil’s advocate, the company is losing money. They’re not profitable. What if Reddit had to declare bankruptcy due to it? How do you propose they make money? Asking for donations? Even with offering Reddit Gold, or whatever pay-for entitlements, they aren’t profitable.
ChatGPT is seemingly making a lot of money off of comments on Reddit, and Reddit are giving them that data for free. It makes sense, to me anyway, to charge OpenAI, Microsoft, et al., for access to that data. It seems third party app users were caught in the crossfire. Perhaps that was a lack of foresight, but perhaps it was a calculated (albeit incorrect) risk.
3rd party apps did not get caught in the crossfire… reddit very specifically targeted them and has crafted the chatgpt narrative as a scapegoat. Chatgpt got the info they needed already reddit won’t see a dime and knows this. What reddit wants is everyone on their app and thats their prerogative… I doubt they expected the backlash from longtime and even newer user, they probably anticipated some pushback from devs and maybe mods but this blew up in their face and rightly so… ugh I’m a bit sensitive over this sorry reddit was a home for me through 3rd party apps for a looooong time and I’m a tad upset over it.
I’m not convinced that spez’ elevator goes all the way to his office.
