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Reddit Activity Plummeted After The Protests
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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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SNOOcalypse - document, discuss, and promote the downfall of Reddit.
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Because the most active contributing users left. I used to comment a lot on reddit, but I've been exclusively on Lemmy since my 3rd party app was axed.
And I've been very active here. Like, even on this alt account that I made 16 days ago, my app says my post "karma" is already higher than my reddit comment karma was from over a decade.
I feel more willing to contribute because there's a sense of community, and I'm not just providing free entertainment for a company to profit off of.
Between you and @RandalThor must cover 50% of stuff I see
I've been having fun doing it. I just post a few memes throughout the day whenever I think about it, and I also try to spread it out among some smaller communities that I want to help grow.
So, memes and a handful of communities that I'm personally interested in.
I feel like I see you a lot, too. I don’t remember where, but it’s probably because I always notice the great username :)
Awwww :)
There's another Rand? I must meet this man over at Wheeloftime!
I win again, Lews Therin.
Hell yeah another place to subscribe to!! Thanks for linking it
I've commented more on lemmy in 3 months than the last 10 years on Reddit
Glad you're here, nutbiggums!
Shit. I think it took me 5 years on reddit to comment once. Now I have alts! Alts!
Same. I had a 15 year account with a couple hundred thousand karma and commented and posted a lot. If you piss off the people who actually use the site you will reap what you sow. Reddit should have known that since the exact scenario happened fir Digg when everyone migrated to reddit.
They looked at the leaves, and failed to see the forest, thinking that simply not killing old.reddit was enough to avoid Digg-ing the grave. Because from their view that's how Digg died - v4 happened, users couldn't go back, they got pissy, and they left.
@megane_kun@lemm.ee is also right when he says that they compared Reddit with other social media platforms and took the wrong conclusions. What keeps people in Facebook aren't "content creators" or what have you, but their relatives and friends; in Reddit there's no such thing, people weren't there because of more people but because of the content that those people created, so their connection with the platform is considerably weaker.
I also think that the trust thermocline played a role. It wasn't the first time that the platform pissed its own users.
Agreed on the reasons why FB stayed relatively strong despite its reputation going down the drain. What kept many people from leaving FB for good is actually network effects: that one's friends and family, coworkers and colleagues, are more likely to be in FB than not in it. Huffman's site? Not so much. I don't care if someone I know IRL is in it, and I sure as hell wouldn't want them to know I used it.
The platform formerly known as Twitter is a more apt comparison, to be honest, but it's still way too early to tell if it has actually weathered the storm, or has become so rotten on the inside that it'd spectacularly fail in the near future.
Perhaps Twitter is a third can of worms, it's neither about content (as Reddit) nor the users' social circles (as FB), more like a few anchor people keeping the others there. Due to that Musk's idea (to pay creators to stay there) might actually help.
I still think that it'll fail due to other decisions Musk took, but less spectacularly than Reddit. Musk is at least trying to think by himself, Spez is simply following others.
I think Steve Huffman is only after the possible profits he'd make on the IPO. He doesn't care if his reputation would be sullied amongst the proles like us, nor does he care if he's being original and ground-breaking. He just cares about the money.
Will it work though? I want to bet on the possibility that his IPO will fail due to all the bad news about his site as of recent, but given that the world in general has been disappointing recently, I'll just keep my money to myself, lol!
He is after the IPO money but Dunning-Kruger is the hell of a drug, Spez is simply not a good CEO and he doesn't know how to maximise pre-IPO numbers. So odds are that he thought "who's in the same situation as me? Ah, The Iron Man¹! He's a cool guy, has lots of money and a platform like mine. I assume that he knows what he is doing², so I'll ape what he did!". Musk killed 3PAs and got rid of the people criticising his platform, so did Spez.
And killing 3PAs pre-IPO does actually have some merit. They created value³ for Reddit, but detracted from the immediate profit; but if you're selling the company you don't care about the value, you care about the immediate profit to show your potential buyers "see? This company is profitable, gib lotsa moni". However odds are that things happened faster than Spez predicted, odds are that he assumed that the protests would last a bit and die, not that people would say "enough of this shit". And now odds are that he lost that "magical" window of opportunity to maximise Reddit's price to the potential new buyers.
Hahahaha~ If it's any consolation to you, I also cringed reading the part that made you cringe while writing it. More than enough cringe for all of us to share around!
Yeah, you actually said out loud what I was just thinking to myself when I wrote my previous reply. Not exactly what you wrote, but I was thinking that if it worked for others, it's good enough for himself. Why think of a good idea when you can just copy others'? Something along those lines. However, copying ideas actually does take some work as well. It's not enough to just copy what they did and apply it to your situation. You've also got to think about whether or not what you're copying is a good fit for your circumstances.
About the third point though, the way I see it is that Huffman tried his best (the key word is ‘tried’) to increase the profitability of his site to entice potential buyers, which even though it'd detract from immediate profitability, would add to the money he'd cash out at the IPO in the end—or so he imagines. Agreed with how things didn't happen according to how Steve anticipated them though. And in fairness to Huffman, other flareups have ended in a similar way. What he didn't anticipate is how these changes (the API changes) will affect how a lot of people (and the ones that contribute a lot of content) would interact with his site. So, yeah!
I'm always happy to see a Teft post pop up in my feed.
Life before death, Radiant.
It's easy to argue why they thought it's not going to happen to them. They saw Facebook shrug off all of its scandals, and thought that being in a similar position, network effects are going to help them weather any storm. And it can be argued that Steve Huffman and his site did weather this particular storm. But like Facebook, trust in Huffman's site have taken a blow, and in the demographic that they would ill afford to antagonize.
That we're starting to see its effects as early as now should scare any sane person in Huffman Inc.
Wow I was on there longer than you and I don't think I broke 10k haha
I know the ways of karma farming. It ain't much but it's an honest living.
I had over 300k comment karma, on the site every single day for about 10 years. Comparing the comments here vs there it’s crazy I hung around so long. It’s like getting out of an abusive relationship, you don’t realize how much you’re being mistreated until you’re out from under them.
Yeah. Lemmy users aren't saints but there's a lot more friendly, cool and deep discussion than on Reddit. In the last year before I left, I had felt it's gone so shallow.
I'm sure the notifications are annoying you by now, but I'd like to borrow the moment to agree with everyone else. You're one of the users who have ended up becoming this place's lifeblood somehow, and I pretty much always enjoy whatever you post. Or at least, a ton of what I enjoy ends up having your name on it.
I heavily appreciate seeing you around and while you are allowed to slow down for the sake of your sanity, I would notice and miss it.
Not an annoyance at all! I don't have push notifications on, so I just check whenever I open the app next.
And I really appreciate the kind words. I'm just happy to support lemmy growing, one dumb meme at a time.
I've noticed your posts almost every day and appreciate them
Thank you, 🍝
No offense I thought you were a bot given how often I see your username haha. Good on you! You are helping to make this a better place
Beep boop, I like sharing memes
(Thanks!)
I've been noticing your username a lot lately. Solid memes, thank you for your service🫡
🫡
I've definitely seen you around a lot lately. 😁 Thanks for the joy and memes.
I was never famous on Reddit but I was a prolific commenter for six years. I gradually phased out from Reddit as I got into Lemmy until July, when I pledged not to comment or vote on Reddit ever again. I've since kept my word.
Thanks!
And yeah, I've checked reddit a few times for niche things, but it would just feel dirty to contribute there now.
how do you know how much karma you have in total?
For Lemmy?
Some apps add it up for you. One of the apps I use frequently is Voyager (on Android), and it shows it on the profile page.
For example, here's yours: (I assume I can't see 100% of the votes though, in case your instance is federated with any that mine's not"
Yeah I already seem to be somewhere among the 1% top posters on Lemmy and I bet users like me were much more valuable to reddit than 10 lurkers. I'm sure a relatively tiny fraction of the users created 90% of the content on reddit and those most likely are also the people most annoyed by the death of 3rd party apps and I'm sure there's a ton of others like me who switched. That'll definitely show in the activity even though it might not be much in absolute numbers.
You’re not alone. Just check https://subredditstats.com/r/technology or any other sub you used to visit and you’ll see a clear drop in comments/day. After the APIcalypse, so many people just left and never came back.
Is this data really accurate? The difference is insane for every subreddit I checked.
I think so, all the older data points make sense (you can clearly make out the begin of COVID and the Ukraine war). It's really insane, 50-90% less activity is no exaggeration.
Well, the site says it shouldn’t be used for serious purposes, but I would say it’s still safe to consider it semi-quantitative. If you see a drop like that, there really is a drop. What the exact value was before or after might not be that reliable, but it’s not even important in this case.
I feel like this is by design. Reddit never wanted to be a discussion board. It wants users to keep scrolling so they see more ads.
Wow, that's a serious drop off! I looked at a few of my old fave subreddits and they're all the same. It's like one of those old towns in the US that was once on a main highway before a new route was built. Once bustling, now dead.
They don’t call it the APIcalypse for nothing. Reddit got totally nuked and it hasn’t recovered.
Wow, this is really interesting! I checked a few, and you can see a severe drop in activity.