While traffic has not changed substantially,
This is a terrible thing for most social networks, which are expected to grow continually. When the IPO hits, who wants to buy stock in a stagnant social network? Especially one that has been described as stifling creativity?
I deleted all my posts and stopped using the place almost entirely. I go back, like, once a month because I moderate a niche subreddit that I haven't been able to find a home for on Lemmy.
My most frequented community (/r/hockey) didn't even try to move, so I have to stay because I love hockey and it's the biggest community. But goddamn is Reddit filled with so much more dumb shit now, just all kinds of weird self posts, people asking if a free game is worth it, why X thing is happening (and it's something they're doing wrong) and so many subs have just turned into random people with default usernames posting about things because they don't know how to Google it. It's so much worse since the downturn and I hope the admins feel it.
I still use reddit on the browser, but I don't want their app. I simply don't enjoy the experience.
As long as old.reddit stays arround I'll still be there from time to time. But my commenting dropped from ~5 comments per day to ~5 comments per month and my clicks drooped to ~1% of what it used to be. I simply used it much more on mobile.
I said I’d leave Reddit on July 12 and July 12 is when I left. Sure, I miss it, but it was an unhealthy, 4 hour per day/8 year addiction that’s been broken.
Now I scroll Lemmy for maybe 30 mins a day.
I want an internet where admins don't control the world. Where moderators don't become megalomaniacs that get to control the way submissions and comments get banned without reason.
I want a place where someone's passion for their unique hobby doesn't get stripped away by corporate interests, exploitative third parties, and ad agencies.
I know it might be a pipe dream but I'll keep trying to fight for what I believe.
I think the Fediverse is a good step towards your ideals. It's not perfect, but it is a step.
As much as it's distasteful, forums need admins. The bots and nazis habitually take over anywhere that doesn't moderate.
I think the most important problem with how this worked out is that many of those who left Reddit by deleting their content didn't find a place to transfer it to on Lemmy or other platforms...
I personally have been intentionally starting conversations recently...
Fuck the front page. The value of a book is the substance inside. Reddit should be renamed flyleaf because the first page is blank with only a minor function as part of the binding.
I removed reddit from my DNS whitelist on June 9th. It is dead to me.
Edit: 130 posts, 1030 comments on Lemmy since June 9th; 0 posts, 0 comments, 0 views on reddit.
I personally had no problem with them charging for API access, the rate was my bigger issue. I suspect they were basing it off of the money and hype behind the large language models that were previously training using their data for free rather than the relatively few 3rd party app users. I don't get how there weren't more people using them considering how bad the official Android app is, but there's no way it was substantially impacting their bottom line.
Charging comparable rates or even 2-3x what they would get from users of the official app seeing ads also wouldn't be an issue to me, paying to support software is generally good as it aligns user and developer interests. But with 20x higher rates than they'd get from the user using the official app that couldn't genuinely be the case.
They have wanted to kill third party apps for a long time. Reddit's issue is that it badly wants to market "through the API" by charging for bespoke viral marketing campaigns. Simple stuff like just giving shill accounts free gold and elevated thread positions and stuff. Or on the upper end, engineering whole features like the Thanos Snap thing. That's why they spend so much time doing the cheesy little April fools games - these are tech demonstrators for their ad engineering team. The problem is that nobody is paying for this kind of marketing without telemetry to show that it's working, and third party apps really threw a wrench into that equation (in addition to the more traditional ad model).
That's a big part of where they are getting their ridiculous valuation from - their ad impression value is probably super low because their users are pseudonymous, and because the API breaks ad tracking. I suspect their equation is simply "this would be our revenue if we got Facebook rates for ad impressions."
ironically, reddit banned me, which stopped me from using it pretty much entirely, which coincided with the "happening" if anyone is curious it was "violence" even though specific targeted satirical threats seem to be perfectly acceptable, generic statements of violence are not things that reddit seems to put thought into. Anyway little fun fact though, they don't delete your acc, and they dont stop you from using it, they just stop your posts/comments from showing up, to mine engagement i suppose.
for anybody looking for a bit of laugh, look at the ban appeal forum, i promise you there is a couple of days worth of amusement on it. (unless they changed it)
for me personally, the sheer unusability of reddit is why i dont use it. On desktop it leaks ram so bad it's worse than a java MC server, on mobile it's literally unusable, i just can't use it, that's how bad it is. It's bad enough to the point im starting to think that reddit is a programming based money laundering front, with some of the functionality that exists in it. I've pasted text into reddit before only for it to completely disintegrate. It's actually laughable how badly it's put together.
Though i dont think i'll miss reddit at all, these federated communities are much more my speed anyway.
I've cut down on my Reddit use by a lot since the protests. I only occasionally browse the site, and I don't comment on any subreddits save one niche one that hasn't moved over to any other site.
Anyways spez will go down as one of the innumerable examples of greedy hurensohns.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
