Technology

From his responses you can see reddit will continue their path. and if you think about it, everything is going well for them.

the probability that a critical mass of users will leave is still quite low. they will get rid of a lot of moderators that don't fall in line. what is left will be a community that won't mind the direction reddit is going.

reddit will turn boring, but the shareholders won't care. as long as they manage to keep enough users after the api change the site will recover.

the only positive thing here is that a lot of dedicated people may join other platforms and start building new communities.

Lmao

Tbh

HOW THE FUCK DID I OVERESTIMATE SPEZ

The fucking bar was on the ground and he didn't pass it what the hell

I understand that Reddit needs to monetise. It's not a link aggregate site anymore, hosting video/image files is expensive, Reddit operates at a loss and the 3p users cost them even more. They have reason to be dismayed that they operate at a loss while 3p apps using their API do not.

And I understand their concern with adult content. They can't control if 3p apps will display it with or without checks, but Reddit hosts it; limiting it on 3p apps is probably the better choice to them than removing it from their site entirely. After all, they're operating at a loss; they can't afford the fines and fees. Sexual content is heavily legislated.

But goddamn. Limited negotiation with devs, adversarial communication (to the point of outright animosity), frankly absurd timeframe, the use of accessibility as negotiation for the blackout... there's no good faith anymore.

Reddit is user-generated. The users are the content, their engagement is Reddit's product. Users that don't want to engage with their platform give them less sellable product. The users that engage the most (commenting, contributing, moderating) are the minority, and also the ones most likely to use 3p tools.

Reddit has good grounds for wanting to monetise. There are good reasons for bringing devs to the plate about how to do that. Devs were readily agreeing to covering their costs in calls, and expecting to negotiate what the revenue margin should be. Mutually equitable arrangement.

But this was handled so fucking badly, communicated so fucking badly (by one of the devs too tbh), that an equitable arrangement cannot possibly be reached anymore. Nobody wants to bargain in good faith anymore.

Now all the users want Reddit to cancel all the changes, publicly apologise, and remain operating a loss. Now Reddit wants devs to shut up and pay up, and blame them for the situation they're in.

Now everybody loses, because devs close apps, high-activity users contribute less or outright leave, and Reddit decays down into a pit of low-interaction lurkers picking over ad-bleached bones, until it's considered so unprofitable and unrecoverable that it is shut down entirely.

so far the AMA has been up for about 20 minutes, and he's answered 3 questions. heavily downvoted as expected.

To me it sounds like this AMA is more to appease the mod community. The relationship with 3rd party app developers is already in the mud and they are fine with that but they can’t lose their mods if they want Reddit to continue to function.

In saying that, he’s doing an awful job and is making things worse. :popcorn:

https://archive.ph/Pn2fW

https://archive.ph/MFuCK

https://archive.ph/qiC26

https://archive.ph/MDI9E

Archives to some of his "answers"

This is going as well as expected lol

So the Now for Reddit creator says he's been flat-out ignored for 3 months and he's panicking, he doesn't want to lose 10 years of work. Spez replies "Apologies for the delay. We are responding now.

If others have apps they would like to be considered for the paid API tier, please reach out here and select “This is a partnership request.”

The sheer incompetence of this man, holy shit.

Lmao from spez's comments it would seem that iamthatis is well and truly off the christmas card list

He's said four things in response to questions - every one of which is a deflecting non-answer and one of which is a personal attack. Lol. What a surprise

Effective July 1, 2023, the rate for apps that require higher usage limits is $0.24 per 1K API calls (less than $1.00 per user / month for a typical Reddit third-party app).

Effectively forcing app devs to become middle-men collecting on reddit's behalf. Mob boss behavior. '

I guess it "looks better", to cut someone off at the knees before murdering them outright.

My only thought about this is that I wish people would stop using awards on comments lol. You're giving the site money! Feel like I gotta spray users with a water bottle like no, no, stop that

Really funny how searching for "Lemmy" in the thread just turns up... Nothing. I wonder why.

Based on the answers I'm seeing, I'm positive that this change is a result of changing for their IPO. Lots of none answers, but they also aren't backing down on the absurd pricing.

Having been a manager at a Fortune 500 and getting announcements from Executive level leadership / giving announcements to my reports, this is surprisingly the level of competence I would expect.

Unfortunate, but also a symptom of Reddit being too big for the team to handle. The outflux of users caused by this might actually -help- Reddit in terms of figuring out their revenue stream and getting better leadership.

Sad to see this happening in real time though.

I wonder what he was expecting. Honestly surprised it wasn't heavily curated. Deleted my account but wish I saved it to ask him when he was going to resign.

Edit: Haha wow. He expectantly is getting hammered. I like to think he was living in some bubble and now his ego is getting a reality check.

Just what was expected. "Fuck you we are not backing down because we did nothing wrong. I dont understand why all the backlash"

And nothing of value to the Reddit community was gained.

I'm liking it here

spez confirmed Reddit isn't profitable

We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive. Unlike some of the 3P apps, we are not profitable.

From what I read here, I am already fed up with it. I prefer reading a book than getting angry at this greedy unfriendly person.

Went about how I expected it. Awful attempt at PR.

What a shit show

Seems to be going just about as we thought. [popcorn.gif]

edit: This reminds me of EA's "The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment" ama. Lol.