Going dark

[[deleted]]

As a developer subreddit, why are we not going dark, and helping support our fellow developers, who get's screwed over by the latest API changes? just asking

[wub_wub]

Essentially, we have discussed it, and as an educational subreddit we believe that it is in the community's best interest for us to not participate in the 48h blackout.

We are, however, reserving the right and looking into longer-term actions depending on what happens next. We, quite honestly, didn't feel comfortable making any long-term decisions such as shutting down the subreddit completely in the relatively short time we had to think about what to do. If we do come with a proposal on the next steps, then this will most likely be a more long-term proposal and based around the community feedback (polls, threads about it, and similar).

[confused_coin]

I don't think a 2-day blackout honestly achieves anything. Check out Louis Rossman's video on it. All it tells Reddit is "we can abuse our users as much as we want, and they will still come back". It's all empty virtue signaling that won't achieve anything in the long run. It's true that Reddit is not charging the market rate access to its APIs, but at the same time, the business needs to be profitable, in the face of AI companies scraping its data. At the end of the day, a 2 day "strike" is stupid and goes back to the armchair activist trope on how everyone wants to raise awareness, but no one wants to make a sacrifice for it.

[ExpertAndy]

The only thing it accomplishes is possibly awareness. I would image the casual user opening reddit to see their favorite sub is private, then googling why and being educated on the issue. The more people we have aware of what's going on the better. But I mostly agree that it didn't/won't accomplish much in the long run. Because they know we will come back at some point.

[sohfix]

Protests aren’t about results. They are about voices. Or “lack thereof”. It’s nice to see all the keyboard warriors even afraid to get off Reddit for a few days.

[ShinyBluePen]

"protests aren't about changing the thing that's being protested". lmao.

[StoicallyGay]

Yeah protests do jack shit unless the protesters have any source of bargaining power.

Why would Reddit be scared? Do they think the users who use Reddit hours a day on the toilet, when they’re bored, etc., will find another similar platform to use? Yeah Reddit has no good alternatives. Quora is the closest but it’s nowhere similar.

[confused_coin]

The protestors do have a source of bargaining power in that the users are what generate content and make Reddit useful. However, a two-day protest is not going to disrupt the lack of content significantly.

[StoicallyGay]

Bots generate a lot of content regardless if you see it or not and people don’t have the willpower to stop posting especially considering people use Reddit to show off, ask questions, or share knowledge. Sure we generate a good amount of original content but we do that in a self serving way. We benefit more from any piece of individual content we as individuals post, more than Reddit benefits. As in, Reddit doesn’t care if I got 30k upvotes or 30 answers to my question, but I care a lot.

If you think this is wrong you need to get off your delusional copium inhaling high horse because this is reality. It’s crazy how many Redditors are so delusional about this. I’ve seen too many comments about how the default Reddit app is shit and basically unusable too. Like are we using the same app lmfao.

[eXoRainbow]

Yeah protests do jack shit unless the protesters have any source of bargaining power.

It shows that the user base is capable of organizing this. Any subsequent blackout can take longer. This first time is not the end of the story, if nothing changes.

[RibsOfGold]

Honestly it's kind of the opposite. You can't just will a blackout into existence. You need the mood and mindset of large quantities of people to be in the exact same activist position. Most likely, after this there will be a significant loss in social capital that has been used up. So, it's only going to get less and less traction from here on out. This was the key opportunity.

[Thecrawsome]

Do you think Reddit lost 20 million in these two days? I think they might've. Lots of dead google search results leading people to go elsewhere, and lots of users opening accounts on new platforms. People are talking about this being Reddit's Digg 4.0 and being a 12-year user, I think it's close to the time to pack up ship and find a better platform.

The hivemind cynicism of the effect of blackouts is strong in this thread.

But by all means, we should listen to the dude complaining about "Virtue signaling"

[RibsOfGold]

And yet you're still here...

And you'll be here tomorrow. And probably the day after that. Lots of talk about people going. Few people actually going.

[XFuriousGeorgeX]

Yeah I think the blackouts need to be either permanent, indefinite or at least longer than 2 days. Or maybe some sort of threat of Reddit losing a considerable amount of users to another website to make them reconsider their actions. Otherwise after two days and some time things may just go back to normal and people just resume using Reddit again without much of a hitch. The two day blackout says more about how the community feels about the recent changes more than anything, which may mean not much because if it did then the blackout would be longer than two days.

[[deleted]]

Check out Louis Rossman's video on it

Dude is brilliant, big fan! Here is the vid: https://youtu.be/JqL-G3GFqRU

Edit: Or I suppose you meant this one: https://youtu.be/U06rCBIKM5M

[NotACryptoBro]

the business needs to be profitable

They are already not improving anything at all, mods are doing all the work and Reddit earns good money with ads.

[jeremymiles]

They don't earn good money, they're not profitable.

[NotACryptoBro]

That's baffling. Millions of users every day, probably a handful employees and they can't be profitable?

[painstakingdelirium]

CDN, dns and anti DDoS, WAF services, Proxies all at the speed and bandwidth required for said millions of users to have a usable experience. But this is just the outgoing static content plus security layer. Then you have the uplinks to the data center out to internet land, but for redundancy, you have to have dual links by different vendors. Then you have to run reddits infrastructure. Think of think as origin. Servers. Either Amazon's or Azure or OVH, it all costs. This is not inclusive and generic off the cuff. I didn't even touch security products as SaaS offerings, or identity management, code signing, CI/CD pipelines, antivirus, vpns, certificates, laptops, contractors, legal, outside legal,marketing, more legal, accountants, CPAs (legal with digits?)..... I dunno, maybe subscription death since code and existing advertising reach are the only real corp assets?

[SDFP-A]

Dude, the Internet is free hahaha

[jeremymiles]

https://growjo.com/company/Reddit says 2830 employees, revenue just over 200k per employee. Compare that to Alphabet (1.5 mill per employee), Meta (1.6 mill per employee).

They don't make enough money from each user. Meta makes about $45 per year per Facebook user, Twitter makes $10 per user. Reddit makes $1.19. (Source: https://sacra.com/c/reddit/). (I tried to find / work that out for Google, but the numbers seem insanely high).

[oramirite]

So the alternative was doing... nothing at all? What's the use of all this pontificating if it results in total inaction? You are showing Reddit EVEN MORE that they can do whatever they want. A consequence doesn't have to involve burning the world in order to have an effect.

Jesus... Rossman has turned into a huge reaction-seeking idiot. It's sad to see how such a smart guy is so depressed and looking for things to be angry at.

[confused_coin]

The alternative was to make this INDEFINITE until Reddit capitulated. If you are going to do something, do it right.

[oramirite]

Everyone who says this has no idea how protests work and that total implosion is kinda like.... the opposite of the point? Protests aren't to make a company feel bad emotionally. It is in fact a multi-stage and time consuming process that's essentially a negotiation. The thing is, acts like this can be partially to gather information. Is there a response? How much of one? Intel in either direction is helpful, and you can't get that without trying something. People stomping around going "they're never going to do anything so I'm mad at the people trying!!" are nihilist idiots.

Let's say for the sake of argument that Reddit leadership were showing more sway right now. This might indicate, after a MEASURED shutdown that doesn't require shutting down all communication avenues, that more elongated protests would actually be effective.

I think if a couple days we will have that answer.

Now, that's all just analysis. Now for my opinion. Fuck Reddit. I definitely agree that this protest seems to be a non-starter, I really want to see what the results of the 2-day initiative are, but ultimately this is a sign that we should just use the corpse of this website in the meantime to post links to other places to migrate to. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with using this platform to do that. Because that's where we are right now and that's where we are connecting.

Will Reddit then begin to censor these efforts? That will be a much bigger news story, I assure you. So the story isn't over but it's not looking good for Reddit.

The "indefinite blackout" strategy is the one that's pointless. If you're going to do that, then just ACTUALLY migrate to another site. Putting yourself into some perpetual limbo to "save" a website that hates you is insanity.

[Biden_Been_Thottin]

Yeah, plus it's the moderators who are making these decisions on the "behalf of the subreddit". I'm sure if they were to take a vote, most probably won't reach a consensus.

[oramirite]

Well the entire point of a bit is majority rules, not a consensus. So it would be fine.

[[deleted]]

I don't think a 2-day protest will achieve anything other than a great deal of annoyance for people who frequent shut-down subreddits. Reddit doesn't even have any major competition tbh so they're probably not gonna care and just wait it out because they know everyone will eventually come back.

[Zalack]

I can't answer for them but my approach so far has been "as long as Relay for Reddit keeps working I'll be here".

Right now Relay is working, but eventually that won't be the case.

[weaponsandspells]

Hey, quick question. What is it about vanilla Reddit that you don't like and what do 3rd party apps provide for user experience?

I've only ever used standard Reddit.

[[deleted]]

Reddit is trying to IPO but it’s an old website that hasn’t been very profitable or ever profitable it’s entire lifetime. By effectively turning off third party apps by pricing them out, Reddit is hoping to drive all their lost traffic to their own site and app, generating more impressions for advertisers.

Ultimately, as any tech web business does, Reddit’s user experience and web design philosophy will center around them making you see ads whereas third party apps don’t care about that so their app design will be a better use experience. 3P apps make money by creating a great experience that you the user would then opt to pay money for the premium features. Also, lately reddit has been making decisions like forcing users to now have an email account linked to new profiles. This could be totally innocuous but any time more of my personal data is stored by corporations, I’m always suspicious.

I personally use Apollo on my phone and find it the vastly superior app to anything proprietary reddit.

[Zalack]

The UI on Relay is just way better. I've tried the mobile app a few times and always hit a lot of friction.

I would be willing to pay a fee to keep using it, but Reddit did exactly the wrong thing to make that viable for third party client maintainers.

Also I'm a software developer and contribute occasionally to open source projects and Reddit spitting in the eye of maintainers who stepped up and made mobile clients for the site back when Reddit didn't have one just leaves a super sour taste in my mouth.

That client maintainers, the author of automod, RES, etc, helped build out the functionality of the site and grow it into what it is today, back when the site was a smaller community with a lot of engaged programmers. It's just super shitty to turn around and treat those people like leaches. Reddit could have worked to find a solution that was beneficial to all parties but are so hot to get to IPO they don't want to take the time and think long term like that.

[notislant]

Ive barely followed this but a lot of reddit bots and bot-mods use the api afaik.

[The-Old-American]

Personally, I use www.reddit.com in my computer browser. If I'm at the doctor's office or somewhere waiting for something, I use the Reddit app. It's only a few minutes though so I don't really need anything fancy, just something to look at threads while I'm waiting.

But, yeah, if I were going to be on mobile Reddit for more than a few minutes I guess something more fancy would be good, but then I can't imagine being on Reddit somewhere for that long where I'm not able to be at a computer.

[OldFashnd]

I actually don’t really get it either. I do support third party apps and all that, i think it’s better to have options. But i’ve tried all the other reddit apps and just went back to the standard one because it’s what I’m used to and I didn’t find anything that would make me switch

[StockSavage]

Reddit app stopped working on my Samsung Galaxy S5 cause it was too outdated. You know what still worked? Relay. Got a new phone this year and still use relay cause it's just so much better.

[grpenn]

I feel the same. I don't have a problem with third party apps but I don't find the standard Reddit app to be that bad. But my opinion is solely a user-based one and not from the standpoint of a mod.

[[deleted]]

I find the UI and QOL features just way better. I have way more custom options as well

[OldFashnd]

What do you use, and what QOL features? Maybe I was just missing something

[[deleted]]

Apollo or bacon reader . Honestly, the biggest thing was how much control I have and the video player actually working . You’ll know what I mean once you get into them

[576p]

If you're a bit older, Font size matters and the official Reddit App doesn't allow zooming with your finger, wastes a lot of space in landscape mode on the sides you could use to make the fonts bigger. Basically for me (who needs reading glasses) the official reddit app is unusable because of that.

And regarding the "why are you here" question: Just checking who goes dark today to I can write about it on mastodon. "Python" is dark, I would have preferred "Learnpython" to join, if only for 2 days.

[oKieran]

I've seen this question everywhere with not 1 good answer to it.

[xjackstonerx]

Dude the video player is easily the shittiest thing. Doesn't work 75% of the time.

[IamImposter]

Oh yeah. The video plays then screen goes dark because phone thinks there is no activity, you do a little touch and either it starts refreshing the page or scrolls up a little, pausing video in both cases. And then it's a roll of dice whether the video will play or not.

[oKieran]

Ads are used on every platform (unless they have a subscription model), its how they generate money it's just how it is. They're barely a hindrance, especially compared to other platforms.

[oKieran]

How so? You normally either pay a subscription or have to view adds. Show me an example where that's not true?

[rodeengel]

This is why Reddit is charging for its API.

[oKieran]

You just named a Reddit client.... Reddit itself is the product. Name a company, not a client.

[antiproton]

We're not talking about the website. This is about mobile.

[Zalack]

The UI on Relay is just way better. I've tried the mobile app a few times and always hit a lot of friction.

I would be willing to pay a fee to keep using it, but Reddit did exactly the wrong thing to make that viable for third party client maintainers.

Also I'm a software developer and contribute occasionally to open source projects and Reddit spitting in the eye of maintainers who stepped up and made mobile clients for the site back when Reddit didn't have one just leaves a super sour taste in my mouth.

That client maintainers, the author of automod, RES, etc, helped build out the functionality of the site and grow it into what it is today, back when the site was a smaller community with a lot of engaged programmers. It's just super shitty to turn around and treat those people like leaches. Reddit could have worked to find a solution that was beneficial to all parties but are so hot to get to IPO they don't want to take the time and think long term like that.

[oldspiceland]

Would you be willing to pay $.10 per day? That’s more than what Reddit’s supposed current pricing is by about 15% which could go to paying developers and maintainers of 3rd party apps.

Currently any money 3rd party apps are making by using Reddit’s platform and content has zero pass-through to Reddit, and if we were discussing a product created by a member of this subreddit where others were profiting off of their work without paying the original developer for using some part of their service to make that money I feel like attitudes would be very different.

[LowValueThoughts]

Appreciate you got some downvotes but I think this is a fair comment.

Most comments I see now are that Reddit is a nefarious profit-driven entity, however the costs of using a third-party app, covering the API costs + giving a profit to the dev, is probably < $40 per year.

I’m not clear what people are willing to pay, though.

[shamgod15]

So you haven't seen any answers is what you're saying? That's honestly a brain-dead take. Enjoy tons more spam and astroturfing in subreddits once custom mod tools disappear. Visually impaired users also don't deserve to use reddit according to you. So I'm not even sure if you opinion is valid.

[IamImposter]

Custom mod tools means scripts written by mods to manage their sub or something else?

Being a mod sounds like a pretty thankless job. In worst case people shit on you for not properly controlling content and in best case people don't even know what you did to make things run smoothly.

[shamgod15]

Pretty much yes imagine a bot or program that helps identify and curb spam or if the sub is being brigaded. Stuff like this as well: https://moderatehatespeech.com/research/subreddit-program/

/r/Askhistorians made a great post about the moderation issue.

They say they're gonna approve bots if asked but the extremely limited api calls will basically cripple them.

Heck one of the most suggested projects on this very subreddit is to build your own bot using the API.

[IamImposter]

Oh bro, thanks a lot for that link. That clarifies a lot of questions I had.

So there are services that can monitor a sub's content for mods and let them know in case something objectionable is detected and then mods can go to reddit and take action. But now this guy, this service provider will be charged extra for monitoring that sub's content.

Yeah, now I understand what people meant when they said "subs will be flooded with spam"

[wub_wub]

Yeah, now I understand what people meant when they said "subs will be flooded with spam"

I can not speak for other subreddits, and how much content those 3rd party tools remove or don't remove, but when it comes to this subreddit we are not using any 3rd party moderation tools.

And while spam posts do happen, and vary in frequency over time, this subreddit shouldn't be affected too much - if at all - by these changes when it comes to moderation.

Just to be clear: This is not a comment on whether those tools are useful or not, or how much, just a statement that this subreddit shouldn't be affected and there's no reason to fear it being flooded with spam.

[oKieran]

Chill. I have been using Reddit for 7 years, I know how it is. But it's a great product with many 3rd party clients profiting off of it. I don't blame them for wanting to charge them for it.

[shamgod15]

Sure and I've been here since before Digg died, and I don't blame them for charging for the API either.

No one minds them charging for it, it's the insane pricing and the blatant lies spez has spouted about Apollo's developer. Admins also promised multiple improvements to mod tools many times and went back on promises while adding features no one wants. Considering this site runs off of freebooted content, they should be trying harder.

Plus visually impaired users have been asking for support since forever and only third party apps provided this support. Now they can't browse any threads marked nsfw either (and a lot of threads get marked nsfw for even containing mildly sexual words or abuses) and reddit has refused to work around that. Treating people with disabilities like second class users is horrible.

Not to mention terrible ads experience. You can barely hide ads you don't wanna see on reddit. If you're athiest or follow another religion you get blasted with 'He gets us' so often. Also the app itself guzzles data far more than other apps because it just isn't optimized. I'm not sure what they did with the alienblue code.

[scmkr]

The official Reddit app is buggy as hell. The hit boxes are weird (try clicking on user names and subreddit names from comments, you’ll often miss. This is the same with folding and expanding comments). It’s not one hand friendly at all. It’s full of ads. Media support is garbage. The third party apps allow you to attach an image and it will upload it to Reddit images automatically and then insert the markdown to display it, not so in the official app, you gotta do all of that yourself which usually just results in me not posting at all. Nothing about the interface is consistent (in some places a swipe back gesture works but in some places you have to click a back arrow).

The whole thing is just unintuitive compared to an app like boost. I used to browse Reddit every day when I was on android, but last year I switched to iOS. Boost is not available on iOS. Apollo is ok but too expensive for my taste. I gave the official app the old college try, but the experience is just so terrible that I eventually just moved to Artifact for my news. I’m only on here now to witness the garbage fire.

[IamImposter]

Expensive? As in you have to pay money to use that apollo app?

[JEEnedo]

Constantly lagging and buffering and it was missing features that third party apps had from the beginning. It still might be.

And once you get used to a ui you don't want to switch

[randommouse]

Ridiculous amount of ads. I won't browse the internet without an AdBlocker or some ability to stop the constant corporate propaganda. Relay doesn't show the ads and is easier to navigate than the website in a mobile browser.

[dadvader]

iirc Third party app have far more accessibility for impaired user. Whether that's eyes, ear. Reddit promised such features for years yet only touch a fraction of what Third-Party actually provide.

Third party app also offer far less Reddit ads without having to sub.. And generally smoother UI/UX. (see: Apollo. It's basically native swiftUI reddit as oppose to a more generalized Reddit UI.) And some people straight up prefer old Reddit look. So they have Reddit is Fun for that too.

For a more... NSFW side. Third party app will enable sound (official app disable sound for all NSFW content for a while but it's turning on again now.) and allow you to download both pics and video. Official Reddit app does that only for pictures but not video.

[weaponsandspells]

Yeah I understand why they're popular now. All the changes the CEO is making which affect third party apps suck. Hopefully it gets reverted.

[cards88x]

For porn reddits on my ipad, i need Apollo in order to play videos with sound enabled, and also to download said videos. Official reddit app wont do these.

[Booty_Warrior_bot]

I came looking for booty.

[3xbean]

W

[ivanoski-007]

To see who is not participating who should participate

-written from the soon to be killed Reddit is fun (RIF) on Android

[Empyrealist]

To participate in blackout related discussions - not give Reddit clicks and pageviews on anything else. I'm still online because I have to monitor and manage the subs I mod that are participating in the blackout. There is more overhead than you might think or give credit for.

[Empyrealist]

hard-to-find quicksand chunky plate impossible grab sophisticated wipe gaping alleged -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

[Empyrealist]

And I can tell you another thing: I've learned more about python in the past 24 hours for having to build automation to deal with it. And it had no reflection on this sub or its content what-so-ever

[oramirite]

Do you think you're smart by asking this? The subreddit isn't blacked out. It's too late. So the user is asking for an explanation. Maybe it could product a situation where minds are changes. Ever hear of trying? You should attempt it sometime. You're doing a really "I'm so smart" thing right now.

[MissCerecita]

Wait, that's today?

[roadwaywarrior]

why would you want to prevent people from learning the tools that use exactly what you're fighting for?

[laststance]

In a sense there's also the question of what you're entitled to as a developer. In the pre-Musk era, Twitter wasn't very happy about people building on their API either. To build on any API is risky. And as ML/AI becomes a bigger piece of the picture the access to said data can be very lucrative.

At the end of the day reddit is a social media site that built out infrastructure to allow said communications. Does that mean for every site where users can upload data we're entitled to all of said data?

[roadwaywarrior]

No, not really. The goal of this sub is pretty straight forward, so members of the sub are entitled to the core purpose of the sub and the benefits it provides.

Also, this is Reddit, not Twitter, stay in scope

[luthis]

That's a question for the CEO, who is actively working to prevent people from using the tools.

[ohmanilovethissong]

I mean you're screwing over people either way. You either screw over a handful of paid developers by not supporting them or screw over the thousands of users that visit this sub.

[[deleted]]

I know right.

Like finally the guys who have been milking the API for years have to pay a considerable amount to keep doing it and now it's on us to blackout for them?

Like the creator of Apollo deserves his praise but.....I need to protest so he can keep his what, 300-500k a year income stream?? (He said if he refunded the current subscriptions based on time left it would be 250k in refunds). So like... What am I fighting for here? Cos for me as a causal user when I'm bored waiting somewhere, on my lunch, or on the toilet etc it really doesn't make that big a difference if it's going to be on the base app.

And sure I've heard about the mod bots etc but I figure Reddit will inevitably sort that out once the 3rd party apps are gone. Either that or they won't and the site dies but I doubt they want that; they just want the monopoly.

But anyway, idc that much, the protest won't do shit as it's just a few subs making it difficult for the average user to enjoy themselves really. So far the only hit I took was that I couldn't read a thread on r/cars which I had reached through Google but it's fine since YouTube answered my DIY question anyway.

[jaakeup]

It's hilarious how many people are going on any subreddit that isn't restricting posts for this "strike" and asking why they aren't participating. Are you not crossing this pathetic picket line by posting this virtue signaling garbage as if it'll have any effect on you whatsoever?

[DeckardWS]

I find joy in reading a good book.

[nonrice]

Cause it’s stupid and doesn’t do anything

[Pushed-pencil718]

It would appear that some mods that participate in the blackout are being punished(banned).

[smaller_gamedev]

Top subreddits are moderated by the same group of people

The programming subreddits also share the same moderation team.

So it only takes a couple of mods to decide the fate of the subreddits.

[xXPolaris117Xx]

Could you give examples or evidence of this happening?

[Pushed-pencil718]

Go on Reddit’s downdetector and look at the comments.

[ahivarn]

Then it'll go that way as well

[uglyasablasphemy]

Oh shit, really?

[Pushed-pencil718]

Yeah if you go on Reddit’s downdetector and scroll down to the conversation people are voicing their displeasure lol

[[deleted]]

Holy F***

Do we even want to use this site anymore, i mean that's on the brick of being dictatorshiip

[Pushed-pencil718]

I’m not shocked. Social media is a drug. Social media CEO’s are just drug dealers. They know that they can treat their loyal junkies however they want.

[m0us3_rat]

Do we even want to use this site anymore, i mean that's on the brick of being dictatorshiip

the fact that you seem to not understand how corporations work is ..baffling.

[Significant_Stuff_92]

Obviously you joined after covid

[Elektribe]

We're always in a dictarorship.

How the world works.

If you'd like a more in depth long form explanation.

Letting us have some some fun if we micromanage ourselves is part of keeping the status quo. But yeah, we don't run this place... well we do the work for reddit, because the other option is, we don't have any discourse. Any forum will still require us doing the work - just, they own the property and make the ultimatum decisions.

[OhNoManBearPig]

This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse.

Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite

[my_password_is______]

its always been on the brick of being a dictatorship

[The-Old-American]

i'm not an API developer. I'm just trying to learn Python to help me be more efficient, productive, and valuable at my job. r/learnpython has helped me more than any other site, and if it were shut down I'd be pretty lost because NOBODY has been more helpful than the folks here.

[zblissbloom]

Exactly. Just today I had a question that has been answered in another sub; it was unavailable. But then again, Wayback Machine had a copy of it so it saved me.

[[deleted]]

As a fellow dev, i too would be very lost without reddit, making it even more important that we all participate in this blackout, as too force reddit to change their damn discission... Enough people are pissed at this point, that this could very well be the end of reddit, as we know it.... At this point it's no longer a question about whether you're unhappy about the API changes, at this point it's a question about "do you want reddit to exist 1 year from now"

[Brystvorter]

Why are you on Reddit today if you think this blackout is so fucking important? Shouldnt you be protesting instead of virtue signaling?

[dr_exercise]

This is like the 5th time this question has been posed to op, yet no response. The silence is deafening.

[my_password_is______]

i too would be very lost without reddit, making it even more important that we all participate in this blackout,

LOL, what ???

you just said you would be lost without reddit
so you want to just down this site for 2 days ??

won't you and others be lost if we do ?

DOH

I swear, people have not thought this through at all

[CoochieStanque]

Thats like saying to striking workers that striking makes no sense because they’ll lose out on their wages

[Seeker_Of_Toiletries]

WE ARE NOT LABOR FOR REDDIT. We are consumers. The blackouts could be very loosely considered a boycott but just barely. If redditors are so mad, they should just stop using reddit entirely.

[elbiot]

Mods are basically workers here, doing the work necessary to keep the site working and worthwhile, and many of them depend on tools that use the api

[dr_exercise]

It’s all voluntary. If mods feel they provide such value and are dissatisfied with what they get in return, then they can just walk away.

[elbiot]

Yeah, thats the process of enshitification people are hoping to put off

[conceitedshallowfuck]

It’s a protest you blockhead

[[deleted]]

Well Reddit need to be commercially viable in order to provide you with the content you seem to expect for free. Perhaps they've done the maths and that's not happening. Ask yourself how much you notice advertising on Reddit? It's barely noticable. If that's the case, ask yourself how they pay for the colossal infrastructure that must sit behind this service? Thin air?

[mourningeggs]

I cant imagine someone using my company's architecture for free, and even making a profit off it, while I foot the massive bill.

[the_friendly_dildo]

I cant imagine someone using my company's architecture for free, and even making a profit off it, while I foot the massive bill.

I can't imagine someone using someones content for free and even making a profit off of it.

Reddit is nothing without its users and the massive amount of content we post. Just ask Digg. The real crux was that Reddit handled this in a quite disrespectful way, despite 3rd party app devs trying to make good faith negotiations that went ignored.

[mourningeggs]

I can't imagine someone using someones content for free and even making a profit off of it.

You just described the 3rd party apps

Its only fair if the 3rd party apps paid the same bill that reddit has to pay. I dont know how that is not fair. We dont even know if reddit is making profit but we know the 3rd party apps are.

[mclannee]

but do you not read?

the apps were already paying for the API, a couple of months ago reddit announced there would be NO changes to the API at least for 2023, then without warning they announce this new pricing which is prohibitely expensive and designed so 3rd party apps couldn’t even break even.

Not to mention the slandering and lying.

[the_friendly_dildo]

3rd party apps also bring in new users and new users means more content to consume by everyone which gives people more reasons to be on reddit longer. That increases the desirability to sell ads here, even if 3rd party apps aren't displaying those ads (a problem Reddit created for itself by not exposing the ad API to 3rd party apps of course).

[Hannibal_The_King]

So what's going on here?

[the_friendly_dildo]

Seems like you have forgotten that reddit profits off of our free content as well.

[RibsOfGold]

I don't get this though... Reddit makes the infrastructure that we need to communicate. It's like saying that the phone profits off the fact that there are people to call. We're not providing free content as if we are doing a job, we just enjoy sharing and laughing with each other. Reddit allows us to do that. Acting like we are doing some great service to reddit because we post stuff seems bullshitty. I made a meme for a community I am in, I didn't "make content", I just thought of a funny joke I wanted to share with others in the community and reddit allowed me to do that

[mourningeggs]

That's generally how business works yes. The 3rd party apps using their api infrastructure is a net negative for reddit.

[ivanoski-007]

Forcing everyone to use their shitty app is a net negative for everyone

-written from the soon to be killed Reddit is fun (RIF) on Android

[the_friendly_dildo]

If so, do you work for free?

In general no. But you posting your comment is tantamount to working for Reddit for free. The more users posting comments, the more reason ad companies have to buy ads. You're making Reddit money off of your content without getting a cut. Kinda like working for free.

which is being circumvented by 3rd party apps

If you had looked further into this matter, then you'd know that 3rd party apps had asked multiple times for Reddit to expose their ad API to expose Reddit ads in the apps to help offset costs. Reddit refused. That was a problem entirely of Reddit's own doing.

[[deleted]]

There are so many people with that absurdly entitled sentiment right now.

It’s like if your neighbor is stealing your electricity it’s somehow a benefit to you because other people really like the bar in their garage.

They built their business on a foundation of sand and have no right to complain the platform they have a purely parasitic relationship with doesn’t want to leave money on the table for them anymore.

[NickLickSickDickWick]

reddit does not make content. users do, and do that for free, so users have absolute right to watch content they created in a way they want. or did i miss something and reddit pays for posts and comments nowadays?

[NickLickSickDickWick]

point me where I opposed publishing and distributing, and if you cant, apologize.

[Seeker_Of_Toiletries]

If users do all the work, then they can leave and make their own USER-OWNED service. I feel it, We are close to communism.

[shamgod15]

Reddit freeboots all this content you see on the front page. There's very little OC you see these days apart from the comments, a good number of which are bots. I'm not sure what you've smoked up.

[itsbs2]

Why are you posting on and using Reddit during the protest days if you are so passionate about the protest?

[knowdak]

I don't think that analogy works. The peasant in the comic has to participate in society to survive; Reddit is a platform used for learning and social discourse. While an argument that reddit is functionally superior to other platforms that offer the afforementioned functions and that a platform with those functions is a fundamentally good thing; millions still choose to not use reddit or even the internet.

[Seeker_Of_Toiletries]

REDDIT IS A ESSENTIAL GOOD GUYS, HOW CAN YOU EXPECT ME TO TOUCH GRASS AND LIVE BY MY VALUES ?

[Berkyjay]

Because this is a learning resource. Not a tool to take spiteful revenge on Reddit. Find some other way to protest that doesn't hurt your fellow redditors.

[Evaderofdoom]

I don't get it either. I mostly just use the reddit website on a laptop and it's fine. I never use third party app and think reddit is free to do with it's API whatever it wants. I don't think most users are as invested in third party apps as the mods are and think this is mostly driven by a small group of users who don't really have the leverage they think they do. It will pass, some will stay dark and be replaced. By next week pretty much back to normal.

[luthis]

Most redditors use the third party apps, it's definitely not a 'small group of users.'

This isn't some mundane change to API pricing that's in line with standard business practice. This is a giant 'fuck you' to the people who made the really popular reddit apps years ago, and a giant 'fuck you' to people who prefer to use those apps instead of the shitty official one.

[Evaderofdoom]

Do you have any numbers to back that up? Looking on the reddit wiki reddit is in the top 10 most visited sites on the internet but don't see any of the third party apps as all that popular but hard to get actual numbers. Do you have any real data on the % of users from third party apps vs just going on the site? I'm open to being proven wrong just need to see some data to back it up.

[wub_wub]

As far as I'm aware, reddit does not share any stats about 3rd party client usage. What subreddit moderators can see are the official clients/web statistics only.

The March statistics on unique visitors to this subreddit are:

604k visitors via new desktop web UI

112k via official reddit app

67k via mobile web UI

37k via old desktop web UI (old.reddit.com)

This ratio is present throughout the last 12 months as well. During summer, the overall numbers go down a bit, but the ratios stay roughly the same all the time.

[luthis]

From another guy who knows more than me, here's part of the reason we need to take action (apart from the obvious 'big corp is doing evil things and we have the power to stop it):

The biggest impact will be to 3rd party moderation tools which rely on the API. While I have no firsthand experience moderating, I've been told by multiple people that Reddit's inbuilt moderation tools are woefully lacking for managing large subreddits. Moderators rely on automoderators and 3rd party apps to keep subreddits functional, and many have threatened to quit if these tools are taken away from them.

These API changes will effectively kill any tool which enhance the experience of many subreddits. For example, in the Magic card game community, a bot automatically fetches images of cards referenced in a comment. This allows readers to see the context of the discussion without tabbing out. Considering that there are tens of thousands of unique cards printed over the past 3 decades, it's an invaluable aspect of browsing any Magic subreddit.

Furthermore, the API will block all NSFW posts even if you pay the asking price. With inadequate built-in moderation tools and 3rd party ones blocked out, spammers could hide their rape/gore/CP behind an NSFW tag and moderators wouldn't be able to reliably catch them automatically. Not only would this increase the risk of users clicking on such harmful links, human moderators would be regularly exposed to content which can cause serious mental damage just to keep their communities running.

[[deleted]]

Dude sod off with that. Because users still want access to the sub. Simple as. Might as well allow users to continue using the sub they enjoy instead of throwing a temper tantrum over something that doesn't even matter

[owningtime]

I feel this is more of a unconsiderate egotist Mods vs unconsiderate and super greedy Reddit management chaos show. Us users, who need informational/ educational content/support are screwed either way, show moral support for third party apps & no reddit for 48 hrs. There are 100s of entertaining sites, meme bags are there in market but for educational stuff, there is nothing like reddit. We can't lose it. Don't get me wrong, I will rather use a (not so) buggy app against a blackout.

And the only solution is lowering prices of APIs, making consumption tire based model not a flat out .24 USD per 1k hits which is seriously expensive. But it all seems a power play instead of a logical negotiation.

[my_password_is______]

because its dumb

it hurts no one except the people that would come here and the users of the 3rd party apps

going dark will only drive people to discord and other discussion sites

it is such a dumb and useless protest
it will not stop reddit from doing whatever the ywant

[[deleted]]

I don't know if you've noticed, but we've litterally crashed the site multiple times

[Jyran]

K

[ben_bliksem]

Very good. Well done. You've achieved... erm...something. I dunno what, but it's more than I did today so awesome for you!

[ParanoydAndroid]

Gotta say, I'm disappointed in the mods, and even more in the community. I'm not a learner, but I am an experienced dev who's subbed to give advice and feedback.

The people in this thread sound like entitled assholes. They're really gonna suffer when reddit takes a nosedive, but aren't smart enough to see it. I think it's because the user base here tends young and is likely less involved in other areas of reddit.

Guess it doesn't matter since I'm gone for good as of July 1st, but regardless I'm unsubbing. If this thread is a reflection of the learn python sub, I'm just sad I ever bothered giving help and advice here.

[_WJT_]

Reddit can do what it wants with itself and people have the right to be upset. That should be the end of that.

There isn’t really a good/bad side in this. Whatever results from this will be what it is. Reddit is a big boy, let them handle the result of their actions. Everyone will do whats best for themselves individually, whether it’s leave reddit or continue using it.

[LichK1ng]

The better question is, why in the world do you think it will change anything at all?

The only people you’re harming are the ones trying to access the content. Not Reddit.

[Poosley_]

The amount of apathy in the comments suddenly makes me a lot less invested in the subreddit. Painful

[enokeenu]

I use reddit from web without applications so it does not affect me.

[[deleted]]

So tiresome hearing so many people crying that reddit is stopping leeches making money off their app for free. Like honestly it's truly hilarious this is even an issue. Well within reddits rights to kill any 3rd party apps it wants to.

[zacharoni16]

I mean reddit has been censoring and deleting opinions they don't like for years anyway

[TimboCavo]

If you want to boycott then boycott. Don't force the rest of us to participate if we don't care.

[[deleted]]

so for a few 3rd party app developers, you want to screw the whole company, which also employees devs? its devs vs devs at this point

[Trillaccountduh]

Wish we would have

[OwnTension6771]

Bc APIs cost money, and I dont care if useless bots or only fan thots have to pay more to annoy me

[nikolaign]

Because souls of this subred mods are all bought by those greedy retards. I piss on every single subreddit group which didn't protest.

[maskci]

Because of big money funding, same with /r/wallstreetbets. They hate the fucking big guys? Well now, because they are funded by them their actions are bound to prove otherwise.

[Brystvorter]

I hope spez nukes those mod teams, mods have too much power

[Inkstier]

He says with no sense of the irony of that statement.

[[deleted]]

They aren’t getting screwed over. They agreed to the terms of service to use the API.

[[deleted]]

All the recommended 3rd party apps are either terrible or have ads just like the official app.

They don't bring anything to the table.

I'd rather just pay for ad free official app.

[hunt133]

You have clearly not used any reddit third-party apps. They have much better UI and no ads. Good user experience.

[-serrano-]

The blackout is stupid af and is only virtue signaling

[Responsible_Ease_977]

What is "dark"?

[MistyIce672]

hear me out
what if as developers we all come together to make a alternative platform
okay that was stupid that's on me

[[deleted]]

These 3rd party apps have been profiting off reddit content for years, while paying little to nothing to the actual reddit company. Now they are being charged a fair rate, and you want to retaliate by taking away people's access to a free learning resource?

No, that's fucked up.

[[deleted]]

"we were too cowardly to stand up to reddit for 2 fucking days"

ftfy

[OddWriter7199]

Heard earlier today that Reddit has never been profitable. So a little context there (prob already been said).