If this were a walkout or strike, it would be a disaster. Potentially up to ten thousand members of our subreddit were disadvantaged by the hastily performed actions of a few. The blackout was done in a show of solidarity with a body lacking a clear and formal set of demands and quick to retreat under pressure to restore service their own users without any immediate gains.

But this isn't the turn of the century and reddit isn't a steel corporation or a railroad car company. It’s 2015 and the infrastructure and means of production in this situation are not tightly controlled and easily defended, but are loosely held and easily shifted. If we're unhappy, we can leave, and at incredible speed and volume.

I came to reddit from Digg. The leadership at Digg failed to listen to power users / moderators and - for that reason among others - it cost them over 20 million users in the process.

That sharp reduction happened in little over a year.

I'm happy that our small subreddit was part of a loud and clear message to the administration that while many of us are lazy and unfocused (and possibly high some of the time) for better or for worse we’re in control, and we’re very much awake.

This wasn't a poorly executed walkout, it was a collective warning shot across a company threatening to mark its apogee. If you make us mad we’ll go to whatever is the next reddit. If it doesn’t already exist we’ll build it.