[seydor]

I think reddit will never be the same after this, not because of the API thing (I dont agree with the blackouts), but because it shows how much they neglected their website. Over the years they have made it impossible to compete with the established subreddits. They have allowed a single uniform mob to take over the site, establish themselves as permanent tyrants and grow their ban lists to enormous scale. Even today with the blackouts, you can't find alternative subs to the closed ones, because new subreddits are hidden in search results and popular lists. Without this competition, how do they expect their subs to improve?

It's as if their mismanagement has come back to bite them. Mods have been allowed to run the show and ruin communities for years and years.

Very few people are using 3rd party apps but now they are causing inconvenience to millions for their own capricious reasons. I knew that the site was ran by a small powertripping group of mods but now that they make it so obvious it has kind of chepened the whole medium in my mind

[chongli]

This isn’t a unilateral move by a small group of moderators. Regular users support the blackout in droves. We don’t like Reddit corporate deciding to shut down 3rd party developers.

Reddit is extremely entitled. They as a company create nothing. The users create everything and do all the work of moderation. Spitting in the eye of your all-volunteer staff on which you depend completely for your livelihood is corporate suicide.

[faeriechangling]

Reddit was known for having lots of developers on it in the first place. It should be on some level unsurprising their users throw a fit over third party devs being thrown aside the moment they don’t help reddit’s IPO.

[btmiller]

The subreddit experience is bifurcated into (at least) two camps: big/popular/default or small/curated/niche. The tyrannical behaviors are most often found in the former camp where being a moderator is synonymous with “internet power”. The latter is populated by enthusiasts tending to their communities.

I agree that Reddit won’t be the same after this, but there’s just not a ton of remaining value in the big defaults. They’re already plagued with low value, low effort content, low cardinality content. The true damage that’s being done right now is to the small communities which represent(ed) the best of Reddit. Out of the spotlight but deep in quality content for those that care about the topic. The inherent risk of stability is more certain now with Reddit’s new policies. And I suspect now with many subreddits weighing indefinite shutdowns that many users (perhaps more importantly: the best content creators) will scatter to the wind for greener pastures. Those that are left are given crappy apps, lots of ads, and hollow communities eagerly looking for something better.

[phil21]

> The tyrannical behaviors are most often found in the former camp where being a moderator is synonymous with “internet power”.

What's old is new again, I suppose!

Similar happened on IRC back in the day. All the big channel wars and drama were over the big popular channels for internet points. I certainly participated in my fair share.

Then you had the small channels of folks who were just pretty chill chatting about whatever random topic of interest.

Might be nostalgia, but I still think the best balance of this was the phpbb/vbulletin era. The amount of "reference material" lost behind the walled gardens is crazy.

[faeriechangling]

I think the problem as somebody creating content for or moderating one of those small communities is - do you really want your users to be forced to be used a community as abusive as Reddit towards its users? Do you really want to have your labours exploited by Reddit for their profit?

I’m not sure what the alternative is though. Independent websites? Where are dejected Redditors going to go?

[CommitSyn]

Alternatives mega thread: https://0.0g.gg/?58ed6f6429ac61aa#DQse3Hh6Cr4pw6BFRGf7MeWgPY...

I'm currently using kbin. Waiting for Tildes to come out of beta.

[zdimension]

The blackout is as much about a small number of users using third party clients for personal tastes as the American civil war was about states rights. The real issue, as can be read in the long PSAs pinned to some of the restricted but public subreddits, is the impact on moderation and accessibility that forbidding third party apps will incur. If moderators can't do their job, Reddit is worthless. Calling them tyrants is... a peculiar way to frame it

[d10486fa91eb46]

The problem for me with the different subreddits and mods is the inconsistency between them. I am shadowbanned from some instantly before a single comment, I can't comment on a subreddit without providing a registered email, in so doing compromising my privacy, (looking at you /r/linux), appeals to mods go unanswered, and the universe help you if a mod disagrees with something you have said. It is a completely frustrating experience to try to opine on topics you find interesting without being herded through the tunnel like cattle to conform.

However, I do agree with the blackouts as it is a coordinated action to a larger problem, not some power obsessed individual subreddit with arbitrary rules also applied arbitrarily.