this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy

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[–] breadsmasher 99 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Capitalism. Monetise everything no matter the cost to the users

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago (5 children)

To expand on this, it's not just capitalism - it's greed.

[–] silentdon 15 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

@Nollij @breadsmasher
one in the same
money, power, greed - all part of capitalism

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I though it's the other way around. Maybe it's both and it's closed circle

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

And capitalism causes greed!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago

To expand on this, it’s not just capitalism - it’s greed.

No it's just capitalism lol. Every company has to continue reaping in profits for capitalists or else it dies. This is just Reddit's way of doing that.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago

I don't think "greed" is quite the right word. "Greed" would be the right word if they were trying to make themselves more profitable. But they're not: they're trying to make themselves profitable at all. That's not about greed, but about surviving. You can't survive unless you stop hemorrhaging money at some point.

Maybe the question is "Why do investors invest so many hundred of billions of dollars into companies that cannot be profitable without becoming super-shitty? And why do users join them knowing that they're going to become super-shitty one day?"

[–] applejacks 11 points 2 years ago (5 children)

do you think this move will be good for their business?

[–] thrilly 23 points 2 years ago

You ask on Lemmy…

[–] infotainment 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Exactly -- this is almost certainly bad for Reddit's business at this point. The problem here isn't necessarily capitalism so much as it is a egocentric CEO gone mad with power.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don’t even think it’s a bad business decision.

Most people didn’t use 3rd party apps to begin with. I’d guess about 75% of the vocal minority who protested, will continue to use Reddit.

And a very small % of people will quit Reddit in favor of Lemmy.

[–] infotainment 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I’d argue it is, because of the damage they’re doing to their brand.

I’ve said it in a couple other threads, but Reddit has other ways they can monetize their 3rd party app users, such as requiring subscriptions to use third party apps, or even by simply giving third party app devs a longer lead time to change to a paid model. Instead of doing either of those things, the CEO had a tantrum and alienated a bunch of people.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Again, I’m almost certain that the % of people who really care are very small.

I’m not trying to defend Reddit, I used Apollo and am part of that small % of people leaving.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

It was pretty abrupt. One cannot help but wonder how much money the CEO has at stake, personally, in rushing things.

[–] CravingCreampies 2 points 2 years ago

Cheers for being the very small %

[–] applejacks -5 points 2 years ago

Yea, I am not a capitalism enjoyer, but it's comical watching people insert their favorite pet politics as the sole reason for everything that's happening.

[–] zombiepete 3 points 2 years ago

What’s good for making more money is not always or even often good for what we would think of as customer-friendly business. If you can wring more money out of a few whales at the expense of pissing off customers who don’t create as much revenue, then in our current system that’s what shareholders apparently want.

Reddit wants more users in their official app where they can target them for ads, sell NFTs, and whatever other bullshit they want to sell. It doesn’t matter if the experience is worse, and it probably doesn’t really matter if a couple thousand 3PA users split for good. As long as they can tell investors that the official app use is growing and that they can target a greater percentage of users with ads and data, they feel like they won.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I like how it's already bad not only for Reddit, but for Google as search engine as well, as "reddit" is what many people put to thir phrases to find content. Now such search results are mostly useless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

In the short term? Maybe. Long term? Probably not.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

But first be not as terrible to the users to attract them, then hope they're lazy enough to not go anywhere when you treat them terribly later while they squeeze value from them

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

But first be not as terrible to the users to attract them, then hope they're lazy enough to not go anywhere when you treat them terribly later while they squeeze value from them