this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
68 points (84.7% liked)

Technology

35137 readers
210 users here now

This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.


Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.


Rules:

1: All Lemmy rules apply

2: Do not post low effort posts

3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff

4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.

5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)

6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist

7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I keep thinking this would have been a much better sell to devs and to users. I have always used Sync, and Boost. I tried the official app a few times, but really only used it for the chat feature. I didn't want to pay for it, but (I am embarrassed to admit it) I would pay premium to keep my app. I think this would have worked out better for Reddit than the garbage they are pulling right now.

Would that have been a more reasonable solution in your opinion as well?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 88 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I would have considered that at the start, but at this point they've damaged their ecosystem so much, and correspondingly Lemmy has grown a lot, so I don't see why I would go back either way.

[–] HERRAX 10 points 2 years ago

Yeah, the fact that he seems devoted to following musk's business practices leaves litte faith for Reddit to ever get back on the right track again. Besides, I'm loving my time here at the fediverse and will probably start selfhosting my own private Lemmy server soon!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 64 points 2 years ago (17 children)

Hah, no. Are you asking if I want to pay for access to a platform that is already dependant on its users to create or aggregate content, while they are already making ad money off my eyeballs? Heck, no, never. If that site cannot make enough money on ads alone, while being one /were of the most visited non-porn sites on the internet, then maybe they should reconsider their other expenses. E.x. Is it really necessary to have a downtown office in an expensive us city, or pay out high CEO wages. I can only really conclude that they are being stupid about this. If they want me back, they are going to have to beg.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago

They took a 250m funding round and used it to build an nft site. reddit's problems are 100% self created. Think about how ama's used to be and how they managed to kill that. They could have had several revenue streams just based on ama's.

load more comments (16 replies)
[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 years ago

They've showed extremely bad faith. That's hard to recover from.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Three weeks ago, I totally would have… Apollo was life! Now, I don’t think anything could lure me back…

With Spez’s comments about how Reddit has all this data, and “we’re not going to just give that away for free”, I think anyone left on that platform is going to get sold so hard to anyone with two nickels to rub together, that they will effectively have zero privacy or anonymity… no thanks, Spez.

[–] lrabbt 9 points 2 years ago

Yeah, the problem rn is that Reddit is shitting on its users, sometime ago, I'd pay, but now I'm gone for good, even if they revert everything

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

Had they come out and said "hey guys, we really need to actually be making money here. We know it's not ideal, but itll allow us to further invest in the site and its community", there really wouldn't have been a fuss. Sure people would have been upset, but most would've gotten it.

Instead they have to act like petulant children throwing a temper tantrum when they don't get exactly what they want exactly when they want it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago (2 children)

If you had asked me a month ago, I’d have said absolutely, as long as it keep Reddit alive.

Now? Absofuckinglutely not. I’m a firm believer in putting my money where my mouth is. I haven’t accessed Reddit (intentionally) since the 11th. And my original plan was to see how it all played out, and still probably browse only when I’m at my desk, on my laptop. Watching it all unfold, I’m absolutely disgusted with the choices they are making, and more so with how they are treating everyone, privately, and publicly.

I won’t be going back to Reddit. And I’m ok with that. It was honestly already a bit too……money-grubbing anyhow, and all this last week just solidified that for me.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (4 children)

The intentionally part is my only difficulty. I’d not realized until last week just how many search results were Reddit threads. I need to start excluding Reddit from my search results.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No, the reason I left Reddit last week has little to do with with third party app issue. I left because the CEO has shown he isn't interested in listening or addressing community concerns.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] dvdnet90 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

If Reddit want to settle this conflict peacefully. I want to do that. But, with recent news today I don't think so

[–] ulu_mulu 19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I wouldn't go back to reddit even if they paid me to do it.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Those are big ifs, but: if the API prices would have been reasonable and if the Reddit leadership hadn’t acted as they have, I think I might have been willing to pay for Premium. As it stands, Reddit leadership has destroyed a lot of trust, so for me that ship has sailed.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

lmao fuck no. I was on reddit for 12 years until recently, but at this point, there's nothing they can do to win back my trust. Reddit is just another corporate giant these days, and has been for a long time. Huffman is the reason I no longer wish to support reddit in any form, and they can make promises all they want - I've happily jumped ship and will be staying here.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago

Lol, not anymore.

[–] WorldieBoi 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No way. I've lost all faith in Reddit as a company.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SheeEttin 15 points 2 years ago

No. They're allowing more and more spam outside of their ad platform. They're actively user-hostile. I already don't like it for free, why the hell would I want to pay for it?

[–] empyrean 13 points 2 years ago

No, bridge is already burnt.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

Not anymore, they lost me with all these interviews, spez showed his true colors, he is a piece of shit and doesn't deserve my money. I rather support kbin or lemmy, I've always been a FOSS enthusiast.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think if they'd framed it properly, in that by using Apollo I'm bypassing their ad revenue and costing them money, I'd see it as a reasonable compromise that I pay for Premium to support the company and carry on using Reddit in the way I preferred.

Now? Fuck u/spez

[–] garretble 7 points 2 years ago

Yeah. Like two or three weeks ago if they said third party apps need to create a couple dollar per month subscription, then I probably would have bit. Now, with the current leadership? Nope.

[–] reversebananimals 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I might have a week ago, but after hearing Huffman say he hopes to run reddit like Elon Musk runs Twitter - no.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Maybe before spez dug his heels in the ground. But now he's said too much. He admires Elon? Fuck off.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

Absolutely not. If I learned something from Twitter and Facebook and Reddit fiascos then it is to never ever let youself be trapped into a closed-source, centralized for-profit platform. So NO, unless they make it completely open source and decentralised so anyone can setup their own instance. But then again we already have Fediverse and Mastodon and Lemmy... so why bother with that, let's improve what treasure we already have.

[–] primaryuser 10 points 2 years ago

No. Even if they decided to do something to placate us today, they've shown their hand and demonstrated they don't give a shit about their userbase. I have no plans of going back. Period.

[–] FlaxPicker 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Maybe if the fediverse didn’t exist.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I am really working on making Lemmy work. It's slowly getting there for me...learning curves. I just miss the subreddits I had for my niche hobbies. It really bums me out.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

That was my initial suggestion and IMO the change wouldn't be the PR nightmare that it currently is. It would have been a fair middle ground: you don't make it financially devastating for the 3PA devs, the Premium users don't get ads so that would be fair that 3PA don't get shown ads through the API

At this point I kinda lost faith in Reddit. I don't expect them to honor whatever they say, so I won't be subscribing anymore.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

If this was an option, Reddit would have done it.

But, their goal here is to completely deplatform 3rd party apps, and my assumption is that they are doing this so that their number of active users can't be verified and those numbers can be pumped up--by counting bots and all sorts of crap.

This is the same tactic Twitter used when they were negotiating with Elon. More "users" is more money.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think before (say) a week or two ago, before Huffman showed us all what he really thinks of the people using his platform, I would have said yes to paying for Premium in order to use 3rd party apps. But now I don’t want to give him a single dime.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

If they had given us a heads up that we would need a subscription, early enough in advance.

If they didnt limit the content we could access.

If the price wasnt ridiculous - Im not paying Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Game Pass money to access a web forum.

Then sure.

But Spez fucked it up. Hes shown that he really doesnt care about the communities, the people that make it up, or even reddit itself. Hes too bent on making that IPO and bailing out as soon as he can.

[–] kiwifoxtrot 8 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

With how spez is handling this? No.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

At this point, no. I took June as a Lemmy test drive, and turns out I like it better. The API change doesn't affect me too much, as I primarily interacted with Reddit through a web browser, but generally things have been going downhill for Reddit. I found a viable alternative, I'm sticking with it.

[–] xonigo 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Two weeks ago I would've honestly paid $5 per month to get full and unlimited access to third party apps. Sync was my most used app. After the shit they pulled, no fucking way. Reddit lost all their credibility the way they treated the third party app developers and the moderators

[–] JoeKrogan 7 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I had reddit premium although I used a third party app. I wanted to support the platform. I spent so much time on it and really liked the way reddit worked.. being centered around communities and giving them the power to have their own rules.

I canceled my subscription a week ago and will not go back. Needless to say, this isn't a company I want to have any of my money.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

I wouldn't have paid for, but i would have accepted much better. "API usage is ad free hence only premium users can access it" is much better than "API users are freeloaders that take more than they are giving, fuck them!"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

If we never had all this drama where reddit showed its true colours, I think I probably would have (as an alternative to the API being paid). It is fine by me that reddit has to pay the bills in some way.

But lol, holy shit has reddit been awful in the past few weeks. The way they went about with their changes has been completely disrespectful towards reddit users, third party devs, etc. I don't want to give them any money now. It's almost comical how dumb their actions were in that regard. This isn't the first or only thing I've disliked about reddit, but wow did it blow the others out of the water.

By comparison, I've already donated $20 to kbin, the instance I use. If reddit had treated its users nice, they could have had that money. I have no qualms about paying for my usage. But instead reddit makes me almost want to pay money to see them fail.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

If you had asked me one week ago, I guess the answer would have been a yes. With the way Reddit and its CEO behaved the last few days, right now you would need to pay me to used Reddit again. Fingers crossed the feediverse will keep enough users to make it a real alternative for lots of people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It would depend on the price, and also we would need to live in a hypothetical world where Reddit hasn't done any of the stupid shit they've done in the past month. As of right now, I can't imagine giving Reddit my money knowing what a PoS spez is

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›