When the speech police benefits the mods, they are all on board with it. Now that it doesn't, they seem so suddenly shocked.
These free power tripping mods standing up for themselves can be steamrolled by employees, and probably will be.
It happened to more than one sub I was in. They installed their own mods to 'keep the peace', and despite warnings that bad actors were at play, shut down the subs anyways.
Curious to see how this plays out.
hey, guess what? reddit "profits" a LOT from unpaid work from their moderators. if you wanna charge for API access, you should also pay your moderators since you are profiting from their work.
The investors that have pre-IPO stock and who are looking to sell as quickly as possible, gain from IPO pops, so it's in their best interest to maximize short-term profits. That group of investors include a lot of the existing investors, and in almost all cases the founders and C-suite of the company.
A large portion of those might be for checking reports etc, since reddit at least does seem to do a slightly better job trying to keep humans in the loop there.
I wouldn't be surprised if this move actually damages Reddit enough that they can't IPO because the user engagement numbers will take such a sharp negative turn.
And then it's perfectly legal.
And they continue to do that, go read any prospectus, it's all about how everything will die and the company is dead.
Their logic is they should make other for-profit companies who make money using their APIs pay for using their APIs?
This is a common issue with discussion of companies, people say "look they're not making any money" just because the company accounts are not recording profits.
But if you pay out all your money as C-suite wages (for example) then you have "no profits" as a company but people are certainly profiting.
Another angle is political steer; you can make profit outside the company, or make social change, and so forego intrinsic profit.
C-suite and other employees profit from selling their time to to Reddit. It's kinda weird to start acting like that isn't how employment works.
That work is not forced, they all choose to "work" for free and can quit any time they want.
And that work may be unpaid in monetary terms, but many of those moderators enjoy their share of internet fame or a sense of power over "commoners" or their feeling they are doing something for a common good, that they are happy to continue working unpaid.
Whether they enjoy it or not is beside the point.
Moderators are providing value to Reddit. If all mods quit, and no one stepped up to take their place, what would happen? Now who deserves to take profit monetarily for that value?
As far as Reddit "development" they should have stopped a long time ago, the site is horrible to use and has been for a long time.
A lot of the content on Reddit is promotion and semi-hidden forms of advertising. Again Reddit doesn't see any of this spend.
In both cases Reddit is paying other companies for using their platform for making money.
Why would a corporation pay hundreds of thousands for ads when they could spend tens of thousands on some employee time to post, comment or moderate and get better results?
I imagine that the commercial entities using Reddit are using third party tools but the changes will hurt normal users more visibly.
Optionally, follow up with a badge or something that tags all content from commercial accounts as such, and allow users and mods to report commercial content that doesn't have such a badge.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/7/23752804/reddit-exempt-acc...
Edit: sorry if I phrased something badly or was contradictory, I'm a bit tired :P - good night!
My point is twofold: first, I think this kind of commercial use is probably the much larger missed financial opportunity for Reddit. Second, if Reddit's intent with API restriction actually is, in fact, to try and capture some revenue from these kinds of behaviors, then they're clearly ignoring the much more targeted, and much more effective, approach of updating the ToS and directly restricting commercial use.
Using the above example, the PR firm would be required to have a commercial account, and Reddit would be free to set the pricing for that commercial account however they wanted. This is better for Reddit (they can charge way more than they would earn via API calls), it's better for users (more transparency re: what is or isn't commercial content), it doesn't affect third-party apps (no restrictions of API usage), and, if the pricing was right, it would be acceptable for the PR firm as well (paying for commercial exposure is standard practice basically everywhere else).
This would also give them a way to distinguish between commercial API usage like third-party clients, where the API is acting on behalf of individual users, vs commercial API usage like "scan reddit for mentions of this keyword and notify me", which is providing a direct commercial service without ever actually interacting with other users. These different kinds of usages could then be funneled into different pricing tiers for API access.
From a strategic perspective, I can't imagine a scenario in which Reddit's current approach is the right move here.
I think the situation is the opposite of what people believe is going on. Reddit just wants its biggest profiteers to start paying for what they’re taking.
The changes actually won’t hurt normal users at all. Users somehow don’t understand that this is not about them. The proposed changes are about limiting exploitstion from a handful of commercializing individuals.
Free access to the API is getting expanded, from 60 calls to 100 calls per minute. Developer resources will continue to be protected for non-commercial use. And bots and mod extensions are to remain unaffected.
But yeah, meanwhile regular users somehow think they need a call to action, even though nothing will change for them… except maybe the guy who runs Apollo will kill his app, but not because Reddit killed it. It’s because he doesn’t have the time to rewrite his code to be more efficient.
That’s not a fair summary of his position. If you read his testament, they really screwed him over, lied to him, and didn’t give him a realistic chance to turn any reasonable amount of his revenue to Reddit.
Even if he could lower the average number of API calls per daily user, they’re not even in the same ballpark, expense-wise.
Reddit demands so much to make it impossible
Maybe this is happening for subs over a million only?
Mods are given to most active and helpful users, those who are paid to be on Reddit for a living have an advantage.
Additionally, mods are not needed for influencing the content of a subreddit. Active users are.
It's worth saying that commercial moderators are against mod guidelines or TOS.
It seems to me the only revenue they seem to have is ads?? But I use it on the web and never seen ads (except for actual posts that are ads, but those usually get quickly downvoted and I don't even see most of them)... I think people who use Apollo or other apps also like to use Reddit on those because, among other things (like nicer UI) they do not show ads (and probably don't make any money either). Hence, it seems to me, perhaps naively, Reddit is giving us stuff literally for free.. they can't even monetise user data like Facebook, as most of us are anonymous users...
So, would be really interesting to understand how they're making money, which could help understand their motivations here.
There's also reddit premium (no ads, customizable avatar, reddit coins) along with a award system where people can give awards that cost reddit coins to exceptional comments. These awards cost reddit coins which can be gained through either getting awards on comments, or subscribing to reddit premium.
I would love to hear someone elaborate on this part. The API returns the same information as you get from the HTML interface right, but structured? If the API and the website had the same traffic, then wouldn't the HTML part (which is more complex I guess), but more expensive? If the API disappeared, wouldn't the HTML rendering require the same infrastructure? I'm not clear on how maintaining the API adds much overhead, except maybe compatibility inertia because it's a public interface. But infrastructure-wise?
What, I won't be doing a bunch of free labor for a multimillion dollar company while being called a dictator all day? Yes please!
Reddit would probably have to step in and start removing moderators, digging their hole even deeper.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/144ho2x/join_our_ce...
Likewise, several major apps (I know of Apollo and RIF) will shut down on the 30th, before the API changes take effect. I'm sure some people will relent and use the official app / website after that, but others will just quit.
I'm not sure yet myself, it'll suddenly make a big gap in my idle mode browsing. I'm sure there'll be other things I can get on with though.
From my perspective, the HN you’re describing is equivalent to tech, IT, startup, VC sort of subreddits. Obviously HN has broad news too but the Overton window and acceptable dialogue of HN is limited to how those sorts of subreddits are.
Twitter?!?
Sharing your experience or knowledge is not a completely selfless act. Some enjoy the feeling of being an expert, others use this as an opportunity to push their point of view, some just like to help but even that is a benefit for them.
I’d describe selflessness in this context as accepting that a community might have different rules and see someone’s actions as not helpful, despite their best intentions.
The problem with downvotes is brigading (trolls overrun your community), and people have to get exposed to toxic shit before it's downvoted enough to be hidden. You're free to go to voat or whatever if you want. I like communities with good moderation, I seek them out.
I've never had a long and thoughtful post censored, but it's frustrated me the once or twice it happened with a short comment that I didn't believe deserved it.
I agree we need moderation to avoid being a cesspool, but a light touch is absolutely essential.
Maybe the mods thought it was a bot account? Maybe they just disagreed with me. Maybe my account was too new but they didn't bother sending an explanation message? I don't know.
I'm old enough to remember how gamers laughed at people like Jack Thompson who wanted to censor and ban video games. But now people like him are moderating gaming subreddits and saying that censorship is good actually.
I have no idea who Jack Thompson is. Gamers are disproportionately shithead teenagers whose parents neglected to teach them that the n and t words are not the peak of comedy, so it sounds like Thompson is much needed presence.
- Banned from /r/the_donald for saying something that wasn't even really critical of Trump, it was a fact, no ounce of opinion.. basically the mods were banning anyone who commented anything less than absolute, blind praise of Dear Leader.
- Banned from /r/clov (a penny stock subreddit) AFTER posting incredibly well-received research on the company, because I was skeptical about their earnings numbers (which did come in below expectations).
- Banned from /r/politics for saying something along the lines of "I wish Mitch McConnell would keel over already", which is absolutely a bullshit thing to get banned for, on /r/politics of all places. That's probably one of the least-"human rights" subs on Reddit. There are few places where your right to free speech is more-often challenged. Regardless of your political affiliation, I think you should be able to wish death on Trump, Biden, Obama, whatever.
- I was never banned from /r/AskWomen, but I think anyone who has been on Reddit an appreciable amount of time knows of their reputation for removing comments that have any potential to offend even one person on the planet (you can comment there if you are not a woman, they just want it off top-level and that your flair is your gender). I gave up commenting there pretty quickly. I mean I get it, I'm not a woman, but it is one of the most popular subs and you're naive if you think only women read AND comment on posts there.
- Banned from /r/robinhood for nicely, professionally (LinkedIn-appropriate) suggesting in a thread that Robinhood better-educate its users on the risks of options trading. Nowadays you can actually gamble with options in your Robinhood IRA account. That's nuts to me, and I am 100% sure it will be illegal someday. Vlad and co. really have no shame. I am an atheist, but sincerely hope Vlad Tenev goes to hell.
- When I messaged the "head mod" of /r/robinhood something like /u/CardinalNumber about the ban, I got some automated message back saying my message was reported to Reddit (I figured out it was automated because A) he replied to me immediately, and B) when I replied to that, I got the same exact message a second time. Reddit actually banned me for 3 days. It baffles me that companies like Robinhood let these guys have any association with their brand. I assume he was getting so much hate mail (he has banned A LOT of people from /r/robinhood) he just set up a program to report anyone who messages him- figures he gets a message, it's probably hostile. And as far as I know, he's still a mod there.
So at this point I was ready to perma-ban all my accounts by wishing death on Greg Abbott. I mean look, the dude is a prick. It's an opinion as close to fact as an opinion can get. It wasn't a death threat, it wasn't racist, it was the kind of comment the First Amendment was made for... we should be able to criticize public figures, especially government figures.. anything short of a death threat imo. Anyway, that's what happened. I wished death on Greg Abbott on /r/news or something like that, predictably I got hit with the perma-ban. Now I have huge swaths of my free time back haha. A double-edged sword to say the least.
I realize without the verbatim comments it's easy to read this comment and conclude I am probably being dishonest about the tone or nature of the comments, and that my bans were 100% justified. I can't disprove that notion, but for what it's worth, I wouldn't mind posting all of those comments on LinkedIn with my full name and picture attached to it(with the exception of the wishing death on Mitch McConnell and Greg Abbott).
Any real forum I could find on the same topic always had nicer people and my questions got replies.
The problem is that forums cost money and time to host, update, prevent spam, etc.
Oh and I hate the Reddit auto-moderation, a post will never get posted because I was too new and then your dependent on the email to the Reddit moderators to move it out from an email they may never read.
If HN had a subforum feature and an ability to embed pictures or videos in posts, or some kind of markdown light syntax, Reddit usage would die for me.
- It has no subforums
- Almost everyone here is in IT, other topics only get discussed when they are interesting to IT people. On reddit, you can talk to historians, mathematicians, language enthusiasts, fans of your favourite series, etc.
- HN usability on mobile is... yeah
- HN is text only, that's already difficult for programming, but would make talking about e.g. mathematics really annoying, and for people who want to share art, that's even more obviously not going to work
- also, I really wish you could block users
Of course, that often backfires.
HN hasn't actively sabotaged mobile. But it hasn't gone out of its way to make the experience better either.
I find HN a royal pain on mobile tbh. Everything clickable is so small.
Regarding mobile clients, there are at least a few third party mobile clients on both Android and iPhone that work quite well.
If not in the content-mix sense, then in the sense that there is one and only one homepage, and that it's everything posted to the site.
Though in truth: there are some alternate views. "Pool", "Invited", and "Best" are subsets of submissions. You can also do a blank search on Algolia and set a time window to view the best items of the past day, week, month, year, or other arbitrary interval.
dang does not want to have to look at CSAM.
Lemmy is still too obscure to be on the radar i guess.
Anyways, maybe this gives Lemmy a boost towards the next level.
If you want to join, probably better use one of the smaller instances.
Also without a business model they will struggle to maintain the servers required for even a tiny fraction of Reddit
Regarding the business model, there isn't any. At best it will be run by donations if the costs mount top high. I'm curious to see where it will go, but at least there are no ads at least not yet.
For now, but if this is how the maintainers of the main instance feel, how long before they start defederating from instances without their strict policies? Isn't that already happening on Mastodon?
The fediverse ends up really confusing because it gets so balkanized. "One domain, one community" is easy to understand. "We're all seeing the same stuff no matter where you are" is easy to understand. But with defederation as an option, you have to navigate a complicated web of the meta social network—the network of networks, and who federates with who.
Email doesn't have this problem so much because ideology is not a concern for private messaging. You have spam and you have anticompetitive behavior, but you don't have "random guy who happens to maintain the instance had a falling out with the random guy maintaining this other instance."
I don't mind if something is slighlty difficult to use, as it serves as a filter to participants and limits growth (subreddits with over 100,000 participants tend to be kind of guerrella marketing, meme-infested shitholes).
The obvious drawback of course is that you lose the non-tech savy interesting people and experts. I don't know how to mitigate that, but still very interested in seeing where this all goes.
This specific ideological slant is also not clear from its description on the instance list[0], especially when compared to instances like Lemmygrad.
I think we had the model right before the concept of social media came along, which is many small independent communities.
Reddit used to be a place where you go for relatively unbiased opinions. Some mods and subreddits were better than the rest, some worse. But atleast there was an illusion of being unbiased. Mods to for brand/product subreddits atleast officially were not linked to the company.
But that is no more the case, just realized a few weeks back that /r/midjourney is modded by the official team and reddit does not seem to be doing anything about it.
Guess Reddit is trying to become more like Facebook with major brands managing their own subreddits, so no more random mods needed.
Reddit marketing is done best if it looks grassroots.