this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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Strikes work.
Breaking strikes also works, unfortunately. Look at Air Traffic Controllers with Reagan, or the Pinkertons back in the late 19th century. If there's a way to force compliance, they will. And there is.
Difference here is, I don't rely on reddit for income and have nothing to lose. They do.
That's not really the point, though. A strike works because the strikers are willing to lose their pay to force action. If the strikers can be replaced, then the strikers lose.
What you're saying is true: the strikers in this case have nothing to lose.... except their partial control of Reddit. And Reddit will gladly take that from them.
Once the subs are reopened, any ongoing strike will amount to angry people with no power shouting into the void.
Can they really be replaced, though? There aren't an infinite number of people willing to do shitty internet janitorial work for free. You generally get two types of people to fill that role, those who are passionate about the subject and those who like having control.
The passionate ones are rare and special, they make a community good. They'll go away. The power-hungry ones might stick around. But they'll make the subs worse, and they're now serving at the whim of Reddit so they might not be so happy with that kind of "power" either. They could have so much more power - the power of the ~~gods~~ admins themselves - if they were to run their own instance on the Fediverse.
Reddit may find enough scabs to keep the lights on, but if this was really a cost-free solution to Reddit's problem they would have done it ages ago.
They can throw money at it until it works out. Mods do good things, but the bulk of the work is relatively mindless, and easy to outsource.
Money is the whole reason they're doing any of this, though. The more money this debacle costs them the worse it is for them. They just laid off 5% of their staff, and now they're going to have to hire paid moderators?
They might have to contract some janitors temporarily.
They can afford it. It will keep things running smoothly until volunteer mods are sourced.
Also, the reason they are shutting down third party apps is control. Bottom line is money, but indirectly. They want everyone using their app or their web interface so they can harvest the most data and sell the best ads.
My guess is, that theyβll wait as long as possible to pay mods. This would set a precedent for the whole platform.
They can't be replaced in this case - unless Reddit wants to spend lots of $$$ hiring moderators. As long as they leave that power to community mods, it is impossible for them to stop this type of protest.
I do think there is a real possibility Reddit will consider this a long-term risk and replace them with paid mods.
can reddit actually afford to pay mods though? mods that can do the same level of work as the current, unpaid mods are doing right now?
if they cant then the strike/protest is successful
They wouldn't want to pay someone to run communities, the "thinking" work that moderators do.
They won't mind paying call-center-level employees/contractors to do the janitor work, the "unthinking" work, which is voluminous.
They only have to do it until more mods come on board.
And don't forget they already have a lot of mods from subs that didn't blackout at all, and likely some from subs that already reopened.
It will not be hard or too terribly expensive for them to keep things running well enough that the masses are placated.
You'd hate to see disgruntled former users fill the subs with trash and unhelpful information. That would take a lot of work to police and repair.
The Pinkertons are still around, and still being engaged by companies. Just a few months ago Wizards of the Coast (publishers of Magic the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons) were caught using them to intimidate someone who had accidentally-but-legally received unreleased Magic cards into handing over the property.
Yeah, but it will cost them money that they're not going to earn back.
It will prevent a catastrophic exodus like Digg experienced. Any amount spent it well worth it.
I think they seriously overestimate how many users are going to really remain. Users go where the content is. Users will use 2 applications if the content is in 2 places. Once you get to that point reddit has nothing to offer. This will end badly for them.
I do think you're being a tad optimistic -- many users of subs like /r/memes will probably keep chugging along and accept their reddit overlords indefinitely. But as long as enough power users leave such that the content feels noticably worse, I think reddit will still feel the hurt
Sure, but meme enthusiasts will go where the memes are. They're not all on reddit anymore, and reddit isn't even a good source for spicy content at all. They'll go to reddit, right after they get done checking their pleroma feed or a discord channel. Eventually the engagement on their recycled gold will be so bad they won't even bother anymore.