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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by gary@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

Starting last night, about a thousand subreddits have gone private. We do anticipate many of them will come back by Wednesday, as many have said as much. While we knew this was coming, it is a challenge nevertheless and we have our work cut out for us. A number of Snoos have been working around the clock, adapting to infrastructure strains, engaging with communities, and responding to the myriad of issues related to this blackout. Thank you, team.

We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor.

There's a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we've seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well. The most important things we can do right now are stay focused, adapt to challenges, and keep moving forward. We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail.

While the two biggest third-party apps, Apollo and RIF, along with a couple others, have said they plan to shut down at the end of the month, we are still in conversation with some of the others. And as I mentioned in my post last week, we will exempt accessibility-focused apps and so far have agreements with RedReader and Dystopia.

I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public. Some folks are really upset, and we don't want you to be the object of their frustrations.

Again, we'll get through it. Thank you to all of you for helping us do so.

Edit to include source: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/06/13/reddit-ceo-blackouts-no-revenue-impact/

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[-] sunspider@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Hey! I'm keeping this as it's sharing knowledge with new users from Reddit. However, in future please find another community to post this on, because it is not related to the lemmy.world instance specifically.

[-] Oxff@lemmy.world 370 points 1 year ago

I'm sure many will go back to Reddit but some wont. I for one will be staying on Lemmy as I've found it a breath of fresh air.

[-] 1bluepixel@lemmy.ml 65 points 1 year ago

Same! The mood here reminds me of the good old days when everyone on Reddit wasn't a cynical asshole.

Jerboa is already a better app than Reddit's official app, so I'm quite happy to give the Lemmy and Jerboa devs time to iron out the kinks.

[-] klemptor@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 year ago

Wowzers. No offense at all to the Jerboa devs but this really contextualizes for me just how bad the official app must be.

I want baconreader for Lemmy!

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[-] steakfries@lemmy.one 41 points 1 year ago

Yup I'm staying here too. It's already feeling like home.

[-] IanM32@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I'm sold on Lemmy too.

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[-] TragicNotCute@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

I’m fully committed regardless of how good the replacement is. I paid for Reddit premium every month since 2016 to try and support the thing I loved. I gave out 65+ gold before premium to also support a thing a loved.

I cancelled premium after the AMA and deleted Apollo. No going back period.

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[-] Aganim@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Same here. This morning I've removed my ten years worth of content from Reddit as I don't want them to even generate the slightest bit of revenue from it, removed my account and do not feel bad about it in the slightest.

I'm done with the way Reddit handles the community feedback and done with the "don't you dare to have a differing opinion or we'll downvote to oblivion" mentality that prevailed in a number of subreddits.

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[-] Rull_9@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

Once June 30th hits, I'm wiping my reddit account and moving over here. Seems much nicer here

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[-] Ketram@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

Yeah I agree, honestly I just get real sick of corporate assholes and get unreasonably angry, so I don't want to "give-in". I've been going back on RIF to spread word of Lemmy to see what I can do, but come July 1st, that won't really be an option anymore since I'll have to navigate through their ad-ridden app and will eventually give them money.

[-] thesanewriter@vlemmy.net 25 points 1 year ago

Honestly I'm just waiting to see if short story communities move over. I liked to pass the time reading things like nosleep stories, and if those communities move over here I'll delete Boost and only use Lemmy, but so far I haven't seen much.

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[-] aliens@infosec.pub 25 points 1 year ago

Same here, the engagement level is well worth the transition and I'm tired of corporate silos, federation FTW!

[-] TheInternetCanBeNice@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure how many users will actually stay away. But if even a small fraction of the mods for these big subs stay away Reddit's gonna have a problem.

Lemmy will pull some mods away, traditional forums will pull some away, and that could really hurt.

However, only time will tell if that ends up happening.

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[-] gary@lemmy.world 132 points 1 year ago

My notes:

  • As expected, a blackout with a set end date is seen as toothless by Reddit leadership
  • I hate when companies refer to their employees with some "cute" nickname, like "Snoos"
  • He expects some Reddit users to actually resort to physical violence, painting them as the irrational bad guys in this whole situation?
[-] manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech 62 points 1 year ago

He expects some Reddit users to actually resort to physical violence, painting them as the irrational bad guys in this whole situation?

Spez has played the victim the entire time, why change tack now?

[-] someguy3@lemmy.ca 41 points 1 year ago

People are upset, is it me that's out of touch? No, it's the redditors who are wrong.

[-] Senseibu@feddit.uk 31 points 1 year ago
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[-] Mars@beehaw.org 25 points 1 year ago

He is delusional or triying to scare the poor Snoos. If anyone is angry about this and looking for a face to punch they have a clear target and is not some dude with a reddit t-shirt.

They are looking for a suit, no tie, popped up collar wearing, venture capital dudebro looking, jailbait ex-moderating, failure of a CEO.

[-] LurkerCandado@programming.dev 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Oh wow, reading it summarized in your three points instantly reminded me of the behaviour of an emotional abuser. The last one specially hits hard, classic bully telling it's actually the bullied one.

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[-] Redfugee@lemmy.world 68 points 1 year ago

I suspect that the fact that he had to call out that they are not seeing any significant revenue impact probably means that they actually are seeing an impact.

[-] ilikedatsyuk@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

Yeah, there's no way they aren't seeing an impact of our actions between people canceling Premium and reduced ad impressions because of the private subs.

He's projecting confidence because he wants us to think we're not having any effect on them and come back.

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[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 64 points 1 year ago

When I moved to Mastodon, I stopped caring about the Twitter dumpster fire. It was great.

I am trying to do the same with Lemmy, to forget about Reddit. It's gone. We are here now.

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[-] mim@lemmy.sdf.org 62 points 1 year ago

Am I the only one bothered by him referring to people as "Snoos"? It's so cringy.

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[-] sparky@lemmy.pt 53 points 1 year ago

Looking at this thread in r/technology, it sure looks like most of the newer Redditors were just pissed by the blackout and don’t care about Reddit’s changes. That suggests to me that Reddit is beyond saving.

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[-] frank@beehaw.org 51 points 1 year ago

We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far

As long as this is true zero fucks will be given.

This pains me as someone who worked in a customer-facing role at a software company. You're at work getting your ass kicked and leadership just shrugs and says it's ok because we're still making money.

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[-] sdrawk@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago

I'm glad the statement is quite arrogant. They will feel it and it will hurt. This is the first wave of the great Rexxodus.

[-] Erismi14@midwest.social 48 points 1 year ago

A lot of this just feels like CEO talk. Obviously they do not want to back down but if enough big subs stay off then they might have to change course. I'm worried about the people who are addicted to reddit.

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[-] briongloid@aussie.zone 46 points 1 year ago

That little quip at the end implying that they could be targeted in public over this, with the intention to have journalists write as if we are flying off the handle.

This isn't Rick & Morty's szechuan sauce crowd, these are the moderators and content creators of the website. We are peacefully protesting his poor conduct.

The worst that's happened is that he's had some memes made about him and himself alone.

[-] arefx@lemmy.ml 45 points 1 year ago

"be mindful of wearing reddit gear in public."

Things I would never do regardless for 500, Alex.

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[-] Gerula@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago

Well they say that:

"As of Wednesday morning, more than 6,000 subreddits remained inaccessible and in private mode after what began as a two-day voluntary shutdown. The blackout includes popular forums such as r/aww, r/videos and r/music, each of which claims more than 25 million subscribers on the platform. "

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/14/tech/reddit-blackout/index.html

[-] Twelve20two@slrpnk.net 40 points 1 year ago

"We absolutely must ship what we said we would."

Oh wow he's actually scared

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[-] clonedhuman@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago

Why is this motherfucker acting like a victim?

[-] Boozilla@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

I would love to watch reddit crash and burn, and for smeg-spez to get fired. But I'm mentally prepared for them to linger on for years and maybe even be profitable as they hang on to the countless dumb-dumbs who just don't know anything more than mindlessly scrolling through endless ads.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can still move on and enjoy what we're building to replace reddit in our daily routine, even if we can't make reddit itself go away like it should.

[-] Nommer@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately from what I've seen on big gaming subs is that enough users simply don't care. Take a look at /r/rocketleague for example. Mods made a post saying they can't permanently black out the sub due to it being owned by psyonix and the top comment on that thread has hundreds of up votes and comments saying they don't care about the API changes. It's really that mentality of "I don't care unless I'm personally affected" is why we're in this mess to begin with!

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[-] Brock@beehaw.org 38 points 1 year ago

Yeah this is why I think the 48 hour time limit is unfortunate. I don't think it's going to have much long term effect, and the only real difference is going dark indefinitely until demands are met or just migrating elsewhere.

[-] kakes@sh.itjust.works 40 points 1 year ago

Thing is, ultimately people do have a choice as to whether they want to continue using Reddit without third-party apps.
I agree that regardless of any blackouts, Reddit will be fine in the end - most people simply don't mind using a Facebook-ified version of Reddit, and that's fine.

My hope isn't that Reddit will fall, it's that alternatives (like Lemmy) will rise, for those of us that do care about these issues.

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[-] Thorned_Rose@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

There's reads really passive aggressive. It clearly wasn't intended to actually say anything meaningful to staff but rather something for 1. media that pickup on (won't anyone think of the poor people attacked for wearing Reddit gear in public!), 2. appeasement of potential investors ahead of the IPO (our bottom line is rock solid folks, thousands of subs gone and no impact on profits!) and 3. an unsubtle dig at and gaslighting of people participating in the blackout (fools! This won't last, you'll all come crawling back and this doesn't affect many subs anyway!).

Spez just keeps doubling down on the Streisand Effect. Challenge accepted arsehole.

[-] Hickersonia@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

This makes me irrationally angry... especially the "snoos" part. WTF...

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[-] croobat@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago

Wherever Aaron is, I hope he can't see this.

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[-] albsen@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

No matter what this guy says or does, millions have switched to Lemmy not only is it like reddit, its better, its what reddit used to be.

Now, all will calm down for reddit but the boat started to leak and many will not go back. Just like many didn't go back to twitter. We will see a slow and steady increase of fediverse activity.

This is truly the web3 we all deserved.

[-] lynny@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Not to put a damper on, but it's more like 50k who started posting on lemmy in the past week for a total of 110k. We basically doubled the user count, but still are an order of magnitude away from 1 million.

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[-] CaptainStrider@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

Honestly, whatever Reddit does at this point doesn't matter. Lemmy works decently and for all else, why not try using something different? The internet is a bigger place than it seems. I prefer touching grass to wasting any more time thinking about Reddit.

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[-] FangedWyvern42@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

Lol, what an asshole.

[-] helpimnotdrowning@lemmy.sdf.org 29 points 1 year ago

"be mindful of wearing Reddit gear"??? this doesn't feel like this was said in good faith at ALL.

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[-] croobat@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago

I sure hope some subreddits to go private indefinitely this 30th, just to shut up this imbecile.

[-] peroleu@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

I do miss the niche communities and educational ones on Reddit, but Lemmy is great so far.

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[-] Nogami@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public. Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations.

meaning: the users are our enemy and they hate us....

No Steve, we just hate management, that's who better not wear reddit gear in public... Not the rank and file who don't make the braindead decisions that kill platforms.

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[-] aaron@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago

this too shall pass

I believe there's going to be a moderator exodus. The flippancy with which Steve has handled this, and how he responded here, is going to stick in the craws of their enormous unpaid workforce. These are the people who have been there a decade plus, have seen the ebbs and flows, and are probably no longer willing to be unpaid servants to their clearly demonstrated monetary interests (at the expense of its users [product]). This was a turning point. They have way bigger problems to address than a 48 hour boycott.

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[-] average650@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In conversation with a few others? At the prices they were talking about no one will use it. It was something like hundreds of dollars per year per user to reddit.

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[-] riodoro1@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public.

Lol, good ole fearmongering. Also,

The only long term solution is improving our product

Loading shit with ads is hardly improving it. I mean it will make you more money, and thats all that matters under this shitty system of ours, but thats still not improving.

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this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
793 points (98.5% liked)

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