Reddit

LMAO, what? Protests ain't fun at all and aren't meant to be. Here in my country, it's pretty common to see public school teachers doing protests and strikes demanding better salaries, then get shot by cops using rubber bullets or get some pepper spray in the face. I don't think they protest because getting shot is "funny", they do because they want a real change for everyone.

Also, the protesters ARE (or at the very least should be) aware of the risks and downsides. If the people you work with decided to make a strike because of something they don't like or agree with in your workplace, they are at least aware they may be replaced by scabs or get fired. Likewise, the mods and users who embraced the protest were aware the community content would be inaccessible and they'd have to find other things to do aside doomscrolling all day.

So no excuses here, people got into this because they really want some changes, and those who didn't either: are Reddit bootlickers; aren't aware of the real impact the API changes are going to make or; aren't able to reach much people without staying on Reddit (here I talk specifically about FMHY and Piracy communities)

I think there is a strong difference between people who were on reddit before and after 2016. People who joined after were already used to the official app and new website design, they don't know anything else, so they tend not to care.

There are also a lot of lurkers and casual browsers, they also tend not to care.

The ones who do care a are very loud about it is mainly the old school hardcore members who did not have an official reddit app and who never got used to the new design

I'm doing my part. I hope others do an exodus and not a hiatus.

I am not a mod, mearly a user of Reddit. I completely support the blackout and continuation after the internal memo leak of Spez. I uninstalled all Reddit apps and have not logged into my account since. Now I am finding new communities being built here.

The hardest part for me was realizing how shit Google search is without appending reddit.

I’m guessing it’s cuz people who actually cared aren’t on Reddit rn tho

I have no intention of unsubscribing from Reddit. The recent move that company has taken has made me hostile to them as a platform. I am far more probable to engage over here and just lurk over there when I need to find the answer to something. To the extent that I can I want to help the Fediverse takeoff and replace Reddit and twitter.

This change may also be explained because many protestors are still gone. I have barely touched Reddit after the blackout, and the only time I did was to support some of these votes. But inevitably I must've missed some. It's probably a bit of survivorship bias. Though it's probably also partially that people did indeed realize that they can't miss the thing they're addicted to for more than 2 days.

Reposting something I wrote in another community I hang out in, but it feels appropriate to the topic:

I won't pretend "Reddit is dying" or anything of the sort, but I have noticed something interesting (that is maybe something I should've noticed long, long ago), and that is that subreddits have an insane concentration of whiny entitled lurkers that seem to want content catered and spoonfed to them.

During this whole debacle, I've seen creators and enthusiasts that drive the traffic be perfectly content creating elsewhere because it was more about expressing their passion of a topic than cultivating some kind of audience. No matter the alternative they chose, they have plenty of outlets for their creation. But everyone else hates this. All of the bitching about blackouts that I've seen haven't been "man I wanted to post cool shit" but more "where am I supposed to get cool stuff from?".

In general, what I've seen is a slight decline in activity, but a sharp decline in quality. Comparatively, my experience in Lemmy thus far has been that people creating were fine moving elsewhere to do their thing, and while communities are still small, I've seen a lot more long-form, thoughtful and respectful discussion because everyone there was a creator and enthusiast about that topic. Looking at the profiles of people commenting, they've typically posted at least once in that community already.

Meanwhile on Reddit, since the blackout wore off on certain subs, I've seen a lot of this:

[In the original, here would be an image of a typical current comment thread in a blackout-related post, but the context of it is explained below anyway]

Where people who bitch about the blackout because "but I wanted to discuss x!!" are then invited to discuss exactly that, and the conversation goes something along the lines of

"I wanted to discuss x!"

"Oh cool, me too. I like x y z about it, though I preferred if x was like this instead, and maybe z could be polished a little more"

"Well, idk I like it"

"ok 👍"

or just

"i like this"

"i like this too 👍"

because they don't actually have any proper formulated thoughts or opinions on the subject beyond surface-level observations, brand identity or attachment, or if they do have them, they don't have the drive to create or lead conversations about it and just lurk waiting for said content and thoughts to be delivered for them.

Which makes the already bad state of egregious repost bots rising to the top because people keep upvoting the same topics over and over even worse.

In a way, I guess it's kinda similar to what happened with 9gag when that hit critical mass.

To expand on this, I also find it interesting and perplexing just how far that entitlement goes. Moderators are on the verge of losing critical tools, and they're essential in maintaining the quality of the discussions held. Creators create the topics of discussion, and are the main driving force in setting the baseline quality of said discussions, and as power users are more likely to be the ones to depend on third party apps to create the content people browse.

Both seem fine with the situation, and/or migration, and very understandably go "Hey we feel disrespected on this platform and are moving to x where we feel we can thrive better without external influences deriding our community" and lurkers, who contribute nothing and have the least barrier of entry because they essentially just need to change the url they search the same terms in, stomp their feet and cry "but I want you to discuss things for my entertainment HERE!!!" like two year olds.

Edited to add, here on Lemmy:

I'm hopeful that this situation will show moderators they can curate a dedicated community anywhere with similar (actually relevant) post flow and quality, but without enduring the abuse of the platform they host it in and a bunch of on-lookers. I really hope they don't buckle in the name of "but we're already established / have so many people / are such a good resource" because all these things can be true elsewhere without receiving death threats or mod mail spam for doing the right thing.