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Thousands of Subreddits Remain Dark as Reddit Protests Approach Third Week (theguardian.com) 113

Posted by EditorDavid from the in-all-things-moderators dept.
"User protests against Reddit's plan to charge new fees to access its content are about to enter their third week," writes Axios.

2,503 subreddits remain dark, including at least three with more than 20 million subscribers apiece, the Guardian points out, arguing that CEO Steve Huffman "may win, but the short history of the web is littered with the corpses of predecessors who alienated their fanbases."

The New York Times adds that in an interview Wednesday, "Mr. Huffman said his goal had been to make Reddit better for newcomers and veteran users and to build a lasting business.

"He said he regretted that developers were surprised by the company's pricing changes and wished he had been more upfront about how the changes would affect them..." Reddit is now further away from a public offering than it was last year, Mr. Huffman said, but will continue building its business. He added that the community revolt was a part of what made Reddit Reddit and said he and his team planned to continue engaging with top moderators who were upset with the changes. "For better or for worse, this is a very uniquely Reddit moment," he said. "This could only happen on Reddit."
The Times also spoke to a man who moderates 80 different forums on Reddit — and has been volunteering to moderate Reddit forums for 11 years. He calls Huffman's API move "really demoralizing... I take all this abuse for you, and keep your website clean, and this is how you repay us?'"

He's now active in Reddit's "Save3rdPartyApps" subreddit, "which was formed to organize protests on the site that are allowed under Reddit's rules."
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Thousands of Subreddits Remain Dark as Reddit Protests Approach Third Week More

Thousands of Subreddits Remain Dark as Reddit Protests Approach Third Week

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  • “Could only happen on Reddit” (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Sunday June 25, 2023 @06:59AM (#63630536)
    Yeah, cause the internet has never had any form of discussion board, chat forum or social media before Reddit. Let’s all take this vewy, vewy sewiouswy because there’s absolutely no possible way that Reddit’s functionality could be replaced by a short snippet of code for asynchronous text communication hosted on any number of international cloud services.

    I’m not even all that salty about Reddit trying to monetize their service. Their actions are completely justified. They’re a company in a capitalist economy. They exist to make a profit. Period. No further discussion. That’s what they do. That’s why they exist. The true purpose of the discussion forum they run is to make $$$ for their investors. Personally, I view the people getting all worked up about this Reddit thing as childish individuals who are deeply ignorant about how the world around them actually works.

    Reddit is easily replaceable. If a bunch of people no longer like Reddit, they should vote with their feet and migrate to some OTHER chat forum. But listening to the Reddit CEO claim that they’re unique results in my eyes rolling so far back into my head that I convulse for a few seconds.

    • Re:“Could only happen on Reddit” (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Sunday June 25, 2023 @08:48AM (#63630654) Homepage

      People aren't upset about Reddit making money. They're upset about them deliberately pricing-out-of-existence, with a pricing scheme that they knew nobody would be able to afford to pay (except maybe AI companies), all third-party apps, including those that provide key accessibility options for people with disabilities, and those that provide extremely useful moderation tools. And then acting like a complete authoritarian mocking arse to everyone who was upset.

      There was a right way to go about this (announcing that you'll be needing to enhance revenue streams, setting a price that third party apps could realistically achieve with ads or app sales, making exceptions for mod tools and features for the disabled, being respectful and working with your users and mods, etc).

      Or you could... you know... pull a Musk. Which is the option he chose.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by hdyoung ( 5182939 )
        fair enough. It does seem that they made a business error. But that’s all it is. Market forces will take care of that. If they’ve priced themselves too high or somehow reduced the attractiveness of their product, they will lose customers, and then revenue, and they will be forced to adjust, shrink, or go out of business. Businesses make errors all the time. It’s not some massively important social/freedom/ethical/moral fight.

        It’s critically important to remember who exactly the

      • If the disabled can't use the site then that's a violation of US federal refs and someone should sue them for equal access not cry that a third party app to fix their violations is no longer available.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Calydor ( 739835 )

          To some extent. Screen readers don't work well with Reddit's native mobile app, but I haven't heard anything about them not working with the website itself. As such Reddit *is* accessible, they just need to go to the entrance with the proverbial wheelchair ramp.

          • The upvote and downvote buttons are not accessible/labeled for the sight impaired. Apparently there's other issues too.

            • The upvote and downvote buttons are not accessible/labeled for the sight impaired.

              On the list of things to give a fuck about that ranks pretty damn low.

              • Not for the disabled.

                We have laws about this shit for a reason. Just because someone is visually impaired doesn't mean their issues aren't I,portent because there's some other random feature sufficiently slighter people would prefer.

              • For a blind moderator? Removing their ability to do their job? Sure, you might feel it's not worth a fuck, but that removes their ability to do their job. You end up with /r/blind having no blind moderators. Guess what happens then? You end up with assholes like you who don't know what they go through and use *YOUR* opinion on what to give a fuck about, rather than what the blind community feel they need. Having empathy is useful.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jaa101 ( 627731 )

        all third-party apps, including those that provide key accessibility options for people with disabilities

        Reddit has now said that “we’ve connected with select developers of non-commercial apps that address accessibility needs and offered them exemptions from our large-scale pricing terms.”

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 )

      Reddit is easily replaceable. If a bunch of people no longer like Reddit, they should vote with their feet and migrate to some OTHER chat forum. But listening to the Reddit CEO claim that they’re unique results in my eyes rolling so far back into my head that I convulse for a few seconds.

      None of them are unique.

      Twitter had the clever idea of force-limiting post length, but it's not as if nobody else could do that.

      Facebook is just a glorified multi-user blog platform. They all are, really.

      They just got lucky being sort of first to market and having an early lucky win in their spaces, and have been coasting from network effect ever since.

    • Re:“Could only happen on Reddit” (Score:4, Informative)

      by Racemaniac ( 1099281 ) on Sunday June 25, 2023 @09:20AM (#63630706)

      It keeps amazing me that after 3 weeks people keep missing the point.

      It STARTED with the pricing of the API for the apps. That shitstorm that followed is why the protests continued. The issue with the API pricing is not reddit wanting money, but reddit pricing it such, and on such short notice, that all existing apps HAD to stop. That while being assured only months before that nothing big was coming, and despite asking reddit for some way to work it out (they're willing to pay).

      Then the reddit CEO openly lying about supposed threats, about how unreasonable the app developers are was the next thing.%

      Then the reddit AMA where the ceo was going to answer questions, only for him to answer literally nothing, and just be copy pasting canned answers, in such a lazy way that he sometimes even pasted the "A: " in front of his answers document.

      Then also the total neglect of disabled communities on reddit which provide very valuable services for the blind & deaf.

      Then the squashing of the protests with more lying & corporate bullshit speak ("you can't close the subreddit, you have an obligation to your users". While in most cases literally a majority of the users supports the protests)...

      etc... etc... etc...

      Yes, reddit should make money, it's a company. The community won't like it when that changes, but if it's done in a fair & reasonable way, sure, why not.

      If it's the above shitstorm and just ignoring your users & biggest supporters.... yeaaahhhhhhh..... forget it. If this is the start of the end of reddit, i won't be surprised, a lot of its core supporters (app developers, tool developers, engaged moderators) are all leaving, that's really not good.

      • All that may be true however it's just a tempest in a tea cup. It's just a message board. If it dies it'll be replaced.

        This is just crazy people losing their shit in public. That one idiot has wasted 11 years of his life managing 80 subs for free? Jfc.... We're supposed to feel bad for that dumbass?

        Some things worth volunteering for: feeding & building housing for the poor and homeless, taking care of injured or abandoned animals, the big brother/sister program, hanging out with the elderly who have

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by the_B0fh ( 208483 )
          Apparently, only things you feel are valuable, are valuable. Thank you for sharing your thoughtfulness and wisdom. Please tell me more of what's valuable and what's not valuable.

          • The list is right there. Reddit is not important. It's ridiculous to say that cleaning porn for free off a commercial site is important.

            Your "everyone has their own view and they're all equally valuable" guilt trip attempt is noted and dismissed as the garbage it is.

            Have a nice day doing free labor for a commercial site run by assholes.

      • Then also the total neglect of disabled communities on reddit which provide very valuable services for the blind & deaf.

        This is desperate. The disabled have no problem using the reddit website. It's a shit website for everyone, as is the android app (can't speak for iPhone) no need to play the disabled card here. Everyone deserves something a bit better, and currently everyone is stuck with something sub-par but otherwise functional.

        • So the community for transcription for the blind leaving on july the first due to the issues the new API will cause is just them being a dramaqueen and giving up a very useful service for them for no reason?

      • I know the scale of reddit may make it seem an impossible hill to climb, but when I was part of a musician message board that had a corporate takeover go south, you know what happened? Some users got together and spun up a new message board. All the effort the users and mods are putting into trying to hurt reddit could have been expended in effort to create a new platform. It's not like it's a big, heavy lift to start the process. If reddit is really as terrible as they're saying, they'd gather enough suppo

    • Yeah, cause the internet has never had any form of discussion board, chat forum or social media before Reddit.

      Of course it has, but none with the unique structure of Reddit where users can come in and magic up a sub to which they are a moderator. Every other discussion board the owner is the king, not a specific class of user who creates micro-kingdoms.

      Reddit is easily replaceable.

      It is not. Reddit is held in stasis by the network effect. A bunch of users will leave to create something, will find nothingness, and then return. It's the same reason why people still use Facebook despite it being ... just the worst. Replacing a large social media

    • I didn't use Reddit much, but the one thing that got me there periodically has been supplanted. I like the new crowd much better. I expect more and more people are doing the same.

  • The CEO already lost (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pinky's Brain ( 1158667 ) on Sunday June 25, 2023 @07:08AM (#63630546)

    He lost the moment he didn't negotiate. Even if it required say a couple months of development time to implement a monetized API specifically for the viewer/moderator apps (subscriber pays, with some kind of profit sharing and some heuristic detection to make sure the API keys of the app are only used for its intended purpose) that would have easily been worth it at this point.

    He lost the shareholders 100s of millions in value.

    • I think it's more than that. There weren't any good Reddit replacements available. Fediverse doesn't have a (non-beta) mobile app.

      Wish.Com Elon has changed that. The smart and capable people are building out the Fediverse, including mobile apps. The next time WC Elon screws up (and unless he's fired, there will be a next time), there will be platforms capable of handling the migration.

    • He lost the shareholders 100s of millions in value.

      He hasn't lost anything. Value is only fixed at the point of sale. Reddit is privately owned. Until the point of an IPO or a sale no value or money has been affected.

      • Money is fixed at the point of sale, value is an opinion and used say for say debt issuance, regulatory compliance ... or for an IPO.

        They can't even begin to prepare an IPO while this disaster plays out, the shareholders would be wiped out.

        • The value of something unsold and not on the market is irrelevant. Again nothing at all is lost or devalued. There's no urgent need to sell Reddit so there's precisely no impact on any shareholder involved.

      • He lost the shareholders 100s of millions in value.

        He hasn't lost anything. Value is only fixed at the point of sale. Reddit is privately owned. Until the point of an IPO or a sale no value or money has been affected.

        Splitting hairs.

        Would you be willing to pay $X for Y% of Reddit before this all started?

        Would you still be willing to pay $X today? We don't know how much shareholder value he's destroyed, but it's a lot.

    • What did he lose, exactly? Nothing of value.

      If you think this is how IPO's work then you should stop commenting about business.

      • There is not going to be an IPO any time soon because of the clown CEO.

        He lost Reddit the opportunity and locked up the capital of the shareholders in an asset which is now diminishing in value due to his moronic decisions ... some of them actually have to show that loss of value on their books too.

    • He didn't lose shit. There's plenty of other fools willing to work for free if it gives them a little bit of Internet power.

    • >> He lost the shareholders 100s of millions in value.
      That value was inflated investor bubble value anyway.

  • Doesn't mean it's not replaceable.

    Huffman playing the long game because he wants to cash out. It will work, too. Won't be popular but it will work.

  • That Times quote (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday June 25, 2023 @08:40AM (#63630646)

    >The Times also spoke to a man who moderates 80 different forums on Reddit â" and has been volunteering to moderate Reddit forums for 11 years. He calls Huffman's API move "really demoralizing... I take all this abuse for you, and keep your website clean, and this is how you repay us?'"

    You've been competing with others for the right to slave away for someone trying to profit off you, for 11 years, and you are just now realizing you're given all the consideration of a readily replaceable slave.

    [insert P.T. Barnum quote here]

    • You've been competing with others for the right to slave away for someone trying to profit off you, for 11 years, and you are just now realizing you're given all the consideration of a readily replaceable slave.

      On slashdot the power of mod points is much less than reddittors, but it gets old after about a month.

      • Here I look at mod points as an obligation to the community, sort of like (a very unimportant form of) jury duty.

        • I wish we had upvotes and downvotes we could give people IRL. (if you've seen The Orville, you know what I'm talking about)

    • To be charitable about it, one may presume he's really quite happy to do it; he loves those communities and gets some satisfaction from it. But he wants to be able to use tools that make the hobby less miserable.

      As someone that PAYS to enter bike races and spend money on bicycles, it's like that. You want to be able to bring the tools that work with you to the race. I'd be ticked if I showed up and they told me I wasn't allowed to ride my bike anymore, they were going back to penny farthings.

  • The sun is setting (Score:3)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Sunday June 25, 2023 @09:16AM (#63630694)
    On the Reddit empire

    • A single digit percent in drop in traffic, combined with a tiny fraction of a percent of subreddits offline isn't setting anything. At best a single cloud is in the sky causing a blemish on an otherwise perfect sunny day.

  • Steve Huffman versus "guy who imposes his personal notions of decorum across 80 widely-disparate subforums" is like seeing a fight between the jock who stuffs you in a locker after gym class and the skeev who tried to get you to sell him a pair of your sister's dirty underwear.

  • Fire! Aim! Ready! (Score:3)

    by jeek ( 37349 ) <jeek&jeek,net> on Sunday June 25, 2023 @09:55AM (#63630794) Homepage

    It's pretty simple for me.

    Reddit is an unusable dumpster fire without a 3rd-party client.
    They're killing third party clients.
    I'm not going to attempt to use an unusable dumpster fire.

    When the 3rd-party clients go, I'm going to enjoy the free time I get back from not being on Reddit anymore.

    • Why are you there at all if you can apparently live without it?

    • Maybe this will force them to make the web interface work for your picky needs, and in the end a better experience for all.

    • I'm not going to attempt to use an unusable dumpster fire.

      If people thought like you most popular software wouldn't exist anymore. I hear you and applaud the idea that you won't use Reddit, but you'll be a rounding error in the user count. Nearly all people may use something that works better for them, but use something worse rather than boycott if that better thing is unavailable.

  • Most of the subreddits on this list are re-opened because this "protest" was a complete waste of everyone's time. Reddit will be backtracking on their business decision AAAAAny day now. Any day.

  • And nothing of value... (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday June 25, 2023 @10:51AM (#63630978)

    Let's face it, how will this end: Nobody cares. Seriously. Not even 80ish percent of the Reddit users. Either their favorite subs are not affected. Then they don't care. Or they are. Then they find some other to watch.

    Who is affected is mostly moderators, who are in the game for the power trip (at least most of them are). The ones that are not will fold because they sure won't have to deal with it, the power trippers will adjust because they don't want to lose the only thing that gives their sorry life some kind of validation.

    In the long run, this means that the quality of moderation will take a serious hit (yes, that's possible, believe it or not), but by then, the IPO will be over, Huff is a billionaire and doesn't give a fuck what happens to Reddit.

    And that's pretty much the game being played now.

    • Not even 80ish percent of the Reddit users.

      Based on the the leaked internal email that made the rounds last week, not even 94% of Reddit users. They've seen bugger all drop in traffic.

    • Nobody cares. Seriously. Not even 80ish percent of the Reddit users.

      Funny thing. I cared, and almost all the subreddits I frequented went down. I was even happy to see most of those subreddits that went dark remained dark past the two day lockdown.

  • ‘For the past 11 years, Bucky has put time and effort into stewarding and guiding dozens of communities on Reddit, the sprawling internet message board. As a “moderator” of roughly 80 different topic-based forums, Bucky — who goes by “BuckRowdy” on Reddit’

  • They should all be banned. No one should be moderating that many subs.

    • There's no point in banning them as they could just spin up alts and in many cases having a reputation in one sub is a way of vetting you as a mod for another sub. Beyond that, their responsibilities can be divided by as many mods as they want, so it's not like putting in 1/11th the effort in each sub really makes a difference - it's basically another censor providing some casual service to your discussion group.

      Now, if mods were required to register with government-issued ID and a credit card... well, at

      • Cool idea. State-sponsored spammers and astroturfers should have no problem getting a couple thousand government-issued IDs.

        Then again, that's pretty much the expected outcome of the planned process of "Firing everyone, then signing up whoever yells the loudest" anyway.

  • Managing Expectations only goes so far when your expectations have been outright rejected by those you're putting them on.
  • What if you had a war and nobody came? This whole Reddit Blackout shows what the end result would be. For the most part, nobody cares and Reddit is still online. The only people getting hurt by the blackout are those who use Reddit.

    • What if you had a war and nobody came? This whole Reddit Blackout shows what the end result would be.

      This is exactly right. Only half of the subreddits I follow went dark - a number of those are back already.

      The handful that not are basically abusing moderator privilege by keep many, many old posts dark, written be people where an unknown percentage - but probably much less than 50% of people - agree with you keeping the subreddit dark.

      Meanwhile people are more and more simply migrating on to other subredd

  • With by far the best way to protest I've ever seen in my life for a social media site. Flood the forums with posts attacking the advertisers for having shoddy products. Make sure everyone who goes to the site and sees anything is only seeing attacks on the advertisers.

    If you chase off the advertisers right it will have to back down real quick because they still need that revenue. Sure the long-term plan is to sell all the posts to AI companies but the base of the company is still advertising.
    • That is a good idea. A similar strategy was suggested of suspending the protests until the IPO is to be announced, only attacking advertisers at that point in one large, coordinated strike. The idea would be to lose investors a lot of money, putting the buggers off ever pushing for this kind of crippling approach to customer service ever again.

  • Subject says it. I haven't noticed the protests on Reddit. There is probably less in my feed, but that might be a good thing.

  • And the content on imgur has gotten really good in the last three weeks!

  • There once was a website named DIGG. Everyone used it to post messages and caturday pics. It was great. Then the people who ran DIGG decided to change it, to make it be more like Twitter, and when the users complained, they ignored it, and ignored it, and the people left. All of them left. Most went to Reddit, and that's probably the only reason Reddit is still around and Digg is long dead. Now, watch as history repeats itself. Where will everyone go this time, or is this the end?

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