this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Reddit Migration

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### About Community Tracking and helping #redditmigration to Kbin and the Fediverse. Say hello to the decentralized and open future. To see latest reeddit blackout info, see here: https://reddark.untone.uk/

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Seeing a lot of hate and schadenfreude over spez and what he's doing with Reddit.

I feel this is really uncalled for.

What no one seems to understand is that Reddit is unprofitable.

You know what happens to unprofitable tech companies? Think of Geocities shutting down. How many great websites, how many communities were lost?

I can see that spez is trying the best he can to save Reddit. He was one of the original founders. This is his baby. He doesn't want to see it die.

His plan is clear to me.

Reddit is getting too much traffic. It's too big and has too many users, moderators, and communities.

So this means Reddit needs a lot of employees. Someone asked why Reddit needs 2000 employees? Well, where do you think the admins come from? I bet most of them are the hardworking admins who form the bridge between Reddit and the communities.

Since Reddit is so big, perhaps too big, it's hard for them to be profitable. Opportunity cost on users using third party apps means that Reddit has to charge them high prices to make up for lost ads revenue. That's unavoidable.

Okay, sure, maybe some third party apps will agree to run ads in return for lower rates or something. That can work.

Reddit doesn't have an existing way to feed ads to third party apps. I'm don't have experience in that field but I bet developing something like that takes a lot of time. It's also uncertain as Reddit may spend many long months, if not years, developing a way to serve ads to third party apps only to find no takers. Too big a risk.

Remember, the IPO is supposed to happen later this year. Not enough time to develop it and do it right.

So he has no choice but to go in hard against the third party apps. They pay up and make up the cost. If they can't, then they die. Sucks to be them. Their users go to the official app, and get the ads from Reddit. Revenue is saved.

Maybe they don't. Maybe those users quit Reddit altogether. This means less traffic, so fewer expenses for Reddit. Less expenses meas more revenue. Revenue is saved again.

Moderators quit? No problem. Reddit will find new ones or replace them with admins.

Not enough moderators? No problem. Reddit can shutdown the smallest communities that bring in the least revenue. Admins can run the biggest ones.

Section 230? No problem. Reddit adds a new review required mode. Maybe this already exists. Every thread posted is hidden until an admin reviews and approves it. Same for every comment on a thread. This way they can make sure there is no libel or copyright infringement or any other issues before approving.

Need too many admins to review and approve things timely? No problem. Charge users to be able to jump the queue. Those who do not want to pay up then just need to suffer wait times of many months or even years before they can get reviewed and approved.

Less traffic means they need fewer admins. Fewer employees. More layoffs. A more profitable Reddit.

It absolutely sucks that the moderation tools are not ready yet and moderators have to suffer. It sucks worse that those with accessibility needs have fewer options now.

Would it not be worse if Reddit dies altogether? Think about losing those communities. You can't talk to the folks you used to in your subreddits. You have no way to go back and see your own threads, or the useful advice from fellow members of your community. It's all gone.

I have already been through this several times. It hurt to lose Geocities. All MySpace content also gone.

Do YOU want to be responsible for this happening again?!!!

Please do not let this happen again. Please help spez save Reddit.

Give Reddit time. Let spez save Reddit and turn it into a money-maker. Once he does this and Reddit is no longer in danger of being shut down for being unprofitable, then Reddit will have breathing room to solve these issues. A profitable Reddit with a successful IPO will have more cash to spend on recreating the lost moderator tools and accessibility features from third party apps.

FIrst Reddit must manage to survive.

Because Reddit is on it's death throws now.

Because there's no way spez would destroy the trust he's built with the Reddit communities. Unless it is the only way to save the soul of Reddit.

This is why Reddit and spez must win.

P.S. Reddit and spez winning does not mean that we have to lose. If Reddit wins and becomes profitable then the communities are saved. There will be no Geocities or MySpace loss. At the same time a lot of moderators and users who are upset at being monetized will come here. Our communities here will be enriched by this and will continue to grow and blossom. Everybody wins! We can all be winners here!

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[–] Semmelstulle@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Oh woh. Well I agree on Reddit being in need of making a profit. I uderstand he found Reddit and does not want it to die. But the problem is the "fuck you" price. I would be totally fine to pay Reddit Premium to keep using 3rd party apps. I would have been okay with paying 40 bucks a month instead of 20 to the 3rd party app so the dev can pay the API fees.
But what u/spez is constantly doing and showing is driving me away from being nice and respectful to him. He blackmails 3rd party devs, he falsely accuses them of saying things that never happened. If he just said "I do now want 3rd party apps anymore" I'd be frustrated but I'd forgive and forget. At this point u/spez just seems to fight with the mindset of a preschooler against the community.
Oh and he is sympathizing with Musk and his moderation and way to run a company. These two things already made me say FUCK NO to Twitter.

Edit: he also fucked with long time, loyal super moderators

[–] spez_fangirl@fedia.io 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The loyal super moderator actually did take part in the blackout according to that post, despite later denials. Maybe it is justified from Reddits POV? Most users both in and out of Reddit agree it was the right call so I hardly see why that matters.

Maybe 40 bucks a month is not enough. Would you do 500 a month to keep them alive? Even if you would how many others could say the same?

We can not know the answers about how realistic a cheaper price would be from Reddits own POV unless we know their financials. Until then I think they deserve a showing of good faith.

I thought about it for a long time and I can not come up with any justification for spez doing the blackmail and false accusations. That was wrong and spez needs to own up to it like he did for the edits he did back in 2016. I do not think Reddit deserves to die because of these mistakes.

I did not know he was like that with Musk. I hate that guy. He is so ugly. Not at all sexy like blonde spez.

[–] Semmelstulle@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah Reddit dying would be a very bad thing. I do not like the actions of its CEO but the content is extremely helpful. There is so much knowledge archived on Reddit.

And about the API Pricing I'd argue it would be very similar to YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Netflix, ...
If a user pays monthly for premium, the company will get more money than it would get from that user relying on ads. And running an API costs you nothing extra since you need one anyway, when you want to have any App or website that is written somewhat well.

Ngl I thought you were sarcastic at first but I thank you for the kind of reply you gave. More often than not threads like this get heated very quickly 👍