this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2023
187 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37739 readers
590 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They don't need it to. They just need to have enough clueless investors for the IPO and snazzy graphics to mislead them enough so they aren't looking at what is actually happening that Reddit is actually imploding.
Being a realist, I wouldn't say Reddit will implode from this. A lot of people just come for the memes and don't really give a shit about BaconReader, Apollo, Reddit Is Fun, etc.
What it will do is drive far more people towards Reddit competitors. Lemmy instances in general have seen far more signups lately, and Tildes has exponentially increased in active users.
The part I'm worried about is what happens if Spez does the unthinkable and backs down.
Some of you may remember a Reddit clone called Voat that grew during Ellen Pao's brief tenure as Reddit's CEO. It was once poised to be the Reddit successor but was quickly abandoned due to server issues and Ellen later resigning. Voat nearly died, was resurrected by becoming a bastion for white supremacists when they were driven off of Reddit months later and survived for a few more years...
As for how Voat was near the end of its life, imagine nearly every comment being filled with offensive slurs...
I think it's a little more complicated than this: Reddit needs power users to make its ecosystem work. Mods of course, but also content creators and content, hem, reposters, who keep large communities active and interesting. If a significant enough fraction of these people give up on Reddit, the users who want funny memes will go get them from 9gag or wherever is most convenient for them.