I can’t wrap my head around this, it seems so bizarre. The only reason I’m here now is because I joined Apollo right after Reddit changed its app to remove the sort by rising feature. It completely changed my experience on the app for the worse and I sought out an alternative, and I know I’m not the only one that had this complaint. I was a faithful Reddit user/poster on the official app for 6 years until just a few months ago. Why would they make their app less user friendly a few months before announcing the crazy API changes. They drove me away from their app and then drove me away from the site altogether.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? It just makes no sense to me
Counter to what many will want you to believe, I think there may be a business case to what they’re doing… but how they’re doing it is completely dumb.
Imagine you run Reddit. You’ve got 15+ years of history and baggage (I.E. those of us who knew which sub /u/spez moderated). You’ve got handful of loyal users that have been very resistant to changes. They’ve been vocal about the new UI where you can spam ads. They’ve been vocal against chat in favor of legacy PM. But you’ve got no way to convert them to the new and shiny features which helps you monetize better that you’d want to focus more effort on.
So what do you do? You sunset older interfaces like the i.reddit.com / .mobile interface. You cripple old reddit. You don’t give new features to the API. You continue to build your new site and acquire new users who’s entire experience had been the new system with nothing to compare to. Old users resistant to change will either be forced to convert or leave… until eventually you get only users in the new system.
Killing the API and third party apps is just a very aggressive step. They’re pruning their old user base for the new.
Is it the best way? Heck no. The older users are active contributors. Their solution aren’t up to speed yet. And they’ve literally thrown decade+ of goodwill down the toilet. But, they have metrics, and I’m sure their bean counters have guaranteed their leadership that they will survive… and they almost certainly will. Just look at Twitter still limping along despite the mass exodus. Just like Digg before Reddit, Reddit will survive and continue to exist. It will be very different than what you and I are used to both in terms of look and feel, functionalities, and communities. But it will survive.
I don’t think I would’ve approached it the same way. But maybe that’s why I’m not rich and running big companies. 🤷♂️
Let’s be real: almost all of the subs’ mods caved when they were threatened with loss of their precious power. A bunch of subs have been operating as business as usual this whole time. Give it a month, and scabs leading apathetic users (many of whom are children) will have settled the ruins and filled in the cracks.
Yes, after those of us who cares leaves, the gaps will be filled quickly, and eventually our existence wiped from the platform. This is why it is even more important for mods to re-open and direct the community to their new destinations, while maintaining the narrative while they still have the platform to do so. That window is rapidly closing, and I think by now it is clear Reddit Inc will not change their stance, no matter the public outcry and pressure.
I’m of the opinion that they should try to start as many fires and destroy as much of the value of the website as possible, all the while directing people to alternative communities. It’s not sustainable, but enough chaos and loss might cause the admins to reevaluate the risk of trying something like this in the future. There’s a reason some animals evolved poison that only works after they’re eaten.
A lot of the reopenings were decided with a user vote. I do think though that the people prepared to move on weren’t around for the vote, so it skewed towards those who didn’t care about the API drama.
I know /r/RPG wants more users to vote than they have any chance of getting before they’ll consider further closures, and /r/Minecraft wanted to respect the users that voted, but caved as soon as the admins said they’d be removed, despite the poll.
What sub did /u/spez used to moderate?
r/jailbait
FWIW, Reddit had a revenue sharing deal with rif, at the very least. Apparently when spez returned as CEO he shut it down.
Well aware; I’m sure it is almost certainly peanuts. Android users are well known in the industry as significantly less willing to pay than iOS users. Google also takes a significant cut of all transactions, as do third party payment processors. By the time everyone get their hands on it, there’s not much left for the dev to share with Reddit. Why have a liability of a “paying customer” that barely generate anything when you can actively work your magic to that “paying customer”'s detriment and steal their user base to where you can monetize better yourself? You could say Spez had this in mind from the get-go.
It’s cynical, but there’s probably some truth to this.