Note that these are just quotes from the disastrous AMA he held last week, not new comments that have been made.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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I just posted it elsewhere, but that's only the beginning. They also announced their intent to turn reddit into an even more ad-infested hellhole than it already is: https://www.redditinc.com/blog/investing-in-what-makes-reddit-unique-introducing-contextual-keyword-targeting-and-product-ads
This is the future of reddit everyone - abandon all hope ye who clicketh here: https://www.redditinc.com/assets/images/site/image2.gif
Unlike some of the 3P [third-party] apps, we are not profitable - Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO
Translation - we don't have control of the 3PA and they are getting in the way of moooore profit, so we want them gone.
What a shitty job at astroturphing there.
"Won't someone think of the corporations! The evil third party apps (that we admitted were less than 10% of our userbase) are (somehow) bankrupting us! They're using so much API (even though our website uses at least 5x the API calls)
[Translation: There's 10% of the people we could shove ads in front of who are getting around it and I want to sell this sucker so I can buy another vacation property]
They're using so much API
I’m 100% convinced the reason they think 3PA API usage is unusually high per user is because all the high engagement users use 3PA, because their app actively repulses people from wanting to spend time on it. It seems like such a classic product misinterpretation of the stats, I’ve seen this from the inside as a developer before, ironically also at a company trying to IPO and failing spectacularly by completely misreading the room and their users
I hadn't thought about this but it makes sense. It's widely known that their largest contributors are 3PA users, I wonder if they did take the bias into account
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I'm 90% certain that this whole thing is due to to Reddit's new marketing execs saying "we can't run ads on third party apps", and then deciding that third party apps need to pay up for their supposed "projected loss in ad revenue".
It's the piracy fallacy: "Somebody is using my service without giving ME profit, and so we're gonna go into a self-destructive tantrum". "Ignore the fact that nobody ever wanted to pay us for that anyways."
We don't need that kind of greed in control of our online communities, good riddance.
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LMAO giving r/BuyItForLife as a good example of where to put ads.
I know, right? I hope BIFL will rip advertisers there a new one by suggesting alternatives.
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Yeah I’m done having ads shoved in my face constantly. Corporations ruin everything and this was just the push I needed to remove one more attack vector from my life.
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Well I just spent the last hour deleting all my old Reddit posts from the last 7 years or so and then deleted the account.
I will be no part of this continued data mining and making money off users hand over fist, making billions of dollars from data and the actual data source gets nothing.
#ragequitreddit
I guess in your case it's already too late anyway, but if someone else reads this: you don't have to delete everything by hand. There are tools available like shreddit or Redact.
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Well ok then, fuck you and goodbye :D
That sounds a lot like what happened to Google with SEO getting abused. I almost always append “reddit” to the end of my Google searches to find actual answers and discussions, but now that’s going to be ruined too. I don’t understand how they’ve taken what’s so valuable about reddit, honest and real discussions and answers, and decided to do the opposite of that. It doesn’t even seem financially smart, it will just drive more people away from their site.
Well Spez is a greedy little pig boy, so I’m not surprised
I would like to say that "future of reddit" image is really egregious, but I suppose its in line with other social media hell-holes.
The goggles, they do nothing.
Ya that sounds fkn horrible.
They're free to shape Reddit as they see fit. Although I mourn the loss of the past states of Reddit, I'm also free to extract myself from that ecosystem.
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"Hold on, dear investors! I'm confident that we can simply steer our ship straight through the middle of the massive iceberg!"
Ironically, had the titanic hit the iceberg straight on it probably would have survived. Swerving at the very last moment was what made it sink.
Be gone with your counterintuitive realism, getting in the way of an entertaining metaphor!
"There is no danger that Reddit will sink. The site is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the user bases."
" The site is unsinkable. We've simply decided to spend some time underwater while we work out some tech issues. "
I'm not going back despite reddit sticking with API changes.
I wasnt going back anyway, but now it's an even easier decision!
At this point even if they run back their changes, I’m not going back.
I find this post at a moment when the show has already started (as can be seen on https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/ and https://reddark.untone.uk/ )
But the article is 3 days old. It seems many did not expect that much unity from subreddits going dark. 2.5 billion affected subscribers is quite something!
I'm still in hopes they change their mind in light of recent events. Don't think they will though.
We're sticking to the Fediverse as well so
and here i was, truly believing that they would reconsider. as of right now ~4000 of the planned 6600 subs have gone private, if that isn't enough then oh well
I'm hoping that a lot of the subreddits that has gone dark would remain dark indefinitely. Granted, the Reddit admins might try to replace the mods on a lot of the subreddits - but at that point the community may not be the same anymore.
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There (likely) won't be any reconsideration. Reddit's concern right now isn't the health of its communities. They're focused on taking the ball of data they're sitting on and selling it to AI platforms while the AI gold rush is still happening.
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They weathered the fatpeoplhate tantrum, I'm not really sure why anyone thinks a blackout would faze them.
That said I hope lemmy can grow into a mature social content aggregator.
They really want the fediverse to grow. I appreciate their dedication to the cause.
Just saw on Reddit there are 300+ subs going dark indefinitely. That is what needs to happen. Sure Reddit could come in and find new mods but damn might end up being a decent amount of work/chaos. They should screw up their automods and delete the backup logs. Still probably wouldn't be that hard for an admin to rollback but still the more pain the better.
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I'm gone, and I won't be back.
What does reddit plan to do with all these communities going dark?
They should remain dark until changes are made. A strike with an end date is pointless.
Well. It's his right then.
It's also our right to walk out of the crumbling house. Unlike FB and Twitter which still has core (and over reaching) followers that still remain there, Reddit may face a slow burning death.
Oh well, it's a fun ride. Goodbye to the communities and hobbyists.
Watching hundreds of subreddits go dark on the hour every hour is very cathartic. The twitch stream started with a couple hundred and now it’s at 15,000 viewers. Looking forward to the Wikipedia write up on this, at least I hope there’s one.
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This was always the goal, I'm just glad that we have the option to host federated communities like this now
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Wayne, with Fediverse i'm totaly lucky!
They're just reporting on the AMA, they don't know anything we don't already know.
That article is terrible, incidentally. It didn't cover what really happened with the Apollo dev and just parroted spez's talking points as facts.
Also, fuck u/spez.
As sad as I am to see it go, I'm excited to be a part of what's next!
Honestly, a 3 day, partial shutdown is less than 1% percent of their annual online time. The strike has got to last much longer imo
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