Luca 🔨 on Nostr: Around 70% of the most popular 1000 SFW and 500 NSWF subreddits participated in the ...
Around 70% of the most popular 1000 SFW and 500 NSWF subreddits participated in the #reddit blackout. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told the employees that the strike will pass and not to wear company gear in public because people are angry. 45% of the popular subreddits are still inaccessible to the public after the end of the initially planned 48 hours. Some already announced that they will stay that way indefinitely, unless reddit changes course.
The power structure is more visible on reddit than on other platforms. Heavy users do not only post much more content, but they control the subreddits as well.
Like with other platforms, the long tail produces the majority of the content. Posts and comments went from around 1.3 k to 1 k per minute during the blackout. 25% decrease from one day to the next is insane for such a big platform. But it's not close to the 70% of the popular subreddits.
Reddit has three options:
- Change course. (unlikely based on the internal memos)
- Dethrone mods. (they did that in the past when mods did bad/stupid things; but never on that scale; unclear if they even have the capacity to moderate the subreddits inhouse)
- Ignore everything (most likely in my opion; other users will create replacement subreddits for the popular ones as an easy grift; less involved users won't care; some heavy users will give up, others leave reddit)
Even if the API is as expensive to reddit as they claim, they already have everything set up to charge users directly through reddit Gold. That would have been easier and cause less backslash than asking developers to pay for their users. Especially with many developers not even making money with their apps but still creating value for reddit.
I don't get the IPO argument either. Sure, being profitable helps with the valuation, but bad press does not: Showing the world that you users hate you that much that they organize a strike and making the unpaid labour visible that your platform relies on. Accelerating the development of alternatives. How does that help?
Data and diagrams from https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/
The power structure is more visible on reddit than on other platforms. Heavy users do not only post much more content, but they control the subreddits as well.
Like with other platforms, the long tail produces the majority of the content. Posts and comments went from around 1.3 k to 1 k per minute during the blackout. 25% decrease from one day to the next is insane for such a big platform. But it's not close to the 70% of the popular subreddits.
Reddit has three options:
- Change course. (unlikely based on the internal memos)
- Dethrone mods. (they did that in the past when mods did bad/stupid things; but never on that scale; unclear if they even have the capacity to moderate the subreddits inhouse)
- Ignore everything (most likely in my opion; other users will create replacement subreddits for the popular ones as an easy grift; less involved users won't care; some heavy users will give up, others leave reddit)
Even if the API is as expensive to reddit as they claim, they already have everything set up to charge users directly through reddit Gold. That would have been easier and cause less backslash than asking developers to pay for their users. Especially with many developers not even making money with their apps but still creating value for reddit.
I don't get the IPO argument either. Sure, being profitable helps with the valuation, but bad press does not: Showing the world that you users hate you that much that they organize a strike and making the unpaid labour visible that your platform relies on. Accelerating the development of alternatives. How does that help?
Data and diagrams from https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/