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Jun 06 '23
Ooh I came here with the Digg exodus. Id love to take part in a Reddit exodus. Where would we go?
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u/witch-finder Jun 07 '23
The Something Awful forums. One of the earliest big message boards and still kickin'.
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u/MitBucket Jun 07 '23
Me too! 5 years of Digging, 10 years of reddit (all on rif). The second they axe Rif I am out of here. Need to find something for 15 years now.
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u/Biberkopf Jun 07 '23
Lemmy is an option. It functions just like Reddit, but uses the ActivityPub protocol in the background.
Worthwhile to investigate - a whole lot of decentralized, user controlled, small and corpo-free stuff (e.g. instagram & twitter alternatives) in the ActivityPub ecosystem.
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Jun 07 '23
There is a large r/AskReddit thread from a couple days ago discussing alternatives. It suggested Tildes, FARK Lemmy, Mainchan and a couple others. r/tildes is passing out invitations
I haven't visited it myself but apparently there is now r/reddit alternatives.
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Jun 07 '23
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u/Astilaroth Jun 07 '23
Yeah but where do I go àfter that, to talk about Outside? And the many niche hobbies that I don't share with people in my immediate surroundings :(
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u/digital_element Jun 06 '23
This doesn't just affect apps used to browse reddit. This impacts all the bots that so many subs rely on to make the lives of unpaid moderators significantly easier. Expect your favorite subs to be filled with spam, risky content and potentially illegal content that's no longer filterable by bots automatically because of the new terms.
Eli5 should go offline, all subs should go offline, and users should completely boycott reddit until the new terms are undone!
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u/jcdoe Jun 07 '23
Upvoted, we need this comment higher.
When the moderation bots go, reddit is going to become the fucking Wild West of junk. Ever notice how reddit doesn’t have nearly as many spammers as other platforms? You can thank an unpaid mod using a third party app to identify bots and spammers.
I am cranky at the idea of losing Apollo because it has made my reddit experience so much nicer. But I could live without it. Fuck, I could even get used to the bullshit video player in the official app. But you can expect the reddit of today to die on July 1st because no one is going to make mod tools if it costs them millions a year.
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u/Sams59k Jun 07 '23
You couldn't get used to the official video player. It legitimately does not work most of the times. The mobile app is so broken it's just unbelievable. I'd die of old age before listing all the reasons why
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u/R3D3-1 Jun 06 '23
This part is probably the most important. The user choice thing sounds nice, but ultimately it is a company choice, and ad revenue keeps the lights on.
However, taking away tools from volunteer contributors threatens the platform as a whole. It is still for the company to choose, but at least they should be aware that it has consequences they probably don't intend, and that happen whether there is upfront public outcry or not.
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u/usedToBeUnhappy Jun 07 '23
I don‘t know why this isn‘t higher up. Not being able to use third party apps is terrible, but without proper moderation reddit will go down. BOTs are absolutely necessary for moderation…
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Jun 06 '23
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u/buzziebee Jun 06 '23
This affects all users because a lot of the most active members of communities are people using third party apps.
You already mentioned moderators, if people can't moderate subreddits then the quality will go down massively. Whether you use a third party app or not this affects you.
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u/Parafault Jun 06 '23
I’ve only used the official app because I had no idea others existed. I have all sorts of problems with the app, so now I want to try out the alternatives 😥
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u/KageNoKagami7 Jun 06 '23
Reddit is fun for android :)
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u/hello_dali Jun 06 '23 edited Jun 06 '23
tips: turn off cards, enable night mode
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u/Churrasco_fan Jun 06 '23
What are "cards" ?
RIF user for over a decade and I've never had that selected
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u/versusgorilla Jun 07 '23
Underline and highlight SIMPLE.
Reddit used to be really simple looking. Ads in a couple spots, and then a list of content links.
They've slowly added chaff to the UI, and even old reddit doesn't quite capture how simple the site was.
RIF does. It's clean and simple and clear, every other app I use is loading pictures and videos and filling my screen with single links. I want to open r/politics and are like ten stories all at once and decide what to read. RIF gives me exactly that.
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u/CHark80 Jun 07 '23
I have rif exact same settings and it really is a sharp comparison to any other modern social media, or hell any other website.
I don't get how people are OK with the constant ads and shit ui everywhere else
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u/Pearson_Realize Jun 06 '23
Honestly, at this point, I wouldn’t. I didn’t realize how awful the official Reddit app is until I started using Apollo. Now that it’s very likely Apollo is shutting down in a month I might just quit Reddit forever because it’s shown me how awful and incompetent the official Reddit team is.
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u/OhNoManBearPig Jun 06 '23
They're awful and it'll only get worse. The momentum is there, the trajectory is set. Nobody will save it, the soul is gone.
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u/NotEvenJohn Jun 06 '23
The reddit app didn't exist until 2016. I had no choice but a 3rd party app when I started on Reddit. Reddit gave out free awards for awhile on the official app to try to get people like me to switch over and it didn't work so now they are trying to force the issue.
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u/Mason11987 Jun 06 '23
Well, you got a month at least. I use Apollo for iOS, it's fantastic.
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u/mikefromearth Jun 06 '23
I use Apollo as well and it’s great! Especially for mod actions.
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u/JangoF76 Jun 06 '23
I recommend Sync for Reddit, all the functionality of other apps plus the best material design UI
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u/Zeyn1 Jun 06 '23
Ohhh I'm going to check that out! I've never been a fan of most of the popular reddit apps (reddit is fun, bacon reader, etc) because they feel like a website in an app. Material design with all the other functions sounds fantastic.
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Jun 06 '23
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u/Helpful_guy Jun 06 '23
+5 for Relay for Reddit (Pro)
I've tried Apollo (pro), bacon reader, reddit is fun, and sync for Reddit (pro) and Relay is the one by my taste.
I will say Sync is also awesome though if you prefer the material/tile-style UI.
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Jun 06 '23
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u/MARPJ Jun 06 '23
They're all better than the official app.
TBF that bar is so low you need to dig in order to go below it
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u/Machobots Jun 06 '23
Classic honey pot scheme.
Open the API, let business come and thrive and help you grow, then shut it up and cash in.
Also once they monopolize the app, they will control everything. No way to stop them selling our data.
I'll simply keep using brave to browse, until it becomes so shitty that I simply go somewhere else.
Is there a reddit alternative we can migrate to en masse and give this control freaks a lesson?
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u/Nemisis_the_2nd Jun 06 '23
Is there a reddit alternative we can migrate to en masse
I'm not sure there is. Part of what makes reddit what it is is the archive of discussions going back over a decade now. Any new site is just going to be a blank slate that doesn't have that same value as a resource.
In all honesty, I've hit the point I see reddit more like a public service than a company now for the access it brings to information and, more importantly, the discussion around that information.
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u/theaceplaya Jun 06 '23
r/sysadmin is the first place I go whenever I suspect there are service issues, even before Twitter.
r/apple is where I go to gage reactions or geek out with other commenters after WWDC
r/nba for the post game threads and news around the league
r/tearsofthekingdom has been a freaking blast the past 3 weeks with everyone posting constructs
And countless other examples, not just for me but for everyone.
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u/StuckInBronze Jun 06 '23
Yea it's sad but they really might be too big to fail at this point. There's nowhere else to go to.
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u/bananapeel Jun 06 '23 edited Jun 08 '23
There are/were several. They are extremely small and don't have the necessary userbase and engagement to be self-sustaining into a growth platform the size of reddit.
Voat. (Deceased).
Poal. It purports to be a free-speech platform with little-to-no moderation. A few right-wing extremists have poisoned the well and ran off anyone who was reasonable. It's now a fascist, racist hellhole. The most popular sub has 800 users. It's all but deserted now.
Saidit. Extremely small userbase (maybe a hundred regular users). Has some of the same problems as Poal.
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u/4tran13 Jun 06 '23
Once upon a time, digg fcked up, and everyone migrated here. Now the cycle repeats, and the exodus starts up again.
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Jun 06 '23
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u/derUnholyElectron Jun 07 '23
Exactly, Reddit is where I go to get answers from real people instead of the SEO optimized regurgitated and often factually incorrect garbage that's there on the web
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u/Nemisis_the_2nd Jun 06 '23
I often find myself seriously thinking that reddit, and twitter, should be taken under some sort of arms-length government ownership (similar to the UK's chanel 4 broadcaster, and postal services). Both platforms became invaluable tools in society and are at risk of utter destruction through poor mamangement.
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u/Twelve20two Jun 06 '23
I feel like they did a bad job as a honey pot. They took so long to pull the rug out that now they actually have something to lose if things don't end in their favor
Which is good for us
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Jun 07 '23
I’m not so sure it is. I’m not defending Reddit on this. But I suspect they’ve come to the realization how valuable their API is for AI training with AI blowing up. It may be worth $20 mil to some AI companies to get the massive reliable and structured data to work with.
These 3rd party apps could just be collateral damage cause Reddit, like all social media platforms, views users as resources to capitalize on. They don’t give a shit about them. I would be shocked if they change this since it’s likely not about the 3rd party apps in my opinion.
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u/MannoSlimmins Jun 07 '23
Is there a reddit alternative we can migrate to en masse
McComas and his partner Jessica Moreno left their jobs at Reddit and headed to Salt Lake City, Utah in the summer of 2015 to launch their idea for a more inclusive social board.
mzy opened the platform to the public last fall and has since grown to tens of thousands of users with more than 6,000 Imzy communities. It was using the same kinds of threaded comments as found on a site like Reddit, but started out with basic rules on how people should treat each other instead of the haphazard way Reddit allowed certain more unsavory trolls to run rampant on its site at the time.
But it turns out that wasn’t something a lot of people were into, and now Imzy has to close up shop on its idealistic experiment in being nice on the internet.
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Jun 06 '23
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u/mignos Jun 06 '23
I like this idea a lot. Twitter became crazy and people migrated to mastodon or bluesky. But I tried to use Lemmy and I can't for the sake of me understand how to use it 😭. And I really want to because it seems like a cool concept
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u/itzlax Jun 06 '23
Nobody really migrated to Mastodon and Bluesky because the scare ended up not really changing the way Twitter works too much.
Everyone created accounts on those, but I followed like 300 people in Mastodon and I see maybe 5 posts a week lol
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u/mignos Jun 07 '23
Yeah...I think most people open an account just to say they did but don't really use it daily. Because without a substantial amount of users. It's kinda useless? Like at least 40-50% of Twitter needs to migrate to make it viable. And that takes change,people don't like change
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u/s1ravarice Jun 07 '23
Lemmy is confusing for a lot of people, and federation means a lot of the user base will be segregated.
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u/JoanPhilipRivers Jun 06 '23
Could you explain how NSFW content not being accessible by TPAs makes it harder to identify spammers? Sorry it’s a dumb question, I’m basically 5.
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Jun 06 '23
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u/TheKaiser64 Jun 07 '23
Sorry to tack on, but like the guy above, I am also basically 5. How does that identification work?
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u/Prae_ Jun 07 '23
Same as many spam detection, there's pattern recognition. Does the user post at fixed intervals, what the variance between the users comments, is it sharing links known to be spam, how old is the account, etc...
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u/Atheist_Redditor Jun 06 '23
I'm over here using the browser version of reddit on my phone.
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Jun 07 '23
Yeah, I'm a PC user and rarely reddit on my phone - and even there it's usually just the result of some random search about something, I don't intentionally browse reddit on mobile because the experience is fucking terrible.
PC + Firefox + ublock origin = can't remember the last time I saw an ad.
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Jun 06 '23
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u/whippedalcremie Jun 07 '23
I choose whether to see ads in redditisfun, for free. Idk how it works in other apps or the official one. But my adblocker works great for rif
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u/MathTheUsername Jun 07 '23
I'm starting to wonder if the third party apps have been dumping a bunch of ads on users and they're blaming Reddit.
lmao no. If this were true, "ad-free" wouldn't be a perk of reddit premium.
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Jun 07 '23
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u/MathTheUsername Jun 07 '23
I don't even know what you're point is now. Seems like you're going off on a bit of a tangent here. Reddit has ads. That's a fact.
To answer your question, on the right side of the desktop browser version, is a button that says "Get Premium." Below that it says it gives you an ad-free experience. So no, it's not the 3rd party tools bringing ads in.
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u/Musichord Jun 06 '23 edited Jun 07 '23
One thing I don't see mentioned enough is that there are apps designed to help people with accessibility needs (short sighted visually impaired / blind people, for example), and these will be blocked too, making reddit inaccessible to many.
EDIT: Thank you so much for my first award, and I'm happy that my first comment with this many likes-2.3k already???!!!- is on such an important matter. I hope we all together manage to turn this around!
EDIT 2: As I'm not a native speaker, I've just learned short-sighted does not mean what I thought. I think the reddit users are not the ones who are short-sighted.
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u/TrumpGrabbedMyCat Jun 06 '23
Don’t worry, this was always the plan.
They’re going to announce the API prices are drastically reduced in the next couple of weeks but still enough so most will switch rather than pay for a third party app. They’ll also then get the goal of blocking NSFW content because who in their right mind would “go dark” for porn.
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u/funkinthetrunk Jun 07 '23 edited Dec 21 '23
If you staple a horse to a waterfall, will it fall up under the rainbow or fly about the soil? Will he enjoy her experience? What if the staple tears into tears? Will she be free from her staply chains or foomed to stay forever and dever above the water? Who can save him (the horse) but someone of girth and worth, the capitalist pig, who will sell the solution to the problem he created?
A staple remover flies to the rescue, carried on the wings of a majestic penguin who bought it at Walmart for 9 dollars and several more Euro-cents, clutched in its crabby claws, rejected from its frothy maw. When the penguin comes, all tremble before its fishy stench and wheatlike abjecture. Recoil in delirium, ye who wish to be free! The mighty rockhopper is here to save your soul from eternal bliss and salvation!
And so, the horse was free, carried away by the south wind, and deposited on the vast plain of soggy dew. It was a tragedy in several parts, punctuated by moments of hedonistic horsefuckery.
The owls saw all, and passed judgment in the way that they do. Stupid owls are always judging folks who are just trying their best to live shamelessly and enjoy every fruit the day brings to pass.
How many more shall be caught in the terrible gyre of the waterfall? As many as the gods deem necessary to teach those foolish monkeys a story about their own hamburgers. What does a monkey know of bananas, anyway? They eat, poop, and shave away the banana residue that grows upon their chins and ballsacks. The owls judge their razors. Always the owls.
And when the one-eyed caterpillar arrives to eat the glazing on your windowpane, you will know that you're next in line to the trombone of the ancient realm of the flutterbyes. Beware the ravenous ravens and crowing crows. Mind the cowing cows and the lying lions. Ascend triumphant to your birthright, and wield the mighty twig of Petalonia, favored land of gods and goats alike.
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Jun 07 '23
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u/funkinthetrunk Jun 07 '23 edited Dec 21 '23
If you staple a horse to a waterfall, will it fall up under the rainbow or fly about the soil? Will he enjoy her experience? What if the staple tears into tears? Will she be free from her staply chains or foomed to stay forever and dever above the water? Who can save him (the horse) but someone of girth and worth, the capitalist pig, who will sell the solution to the problem he created?
A staple remover flies to the rescue, carried on the wings of a majestic penguin who bought it at Walmart for 9 dollars and several more Euro-cents, clutched in its crabby claws, rejected from its frothy maw. When the penguin comes, all tremble before its fishy stench and wheatlike abjecture. Recoil in delirium, ye who wish to be free! The mighty rockhopper is here to save your soul from eternal bliss and salvation!
And so, the horse was free, carried away by the south wind, and deposited on the vast plain of soggy dew. It was a tragedy in several parts, punctuated by moments of hedonistic horsefuckery.
The owls saw all, and passed judgment in the way that they do. Stupid owls are always judging folks who are just trying their best to live shamelessly and enjoy every fruit the day brings to pass.
How many more shall be caught in the terrible gyre of the waterfall? As many as the gods deem necessary to teach those foolish monkeys a story about their own hamburgers. What does a monkey know of bananas, anyway? They eat, poop, and shave away the banana residue that grows upon their chins and ballsacks. The owls judge their razors. Always the owls.
And when the one-eyed caterpillar arrives to eat the glazing on your windowpane, you will know that you're next in line to the trombone of the ancient realm of the flutterbyes. Beware the ravenous ravens and crowing crows. Mind the cowing cows and the lying lions. Ascend triumphant to your birthright, and wield the mighty twig of Petalonia, favored land of gods and goats alike.
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u/TrumpGrabbedMyCat Jun 07 '23
It's intentional because as a part of the IPO process they've decided porn is not a good thing to have on Reddit so they want to ban it. This is an early step of that, hidden behind another outrageous change so people will feel they've "won" when Reddit inevitably brings the prices down soon but porn will remain blocked.
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u/RyanfaeScotland Jun 06 '23
short sighted people
Oh, the reddit CEOs use them?? AHHHYOOOOOOO!!
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u/AgITGuy Jun 06 '23
They might if they could ever get their heads out their collective asses.
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u/Lubagomes Jun 06 '23
My reddit app doesn't load comments and takes a huge time to load any videos. I don't even like using 3rd party apps but without them I couldn't use reddit. (And with them I don't need to see a new UI change every other month)
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u/WyrdHarper Jun 06 '23
The official app and website also use a lot more data (despite the worse experience).
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u/Packie1990 Jun 07 '23
This is the only reason I personally care. I use the regular interface and don't care about other people's filters for content or whatever. I do care about making reddit inaccessible to those with disabilities. Reddit is the social media I use, and I would like everyone to have that ability. This is a matter of accessibility to all.
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u/hurtsdonut_ Jun 07 '23
They also help moderators. Who get paid nothing. They also have video players that work. How the fuck is it that a multi billion dollar company can't get a video player to work?
Jesus Christ. It's not that hard. It's been what? Three years now? Why do I scroll down and then hear a video that i clicked on five links ago start playing? Why do I click on a video and then hear that video from five clicks ago start playing?
You're a company valuated at $10 billion, you have people running your subs for free and you can't figure out a video player? How about you stop trying to use Fiverr to solve your problems?
Also who are you hiring?
Jesus this is pathetic. You could easily make a deal with the 3rd party apps but instead it they're trying to tank it. Never seen such self destruction.
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u/Musichord Jun 07 '23
I was not aware they were used to help moderating. TIL. Thank you
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u/0ussel Jun 06 '23
Yeah, while the lack of 3rd party app support is justified in the reactions. This and mod/bot related support going seems like a much larger affect on things.
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u/directorguy Jun 06 '23 edited Jun 07 '23
Id like to point out that none of us love Reddit. We love the users that create content, we love the content users find and share, we even love the mods that keep us protected from spam, bots and illegal content.
We don't love Reddit, Reddit just hosts the servers. Oh.. and we certainly dont love reddits UI or reddit's app-- nearly everyone detests that arm of the company.
Reddit is not Disney World, Reddit is the Florida land it's built on.
If everyone on Reddit moves to another platform, we'd still have 99.99% of what Reddit is really all about. We'd be fine, we just would go to a different URL and Reddit will be remembered like yahoo, fark and digg.
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Jun 07 '23
Hey I still use old.reddit.com which is UI perfection.
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u/PoBoyPoBoyPoBoy Jun 07 '23
I still use old.reddit from my phone 😂 Never tried any apps
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u/Swank_on_a_plank Jun 07 '23
Reddit is not a place, it's a people?
...except RES+OldReddit is perfect.
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u/SquirrelicideScience Jun 07 '23
I made my account over 10 years ago so that I could join in on college football game threads when I was in high school (good lord how has it been 10 years??).
Since then, I've met people purely here as well as offline because of the various communities I gradually started engaging with. It was instrumental in helping me meet new people when I first went to college and not feeling so isolated. I remember once meeting a dude in one of my classes who was wearing a snoo shirt, so decided to go talk to him, and we helped each other in study groups. I've attempted to pay back those communities by regularly offering to tutor students that are stressed out by exams, because I remembered what that hell was like, or engaging with the various r_learnx communities or here in ELI5 to try and pay forward what little I could.
I'm not sure what will happen come July 1, but if it's going the way it looks like it will be, it will be an end of an era.
Reddit was always different enough from the other platforms because of its emphasis on discussion and community. You didn't scroll through endless "CoNtEnT", but instead you engaged with the members of the communities you cared about; you talked with real people. To strip that away to become more sanitized, corporatized, and homogenized with the worst of the Internet's laziest and greediest trends is truly a loss. For what? So that the people at the top can just pump and dump the whole thing? Truly?
When Google bought YouTube and turned it into TV-Lite, I was sad for all of the great home-made content we lost in favor people gaming the Almighty Algorithm to try to make easy money. All of the authenticity of it was stripped away. And now Reddit is going the same way.
So Reddit as we know it (or maybe entirely) goes away. What then? How is any of this sustainable? Maybe I'm becoming an old curmudgeon who hates change, but truly I don't see how the Internet can keep going like this. Once great isolated communities made way for aggregated communities. But at the heart of it was just that: communities -- people talking to each other because they had something in common that they cared about. The way the Internet has been trending since the mass adoption of smartphones, and everyone being online, just does not seem like a sustainable financial plan.
I guess none of that matters. It's just saddening.
It just sucks to see.
/rant
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u/Azazir Jun 07 '23
Half if not more content gets reposted from other sites anyway. Reddit is just another site for people to gather and share their own or cool stuff they saw on other sites which perhaps others dont visit or know. I'm all in for protecting free API's and these actions subs are taking, also i wouldnt miss Reddit at all, we would just go to different site like you mentioned, thats it. Reddit is popular in the first place just because it stuck with others while being hands-off-ish for a long time and now they're putting their greedy goblin hands on it and look at the perception of the site and how it's going downhill for so many years.
I'm ready to switch to another app/site whoever replaces reddit.
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u/rio_sk Jun 07 '23
If everyone on Reddit moves to another platform that platform has to pay for something they aren't paying a penny right now. Let's see what third party apps are going to do and if they have the same money that reddit is spending and giving out for free. I hope so as I hate reddit's ui.
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u/bdzz Jun 06 '23 edited Jun 06 '23
Just a side note about a less talked reason of the API changes
LLMs (ChatGPT for example) are trained on Reddit comments. This have been very clear for the last months. Basically all the comments have been available for free without any fees. Now that's a huge data gold mine that AI companies can use for their benefits. And they scrapping the whole internet, or more like everywhere where data is available for free not just Reddit. Just for example Archive.org made a blog post a week ago because some unknown entity was scrapping the whole site for text data (most likely to train LLMs) and it took the site down.
So Reddit (the company) is in a hard situation. They have a golden egg to say at least and they don't want to serve this to other companies. There is also us, the users, aspect where we didn't sign up and made comments to later use that on LLM training. Not even sure the current Reddit ToS covers that or not (maybe does for Reddit’s own LLM only if that will ever exit)
Very tough situation for sure. I don't agree with this blanket nuclear change but I also understand Reddit the company’s situation. Feels like 3rd party apps are the collateral damage in this warfare.
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u/JayStarr1082 Jun 06 '23
No, that's the excuse reddit is making for killing third party apps. They're not "collateral damage". Reddit the company sees third party apps profiting off of their content and want to kill them, and funnel the users into the official app.
I don't want to make assumptions but it seems some higher up (or some collective of higher ups) don't really "get" reddit. Funneling users away from "old" reddit with the CSS customization, and now forcing them to use one standardized, official app - they see reddit as just another social media platform and they want it all to look/feel the same for everyone who uses it. Variety was one of the many things that made this website work for so long, and you can't support everything that everyone on reddit needs with one official client. It's not a waste of money, it's not Twitter or Facebook - it's anonymous and customizable by design. Killing that design kills the website.
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Jun 06 '23
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u/turkeypedal Jun 06 '23
Again, LLMs are already scraping the web. The APIs just make things a little easier on them. They aren't required.
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u/turkeypedal Jun 06 '23
There's no reason for third party apps to be collateral damage, though. They could work with the developers of those apps, treating them differently than unknown entities. In fact, that's exactly what they claimed they would do. They said they would work with third party app developers and bot developers to make sure that they wouldn't be negatively affected
And then they reneged on that promise. They had their meeting with the Apollo developer, who was initially quite optimistic they'd work something out. Instead, according to him (and Reddit hasn't denied it), they wanted to charge them the same high amount as everyone else. They chose ridiculous prices that none of the third party apps can afford, and didn't do anything to give them better deals.
What's more, as you already pointed out, the LLM devs are already scraping the web. They can scrape the data from Reddit, and much more easily than someone who actually needs information from the API could, since all they really care about is the human-written text--which they already know how to scrape from other sites. The apps need to access other data, like votes, subreddits, rankings, specific feeds, and so on.
Using the Reddit API just is a bit easier for them. Not having access to it would affect them a lot less than it will third party developers.
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Jun 06 '23
It would be extremely easy to see the difference between scraping anything with words in it and participating as a user on reddits backend metrics. They're playing us for fools by saying this is to combat LLM deep training.
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u/zaneak Jun 06 '23
It is just an excuse. For places that want ChatGPT data for free, they will just come up with a webscraper and still get the data.
The charging for api access in general doesn't even have all third-party apps necessarily upset, but it's the insane amount they want to charge. The amount is probably what some MBA thinks they can get because of AI stuff, not thinking about the platform in general. They need to reevalue this policy.
The blackout might help them remember the history of Digg.com and what happens when you do things your userbase hates.
They might not give a damn and are too arrogant to make a corse correction. We will see.
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Jun 07 '23
Nobody is saying Reddit shouldn’t charge for their data. But they should change their rates so it doesn’t literally make the 3rd party apps go under
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u/paaaaatrick Jun 06 '23
I hate that a big part of the issue on the information posts is transparency and communication, yet the messaging from the mod to the user headlines are “Reddit shutting down third party apps”, then the next level is “due to API pricing” then that’s the conversation. I wish these were laid out as “here is the situation, this is why we don’t like it, this is the justification for why they are doing it, as you can see it’s damaging to us the mods and you the user, so we are going to fight back”
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u/j-alex Jun 06 '23
If the comment content/APIs are licensed in such a way that LLM trainers are able to do that without being sued into oblivion and losing their precious models to boot, maybe that’s what they should fix?
What is the license for all this wonderful content we’re producing? Seems any attribution license should shut most LLMs down hard.
There are probably also ways they could rate limit requests or other fee-free policy changes that would be bad for LLMs, but I guess really what Reddit would want to do is license their shit (read: our shit) directly to LLM vendors to pay the bills. I don’t want to consent to that though.
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u/giqbal Jun 06 '23
Can’t believe I had to scroll down this far for this answer. 3rd party apps are collateral damage.
On webscrapping - yes there might be some data that is being scrapped but it won’t be on a big scale. Webscrappers can break as soon as Reddit change their DOM or styling.
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u/Drew- Jun 06 '23
Fully support shutting down
Posted from rif.
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u/KaptenNicco123 Jun 06 '23
Replied and upvoted from old reddit. Fuck new reddit.
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u/Programmdude Jun 06 '23
Same. I use RIF for mobile, and old reddit for desktop. I won't use the official app, so shutting down the API will result in me not using it through mobile. Shutting down old reddit will result in me not using it at all.
Honestly, reddit and discord are the only social media apps I use, and discord doesn't really count. Reddit is content focused, rather than people focused, and the upvote/downvote works amazingly (usually) compared to trash like facebook and youtube comments.
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u/Phantomglock23 Jun 06 '23
Sync checking in...real worried my app is going bye byes
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u/AeroStatikk Jun 06 '23
Gotta be the only person who has no issues with the Reddit app.
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u/BananerRammer Jun 06 '23
Have you tried other apps?
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Jun 06 '23
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u/Knowitmall Jun 07 '23
Except it is nothing like that at all...
It's like saying this typewriter with advertising is fine so why would I get this slightly better typewriter with no ads.
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u/dbratell Jun 06 '23
And that is fine. Nobody is mad at you because you like the official app.
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u/SirRHellsing Jun 06 '23
I feel like that's the silent majority (typing from rif)
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u/Butterflytherapist Jun 06 '23
Unfortunately the wast majority of users doesn't even know that 3rd party apps exist. (typing from RedReader)
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Jun 06 '23
The issue with being the silent majority however is they are, by definition, silent. The vocal minority however includes the people actually contributing to Reddit by submitting or writing the content worth viewing. See also: The 1% rule.
Even if the 3rd party client ban doesn't affect you directly, you can still expect your typical experience using reddit to get much worse.
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u/The_Hieb Jun 06 '23
I gotta be the only person who doesn’t use an app and browses old.reddit on Safari (iPhone or tablet) or Firefox for at work. Been like that for the last 10 years. Tried apps, hate it. Old-school reddit is easier on the eyes (at least to me) and let’s me open or view the post quickly. I don’t need blown up thumbnails or auto-playing posts and the adds are like one a page and easily spotted/avoided.
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u/roombaonfire Jun 06 '23
Old-school reddit is easier on the eyes (at least to me) and let’s me open or view the post quickly. I don’t need blown up thumbnails or auto-playing posts and the adds are like one a page and easily spotted/avoided.
This is exactly why I use third party apps tho? To get the kind of preferred experience you're literally talking about lmao
Which ones have you tried that didn't give you all this?
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u/lowaltflier Jun 06 '23
I use the Reddit app also. And I fully support the community’s desire to keep 3rd party apps.
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u/Secure-Computer92 Jun 06 '23
You're not alone. I give no shits about this
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u/Dodototo Jun 06 '23
This also includes third party tools that many mods use. Even things like save videos bots or anything of the sort.
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u/BloodAndTsundere Jun 06 '23 edited Jun 06 '23
Interesting wrinkle on this is that the Apollo app got an explicit mention and its icon had a fair amount of background screen time during yesterday's Apple WWDC (a developer conference run by Apple to highlight its upcoming product releases and updates). While it was obviously filmed a while ago, I can't help but feel like it counts as a nod of support during this fiasco.
EDIT copied from my comment below:
The whole thing is viewable here:
The Apollo logo is up with a bunch of other apps at 27:06, for example. Notably the official reddit app logo is not. It's not the only time the logo is visible, either.
Apollo is mentioned by name around 46:30
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u/ducktown47 Jun 07 '23
I noticed too that Craig specifically mentioned Apollo for Reddit and part of me really wondered if it was done on purpose because of this API crap.
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Jun 06 '23
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u/BloodAndTsundere Jun 06 '23
The whole thing is viewable here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYkq9Rgoj8E
The Apollo logo is up with a bunch of other apps at 27:06, for example. Notably the official reddit app logo is not. It's not the only time the logo is visible, either.
Apollo is mentioned by name around 46:30
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u/Better-be-Gryffindor Jun 06 '23
I fully support this. I only browse reddit from RIF (posting this from the app). I know my support doesn't mean much, but thank you for being part of taking a stand and trying to make a point.
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u/SoraUsagi Jun 06 '23
I will not be using the official app. RIF has been my app of choice since the beginning. I have tried using the official app in the past, and it's terrible.
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u/Better-be-Gryffindor Jun 06 '23
Same, I tried it once for like an hour or so and immediately uninstalled and went back to RIF and never looked back.
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u/Yatta99 Jun 06 '23
ELI5: How does 'going dark' accomplish anything?
Pardon the analogy, but it sounds like a small child threatening to hold their breath until they get their way. We all know that mom is just going to smile and let it happen. How is this different?
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Jun 06 '23
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u/marioman63 Jun 06 '23
The short duration is designed to show that the subs are serious about the issue,
can they really take it seriously when this is the 4th time subs have done this over various issues? its a cry wolf scenario
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u/Honky_Cat Jun 07 '23
If the subs are shut down, then Reddit will lose advertising revenue for the length of that shutdown
Given that most people are bitching about viewing Reddit on third party apps that operate via the API, and those users aren’t being displayed advertisements anyway, the issue you highlight is a non-issue.
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u/DirtySperrys Jun 06 '23 edited Jun 22 '23
Due to Reddit's API changes, I've edited all my past comments and will be leaving reddit. Use Redact if you too would like to change your comment history. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/ -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
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u/bryanl12 Jun 06 '23
That sub is full of nephews with 6 month old accounts that think the Reddit app is Reddit
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u/Mason11987 Jun 06 '23
It's not for everyone, and that's okay. I won't judge a sub that doesn't think this is in their interest. If the folks running that sub want more information though, they can reach out to the r/modcoord sub to see more.
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u/vcaiii Jun 06 '23
That’s funny because NBA TV blackouts were one of the reasons I lost interest in pro basketball.
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u/sleeplessGoon Jun 06 '23
Feels like they’ve gone “dark” already. My home feed has had a staggering shift and I wish there was a way I could gather some metric to show but the post quality has PLUMMETED. It feels like I’m perpetually on “Latest” rather than Home.
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u/Plusran Jun 06 '23
I’ve been trying to stay off.
I’m doing ok. Mostly.
This is not one of those times lol
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u/Onihczarc Jun 06 '23
Why should I care? I use the official app. Well for one thing you might care one day, but you won’t have that option any longer, because reddit is removing user choice. People who love reddit so much they seek out another app for it submit a lot of good posts to reddit that you read. What if these good posters all leave the site? What if half of them leave? Are you cool with less content to upvote? What if reddit does something else like pump tons of ads at you– way more than now – and you want to try out one of those apps you saw when you first downloaded the official app. You simply won’t be able to anymore. But even if you still don’t care, don’t you think user choice is generally a good thing? What will they get rid of next? Also, NSFW content is in danger, and can no longer be accessed through the API which is going to make it harder to find spammers.
This is why. There are countless examples of companies taking inches at a time until they leave you with no choice or alternatives.
Also, don’t you dare mess with my NSFW content.
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u/Nemisis_the_2nd Jun 06 '23
Also, don’t you dare mess with my NSFW content.
I'm actually surprised I've not seen more backlash from these subs. Reddit is a hub for all sorts of things, including businesses. Blocking NSFW content is going to hurt a lot of people financially.
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Jun 07 '23
I think the main problem is they're all different subs, and small ones at that. Reddit won't care about a bunch of small subs making noise.
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u/drubiez Jun 06 '23
As an official reddit app user who is totally frustrated by the experience and is now just learning there may be other options through this post, I'm infuriated. What, so they can generate more ad revenue on their platform? Maybe? Companies are trying to squeeze every last penny and it just seems so desperate. And pathetic.
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u/stevedonie Jun 06 '23
Yes, all of it is profit driven. See the comment in this thread about the enshittification of the internet, a term for a pattern we have all seen.
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u/Rich1926 Jun 06 '23
One issue I have had with the app is that when you hit a spoiler with your finger, it closes the users comment instead of revealing the text.. Even the double finger hit doesn't help anymore.
And errors when trying to post.
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u/Tohkaku Jun 06 '23
I tend to close comments I've already read to keep track of what I haven't been reading, and I despise closing a comment and getting some random reaction gif to pop up because it's somewhere further down and when you're trying to close said comment you gotta tap the very top of it because taping the link or the gif will open up the thing instead of closing the comment. And that's not even the only thing wrong with this thing, videos don't play majority of the time, I have to open these posts in the browser to be able to see them. Sometimes opening posts in general won't even work and will lag. Posting and commenting will fail often resulting in double comments popping up frequently. Saving posts and comments will also fail very often and won't even save. I can keep going about the little things that have started to plague this app but I think we can all agree that this app sucks.
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Jun 06 '23
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Jun 06 '23
It feels like all the major social media platforms are going that way. Social media wants to profit off of people like every other business nowadays.
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Jun 06 '23
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Jun 07 '23
Yeah, I'm already seeing random follows by obvious bot accounts, which get nuked within a day but they'll pop up with a new account within a couple days.
Used to be this never happened, this started about a couple months ago. As you point out, when the moderation tools fail this will get exponentially worse.
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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '23
I was about to answer the question and then realized it's basically a sticky post by a mod. No answers needed.