‘Front page of the internet’: how social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨L4s@lemmy.world [bot]⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/30/reddit-moderator-protest-communities-social-media

‘Front page of the internet’: how social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit::A mass user protest six months ago over technical tweaks had big downstream effects, and now the ‘front page of the internet’ is changed for ever

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Excrubulent@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

“We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private,” he said.

They respect it so much they forcibly remove mods to make them public again. That’s so respectful.

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- SpookyUnderwear@eviltoast.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  “We will teach them our respectful ways. By force.”
  
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- UnityDevice@startrek.website ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Come on now, give him some credit. He waited whole few days before completely going back on his words.
  
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foofiepie@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Despite these concessions, dozens of Redditors promised to stop using the site altogether without access to their favorite browsing apps. But according to data from the website analytics firm SimilarWeb, traffic has largely remained consistent to the platform, aside from a pronounced dip during the blackout

Dozens of us!

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- PlantObserver@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I wonder if thats because most of the traffic was just bots all along who obviously aren’t going to leave in protest
  
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  - Jordan117@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Same as it ever was.
    
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  - tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Am I crazy or did the number of bots and ‘new users’ ramp up quite a bit around the protest also? Moderation was basically not existent, I would see obvious bots and trolls stay around when they would have been banned in no time before. I find it hard to trust any data on Reddit.
    
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- tamiya_tt02@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I only go back to Resdit when my Google search doesn’t take me where I need to go.
  
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  - effward@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Which, unfortunately, is far too often. In my recent experience…
    
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  - Xanis@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I literally use Reddit to fix Google Search results when I actually need an answer. At the very least I’ll typically find the starting string. Though that’s less due to the quality of Reddit and more because of its longevity.
    
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  - Kase@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Sometimes Lemmy pops up on my google search! That always makes me smile
    
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  - krotti@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve often found removed responses, which is a good thing, just makes my quest to find an answer harder.
    
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  - FutileRecipe@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    …when my Google search doesn’t take me where I need to go.
    
    Tried Kagi?
    
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- db2@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The data is coming from the reddit admins, they have an interest in not looking like the idiots they are. Basically I call bullshit, I think they’re lying for the IPO that’ll never actually happen.
  
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- synae@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  A third party website analytics company probably couldn’t track the traffic of the users who left in the first place- the whole ordeal was about unofficial apps and API usage.
  
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  - khannie@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s actually a great point. If everyone using the apps bailed it would be a huge number decline that wouldn’t register as even a blip on similarweb so it’s a terrible metric.
    
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- bdonvr@thelemmy.club ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yep. Haven’t touched my account. Only time I go there is if a Reddit result is the only decent result of a search. But I don’t browse reddit at all.
  
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- kozy138@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That’s probably cause the userbase was flooded with bots to make up the difference
  
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Poiar@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Not one mention of where said moderators who left went to…

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- captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Spend more time with my wife mostly
  
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  - AbidanYre@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Is she spending time with all the former mods?
    
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  - Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I also spend more time with OP’s wife wife. /s
    
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  - TheFriar@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Damn. I left Reddit to spend more time with your wife, too, but I’ve only been seeing your mom lately.
    
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  - TomSelleck@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That poor woman.
    
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- homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The Granuiad has been pushing a lot of sideways shit lately. That’s a shame.
  
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  - acockworkorange@mander.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The what?
    
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- honey_im_meat_grinding@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  A lot of which were good mods too. I’ve noticed a lot more racism and otherwise right wing posting being left alone/unmoderated since the protest, in the subs I used to browse actively - nowadays I just check in with them every now and then without an account and the intentional or not lack of moderation is making me want to stop doing even that.
  
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  - glockenspiel@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Probably depends on your subs. Most of mine have went far, far left and have become a tiresome dog pile of virtue signaling from behind keyboards and screens.
    
    And I’m a leftist. There seems to be a huge difference these days in being a leftist and being a “this is now my only personality trait” leftist through which all views must be fundamentally filtered. Even non-political/non-social. It has made some subs unreadable for me, specifically my state and city subs.
    
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- cole@lemdro.id ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I started an entire instance - lemdro.id - to provide a home to Reddit subreddits such as r/Android and r/Google Pixel (and other technical stuff)
  
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solrize@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t post on reddit any more but I still look there now and then. I don’t notice much change. From everything I’ve heard, the protest failed. A few snowflakes like me quit posting and/or moved to Lemmy, but mostly things at reddit were back to normal within a few weeks after the blackout.

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- the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yaknow, i guess i get why people feel like it is hopeless to try to change the world, that trying to stand up against powerful corporations, to “force their hand”, and that’s because it is.
  
  But i feel that is missing the point. When you tell a company that they need to treat you a certain way or you leave, and then you follow through, you win. Forget a large company, when in this life can you ever force anyone to treat you right?
  
  You can’t.
  
  You tell em what they can do to keep your around, and if they don’t, you take your self respect with your on the way out the door, and your life, the one that matters, is improved, and the next step in ending that bad relationship is no longer caring who else they might be seeing.
  
  I for one am happy with you cats. Me n reddit are quits
  
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  - frickineh@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s true - it bums me out that more people didn’t follow through on their threats to leave, but I did and I don’t spend hours doomscrolling every day anymore. That alone is a good outcome. I learned to embroider to keep from picking up my phone over and over during the blackout and it’s one of my favorite hobbies now. Also a good outcome. For me, the protest was a success. Reddit can make every stupid choice under the sun, and it doesn’t impact my life in the least anymore.
    
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  - solrize@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I took part in the blackout and moved to Lemmy and hoped that the blackout would be successful, but realistically it looks in retrospect like it didn’t matter much to Reddit. I still don’t post there. I avoided reading for a while, but found myself still wanting to check on things / lurk. At least I have all the ads blocked.
    
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  - solrize@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think most people who stayed on reddit didn’t care about some disagreement between geeks, or (in the case of some moderators) too addicted to the attention that they got, or too full of self-importance about how their subreddit needed to be kept alive. I can sort of understand r/news being thought of as important and that’s a sub I still look at sometimes. But I mostly looked at niche hobby subs and sometimes a sub devoted to a specific brand of power tools (because I have some of those tools). And I mean, who cares if those subs dry up or move to Lemmy? Get over it, Reddit.
    
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  - triptrapper@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well said. I’m not going to be a fairweather-ethical-decision-maker. Every time I make a right choice (and I decide what’s right for me) I’m rebelling against the machine of marketing and convenience. In fact, often the more inconvenient it is, the more confident I am in my decision.
    
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- TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  People like to think that they’ve made some far-reaching change with what little actually happened. The painful truth is: they didn’t. There wasn’t a big hit to the userbase, most people on Reddit already hated moderators and didn’t give a shit if they got removed, and overall people caved far too quickly (how many people folded instantly when their internet moderator position was threatened? (I say this as someone who was one of those moderators that flat out quit everything and nuked my account rather than continuing to toil for free for a corporation that hates me.))
  
  The actually important thing that was accomplished by the protesting was platforms like Lemmy getting enough of a userbase boost to become stable - in the future, Lemmy and others may be able to act as viable alternatives to Reddit, because there’s already a community here (however small). Reddit will continue to enshittify, and people will continue to leave in small numbers that may escalate to big numbers if they commit a truly massive fuckup. The more heavy Reddit users (read: more invested, not necessarily more active) are small in number compared to the vast majority who lurk, don’t give a shit about any ongoing meta-drama, and don’t particularly care about any changes to the UI or browsing experience as long as they can still get an endless feed of memes.
  
  Even if it hurts to realize this, it’s important to make sure people get this message beat into their skulls so that we aren’t stuck with a bunch of Redditors (derogatory) with over-inflated egos that think Reddit will bend over backward to appease them, then cave as soon as they receive literally any pushback from the corporation running the site.
  
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  - Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think this is a good point. Lemmy pre protest sucked. There was just no content or activity. Post protest, it’s not too bad here. It’s viable. Slowly, hopefully more people end up here over the years. I still browse Reddit (not logged in, my account is kaput) and it seems the same as it was before though. However, digg too died, so there is hope yet.
    
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  - uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I came to explore Lemmy with the migration after Reddit’s API changes. Baconreader was my app of choice, and it died with the change.
    
    I didn’t have any anger against Reddit - there was no righteous “fuck you!” in my actions - but the reason I stayed on Lemmy and very rarely touch Reddit is because the concept of the fediverse really speaks to me. I want to see a more decentralized internet succeed and so that is where I will spend my time, niche as it is.
    
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  - ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I totally agree.
    
    There were definitely people who were trying to start a revolution there or proverbially burn the place to the ground. But for a lot of people who left, like me, it was just an appropriate time to move on. I had been on reddit for about 12 years by then, and I had seen the place change, especially over the last few years. And not for the better.
    
    It happens to any organization or system that grows beyond a healthy critical mass. Quantity goes up, but quality goes down. And the atmosphere starts to get toxic.
    
    I had been looking for an alternative to reddit for a year or so when the situation last Summer came around. I was disillusioned over on reddit, and aside from interactions with two or three of subs (and about two dozen awesome people on one of my mod teams, who I’m still in touch with thanks to other communication options), I didn’t really enjoy engaging with other users there. It was exhausting to have to frame everything to mitigate the trolls and the contrarians (who invariably still pulled that shit anyway). And the stench of hyper-partisanship was getting everywhere.
    
    The Fediverse intrigued me, but the reddit variants of it hadn’t reached a critical mass of minimal usage (the other critical mass metric) to make it compelling to use. The June protests changed that, and regardless of whether reddit ‘won’ or not, I’m glad I found this place.
    
    You can have multiple ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in situations like this. Even if reddit fought off the protests and won by not seeing their traffic stats drop off (which let’s be honest is all they really care about, no matter what touchy-feely smoke their spokespeople are blowing), I feel like those of us who landed here also won.
    
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- ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I dunno the front page seems way lower quality than it was before we left. Like not just a little.
  
  I basically only go there for the two stupid flash games I play on my phone and sometimes a Google search ends up with reddit as the best answer. Otherwise I don’t go. I used to go there dozens of times per day.
  
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  - Xsist@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I agree. The change in total Reddit users ended up small, but the drop in quality is huge. A lot of my favorite subs are now just memes, reposts, and astroturfing. There’s very little left of genuine worth. But it’s no great loss. The days of Reddit being the front page of the Internet and a hub of discussion are long gone. C’est la vie.
    
    Personally I’m glad to see Reddit fading away. I have found so many more artist, makers, and thinkers on Mastodon, Lemmy, and Pixelfed than I ever did on Reddit. The fediverse is hard to navigate and has a higher barrier to entry. But those same qualities keep the influencers, astroturfers, and advertisers at bay. I love the experience of exploring people’s feeds and follow lists as a means of exploring. It feels so much more organic and engaging. It’s not for everyone, and the fediverse will probably never become a giant of social media. But maybe that’s for the best.
    
    At any rate for now we have our own corner of the internet to explore and enjoy away from the some of the more negative influences wrought by social media. Enjoy it. It may not last. Just like old Reddit.
    
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  - 7u5k3n@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I use a work account there on old.reddit on the desktop only.
    
    The content there is [Picture](dae think that XY or Z should have / have not happened?) Or some variation of a question meant to drive engagement. The Minecraft and marvel studios subs are prime examples.
    
    That’s all it is now. No higher quality content except in a few niche subs.
    
    Hopefully folks will continue to move away.
    
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  - Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve been noticing lately that the front page of reddit now only contains some posts from the last few subs I visited, even more posts from subs I barely even read before, and currently two posts from subs I’ve never seen but are now part of my subscribed reddits. And when I take the time to go through the posts that actually look interesting, those read posts stay on my front page for the rest of the day and no new content is brought up. At this point the front page is completely worthless and the only reason I visit is for r/comics and r/facebookscience, all my other content is found on lemmy and mastodon.
    
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  - solrize@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Interesting. It never really occurred to me to look at the front page but I guess it is supposed to be popular. I look mostly at a few specific subreddits and afaict they haven’t changed much.
    
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- otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, Reddit became read-only to me after they killed RIF. I still check in on a couple subs, but all my comments and posts go on Lemmy now.
  
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  - mkhopper@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Same. I read a few subs that haven’t yet fully grown here on Lemmy, but I don’t post.
    
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- 4grams@awful.systems ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I used to live on reddit basically. I left due to the API shit they were pulling but did eventually get curious after closing my account but when I took a look, it was hot garbage. I unsigned from many of the big traffic subreddits and engaged in a lot of smaller and technical forums. Those users seem lately gone, or the ones who remained aren’t as knowledgeable or maybe there’s just been enough site changes that discussions aren’t happening like they used to.
  
  In the meantime I’ve found fallbacks that I enjoy more, this place feels like early day Reddit which is super fun.
  
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- Xenon@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  For now reddit seems fine (even though I feel a noticable deterioration of multiple communities). Though the important change is that alternatives have established themselves. Lemmy might not be big right now but from now on reddit has to be extra careful to upset redditors. Every new step they take that worsens the experience will drive a new wave of users away from their site and now more of them will find established communities elsewhere from the first exodus this year.
  
  At the same time I’m unfortunately quite certain that the enshittification of reddit will continue as investors demand higher profits. So we will see more waves of redditors leaving. This migration in waves could also be seen with Twitter after every new step Elon took to ruin the site.
  
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- anonymouse@lemmings.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I scroll through all/hot a couple times a week and I don’t find the content nearly as funny, interesting or engaging as it used to be. There’s definitely something different about the algorithm that is making the content more sanitized for a wider audience.
  
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  - billiam0202@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    There’s definitely something different about the algorithm that is making the content more sanitized for ~~a wider audience~~ potential investors.
    
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- Kengaro0@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah a lurk but I don’t post unless maybe it’s for work or something like that. I do feel like the quality has dropped pretty sharply. The home feed is absolute trash. Constant feed of random shit like r/decks, the ads were pretty bad before I discovered RedReader but overall it doesn’t capture my attention the way it used to. Even the comments feel dumber but that could be my imagination.
  
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- stardust@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, nothing changed. People might say /r/all changed, but that place has always been crap and avoided by long time users in favor of subscribed feed.
  
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- TheFriar@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m honestly not at all surprised. Social media has turned into both an addiction and a way to feel like you’re doing something you’re not doing. Jessica changed her status to: “Black lives matter!” (Jessica continues to do nothing about racial injustice or inequality). “I stand with Paris!” “We are Charlie hebdo!” “Fuck spez!” (Continues posting on reddit with the title “fuck spez” on every post). Now, I know these all vary wildly in importance, I was just recalling every topical “i care” post I could remember.
  
  People don’t do anything. Social media gave us an out to bitch and moan for the purpose of people seeing that we know enough to bitch and moan about the topical, popular issues (while they’re topical and popular and then never think about them again because now we’re talking about the new tragedy or war or injustice or crisis, etc.)
  
  People don’t actually care about anything anymore. I know that sounds like an old person hing to say, but I mean that everything is superficial. We either don’t have the attention or the passion or the heart or the capacity for caring anymore. We care when other people care. So the entire populace is incredibly malleable because if people are paying attention to a touchy subject for capital or establishment, well, manufacture another. Or, really, why even bother? It’s not like we’re going to do anything about it.
  
  I hate being a pessimist. But at what point is pessimism just realism about the bleak outlook for humanity?
  
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- Bell@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m another snowflake but I feel like the protest did alot to slow down and water down reddit’s obvious money grab. Where I would have been a stockholder at their IPO before, I will now be warning others against it.
  
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- alex@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It may be due to many different factors, but I’ve noticed a lot of content from my niche subs just downright fuckin sucks now. Like, a lot of posts are stupid af, either being a question that is very easily googled, or some sort of “pick me” bitch post try to low-key show off and humblebrag about something.
  
  There used to be really good content like write-ups, visual guides, or discussion builders, but it feels like a lot of it is just grabbing at the low hanging fruit for fake internet points
  
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- pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Came to Lemmy because it’s FOSS and doesn’t fuck me in the ass
  
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  - solrize@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Meh the reddit software isn’t that important, and it was once mostly FOSS. It’s about the data, not the code. Spez has a ridiculous sense of entitlement.
    
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- GenEcon@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The main thing I notice, is how shitty the app is. Thats still my main complaint.
  
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  - solrize@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The reddit app? It never would have occurred to me to use that monstrosity. old.reddit.com still works (dk for how long), same with redreader, and my personal API client still works though they have been messing with that (certain endpoints no longer work through vpn’s).
    
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Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Completely stopped using Reddit since they blocked third party apps in July 2023. I never accessed Reddit through other channels than smartphone.

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- qevlarr@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Exactly. This wasn’t a protest as far as I’m concerned. They shut me out. So I no longer visit reddit or moderate any of my subreddits. It’s that simple
  
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- QubaXR@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yup. Both the desktop website and the official app are garbage UX. With no third party app option, I could not use Reddit even if I wanted to.
  
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  - Womble@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    old.reddit is still usable, but I’ve also pretty much stopped using reddit since the blackout.
    
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  - jabjoe@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You can still get to the compact interface with /.i on the end of the URL. But they are making it harder and harder to not use their terrible default interface, which is clearly focused on ad delivery not UX.
    
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- greencactus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Just FYI, I can still access Reddit through the Infinity app on F-Droid on Android. I don’t have a clue why or how, but it works.
  
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- Welt@lazysoci.al ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That’s why I’m here too 🤝
  
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96VXb9ktTjFnRi@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Completely quit Reddit. It’s a shame that the article fails to mention the fediverse as a new rising alternative in response to enshittification.

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leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It is different. I had cause to go back a week or two ago to look for an old post of mine and I did have a bit of a poke about in my old subs too. It was like a war zone. Blatant no fucks given racism, incel level women hating, transphobia and ableism of the most vitriolic kind. And these weren’t just the massive general subs, some of them were niche interest subs where I felt I belonged at the time. Has it changed to become like that since June or I was just so used to it before that that I’d never noticed how toxic it was? Did I just used to shrug and say to myself ‘well, that’s just reddit’. Literally everyone seemed angry and hateful.

I’m not claiming the fediverse is perfect or free from that sort of shit but either through the practicalities of federation, or better moderation or a smaller userbase or a more mature userbase or a mix of oneor more of those things it doesn’t feel exclusionary to me. I often see on posts like this some people calling Lemmy a left-wing echo chamber and whilst I do agree there’s more people of a left-wing bent on here I think echo chamber is a bit much and is a phrase maybe used by those who live in a country without a functioning left-wing political party. I’ve not encountered a communist or tankie since Hexbear fucked off back to their kindergarten.

As for the Guardian article, they’ve fallen into the same trap as I’m concerned the fediverse might fall into by federating with Meta - assuming high numbers equal success or victory. If you have corporate/economics based mindset I can see how that works, but to me success equals a popular, useful community site entirely free from algorithms and other forms of manipulative control. One that isn’t gathering data via ads and tracking on its userbase to sell on (lets remember that reddit weren’t upset that AI were scraping reddit, they were upset that the company weren’t seeing any money from that). A community that grows organically, with all that that implies - sometimes growth might be very slow, it might stop entirely for awhile, maybe even reverse - but the emphasis should be on the people making the community better.

Reddit forgot somewhere along the way that it was the users who made reddit what it was. Look at the stats for r/askreddit - in particular the posts per day and comments per day - look at the trend since 2020. There may well be the same amount of users on reddit, but we all know a certain percentage of them are bots and even if they weren’t, just looking at those two graphs tells you everything about people’s level of interest in participating on reddit.

The only thing high user numbers guarantee sites like reddit is ad revenue. Nothing else.

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Resol@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Leaving Reddit basically helped me use social media a lot less. And I’m proud of myself.

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EnderMB@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Despite spending around 15 years on Reddit, I found it surprisingly easy to quit. I do miss some niche subreddits that just won’t get traction here, but overall my switch to Lemmy worked out for the best.

With that being said, Reddit is still going strong, and you’re deluded if you think this will change their IPO fortunes. The quality will plummet, but once the shares are owned and sold they won’t care.

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Godric@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I used to be a daily Reddit doomscroller, but now I just vibe on Lemmy. I only ever visit reddit now to experience my niches that don’t yet have a community here, and that’s just to watch, not contribute.

I look forward to the future, where communities aren’t corralled into one website, where different interests can be free of anything overarching.

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modifier@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

In response to such critiques, Reddit spokesperson Rathschmidt said he did not “know of an industry benchmark for scoring content quality”

Never before has the sheer inevitability of enshittification been so aptly summarized.

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iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I used to spend hours a day on Reddit, if you add up all the little time waster breaks I take just scrolling on Baconreader.

Now i rarely visit the site.

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_Analog_@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Author didn’t seem to have a clue. Many of us didn’t protest or leave because of the fact that they implemented charges for their API - nope, was totally open to that! - it was the way they started charging.

I don’t think I’m alone either here. So many were open to paying fair prices for usage. But reddit repeatedly promised it’d be fair and reasonable. For months. And then when they finally dropped pricing info it was outlandish and would be taking effect before third parties had a chance to make appropriate changes.

This amounted to a power play meant to drive mobile users back to the reddit app. Why? Money and control. Bad for mods, users, and developers, it was a selfish play I will never forgive them for.

How did the author not know this, or if they did, why was it not front and center? Feels like they were parroting company talking points.

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merthyr1831@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Eh it failed in the most reddit way imaginable: Most of the users are too addicted to astroturf accounts posting heckin puppers and epic memes to organise a boycott beyond a few days. Reddit ownership knew how pathetic the “protest” was going to be from the outset and didn’t even bother trying to disrupt it beyond nudging out a few of the remaining holdouts on subs too small to matter in the grand scheme.

All the mods who thought they were irreplaceable just discovered their users are all the more happy to digest low quality slop moderated by amateurs who are more interested in the title than doing anything to protect the quality of said content.

People are even relenting and PAYING for access to the API to use previously-free apps.

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capital@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I deleted a 13 yr old account due to spez’s fuckery and I haven’t been back. I used to be very active in several subs but now I want fedi to happen.

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LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is delusional copium. By just about every single metric nothing has changed at Reddit. Mods were forced out as everyone said and Reddit is still the front page of the internet.

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The_Vampire@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
On the note of traffic, I still browse Reddit because it has niche communities that I want to interact with. However, I don’t comment, post, or even up/downvote anymore. My interaction is now purely browsing, and I imagine it may be similar for other once-power users.

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moonburster@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I only use reddit for tech related inquiries, but besides that I quit it.

I went from 8 hours of screen time a day to an average of 2 to 3 hours and Lemmy often isn’t on the top. For me it has to do with a lack of content at some point, but I started enjoying it like that. If there’s nothing new, I shouldn’t have a reason to stick around in an app

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Critical_Insight@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ve been slowly getting back into reddit lately. While I want Lemmy to thrive and will keep contributing to help it do so it’s still hardly a replacement for reddit. Compared to it, Lemmy is basically a single moderately active subreddit. If I had to name a type of person Lemmy at its current state is ideal for I’d say a left-wing activist type whose into tech and politics. While that has some overlap with what I’m interested about it still leaves out all my deepest passions and to be honest I feel really uncomfortable knowingly being in such an obvious echo chamber. I’d really wish there was more of the kind of users here that most of you probably dont want. Just to even things out a bit.

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Breve@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The changes that lead to the protest were only the preparations for an IPO. When that sale actually happens, I think things will get even worse with new corporate interests and influence. This story isn’t over.

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Yoz@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I was browsing reddit anonymously but have stopped since they killed 3rd party apps. Anyways all the news and posts are on Lemmy so no point of using reddit. Also fuck spez

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danc4498@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Maybe Reddit didn’t die, but what was Lemmy before this? And what is it now?

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rsuri@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

While traffic has not changed substantially, many users report the quality of content and the kinds of posts that are surfaced on user homepages now seem different. RamsesThePigeon said the content on some of Reddit’s most-followed pages, which he moderates, had “gone sharply downhill”.

This has been a long term process. I was on reddit since 2012 or so. In the early days I used it to help me change careers and grow as a developer, and keep track of tech and space news and other topics that matted to me. But the reality is it wasn’t even the API stuff that drove me away. The first thing that really got to me was when I couldn’t get rid of r/all as a subscribed sub, and that was full of quick dopamine hits and clickbait. Then every sub seemed to go downhill in terms of content, filled with outrage and pictures of tweets as if I would use twitter if it only used images instead of text. By the time the blackout happened reddit had become a net negative time sink in my life and I figured it was time to cut it off for good.

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FinishingDutch@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I used to love Reddit, but I’ve totally abandoned it. It’s not one particular reason, but the broad effect is that I and many others no longer feel welcome.

We lost a lot of good users; people who contribute to topics, make good posts and comments. We also lost good moderators; people who cared about the content quality and vibe. The Reddit-appointed replacement mods by and large are not people who ran or SHOULD run communities.

Add in the fact that both subreddit mods and Reddit admins are going hog wild with the ban hammer on both subs and users, and it’s hardly a wonder that users aren’t having it. They’re trying to turn it into a gentrified Disneyland and that’s not what we want.

I’m hoping we can grow the Fediverse and prevent it from getting fucked by people with bad motives.

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spiderkle@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Reddit had a good run for over a decade, but as always with the internet, now a better thing will take its place.

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homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Ohhhhhhh yeah - I remember reddit. Thats where thedonald nazis live right?

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andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

While traffic has not changed substantially, many users report the quality of content and the kinds of posts that are surfaced on user homepages now seem different.

While traffic has not changed substantially

has not changed

It’s long write up with a misguiding title. No numbers to back anything after a protest phase. And with problems with API access, there won’t be any from unaffilated sources.

I did found my favorite communities dropped some in activity and I myself access it just like once in a week or two from a desktop, signed off. But it didn’t die. Default subs can’t care and most NSFW posters are still there.

The important thing though is that Lemmy grew a lot. And it’s now enough to have a hit of that reddit poison. And, arguably, it feels a little bit more personal.

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Marleyinoc@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Crickets on the fact that so many users of 10+ years left, deleting their content on the way out? Seems writer didn’t dig very deep. Not that Rodent would give them accurate numbers or anything.

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MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ve never returned.

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nutsack@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
yea lemmy is good now thanks reddit

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