Apologies if this is the wrong place for this. A few subs opened up and were discussing the possibility of extending the blackouts. The majority wanted the blackout to end to keep the influx of content. That was to be expected.
There was a disturbing tone in some of the messages though. It was a form of cynicism essentially backing Reddit to do whatever it wanted to the devs, and that it was wrong to protest the rule changes as we should be okay with whatever Reddit wanted. It was almost like learned helplessness. I genuinely found it to be disturbing. Is anyone else noticing this in their communities/subs?
It was almost like learned helplessness.
This is a huge problem on reddit as a whole, IMO. The whole website is chock-full of doomers, cynics, and pessimists who are quick to say why every piece of good news is bad, actually, why every attempt at change is doomed to fail, why there’s no hope for anyone anywhere trying to do anything, and we should all just lie down and wait for the sweet release of death. It’s universal, across almost all the big subs, regardless of subject matter.
I’m not sure why reddit ended up that way, but it was both exhausting and depressing. That doomer shit is contagious, spend too much time immersed in it and you catch yourself thinking that way too. And, well, it’s just sad to see everyone around you being sad.
One thing I’m loving about Lemmy / KBin so far is that it’s not like that. Maybe it’s just because they’re still small and new, but people seem less nihilistic here. Not polyanna-ish toxic-positivity optimistic either. Just… normal. It’s so refreshing. God, I hope this place stays this way!
Yes!!! It’s so gratifying to see this pointed out.
Every population follows a standard, normal distribution curve. At the tips of this curve are the trailblazers (who left and came to lemmy) and the opposite side who feel as passionate about staying as we did about leaving.
Now that we’ve moved the 3 rd standard deviation off of Reddit, the curve has shifted and the opposite deviation is amplified.
This is to be expected when you have a population-level shift in any observed population. :)
This guy stats
I’m not trying to nay say or poopoo you, but the best course of action is to stop talking about/worrying about/focusing on Reddit. A wise friend once said “you’ll never get over your ex if you’re constantly checking on and talking/thinking about your ex.”
This type of post essentially functions as a reddit stand-in for you to discuss reddit while not on reddit. That, in and of itself, is kind of self affirming for reddit. Example - you’re posting this asking if anyone feels the same as you, however, by even asking it, you’re also enabling people to read it and think “gee, maybe they’re right and we should just cave and accept”.
Instead of this type of post, focus on developing the new community you’ve joined. Get over your ex by moving on and focusing on the future, not thinking about what they’re doing or living in the past.
Cheers
Has this wise friend of yours been talking to my ex? Did they mention me?
I’ve noticed some of this in non-reddit forums, where we’ve discussed the situation at some length. I agree; it’s quite disconcerting.
Some people have even made it clear that they’re incensed at Christian Selig, like the situation is somehow his fault, and they consider him to be a gold digger who is just profiting off of the platform that Reddit generously provided, and they even go so far as to suggest that Selig needs to “pay his dues!!!11!!1” Even a well-reasoned argument (including a full explanation of the actual math) was ineffective at convincing them that maybe they don’t quite grok the situation… one person actually stated bluntly that he doesn’t even care; he basically just wants his subreddits back.
The mindset behind these kinds of comments just utterly baffles me. (shrug)
That is what shocked me the most. They are going out of their way to make him look like a gold digger who apparently made a fortune. This is insanity. What’s more is that they think that the charges are good business for app devs to pay up. The issue is that if the apps are gone, no one is paying Reddit anymore. It’s odd how they skim over that part.
Well… I think your conclusion is absolutely right, but it’s actually more complicated than that.
Executive summary of the math from the conversation to which I alluded: If all things went absolutely perfectly for Selig, he couldn’t possibly have made more than about $450K per year, (gross) at the peak of Apollo’s popularity. The app was around for less than six years. Therefore, excluding expenses, his maximum theoretical gross income was still somewhere short of about $2.5 million. (There was a lot of math stuff that led to that figure.)
Reddit is demanding fees essentially equivalent to seven times that figure… per year.
That math doesn’t add up – unless you assume that those existing third-party devs aren’t the target audience at all, for that proposed fee structure. At no point did Reddit ever think that these small time devs were going to be able to cough up those exorbitant fees; the target audience is and always has been large language models.
The thing is, I don’t actually think there is much chance that the LLMs are going to be any more likely to accept the new fee structure than those third party add on developers. Thus, as you’ve stated, there will ultimately be no payday for Reddit.
“Most” people are going to be annoyed, more than anything. While extremely tech-savvy, my brother isn’t an avid Redditor… only ends up there for one or two niche things or when a Google search gets him there. All of a sudden he can’t get there and doesn’t really understand why. Even reading the various synopsis doesn’t make it particularly clear to a newcomer. Once I explained what was going on an answered a few questions he got it, but he’s still irritated by the fact that he knows there an answer behind that locked sub that he needs.
Those of us who have arrived thus far are not “most people”.
I believe R/datahoarder was working overtime to back up everything. The amount of knowledge stored on reddit on all sorts of topics is very valuable. It’s a shame to let it die if Reddit ever goes bankrupt.
It was a mistake (though natural) to trust Reddit with all that knowledge in the first place.
Those guys are exactly the kinds of people who should be on the fediverse, honestly. Running a Lemmy instance, even not participating but just letting it accumulate.
I believe there’s already a datahoarder community on lemmy. Hopefully more will come.
If homelab and datahoarder come here in full force that’s 90% of my reason to go to reddit gone…
I am pretty sure I saw a homelab community on lemmy.ml already, just FYI.
The last few days I have been learning specific things about my hobby. Of course, when googling questions the answer is on Reddit as the top result. So from am outsiders perspective the blackout was annoying.
I mean, I can understand some people not supporting the blackouts (not the third-party api fiasco)- Reddit is an info powerhouse, some subs going dark means some info won’t be accessable, which for important subs, can be a problem (I know not all the subs went dark and some health-critical ones are up btw) alternatively, maybe some people just don’t want to see Reddit die, not for corporation reasons, but maybe due to certain sentimental reasons- in which case Lemmy is still the spiritual successor of Reddit, the good part atleast- and we can say that Reddit is already “dead”, as in, it no longer is the Reddit as it is known anymore, unless if they like the modern day extra-consumerist hivemind Reddit, in which case, it is better we let them enjoy themselves…
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Most of us wildly underestimate the number of our peer accounts that are corporate shill bots.
Time will tell, but maybe this will create the great growth of Reddit alts whatever they may be.
There is a distribution bias. The people commenting are the people who didn’t leave. Those that did might not have come back, or are not checking regularly.
People who mention the Broken Stair usually get accused of Rocking the Boat by people who don’t want to do anything about the Broken Stair. This is always the way.
It doesn’t mean the Broken Stair doesn’t need to be replaced.
One reason for that might be that the users who do care and support(ed) the black-out are not back on Reddit. At least fewer of them than of the users that don’t give a damn.
I think for most it was just a feel-good move, like carbon offsetting or belittling people for using plastic straws, once the idea of getting serious about it was put on the table, suddenly people started rationalizing the abandonment of any “efforts” they made.
I don’t think anyone changed their minds aside from maybe a few honest and naive folks (I might be one, didn’t think twice about how pointless it was to promise I’d be back until I saw a video from Luis Rossman slapping me with reality, though I was planning on an indefinite blackout because that’s what I thought the plan .)
I actually logged in just to vote yes on the subreddit polls asking to extend the blackout, and… yeah. It manifested as acknowledging that a 2-day blackout wasn’t going to do anything, and after that they would continue to argue that we shouldn’t proceed.
I’ve moved on. Lemmy is where it’s at. I only post on reddit to promote lemmy now :-) It’s my new game. Polite and respectful suggestion of an alternative. But, it’s better to just be here, get to know people, figure out how it works and enjoy the learning experience
Same! I am posting a polite comment when appropriate about the fediverse and Lemmy explaining how it works and responding to respecful comments/questions. There are some vicious people in the replies but I just report and don’t engage.
Lemmy is great! Let’s gooooooo!
I think what’s jarring is the contrast with how relatively nice everyone’s being over here, while Reddit hasn’t changed. I had a quick look back at some reopened subs but I don’t have much of a desire to go back right now.
Also, this was never really about the APIs specifically for me, that brought it to a head, but really it’s all about the way Reddit has been heading for the last few years. A lot of people who are back don’t seem to appreciate that.
