Anyone else read this? The arrogance is palpable.

  • It’s just so tone deaf. And he’s totally lying about users not supporting the blackout. All the subreddits I was on where the mods asked people what they wanted to do, most of the comments were in favor of keeping them dark indefinitely. The rest were agreeing to the blackout in general. I don’t remember seeing a single person objecting.

    • He’s probably relying on the fact that the numbers are now skewed in favor of people against the blackout because those of us who were pro are extricating ourselves from the site and not posting/commenting/interacting with content as much, if at all.

      • Pretty much - I took a look at Reddit today and the attitude regarding that blackout has done a complete 180. I don’t know if Reddit managed to push the narrative or what, but all I’ve seen is users complaining about “activists mods” and how they were never in favour of the blackout to begin with

    • Casual users probably just want shit to work and didn’t know about the black out until it was happening. They won’t notice why they should care until their app of choice goes offline or communities start falling apart due to modding issues. The issues coming from mods being pushed out, leaving, or having fewer tools.

    • I don’t remember seeing a single person objecting.

      Depends on where you look, I suppose.

      We did a poll in r/snowboarding (a subreddit that it’s in its off-season, and currently just frequented by our most “loyal” users) about whether to continue the blackout, and after two days of voting, it was literally a 50-50 split, and the majority of the comments were against the blackout. On the week before the blackout, the vast majority of support was there for the 48 hour blackout. If we’d done that same poll in February, I have a feeling that the majority would have voted to not continue the blackout. In that sense, I don’t think spaz is too far off the mark.

      What the lying piece of corporate crap is ignoring is the fact that alternatives have grown considerably, traffic has gone down, and entire mod teams are quitting in protest. Reddit is going to be around for many many years, but this is the first time that I see a true push to create something different, not just for a few undesirables (i.e. Voat), but for the larger community in general.

    • There was a subreddit that I used to frequent that was all about returning to normalcy, and pretty much thought the blackout was an inconvenience. I let them know I wanted nothing to do with them, I unsubbed and haven’t logged into Reddit since that day actually. I was disgusted.

  • Here are my takeaways. Correct me if I’m wrong.

    1. Third party apps monetized Reddit better than Reddit did by actually making a profit, and spez seems pretty butthurt about it and wants it to stop.
    2. Third party apps have better accessibility options, but jeez, guys, they’re working on it and you’ll have better accessibility!
    3. Third party apps offer a better experience for the mods and users that use them, but jeez, c’mon! They’re working on that, too! Besides, look at all of these casual users who don’t care about that stuff!
  • I have had a Reddit account almost since the beginning. After seeing the way the CEO’s threats have started working and subreddits opening back up, I have decided to delete my Reddit account. Fuck them. My new home is here now.

  • That entire interview is so full of shit.
    “We’re perfectly willing to work with the folks who want to work with us, including figuring out what that transition period will look like. But I think a deadline forces people, us included, to negotiate that.”
    Tell that to all the app devs that reached out to reddit only to be ignored and attempts to negotiate shot down.

  • The way spez characterizes accessibility apps as exempt because they carry the cost of adding value to the Reddit experience while implying Apollo doesn’t do the same is disappointing. It’s obvious spez has it out for Apollo and RIF on a personal level, especially considering the transcripts Christian Selig shared.

    The fact of the matter is, Apollo enhances the Reddit experience tremendously, and the official app and new UI don’t even get close to feature parity. And Christian has had to do the labor to make that happen.

    The only thing I can assume now, because of the suddenness of it all and because of recent layoffs, is that Reddit is financially bleeding and this is a way to try to quickly appease investors.

  • Every once in a while in cities, there’s a protest. And I think that’s what we’re seeing exactly right now. We, even in disagreement, we appreciate that users can care enough to protest on Reddit, can protest on Reddit, and then our platform is really resilient enough to survive these things.

    Oh yeah and if the authorities just ignore the protests out of greed than your city experiences braindrain. But like the politicians he doesn’t care about future problems as long as he can secure his bag of greed

  • This guy can lick my hole. Look, I left Twitter after fourteen years of dedicated use, because of that clogstomping moron, Elon Musk. If Lead Paint Huffer-Man wants to be a greedy dick, I can leave Reddit, too. I was there for four years, but I’m more than willing to find a new place to hang out. Don’t test me, man! I shot my Neopet just to watch it die!

  • @Alba70r if reedit is really a democracy driven company, why so hard defending this just let the users vote, maybe only the premium subscribers or people that have been using it for years, just to prove it the sentiments yknow