Took a peek on Reddit, it really boggles my mind how oblivious and obedient people are.
I decided to take a peek at Reddit to see what kind of activity is happening, a good handful of the subreddits I am subscribed to are still super active with posts and commenters.
There's quite a few news articles on the front page regarding Spez and the blackouts, I am surprised those articles are even still up for people to see.
The comment section is filled with people saying how they should just kick the mods out of the dark Reddit's and take over, ofcourse these posts are heavily upvoted...
Perhaps there is some AI activity going on, I mean it's kind of easy to do in this day and age. You just prompt an army of AI bots to defend Reddit, and try to keep users engaged.
I am so happy I found Lemmy, and I am so happy that there is a comfortable level of activity. Sure it's only a small fraction of what Reddit is activity wise, but it's so much more hearty and welcoming.
Reddit has just turned into one big toxic mess. Lemmy reminds me of what Reddit used to be 10 years ago.
When all the A+ student's leave (moderators doing the work, people writing good comments), the class goes on, but in a diminished form. It'll be a slow decline.
kbin.social feels lively. Reddit just feels like a mine field of trolls/bots/conspiracies.
Totally correct. It'll take a while, but the quality will absolutely drop. And even though 3rd party apps represent a small percentage of Reddit users, I'd bet that people who are engaged and participate enough to get a third party app for their phone (many of which required payment to block ads) are the same people providing a lot of the quality content that makes Reddit successful. When the people who produce the good content leave, then it's only a matter of time before everyone else follows.
My favourite conspiracy is that "the mossad" are behind the protests, because the API changes means they can't use their bots to sway opinion. Just pure, uncut antisemitism.
Which gives me an idea for the opposite conspiracy theory: Reddit didn't raise API pricing that much to kill 3rd parties, they lifted it because the admins realized how instrumental they are in spreading disinformation from unfriendly governments, and could actually get them to pay.
Thats exactly what I'm thinking, and also that Reddit is expecting there to be moderators of the subreddits based upon the financial resources of the subreddits' subject. And not just from ambitious governments, but commercial enterprises also.
So perhaps Microsoft employs a mod, and so does Apple, probably game devs and sports leagues and so on so that those moderators will be able to be controlled via the financial arrangements between Reddit and the NFL, or Reddit and Apple, and none of the messy business of courting consumers' real opinions has to come into play.
"Too big to fail" commercial subreddits could become overtly supported by Reddit.