‘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

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    7511 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.

    • the post of tom joad
      link
      fedilink
      English
      9211 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

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        411 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.

    • TheSpookiestUser
      link
      fedilink
      English
      46
      edit-2
      11 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.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        3311 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.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          1311 months ago

          Yeah, I knew of lemmy long before any protests, but it was more linked as a back up sub for like the rom sub in case a ban happened. But, activity was pretty nonexistent compared to now. For lemmy this is a success with it leading to many more consistent users of the platform.

      • Uninvited Guest
        link
        fedilink
        English
        1411 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.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      2711 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.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        1511 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.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        511 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.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          111 months ago

          Try surfing on your porn account. Totally obvious when all you intend to browse is NSFW

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            011 months ago

            People keep separate accounts for their porn? That just seems to suggest they are embarrassed by their kinks. 😄

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              311 months ago

              I don’t want to see porn all the time. When I want to see porn that’s all I want to see.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                111 months ago

                I didn’t subscribe to any of the subs, rather I created a multi with a collection of the ones I was interested in, and gave it a generic-sounding name. Easy to click on but it never pops up on my home page and doesn’t stand out if I’m reading reddit at work. Gives me a nice bit of separation under a single account.

                Honestly I wish lemmy would introduce a feature like multi-reddits. I have a pretty long list of communities here and would love to break them up into groups. That’s the only feature of reddit I actually miss.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  211 months ago

                  My porn account was older than the devolopment of multi-reddits. The blocking, subscribing, and discovery of communities on lemmy is terrible. The average user will flounce before they discover anything they like because they’ll get overrun with creepy anime porn and foreign language communities.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        211 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.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          711 months ago

          Haha. You made a comment about nothing changing on Reddit, yet you haven’t checked the main selling point of the site or anything outside your old sub bubble?

          I’ve checked both, and believe that content and comment quality is much lower … but there was a steady decline in quality the entire time Reddits user base grew … because the majority of the human population are, quite simply, idiots.

    • 4grams
      link
      fedilink
      English
      1311 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.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      811 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.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      611 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.

      • Billiam
        link
        fedilink
        English
        411 months ago

        There’s definitely something different about the algorithm that is making the content more sanitized for a wider audience potential investors.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      411 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.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      3
      edit-2
      11 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 (read: the “right” issues)—but only 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—we care when other people can see us caring. 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 thouht, for a brief moment, that Reddit was actually going to be hurt by a larger portion of people leaving. I thought, for a brief moment, that we were learning how to act as a collective to stick it to large companies treating us like the fuckin bottom of the barrel of capitalism that we’ve collectively become. We aren’t the customers anymore. Other goddamn companies are the customers. We’re the fuckin goods. And it’s so deeply disturbing to me that people just…don’t seem to care past recognizing this as the reality—if that.

      I hate being a pessimist. But at what point is pessimism just realism about the bleak outlook for humanity?

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      211 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

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      211 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.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        111 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.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -1
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      The main thing I notice is how shitty the app is. Thats still my main complaint.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        111 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).