Technology

At this point, it's only going to get worse. It's a very large Venture Capital backed company, on track to IPO.

Large VC/public companies goals will follow more of what we see with "mainstream" sites and social media. It'd be against their goals and their business to have less ads, less agorithms showing what their partners want to see and not what the user wants to see, less bloat on their front end. Even if the CEO wanted to go that way, he'd quickly be replaced.

It's a self sustaining movement of capital now and users are annoyances that they have to deal to achieve their goals.

I'll be honest, I started using redding decade ago because most forums were very niche, specific, with weird to follow rules, very low on users, and reddit seemed to always have a community for each topic I had an interest on. It still does, but the end is approaching fast, and I don't want to search Discord servers, social media videos, or even ancient methods that are alternatives like IRC servers, mailing lists ; search results are useless in Google due to SEO and already affect other search engines

It all comes up to finding one or more sites that don't look ancient or too mobile focused, and if enough people are going to use it and stick to it. Otherwise it'll just be another corner of the web filled with a few crazy users

It's quite the opposite at this point. Reddit isn't really in control anymore. Rather, something drastic would have to happen to Lemmy to cause me to leave. Reddit is no longer the default choice.

Pay me 1 dollar for every comment and 10 dollars for every post

Even if they revert the API changes, I know It's only going to get worse when the IPO happens, so I don't think I could ever come back. I also like the federated approach more anyways 🤷

I'll go back if Reddit:

• Makes it feasible for 3rd party apps to continue on the platform. This could be a revenue-sharing agreement, a set price that's not prohibitively expensive but still fairly compensates Reddit, a flat-out exemption from the Enterprising Pricing, doesn't matter. These apps have been around far longer than Reddit's own app, and provide tools (and general polish) the Official App has yet to match seven years in. They deserve to stay and to make a living off of their continued contribution to the community.
• Restores parity access to NSFW content via the API. It's essential for moderation bots to combat spam, it helps 3rd party apps stay afloat, and it serves a large part of the community. I get that Reddit wants to sanitize the site in preparation for an IPO. I get that advertisers are wary of NSFW posts. That's not an excuse for removing it from the API. The official ad-supported Reddit app will continue to serve up porn, and the currently proposed API prevents 3rd party clients from using ads anyway. Reddit is making a bad-faith argument that harms moderation bots' ability to do their job, and cripples any 3rd party app that isn't driven from the platform based on price (including 2 "accessibility only" apps they were forced to allow during the AMA).
• Apologizes to the Apollo dev for Spez's libelous statements, and starts a good-faith negotiation with developers to open access for things like the enhanced query system that the 1st party app enjoys, usage statistics that will help devs improve API request efficiency, and revenue sharing where devs can monetize using ads or any other method they choose so long as Reddit gets a cut.

Yes, these demands go further than a simple rollback of the new API policy, but at the same time they don't. Reddit's originally stated goal for this change was to keep 3rd party apps around because they add tremendous value to the ecosystem, while stopping the LLM training bots from getting off rent-free when they try to train their AI models off of our hard work. I love that goal. It's something we can all get behind. I just wish they'd actually do it.

But at this point, even if I go back it will be with one foot out the door. The dam has broken, and I plan to campaign hard for alternatives and switch to whichever one hits critical mass first.

Not ruin the site with pointless features and keep old reddit/third party apps the way they were.

For me, it is too far gone at this point. The events of the last ~week just highlighted something that I was willfully ignorant of in that it has not been the website I joined back in 2007 for a very long time. VC-backed focus on monetization, profit, return on investment, and ipo (and everything that comes along with that) has ramped up tremendously in the last few years and I think this is now the tipping point of Reddit doing a Digg.

It's a bummer, but not shocking or surprising as it follows a long line of exactly the same pattern, across tech. I'll have fond memories for sure, but have accepted it and am ready to move on to something new.

Also, this is my first post. Happy to be here!

I've only been here for a day, but the lack of homophobia and transphobia here compared to Reddit has been a breath of fresh air. I'm not afraid of posting here like I was on Reddit, where I'd actually have to debate with myself for a minute or two before posting. It's like finally leaving a bad relationship; now I'm starting to see how bad that all was for my mental health.

At this point, me run out of alternatives worth trying. Just signed up for a lemmy instance today, and liking what I'm seeing so far (even if communities are quite a lot smaller than I'm used to at the moment), but there are other sites that might scratch the reddit itch that I'll try even if the fediverse stuff doesn't take off. Reddit has shown that that they're a) greedy, and b) incompetent at being greedy. And I'm not going to contribute to them again until I'm well and truly out of other options.

I think it is very healthy for huge social media platforms to disappear every now and then and be replaced by better things. After being on Reddit for 13 years I'm excited for something new; hopefully different in good ways. I think a federated approach is a huge improvement. I don't think there's anything they could do.

I haven't left reddit, but I am sure I will be spending more time here in the fidiverse than sites like reddit and twitter.

One thing that irritates me about Reddit is how it's converged with the rest of twitter, instagram and tiktok to be just endless scrolling through memes, gifs and videos. Reddit is so far from it's roots and killing third party apps really does remove that old avenue. I do feel like commenting is going to reduce as people just mindlessly scroll through content without really engaging it anymore.

Nothing.

Reddit and u/spez haven't even offered an apology and/or reversed their position. But let's be real, here - apologies don't necessarily make things right, and they don't necessarily erase what's been done. At best, we can forgive. But people don't forget. Whatever trust there may have been, it's gone now. I've grown tired of the half-assed apologies made by organizations and famous individuals that are supposed to make everything ok and compel us to forget what was done. I don't think I'd care if Reddit and/or u/spec tried to make amends. They would not be genuine - your true colors are visible for all to see. Welcome to the real world where hollow apologetic half-measures don't fool anyone.

If I spat on your lunch because I was having a bad day, I don't think there would be much I could say to defend my actions. Actions speak louder than words, and sometimes when you screw up there's no going back. You're just done.

Open the source, license it to the public, and federate.

Honestly the best thing for Lemmy would be if Reddit did completely reverse this decision and retain it's users. Then, Lemmy would remain relatively small and act as a much better internet community. If Reddit loses a large portion of it's users to Lemmy (to be fair, I am one of these people), then eventually Lemmy will become a festering wound as well. I mean, when Reddit was young it felt just like Lemmy does today, and none of us at that time could have ever expected it to end up this way.

I am the founder of a mental health support subreddit, so I kinda permanently tied to Reddit to continue to provide support there. I did however make the same community on Lemmy. World, so shall see what the future holds. I will probably have to be active on both

Revert the API change so third party apps stay.

For me, I haven't left yet but I will significantly reduce my time on reddit once my app of choice shuts down (Boost). If reddit updates their app to the standard of the 3rd party apps they are killing, I'll be happy to continue my use. Side note, I've found lemmy (jerboa app use) because of this and will hang around here regardless of what happens with reddit

Honestly I don't think I ever will. It was already causing me issues in terms of addiction and cutting it to of my life has already had a positive effect. I'm not planning on installing Beehaw/Lemmy on my phone which also limits my time. I know its a small community but everyone has been so welcoming to all the Reddit refugees

I'm still using it because old-dot-reddit-dot-com still works, and until it doesn't, I probably will. That said, I'd rather the fediverse thrive than the increasingly corporate-beholden reddit does, so I'll favour what sparse engagement I make to a lemmy instance first.

I think what's hardest to replace from reddit is the absolutely monstrous archive of posts and discussions, which seems to be a bit of a two-edged sword for them (if the official statements are to be believed) - it costs a tonne in hosting, but makes them the most relevant source for real human discourse. This needs to be handled better, and ideally I'd want to see:

• Some sort of archive-dot-reddit-dot-com. Minimal, flat html, ideally anonymised as much as computer-ly possible to help with the inevitable privacy issues this would raise.
• Some sort of mobile-dot-old-dot-reddit-dot-com, as they seem incapable of making an app without bloaty (both visual and bandwidth wise) "features". Call me a boomer, but if I can do something without a specific app, I would rather do it that way.
• Separate i-dot-reddit-dot-com and v-dot-reddit-dot-com into different companies from the main reddit, reddit should be link aggregation and discussion, content hosting seems like a costly thing to try and monopolise.
• If it really costs so much to run the APIs, I'd rather see more user-based rate limiting than price gouging to discourage bad actors. I do not think that is why they are price gouging, but am trying to assume good faith on their part for discussions' sake.

I know I'm an idiot, and some of these are possibly already done and I just haven't looked hard enough, probably some are impossible for obvious reasons I haven't seen. Though even if reddit as a company turned around and tried to become a curator of the discussions it holds rather than milk it's current audience dry with ads, I'd still rather see lemmy out-compete it. Protocol > Platform.

Too late, I've invested too much time, money, and effort into setting up my own Lemmy instance so I can share the love of open source and federated projects with others. What happens if lemmy.ml is overloaded? Go somewhere else and set up an account, and you can reduce the load on their servers.