The reddit exodus is comparatively very small. Tens of thousands of users, many of which will not stick around. Reddit has millions of users (hundreds of millions?). They barely notice.
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2023
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Technology
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The thing with these sites is that only a tiny proportion of users create content. For Reddit it's even worse, since they also need subreddit moderators, essentially employees working for free. So, tens of thousands of users leaving will definitely have an impact since in this case it's old power users who make content, and mods. Will the site "die"? Nope, we'll see it working for a long, long time, but will be a shadow of what it used to be, for example i remember the Obama AMA and many similar high-profile ones, that's not gonna happen anymore or will be reduced greatly.
Late Stage Capitalism.
There is a crisis of democracy in contemporary societies, every time that you invoke the direct power of the people, the status quo conservationists ban your participation and exclude you of most of the expression spaces.
big money ruins everything
money ruins everything
Ayyy that's capitalism, baby!!
With great power comes great irresponsibility
-big corps
they are realizing that if they want to maximize profits they don't actually need to maximize users.
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Higher interest rates means less investment, resulting in these companies racing to make a profit. The reality is that Reddit is bleeding money and has been for years, and Twitter is barely profitable.
Where do you see this information on their profits?
There isn't much public information because all those companies are private. But, various journalists have looked into things and declared it isn't profitable, for example:
That has left Reddit, known as a bastion of free speech, walking a delicate tightrope between its outspoken audience of 330mn monthly active users and new advertisers that can propel it into profitability.
https://www.ft.com/content/c4c01d86-85f5-49c8-9966-cbf935d834a2
Awesome. Thanks for the follow up. Crazy how hard it is to find. I’m sure their income is enough to pay them decent wages though. Not the moderators though, screw those people
The twitter/elon thing is hilarious. I honestly do think he accidentally got himself into quite the pickle and now his pride is keeping him there. As for reddit and twitch, I don't assume these are the surface-level-dumb moves that we think they are. My guess is that this is a calculated means of rolling out the changes they actually want by:
- overshooting
- letting everyone get mad
- backing off to their actual changes (or something close)
- letting everyone think they've won
- and finally push forward a bit more once everyone is preoccupied with the next thing
Internet users love to cancel shit, but at the same time, are always looking for the next thing to cancel. So as much as people hate twitter or facebook or tiktok or youtube or windows or nintendo or chick-fil-a or whatever, they're all just looking for an excuse to forget all about it, and continue using their product as quickly as possible. And corporations know that, so they've worked "giving them that excuse" into their plans.
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Hah! Are we so inured to the death march towards dystopia that it is surreal when something good happens? All of these large social media sites are privacy hating monopolies that actively disrespect their members and misuse their information.
They should die. Let them. We should celebrate!
The big sites got big by being there when a previous big site died. But nothing lasts forever, and eventually a social site becomes desperately uncool because there are people old enough to have grandkids on it. And they totter on, like a zombie, until they fuck out badly, and most people leave. But not everyone, I still get linked to blog entries on Livejournal now and then, sometimes I even end up on Blogger when I’m following a trail and people are still updating some of those.
Hey, I'm still on LiveJournal!
Okay, mostly DreamWidth with an echo to my LJ. And all of my friends are gone. But it's still a damned good service. Frankly, I suggested it as an alternative to Reddit if Lemmy fell through.
The last straw for LJ for me was when they made any mention of queerness illegal so as to conform to the laws of their new home country. I logged out and never logged in again. I still get badly-translated email about anniversary gifts for my various 13-year-old accounts now and then.
I have a DW account but it lies fallow, mostly because I could never get the auto-crossposter plugin to work on my Wordpress site.
It's not just tech companies like Reddit and Twitter, it seems like it's most companies. Ever since the COVID lockdowns prices have been going through the roof, you get less for what you pay for, they're laying off workers, and all while raking in record profits while also crying about how no one wants to work and how they can't afford anything because of the economy. I've never been more cynical about companies than I have been the last year.
I don't speak for everyone obviously, but to piggy-back on your comment a little, I personally have found myself looking inward/smaller more because of some of the things you referenced. "you get less for what you pay for" - 100% agree, so I pay for less, and try to find value more. I used to buy coffee out nearly every day, now I rarely do. We (wife and I) rarely eat out because it's exorbitantly expensive. We used to love going to breweries and just putzing around new places, but now we meet up with friends and visit their homes more. I feel like with everything being both expensive and polarizing in some way, I'd just rather spend more time with my friends and loved ones, and not worry about how much i'm expected to tip on this beer that is $4 more than it used to be!
Going out especially is insane. I'm not terribly far off from Hartford, CT, and no matter where we go, if my wife and I go out just for two drinks total, one for each of us, we're not walking out of there without spending less than $25 or even $30. That's just fucking wild to me. If we want to have dinner--two mains, one shared app, one drink each--we're looking at at least $100 to $120, and that's just to any random place, not a high-end eatery or anything. And every single place will hand you a little Square thing or whatever with tip suggestions that start at 18% and go up to 25%.
100% feel you. Fortunately my wife LOVES to cook (no sarcasm, it's literally her favorite hobby, I am one lucky bastard), Craft beer/liquor has never been more accessible, and I am pretty decent at cold brewing my own coffee! For now, most the unnecessary spending can be avoided completely and I'm not sad about it.
I just bought myself two pastries, thinking that's cheaper than getting lunch. Each one was $7.
$7.00 Hot Bites
$7.75 Canadian Bacon Cheese
Purchase Subtotal $14.75
Sales Tax (10%) $1.48
Tip $2.43
Total $18.66
Welcome to Seattle.
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I'm out of the loop on Twitch. Not a big user of it, other than watching a friend occasionally. What's going on there?
Saw this video in another thread. Not sure if it represents the situation accurately though because I haven't been following it either.
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Everybody just wants money now. Some of that is reasonable, these companies tend to work if not with a loss, then with quite unpredictable margins.
Now that tech investors have found a new bubble - AI - they are no longer willing to sponsor old-fashion internet stuff and wait if it ever turns a profit.
Especially since many got used to becoming all that richer during the pandemic, and are looking to keep those numbers rising.
But there's also some sudden hatred of porn, and I don't know where that is coming from. Tumblr, Imgur have limited it completely, OF wanted to, Reddit probably will, coedcherry shut down. The owner of coedcherry said it was really a sudden 180° turn of the banks to no longer wanting to do anything with porn, and nobody knows why.
It's especially bizzare considering how these platforms keep assuring us that we'll still be able to post and see blown off heads and all kinds of other nasty stuff, it's just the titties that are being banned! Eh?
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