this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Reddit Migration
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### About Community Tracking and helping #redditmigration to Kbin and the Fediverse. Say hello to the decentralized and open future. To see latest reeddit blackout info, see here: https://reddark.untone.uk/
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I mean the truth is 95% of redditors didn't use apps and don't care about this at all.
It's like if your local street had a protest for sheep shearing, preventing you from going to the park or movies. It's irrelevant to you and the large majority would want it over.
No it's not like that.
It's like the people keeping your city clean can no longer use tools and have to use their bare hands unless they pay a bunch of money. That's what it's like. Sure for a while it will be ok, but the shit will build up, it will get worse and worse, and the city you once loved will be a shit hole of trash. The workers are literally protesting to have better tools and access to keep your city clean, and you're saying it doesn't matter. OH BY THE WAY THE WORKERS DON'T GET PAID.
Yes this is a good analogy. Rome was neither built in a day nor destroyed Ina day.
We are thinking Reddit will turn out to be like MySpace or digg but it will be more like Facebook. It will exist but filled with clueless people consuming garbage.
I would have thought most people would be using an app. Most people access the Internet through their phone.
Yeah, I'm not buying Reddit's statistics. 90%+ of mod actions on desktop web and official app? I can see plenty of use for old Reddit, but they have locked quite a few mod actions behind the new interface recently. Likewise the more and more spez feels the need to mention that there was no real consequence from the blackout makes me question the validity of that statement. We're all aware what a lying jackass he is.
I'm sure that the majority of people will continue to use Reddit regardless. I'm just not sure that the majority is as major as they are presenting it to be.
I think a lot of mods probably use RES on desktop, which will still be functional after this. But yeah, statistics say that 3PA are only used by about 5-10% of users
Agreed. they also know RES only works as long as old.reddit.com works, and once that's done, desktop is shit.
Once they kill third party they will go for old reddit. Definitely
RES said they weren't sure how it would be effected by the API changes. It could be fine, it could break some stuff.
They also aren't really developing it anymore. The maintenance team is down to two people on their spare time. They aren't going to fix what Reddit breaks at this point.
Honestly, I mostly used desktop and the official app sometimes (mostly while I was watching TV, like right now). I don't think I'd realized there were third party apps, otherwise I would have been using one before all this mess.
I discovered reddit on desktop, switched over to RIF and one day I created a burner account on desk top (2021 ish) and was shocked at what I saw.
The actual content was in like 10 point font with ads and an instant messenger function taking up a quarter of the screen.
If people only ever used the desk top or official app, they have no idea the experience other people were getting. Essentially only the all page had ads, they were the same size as posts, they were more clearly delineated as ads, there was less of them.
I've heard people bitching about the "He Gets Us" ad campaign, but as a RES and RIF user, I never really experienced that. Knowing the hell they're going through though, I know it would do nothing but piss me off. So why take the risk. Just leave Reddit.
So I didn’t know what those were until recently, when I clicked over to Reddit in a browser a few times to see things like r/gaming’s “sorry” message and to see that r/funny had opened back up.
Every single time I opened Reddit in my browser, there would be a single post at the top, followed by an advertisement for Jesus right there under the top post. The ads were designed to look like posts, too, so they weren’t even obviously identifiable as ads on first glance.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an advertisement for Jesus on any other social media site. But in Reddit, apparently it’s very, very common. Does no one else want to buy ad space from them, or do they just put no work into curating which ads users see? Did Jesus pay more to be the top spot every time someone opens their browser?
Out of curiosity, I went over to Reddit and looked at r/Jewish and sure enough, there was an ad for Jesus. Great job, Reddit ad department.
install ublock origin
I meant it to be more of a comment on their questionable ad sales decision, to be fair.
While I moved over to the fediverse on the principle of it all, I've never used an app myself. Only old.reddit on both PC and mobile. Just got too used to it before any app came up.
As a moderator of a small subreddit, when I checked roughly 75% of our traffic was from mobile. It doesn't distinguish beyond that but the mobile browser experience is so shockingly bad I think it's safe to say that is almost entirely app usage. Since there is only official app & Apollo on iOS, that means it's one of those two... but the way Huffman tells it, Apollo has less than 5% of the install base of the official app on iOS. If that's the case I don't really understand his argument that they're bleeding Reddit dry. But that's a separate issue.
But, based on the responses we had before the blackout and the responses we got in the last few days "after" in the discussions around opening back up, I can say he appears to be right. Most people just want to use the main app, don't want to learn anything about third party apps, don't care why they exist, just want everyone to shut up and move on.
I did find the total 180 very odd. Vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the protest beforehand. Overwhelmingly in favor of going back to normal after. But it was different people. And it wasn't just random one-week-old accounts that had never posted on the sub before, it was regulars, old accounts, or both, both times.
I'm proud of the properly big subs for continuing their protests. Our community was not strong enough.
Can back up those splits, top 5% sub. Majority is on mobile, but stats on platform are difficult to estimate. It would seem that at least 10% of Android is on 3rd party apps. The downloads don't give accurate estimates at the top end (10 mil downloads, then it won't change until 100mil downloads, so you could be off by tens of millions), it doesn't count side loaded apks, and it doesn't specify usage time. There could be a ton of people who downloaded the official app, then moved to 3rd party, and they would count for official download.
I saw this as an explanation, and it’s so stupid it makes perfect sense
Reddit doesn't have to guess though. API usage has clientID information. They could easily keep a tally of requests per client and get exact numbers.
Yeah but they are probably using the original reddit app. The people that used sync, Apollo or reddit is fun were mad.
The official app, not the original. The 3rd parry app scene did well because reddit didnt offer anything official until really late.
They also bought Alien blue, which was a 3pa. And then drove it into the ground to replace it with what they have now. fuck Spez
either way, I moved because there is 0 reason to be doing this but money, and because without sync I'm not interested!
Or infinity, thats what caused me to leave. Losing Infinity on top of seeing just what reddit admins thought of the community as a whole made me leave.
I would agree but many sub reddits had polls before locking and the majority were always in favor.
One thing to keep in mind is that there is an active minority of users who are content generators who are much more likely to vote on stuff like that. Then there are a ton of mostly silent read-only users (most of whom don't even have accounts). If you inconvenience the mostly silent users who are just there for cat pics on their lunch break, some of them will suddenly put in the effort to complain. But they'll never build a community, you need the active users for that.
Yeah, good luck to the read-onlys when the content creators are gone.
I.e the 90-9-1 rule of internet culture.
If this was all over 5% of their traffic, they’re dumber than we knew.
Until there is a shortage of sweaters due to no wool being produced any more (akin to content creators and moderators who use reddit API)