this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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Why would Reddit push users away from their app shortly before announcing API changes? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by MudSkipperKisser@lemmy.world to c/reddit@lemmy.world
48 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I can’t wrap my head around this, it seems so bizarre. The only reason I’m here now is because I joined Apollo right after Reddit changed its app to remove the sort by rising feature. It completely changed my experience on the app for the worse and I sought out an alternative, and I know I’m not the only one that had this complaint. I was a faithful Reddit user/poster on the official app for 6 years until just a few months ago. Why would they make their app less user friendly a few months before announcing the crazy API changes. They drove me away from their app and then drove me away from the site altogether.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? It just makes no sense to me

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[–] chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Counter to what many will want you to believe, I think there may be a business case to what they’re doing… but how they’re doing it is completely dumb.

Imagine you run Reddit. You’ve got 15+ years of history and baggage (I.E. those of us who knew which sub /u/spez moderated). You’ve got handful of loyal users that have been very resistant to changes. They’ve been vocal about the new UI where you can spam ads. They’ve been vocal against chat in favor of legacy PM. But you’ve got no way to convert them to the new and shiny features which helps you monetize better that you’d want to focus more effort on.

So what do you do? You sunset older interfaces like the i.reddit.com / .mobile interface. You cripple old reddit. You don’t give new features to the API. You continue to build your new site and acquire new users who’s entire experience had been the new system with nothing to compare to. Old users resistant to change will either be forced to convert or leave… until eventually you get only users in the new system.

Killing the API and third party apps is just a very aggressive step. They’re pruning their old user base for the new.

Is it the best way? Heck no. The older users are active contributors. Their solution aren’t up to speed yet. And they’ve literally thrown decade+ of goodwill down the toilet. But, they have metrics, and I’m sure their bean counters have guaranteed their leadership that they will survive… and they almost certainly will. Just look at Twitter still limping along despite the mass exodus. Just like Digg before Reddit, Reddit will survive and continue to exist. It will be very different than what you and I are used to both in terms of look and feel, functionalities, and communities. But it will survive.

I don’t think I would’ve approached it the same way. But maybe that’s why I’m not rich and running big companies. 🤷‍♂️

[–] DizzyMotion@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What sub did /u/spez used to moderate?

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

r/jailbait

[–] Tigerfishy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

The most third sentence (comment?) worse I've ever seen, and Reddit will never see it

[–] ErraticDragon@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

FWIW, Reddit had a revenue sharing deal with rif, at the very least. Apparently when spez returned as CEO he shut it down.

[–] chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well aware; I'm sure it is almost certainly peanuts. Android users are well known in the industry as significantly less willing to pay than iOS users. Google also takes a significant cut of all transactions, as do third party payment processors. By the time everyone get their hands on it, there's not much left for the dev to share with Reddit. Why have a liability of a "paying customer" that barely generate anything when you can actively work your magic to that "paying customer"'s detriment and steal their user base to where you can monetize better yourself? You could say Spez had this in mind from the get-go.

It's cynical, but there's probably some truth to this.

[–] ArmokGoB@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You’ve got handful of loyal users that have been very resistant to changes.

Let's be real: almost all of the subs' mods caved when they were threatened with loss of their precious power. A bunch of subs have been operating as business as usual this whole time. Give it a month, and scabs leading apathetic users (many of whom are children) will have settled the ruins and filled in the cracks.

[–] chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes, after those of us who cares leaves, the gaps will be filled quickly, and eventually our existence wiped from the platform. This is why it is even more important for mods to re-open and direct the community to their new destinations, while maintaining the narrative while they still have the platform to do so. That window is rapidly closing, and I think by now it is clear Reddit Inc will not change their stance, no matter the public outcry and pressure.

[–] ArmokGoB@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'm of the opinion that they should try to start as many fires and destroy as much of the value of the website as possible, all the while directing people to alternative communities. It's not sustainable, but enough chaos and loss might cause the admins to reevaluate the risk of trying something like this in the future. There's a reason some animals evolved poison that only works after they're eaten.

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A lot of the reopenings were decided with a user vote. I do think though that the people prepared to move on weren't around for the vote, so it skewed towards those who didn't care about the API drama.

[–] ArmokGoB@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I know /r/RPG wants more users to vote than they have any chance of getting before they'll consider further closures, and /r/Minecraft wanted to respect the users that voted, but caved as soon as the admins said they'd be removed, despite the poll.

[–] spaceribs@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's probably pretty straightforward, if clicks are what they're looking to increase as a metric, then sorting by rising was probably not meeting their expectations in terms of clickrate.

[–] MudSkipperKisser@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

It’s hard to believe they could be that obscenely short sighted, but at this point I guess I shouldn’t be surprised

[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As breathtakingly stupid as what spez has been doing appears to be, I thinkthat the short term plan is a fast cash out, and the long term plan is to coast on the brand name while simultaneously stifling the reddit experience. Coasting, like Tim Horton's, licensing out names and logos like Playboy, Harley Davidson, Schwinn. Sure, the product might be shit, but Facebook seems to be able to retain enough dipshits, so...

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Bingo.

spez is acting non-sensical because his investors are done with the company. The era of free money is over, and there's no more waiting for something like Reddit to turn the ship around and become profitable. His hansd are tied: It's just job to see that the board of director's wishes are enacted, and the VCs are pulling the plug, and demanding their money back.

And they want it back several times over. The AI hype has those investors seeing more than just Reddit gold in the company's database. All of our posts and comments from the past 15 years is valuable right now in the light of the LLM buzz, but given the lifespan of recent Silicon Valley fads, they could be in the pile next to NFTs by Christmas. So, they need to sell the company now on the promise of limitless ChatGPT dollars before everyone stops giving a shit.

They acted in a hurry, and they didn't think this API issue would set fire to anything. They thought they could paint Selig as a greedy and entitled nobody who was just trying to piggyback off of their success, but they didn't seem to realize that no one actually likes Reddit: The Company. So, they were caught flat footed. They figured the protests would come and go, as they have before, and then it would be back to business as usual.

But then Selig spoke up, the faithful doubled down, and then the media took notice. Now, they have no plan, I'm sure the investors are getting fed up, and they're just trying to force everything back to normal however they can so they can sell this bridge to some lucky tourists, but nothing's actually working. So, it'll just be an endless stream of nonsense while the engagement and ad numbers continue to slowly shrink, presenting an unpalatable downward trend leading up to their yet-to-be-announced IPO.

In short, they have their marching orders, but their platoon captain doesn't have a fucking clue which way is up, let alone North.

[–] nucleative@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I think you hit the nail on the head. I can understand this position from the investor's perspective. From a lean-startup mentality you toss what doesn't make money, even if you don't want to.

Spez is acting like he has no choice to ignore his marching orders, but he's not a crowd pleaser. He can't execute this strategy.

I'm guessing we'll hear from a new reddit CEO not too long from now, who'll dial things back, calm the seas, and then do the same thing but more quietly.

[–] nostalgicgamerz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Basically Reddit has been solely been living on VC funds…and now the VC well is dry?

[–] ConTheLibrarian@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because reddit is run by a bunch of greedy losers who want to go public, pump, dump, and fuck off to wherever the next Little Saint James is.

[–] Woddy@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I also heard that a certain admin on a certain forum has a thing for children, but surely its just a rumor

[–] Sexypink@exploding-heads.com -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

🤣 the fuck? You mad for a very specific reason lol like that shit happened to you personally lol 😆

[–] empireOfLove@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

Yea. Venture capitalists and the value extracting investor class are quite literally leeches on all productive companies. You're damn right this shit is happening to us personally. All that "inflation"? It's the investor boards ensuring their profits continue growing. Reddit is but another victim.

[–] FiendishFork@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don’t think there was a whole lot of forethought other than “third party app users would make us more money if they switched over to the official app”

I don’t get the sense that there was even clear communication within Reddit administration itself given they were assuring devs that they would work with devs and it would be affordable initially.

[–] Bizarroland@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My guess is that they know they will lose their DieHard users that cost them the most money even though they produce the most content.

What will happen in the vacuum is that other users will rise up to fill in the gap that are more in line with modern Reddit and will make Reddit more money in the long term.

I mean of course they are selling their soul to their venture capitalists (or at least whatever remains of it) in the process but I guess as long as their primary shareholders go home with a fat wallet they're okay with whatever happens.

[–] Drusas@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I agree with the exception that I expect the moderators that rise up will be more inclined to use regurgitated content from other sites without expanding upon it. So the site will have worse content.

[–] Ddhuud@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have no proof, but neither doubts that they've been experimenting with AI for content creation. Even comments. And sure, the quality will tank. But I think they're banking on what are addicted users to do, not get their dopamine hit?

[–] Zaphodquixote@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Spez wants to be facebook. That's what it comes down to.

You can't be facebook if your mods are engaged and dedicated. You can't be facebook if the user base is doing more than scrolling brainlessly and hitting vote buttons.

Why do you think that the first targets are image based subs?

[–] Sedorner@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Stove Hortman is arrogant and not as smart as he thinks. Plus he’s a Peter Thiel acolyte.

[–] tourist@community.destinovate.com 2 points 1 year ago

I really just think they didn't want the API user base anymore. They want a tightly controlled ecosystem of vanilla content by vanilla users to sell to vanilla investors. TLDR they sold out, and the fact that we've moved on so quickly means we were ready to move on anyway.

[–] 018118055@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

You will enjoy the experience the way we intend.

[–] Nash42@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

To start, I don't agree with what Reddit are doing. However, to play devil's advocate, the company is losing money. They're not profitable. What if Reddit had to declare bankruptcy due to it? How do you propose they make money? Asking for donations? Even with offering Reddit Gold, or whatever pay-for entitlements, they aren't profitable.

ChatGPT is seemingly making a lot of money off of comments on Reddit, and Reddit are giving them that data for free. It makes sense, to me anyway, to charge OpenAI, Microsoft, et al., for access to that data. It seems third party app users were caught in the crossfire. Perhaps that was a lack of foresight, but perhaps it was a calculated (albeit incorrect) risk.

[–] Entropywins@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

3rd party apps did not get caught in the crossfire... reddit very specifically targeted them and has crafted the chatgpt narrative as a scapegoat. Chatgpt got the info they needed already reddit won't see a dime and knows this. What reddit wants is everyone on their app and thats their prerogative... I doubt they expected the backlash from longtime and even newer user, they probably anticipated some pushback from devs and maybe mods but this blew up in their face and rightly so... ugh I'm a bit sensitive over this sorry reddit was a home for me through 3rd party apps for a looooong time and I'm a tad upset over it.

[–] parasite_snakebite@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

The issue was never charging for the API, it always started off as the insane price, the lack of communication, and the timetable for these changes.

Then it became all about u/spez's behavior. Most of the subreddits were going to do just a two day blackout but his actions really made people realize what a piece of shit he is.

[–] musicalcactus@midwest.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is there proof that they're not profitable? I ask because the only place I've heard that is when spez has parroted it on interviews. But I question the reality of that because how else would they be in operation for 15 years if they weren't able to make any profit or were operating at a loss? It just doesn't make sense.

Granted - I'm not saying they shouldn't charge for the API access, but I'm curious what their real numbers are.

[–] Ostrakon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

IMO there is nearly no chance that they are profitable, given how hard they scaled up hiring after getting that fidelity funding in 2021. They were massively overvalued and I'm surprised Fidelity only cut their valuation by 40%.

I can't imagine what they've done that would have actually brought in revenue. Ads and awards sure, but new reddit, the 1p app, etc are all garbage. Revenue per employee must be in the shitter.

[–] Woddy@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I know literally nothing but what the everlovingfuck are their costs? Most content (all until their shitting hosting site) is just aggregated to the site. All this content is free, moderation is free and theyre making ad money. Sure ads for reddit are probably super shit but its something. My best guess is its going to greedy little pig boy?

[–] JohnEdwa@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

They increased their staff from around 700 to over 2000 in the last year or so, and their constant drive to turn from a link aggregate to a social media & hosting platform for every reposted image and video imaginable really hasn't helped either. Both of which probably have been done exactly to not be profitable, because then they have to pay taxes, instead the idea is to grow your value as far as it can go while bleeding investor money - last year Reddit was "valued" at 10 fucking billion - and then you sell it to some idiot and cash out. This whole API thing was also part of that plan, to gather everyone to their official site and apps to show advertisers how massive their reach is.
But because Spez is an idiot, he fucked it up.

[–] CMLVI@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Server and maintenance costs my guy. They're like a top-10 site on the internet at worst. That's a lot of infrastructure and people to keep on staff to keep it running, just from a dev perspective. Those costs are probably very high; and add on keeping the specialized staff, costs go up quick.

Obviously this is exacerbated by the rest of their business though; they have plenty of other staff members and probably some wild exec structure.

[–] chaogomu@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reddit claims to be losing money, but they made half a billion dollars in 2021. (the last year that any data is available)

They've also done about $1.3 billion in fundraising over the years, ($400 mill in 2021) which is a lot of debt to take on...

So what I think is happening here is that they want to cook up the books for their IPO, that and spez seems to be in love with how Musk is handling Twitter, specifically Musk's cost-cutting measures. (cost cutting means short term stock price bumps, because the books look a bit better, after all, just look at how much money is available after you fire half the company)

[–] TheDeadGuy@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's a complete pump to get the IPO starting value as high as possible and will subsequently dump soon after going public as they cash out

Spez and Co are complete business and culture morons

[–] minorninth@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

They have 2000 employees. According to levels.fyi they're paying mid-level software engineers $300,000 a year. Even if you assume their average employee salary is only $100,000 a year, that's $200 MILLION dollars a year on salaries.

I absolutely guarantee that is way, way, way higher than their server costs.

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