The loss of the forum like help threads will probably be the most impactful thing. We can build communities elsewhere, but the 8 years old post about a problem only you and the OP is having is super valuable.
Technology
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
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I'd like to add a comment here just to add some visibility:
If you have an uncapped/unlimited internet connection, you should seriously consider running the Archive Team Warrior
They're heavily involved in scraping and archiving data from all over the internet (and, recently, most/all of Reddit) so that it's preserved, regardless of what happens to the underlying platform.
I run it on my home server in docker, but they have a lot of options for doing so and it basically requires just running it, and then forgetting it exists.
I feel that. I posted about a Plex problem 2 years ago and the subsequent solution I worked out. Every once in a while I still get someone replying to that and thanking me.
There was talk of someone populating a Lemmy instance with reddit data.
There is a lot of reddit data on a torrent somewhere aparrently.
Not only that. But if Reddit really suffers badly from this it might also have an impact on small communities. It's really simple to set up a community on any topic on there. And it's currently mainstream enough that you can get people on-boarded pretty quickly.
Larger communities may find a new home elsewhere. But for smaller ones that feels much more difficult.
Thanks to last week's fiasco I discovered the fediverse and hopefully others too. I just hope it's intuitive enough that people don't get scared away.
That's the thing that bothered me the most about deleting my account. I had multiple people say thanks for posting solutions and problems with solutions I had. Not specific to iphone but in general.
That's a problem with every non-physical storage of data/knowledge - it's ephemeral and can disappear anytime
From time to time I do think about the Carrington Event and wonder what would happen if something like that happened in today's time. Because of exactly the reason of how reliant we are on electronical data.
How resilient is our infrastructure really? Especially satellites used for communication. I assume that most critical cold-storage is mostly fine. But all the small personal electronic devices will probably be toast.
It's a shame promoting Lemmy isn't part of the blackout
It's been attempted in various spots, but either reddit itself removes the mentions or edits them out
Yeah the fact that they actually banned the kbinmigration subreddit is absolutely WILD to me. I made a comment on a post a couple of weeks ago now about how this wouldn't change anything, and a few people would leave like the last time they did something that made people upset, but most people would stay. After the ama and everything last week though I've completely changed my mind, I was wrong.
You weren't wrong. Reddit has over 400 million monthly users. A tiny percentage of that will move to Lemmy. Less than 1% this year is my guess.
I am so happy to see people coming together and moving away from commercial platforms. It feels silly to say it, but it seems like it is a step in the right direction. It is technological and social progress. Decentralization is a really fantastic tool and it seems to be a system that cannot be controlled internally or externally. Mastodon has been great, and I expect Lemmy to be even better.
To anyone reading, if you have any extra cash, look into making a small donation to your instance. The people running it are not just putting in time, they are likely paying hundreds a month to rent server space.
Money is going to be the deciding factor in the long-term health of the entire Fediverse. More users on each instance means more costs -- and to some extent, even users not on that instance will contribute to cost. That money has to come from somewhere, and eventually, if the Fediverse is going to scale up to even a sizable portion of what we're moving away from, we need real, consistent money involved. It doesn't have to be full VC corpo junk, but eventually, some instances are going to need a team.
I want this stuff to work great, but expecting the people running it to pay the cost forever isn't sustainable.
I suppose many there are also affected by the Apollo debacle too. It just makes that pill even more bitter.
I think so. With the end of Apollo, I have no other way to access Reddit except their mobile website or their app. I have the feeling it’s too late now, Apollo is unlikely to come back, regardless of what Reddit does. Now, I just hope kbin / lemmy will grow enough to become a good alternative (still learning how everything works ^^).
Yes, Kbin/lemmy needs enough good and original content to flourish. What I currently miss is the niche subreddits on lemmy. For specific brands or particular products or hobbies it's easy to find a community on reddit, but there are only a few already available on lemmy.
You are absolutely right. Reddit was so big that it was possible find a community for everything. I don't expect kbin/lemmy to get there anytime soon unfortunately.
Even if a community exists for the content you seek, how do you determine the one that is going to grow? There could be a different version of that community on every server, which is the area I'm struggling to find content. Join every alternative is an option.
Unless there is something I'm missing. Quite possible as the federated approach is all new to me.
Even if they reversed the API changes, sacked Spez, reinstated i.reddit.com, ate an entire bucket of humble pie, and personally paid me £100 I'd still prefer the vibe here to be honest. It's way less angry and more authentic here.
This is great, many more subreddits should do something like this. But in the end, it’s us, the end users, who should do the actual protesting since it’s us who have the power to change things. I’ve decided not to give them any kind of traffic from now on. Me, by myself, won’t make much impact but if more of us did the same they’d be force to change their strategy.
Good. I’m done with reddit forever.
I hope there's enough information there for refugees to arrive here safely
I own a subreddit that I'll admit that it isn't the largest but I'm going to be putting a link to the new corresponding Kbin magazine in the private message. I'm hoping other subreddits will as well
I like the "indefinite" part. Let it stay dark forever and have people make iphone subs in the lemmyverse. The Reddit is dead, long live the Lemmy!
I hope that this protest does something
It will. It will make the mods and the power-users realise that Reddit don’t care and won’t change course. Then it’s up to them.
I completely agree. Reddit has shown no indication of backing down. They will just wait for it to finish if the lockdown is as short as ~48 hours. If a major/big sub goes on lockdown indefinitely, they'll open it and replace the mods. I'm pretty sure there are tons of people out there willing to mod a big subreddit like r/videos for one reason or another. The reddit of the digg migration era is gone. It's just corporate reddit now.
I don't give it much time until they start replacing the mods if the blackout drags on for long.
Yes, I agree. It would be logical to assume they're confidentially seeking out new prospective moderators behind the scenes at this moment ready to take over.
It will be like having anti popes. if I were have to gone on a long vacation - like 5 or 6 weeks, I am guessing when I returned I might not even notice anything different for a while if I didnt use an app to access. I'm sure they will ban anyone who mentions the great schism.
I’m sceptical. If most subs only protest for 2 days, then all Reddit has to do is weather the storm and then continue on. The only way I see it having any further impact is if many large subs black out indefinitely.
Reddit would either be forced to make concessions or escalate even further by removing the mods of the protesting subs and forcing it open again. That would be a further sign of bad faith and really piss off all these mods that spent up to a decade doing moderation for free.
You make it sound like Reddit does not have the option to turn the subreddit on and replace the mods. However, the users who actually really do care about reddit will leave and will have to take their content with them.
the only thing that's worrying me about the subreddits closing indefinitely (even though I wholeheartedly support it), is that people are going to use even more closed off, unsearchable platforms as alternatives. /r/unixporn mods say their only "official" alternative is currently their Discord "server".
edit: the message on /r/iPhone also directs people to their Discord. sigh.
I second this. For a while, adding "reddit" to every google search gives generally better results. Now all this information will become hidden in unsearchable places.
Which is a good case against the centralization of information.
I have been way to comfortable just using Reddit as my source of information with the usage of 3rd party applications.
What if Reddit puts the subreddits behind a paywall?
What if Reddit is gonna demand that every subreddit generates an x percentage revenue just to exist?
What Reddit has shown with their actions is that they are gonna put monetization of their userbase first and user experience somewhere in 10th.
The possibilities to screw the users in regards of the information they consume is...worrying.
It will end up the same as 9gag did. Some weird facebook/instagram/tik tok clone used for people who have an attention span of 60 seconds.
!iphone@lemmy.ml is one offspring
I’m worried that all the new large communities are hosted at a single instance, lemmy.ml
Really 3 big players right now.
Lemmy.ml Lemmy.world Beehaw
Those 3 servers are like currently 70% of Lemmy traffic.
I'm glad some subreddits are going dark for good, not only will this actually hurt reddit as a company but also it will lead to some people switching to alternatives like lemmy which is always a good thing.
Good. Only way users and communities can be heard is to actively shutdown until further notice