Oh, wow. A subset of Reddit users are no longer satisfied with just a blackout, and now they want to go scorched-earth: "Reddit is a lost cause. It's time to raze it." #Reddit#RedditBlackout#Razit
This approach didn't really work for the birdsite (although it did send a lot of wonderful people over to Mastodon!). So, I'm curious what people think about the Razit campaign.
Do you think this would work? What kind of positive and negative ripple effects would there be (e.g. impact on Google search results; impact on Reddit's substance abuse support communities; people taking ownership of their data)?
What started out as a two-day protest against Reddit virtually destroying third party apps and it's API has turned into an "indefinite" protest because the Reddit CEO has blown off the initial protest saying "it will pass" in a leaked internal memo.
List of demands:
Lower the price of API calls to a level that doesn't kill Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Narwhal, Baconreader, and similar third-party apps.
Communicate on a more open and timely basis about changes to Reddit which will affect large numbers of moderators and users.
To allow mods to continue keeping Reddit safe for all users, NSFW subreddit data must remain available through the API.
And I'll also note that amongst my reasons for not using Reddit much at all:
The tools suck. Mod, posting, discussion, all of it. I've written about this for years. And at some point even my dim brain has come to realise that sites / services which haven't changed glaring deficiencies in all likelihood never will. (Hello, Google+, Ello, Diaspora*, ...)
The most active sub, /r/dredmorbius (and yeah, that's what my avatar here represents, something ... I really should change) ... has itself been both all-but-inactive and highly Reddit-critical for 5+ years now.
The discussions ... just aren't useful. Some subs are good for generating suggestions / surfacing content, but I've generally got much better ways of doing that now. Mostly traditional research methods: reading books, tracking down bibliographies and citations, that sort of thing.
@mookie
Everyone should take note of this, sites such as these get money from selling your data. The #redditblackout will only do so much to prevent the sale of retroactive data. If you're leaving #reddit for good, and you probably should, then something like this is very optimal
Let’s fucking go. So proud to see #reddit unite to preserve third party apps. Over 2/3s of public subreddits are dark, including dozens of the largest and most popular communities. Reddit is a platform built by its community, and the community is fighting back.
Honestly, the #RedditBlackout should be indefinite. Only going dark for 2 days sends a powerful message, but going dark indefinitely kills Reddit. That would be the real power move. Right now, Reddit knows these communities and their users will be back in a few days. Making it last until Reddit reversed course means they don’t have a choice: reverse course or the company implodes as the site dies.
One of the fascinating things to me about the HN discussion on the Reddit strike is the extent to which a community that's normally extremely pro-capital can suddenly see not only the problems with worker exploitation but the validity of collective action to fight against executive greed.