Yeah it’s now “oh and maybe we’ll do ‘touch grass tuesdays’ in perpetuity”. That’s an incredibly unsympathetic message imo.
Get real. If anyone thinks a business is going to tolerate a clique of powermods choosing to randomly shut things down according to their own schedule… they’re gonna be disappointed.
Let alone I’ve seen some people thinking they can demand a hand in the corporate governance? Yeah fuck no powermods are not ever getting a seat on the board, lol, lmao. No company in the world would ever agree to that. Especially not after all of this.
Yeah, they’re gonna pry the mods off and reopen things, sooner or later. Unless something changes mods are going to leave things permanently closed after the 30th and walk away, and Reddit is absolutely not going to tolerate that. But there’s no reason to wait that long really.
The 5 mods running an average of 18 top-100 subs each are not going to be as tough to replace as people think they are, the reality is at that scale you’re not managing anything operationally on a day to day level, you’re setting up a script.
It’s the lower-level jannies that will be the trouble, because they’re the ones doing the actual work, not the person claiming to mod 200 million subscribers worth of content. And at the end of the day you can find some people willing to click “delete” on spam while they’re scrolling. That’s plausible if they can get over the bump gracefully. And truth is there’s always people willing to do it for the prestige, even as pitiful as that is.
The Reddit play here is obviously to pry the powermods off, get the frontpage subs back open, and get moderation back to some kind of a semi functional level (automated or otherwise) until it blows over and organic moderation can resume. And that’s a reasonably achievable goal.
But the powermod squad needs to consider what their own exit strategy is too… nobody is going to let powermods randomly shut things down on an ongoing basis. If they’re disruptive then they put Reddit in a position of being forced to remove them, it is what it is, Reddit can’t operate with a cabal of a half dozen users able to shut down the front page at will either. If Reddit doesn’t have a fundamental belief in the powermods being good-faith players they are gone regardless of the consequences, because the alternative is unacceptable. They will deal with the consequences and move forward, most likely successfully.
People act like Spez is somehow out of line and they can just get him tossed out, like the board is going to sign off on letting a bunch of agitators disrupt operations on an ongoing and indefinite basis.
They can do that of course, but if they do so, I'm leaving.
Basically what I do on Reddit is to subscribe to the vision of a given group of mods. They're the ones I come to the site for, not Reddit the company.
Eg, r/AskHistorians is good because it's run with an iron fist by the mods. When I come there I come seeking precisely that -- a well curated content archive that contains all wheat and zero chaff.
If Reddit forces them off, and they create www.askhistorians.com, then I'm making a account there.
And that’s fine because the commercial value of Reddit is not in r/AskHistorians, it’s in r/aww and r/earthporn and r/mildlyinteresting.
People don’t get it, Reddit is fundamentally pivoting away from being a message board and pivoting towards being TikTok. In the TikTok model your comments and discussion are not the commercially viable product. The eyeballs are the product, comments are a flavor to show that other users engaged the content. You know how New Reddit doesn’t show you the comments very well? Think about that in this context - the comments are no longer what matters anymore.
And it’s ultimately not that hard to generate enough reasonably compelling content to keep people scrolling on those mindless frontpage subs. People will happily repost tumblr and TikTok just like they did a month ago. There will be a short term dip and in 6 months it’ll be completely back to normal.
People are fundamentally making a mistake here and thinking theres a scenario where the Reddit they knew 10 years ago will still exist in a year. It already has been dead for a couple years, and it is going to pivot even harder towards shallow content and mindless scrolling, user comments are not something they can commercialize.
It’s not that “Spez doesn’t get it!!!” it’s actually the users who don’t get it. Yeah they’re going to lose 10-20% of their users, they know. And they’re going to make 5x or 10x the revenue on the remaining 80%. Yes, it will be bland and suck for you, and it will make them a shitload of money. Not sure why this is so confusing for people - they don’t want you as the customer anymore. So long and good luck.
If users want to stay, customize their feed for whatever keeps their own eyeballs engaged, great. But Reddit can’t commercialize it unless it’s on a first party app or website. The mod stuff is fixable and they’ve said they’ll be flexible on that (not that it makes anyone happy), but average users will not be consuming Reddit on a 3rd party app in a year, period.
> It’s not that “Spez doesn’t get it!!!” it’s actually the users who don’t get it. Yeah they’re going to lose 10-20% of their users, they know. And they’re going to make 5x or 10x the revenue on the remaining 80%. Yes, it will be bland and suck for you, and it will make them a shitload of money. Not sure why this is so confusing for people - they don’t want you as the customer.
That's a good point but I don't see what about this would magically make profits rise 5x or 10x.
Like what's the value proposition here? TikTok and the like already exist. I don't see what Reddit has to offer especially since they've been very lazy offering their users anything.
> The rest is just the ex-partner making a scene after you dumped them. They’ll get tired of it eventually, if not you get the cops to clean it up and move on.
I mean, both parties can make a cold rational calculus.
Reddit can calculate they'd be better off pivoting to mindless scrolling, fair enough.
But the people unhappy with that can also calculate that they'd be better off making this process as unpleasant for Reddit as possible. Best case they win, and Reddit is forced to backtrack. Worst case, they still made a lot of noise and that likely decreases the chance of somebody else pivoting, and bolsters alternatives.
I think an unpleasant truth some ignore is that tantrums have a purpose -- they're extremely unpleasant to be on the end of, that's why they're a thing at all, because they often do have power.
> That's a good point but I don't see what about this would magically make profits rise 5x or 10x.
Because right now everyone is using third-party clients, or at least old.reddit, and that means they're not viewing the ads. Even worse, they might be (shudders) commenting instead of scrolling.
new.reddit and the native app are what your tiktok drip-feed looks like, and it's way easier to insert ads into that. In fact, it's actually exceptionally hard to insert ads into comment trees, whereas you can just throw the mcdonald's ad into the list of frontpage posts or whatever. So comments are being deprecated in favor of posts overall, because they're easier to monetize, and the new.reddit and native client are how you monetize them.
It's not a coincidence that comments/etc are de-emphasized in the new-reddit interface, they don't want you commenting, they want you scrolling, just like tiktok.
> Like what's the value proposition here? TikTok and the like already exist
Tiktok is at risk of being banned in a lot of places, and is at minimum going to come under a lot of regulatory scrutiny and oversight. Because it has the strong potential to be, instead of your "AI girlfriend", your "AI best-friend with ties to extremism" that slowly algorithmically radicalizes you in whatever ways feel best for you personally according to your own interest.
You're left-leaning? Fine here's some bernie videos and protesters getting beaten. Right leaning? OANN, and videos of protesters burning down a store. They can tune the engagement for each user, and push certain topics and stories while it not only feels organic, but is actually extremely engaging and compelling for each particular user. Just like Google controlling search means they control what surfaces in that medium. But Tiktok's not gonna blow it on adwords, that's way too powerful a propaganda tool.
Reddit wants to position themselves as the alternative if/when the hammer starts to come down for Tiktok. And yes, there's instagram and snapchat and other things I would think of first instead of Reddit... but Reddit would say that the comment-based site hasn't been commercially successful for them.
> I think an unpleasant truth some ignore is that tantrums have a purpose -- they're extremely unpleasant to be on the end of, that's why they're a thing at all, because they often do have power.
> commercial value of Reddit is not in r/AskHistorians, it’s in r/aww and r/earthporn and r/mildlyinteresting
That's incredibly short sighted but probably in line with how reddit execs view things. /r/aww and /r/earthporn are trivial to replicate on any other site, /r/AskHistorians is not. It's the small subs with loyal users that build an environment where the cookie-cutter content aggregators are profitable. Oh well, all for the IPO pump n dump.
As one of those users who doesn't get it, the it I don't get isn't that Reddit would rather be TikTok or that people who are just looking to mindlessly scroll generic content are easier to monetise, it's what Reddit's value proposition is as a TikTok alternative.
As you say it's not hard to generate reasonably compelling content. There's no shortage of cat picture or funny gif sources. So it's not that.
TikTok supposedly has a killer algorithm to spruce up that generic content. Facebook/Instagram has your friends. My understanding is that the niche subs are what Reddit brings to the table as an add-on to the generic but monetisable content. People come for the askhistorians post that their google search surfaced and then some of them stay and scroll cat pics for a while.
If they get rid of the niche sub users, why do the 80% not go to TikTok?
because of increasing pressure to ban tiktok and pull it from app stores/etc to keep China from building profiles/models targeting westerners en-masse.
Everyone wants to be set up to be the American Tiktok when the plug gets pulled on the chinese one. And the plug is already being pulled by a number of countries and states and organizations.
It's an interesting one though because obviously we have ad profiles in the west, but should an "adversary state" be allowed to collect and warehouse that data, knowing it's potentially a national security threat for personalized targeting of natsec security compromises/etc?
Should western companies be allowed to collect this data either? But they are the "good ones" and only use it for advertising (and letting the three-letter agencies buy it, of course). But what basis do you use to ban it? And is it really any safer to have it, when the chinese are pretty good at hacking these data warehouses, and the security is often incredibly sketchy? They got the plans to the F-35, the federal Office of Personnel Management database, the RSA key-secret database... if you store it, they'll ultimately get it eventually too.
What if instead of the classical "this user is a gambler and in financial trouble, have an agent call them" targeting you build a personal weight-model on what things trigger engagement for that specific user? What if they show you OANN until you're so enraged you go attack the capitol? What if they troll you on War Thunder forums until you leak classified documents? And you can potentially do that en-masse, use AI to generate a personalized "havoc profile" of what content they should surface at this exact point to make you the most socially disruptive at some key moment, or the things they most need an intel leak on, and the AI can use that profile to surface the content that most effectively winds you personally up.
I'd expect it's probably possible (not sure if it exists) to do engagement/stimulation (arousal) and sentiment analysis in realtime. So you can know that if they're usually scrolling X when they're upset, that you should push content Y to push their buttons most effectively. Like you can literally micro-target people at their weakest moments with the content that most effectively pushes their buttons to accomplish whatever goal.
Essentially - what if instead of "AI girlfriend" it was "AI best-friend with links to extremism", and he's gently radicalizing you a little bit every time you're scrolling on the shitter? That's the product for Tiktok.
And while most people are not going to get wound up to the extent of "attack the capitol/leak classified documents"... statistically like all advertising, it works, some people will stochastically be stimulated to action. And even at a more pedestrian level, it's very easy to ramp up polarization and internal tension, like Russia has been doing during elections/etc. But you can automate that shit at a scale and precision of targeting far beyond traditional 1:1-scale intelligence work.
Selling more diapers and kleenex is baby shit, Tiktok is the point of the spear on true infowars shit, where everyone can be probed for their personal hot-buttons and then press them automatically, en-masse while you're scrolling. And we just use that to sell more McDonald's. Using a nuke to kill a mosquito.
It's a weird time we live in, this stuff essentially parasitizes our cultural values of free speech and free information information exchange and turns it into an attack vector. That's been what advertising is all along (it's the art of convincing people to buy shit they don't need/make decisions they wouldn't have otherwise made) but we are starting to go past the "benign toxoplasmosis" to something that can be weaponized for political ends.
Anyway that's why the security apparatus is getting wound up about tiktok. You absolutely will not get a security clearance if you're anywhere near tiktok, you will not get tiktok anywhere near a government computer, and lately countries are just banning it outright because it's too dangerous.
And reddit sees that and says "hey, we can be Tiktok for westoids and fill that gap". There is competition of course - Snap and Insta are really in a better place to pivot to this. But Reddit has been pushing towards being a content-drip for a while, that's been the entire point of the "new-experience" and first-party app, and this is just them making the leap. And that means third-party clients have gotta go.
That's the information I was missing, thanks! I had heard some complaints about TikTok a while ago but wasn't aware that things had progressed to the point where it's going to get banned.
I could definitely see a slim chance of being new TikTok having higher expected value than continuing on as old Reddit if TikTok is removed from the picture.
> If Reddit forces them off, and they create www.askhistorians.com, then I'm making a account there.
And that's fine, but you're talking as if everyone is like you, with only 1 subreddit that they browse.
In reality (and reddit probably has the numbers to verify this), most people jump across maybe 10 or more different mods.
They're not going to go create 10 different accounts elsewhere.
I personally am not a big reddit user, and yet I have about 10 sunreddits that I subscribe to. Logging into reddit (old.reddit), I see all those posts after login.
This is also the reason why the federated system is broken by design: the type of users who use reddit don't want the friction of logging onto a dozen different instances to see all the posts related to ONE top.
I think what a lot of people are missing is that centralisation is what provides the value reddit has. Moderators (seriously, those people are a dime a dozen - in fact you can charge mods a fee and you still won't run out of mods wanting to sign up) are not the primary value in reddit. Posts are not the primary value in reddit.
Being the central place where all the people you want to hang out with are hanging out is the primary value of reddit.
> In reality (and reddit probably has the numbers to verify this), most people jump across maybe 10 or more different mods.
So do I. I expect there to form some viable alternative to Reddit eventually.
> This is also the reason why the federated system is broken by design: the type of users who use reddit don't want the friction of logging onto a dozen different instances to see all the posts related to ONE top.
Federation means separate servers talk to each other and can share content.
Eg, I'm on fosstodon.org, but I see posts from an user with an account at tech.lgbt. That's how federation works.
> I think what a lot of people are missing is that centralisation is what provides the value reddit has. Moderators (seriously, those people are a dime a dozen - in fact you can charge mods a fee and you still won't run out of mods wanting to sign up) are not the primary value in reddit. Posts are not the primary value in reddit.
But this centralization can be provided by anyone else. I don't care that it's provided by Reddit Inc. I come for the posts, where they happen to be hosted isn't very important.
I think it can also be provided in a federated manner. There's really no reason why Reddit couldn't be split into a myriad servers that then get aggregated into a giant feed for those who want it.
>> Moderators (seriously, those people are a dime a dozen - in fact you can charge mods a fee and you still won't run out of mods wanting to sign up) are not the primary value in reddit.
THis is a falsehood that keeps being repeated so instead of posting for the 100th time proving this to be false, I challenge you to cite your sources where you prove this is true, because most of the subreddits complian all the time about not being able to find mods.
>> Posts are not the primary value in reddit.
Quality Posts are the value...... Question do mods add that value, that QA...
if a gardening subreddit was flooded with porn would it be valuable to the people to visit that subreddit?
Importantly, the powerjannies aren't a monolithic bloc, and many of them are already vocally critical of the notion of an ongoing blackout. I'd expect that they know that if some of them get removed then other powermods will eagerly move in to claim their territories. There's not going to be some sort of class solidarity here - continuing the protests will be tantamount to resigning as a mod, you're just being dramatic about it.
>The 5 mods running an average of 18 top-100 subs each are not going to be as tough to replace as people think they are, the reality is at that scale you’re not managing anything operationally on a day to day level, you’re setting up a script.
Those mods are active 20+hours a day, there is no chance they are actual people.
Get real. If anyone thinks a business is going to tolerate a clique of powermods choosing to randomly shut things down according to their own schedule… they’re gonna be disappointed.
Let alone I’ve seen some people thinking they can demand a hand in the corporate governance? Yeah fuck no powermods are not ever getting a seat on the board, lol, lmao. No company in the world would ever agree to that. Especially not after all of this.
Yeah, they’re gonna pry the mods off and reopen things, sooner or later. Unless something changes mods are going to leave things permanently closed after the 30th and walk away, and Reddit is absolutely not going to tolerate that. But there’s no reason to wait that long really.
The 5 mods running an average of 18 top-100 subs each are not going to be as tough to replace as people think they are, the reality is at that scale you’re not managing anything operationally on a day to day level, you’re setting up a script.
It’s the lower-level jannies that will be the trouble, because they’re the ones doing the actual work, not the person claiming to mod 200 million subscribers worth of content. And at the end of the day you can find some people willing to click “delete” on spam while they’re scrolling. That’s plausible if they can get over the bump gracefully. And truth is there’s always people willing to do it for the prestige, even as pitiful as that is.
The Reddit play here is obviously to pry the powermods off, get the frontpage subs back open, and get moderation back to some kind of a semi functional level (automated or otherwise) until it blows over and organic moderation can resume. And that’s a reasonably achievable goal.
But the powermod squad needs to consider what their own exit strategy is too… nobody is going to let powermods randomly shut things down on an ongoing basis. If they’re disruptive then they put Reddit in a position of being forced to remove them, it is what it is, Reddit can’t operate with a cabal of a half dozen users able to shut down the front page at will either. If Reddit doesn’t have a fundamental belief in the powermods being good-faith players they are gone regardless of the consequences, because the alternative is unacceptable. They will deal with the consequences and move forward, most likely successfully.
People act like Spez is somehow out of line and they can just get him tossed out, like the board is going to sign off on letting a bunch of agitators disrupt operations on an ongoing and indefinite basis.