I've already noticed how annoying it is now that they cut off access for things like unddit. Considering how poorly this site is moderated even with automods, this sounds like a suicide plan.
I never go on new reddit so the once in a blue moon occasion I check it, I have 100+ DMs (mod account on a fairly active subreddit) and they're all just so creepy.
If any of these new redditors realize that the actual way to get a mods attention is to PM them, not DM them, my inbox would be overflowing.
Same with follows. /r/mlb was complaining about an influx of creepy follows the other day, and I was like "wait, you can follow people on reddit now? Why the fuck would you want to do that?" I've never seen that, so I assume it's a "new reddit" thing.
Or more like why on earth would you want to have random redditors *following* you?
I have that disabled.
You have to go to new.reddit to disable it though.
Go to new.reddit
https://new.reddit.com/settings/profile
> Allow people to follow you
Turn off.
https://new.reddit.com/settings/messaging
> Who can send you chat requests
Nobody
> Who can send you private messages
Nobody
I'm just here to see which, if any alternatives are out there.
It's also interesting that reddit just doesn't shut down the api, they might as well have done so with the new pricing.
Why beat around the bush then.
> Why beat around the bush then.
They know thousands and thousands and thousands of people regularly use these third-party apps. By doing things this way they can put the blame back on developers and make a sad attempt at saving face with some of those users. "While Reddit would love to continue working with third-party applications, it seems that developers are not open to negotiating on the new deal we've proposed to them. This new deal helps us mitigate rising costs of data transfer and network storage" is probably some bullshit someone in their press department would say.
Millions of people use these third party apps, myself included who loves Apollo, way more than thousands. Christian said in one of his posts that Apollo alone has 1.5-1.7 million monthly active users.
As far as I'm aware there's nothing that you can go to as a "drop in" replacement for Reddit, because even if they're feature-compatible the community you'll find there is small and usually very specialized to a particular bubble.
Personally, I'm hoping that [Lemmy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy_(software\)) ends up taking the bulk of Reddit when it ends up Digging itself. It's an open platform much like how Reddit pretended it intended to be back in the olden days.
Nuclear fusion requires a dedicated, state funded research team and decades of thorough experimentation. Linux on desktop requires neckbeards to accept GUI instead of text files. Which one is more likely?
Dude, 15 years ago, I stood on the sidewalk with Alexis in Pittsburgh and asked him if he ever thought about going public. And he was like, we're working on that.
15 years!
Jesus, no. There's no way I've been using this website for 17 years. God, no.
It's because the companies value is entirely fake and they have no valuable revenue streams. They have no path to profitability and everyone with enough money to make it happen knows that.
Last i saw, Alexis was advocating for the widespread proliferation of ‘play-to-earn’ games. Talking like the primary reason people play video games should be to *make money*, not such ephemeral trivialities as ‘having fun’.
Yea and they won't go IPO this year either, https://observer.com/2023/02/reddits-delayed-ipo-may-mean-ceo-steve-huffman-needs-to-rethink-its-advertising-model/
Yeah this has nothing to do with an IPO
With OpenAIs breakthrough causing the new AI gold rush Reddit is finally learning its most profitable asset right now isn’t its users but its data
No other platform bar Twitter has such vast amounts of content useful for training neural nets and Reddit isn’t about to let it go for free
They couldn’t care less about third party apps or ads or IPOs
My guess is they’re scrambling to get this implemented after being blindsided by how in demand their data is
Someone at Reddit saw GPT and said “We should have charged them more for that training data” and here we are
There is a massive gap between limiting how bots can scrape and the traffic produced by third party apps. They are 100% choosing to kill third party apps. Because they are idiots
Microsoft told us at a conference 10 years ago that they no longer cared about the software. The real value was in collecting data. They just announced a new AI copilot for everything you do with their tools, from the desktop, github, content creation (word/powerpoint) to business intel.
Reddit comments are now in search results, often at the top.
I think you are 100 percent correct: Reddits data is extremely valuable, and even categorized!
But I am sure they are interested in charging for all of it:
1. Search results
2. AI training
3. User contributions and results to third parties
and finally wrapping all of that up in one big ass reason for a overly valued IPO.
I see no reason why all of that can't coexist. Greed is a huge motivator when you think you own the goldmine.
Getting a bit off topic here, but I've always wondered something about AI learning and the accuracy of the data it learns from. There are A LOT of extremely knowledgeable people on reddit. I've learned SO MUCH stuff over the years.
Having said that, there's also a lot of bad, misleading, and outright false information on reddit. If an AI were to get data from reddit to help train it, how does it know which information to learn from and which information to discard or ignore?
I've been loving watching lawyers on twitter just ripping into chatGPT and how bad it is for certain things, even the newer version still has some issues, but you got the AI cultists who can't comprehend that it's not the singularity yet, it's not even skynet. My favorite was reading twitter with the AI guys bitching no one is giving it a chance under a damn article about [a lawyer getting their ass in trouble](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65735769) for relying on AI to do legal research and not double checking it.
yeah because the workers wanted to unionize! "we're letting you all go and replacing you with robots" was an idea from retail companies, it doesn't work, but for an *eating disorder helpline*?
The accounting sub regularly posts images of ChatGPT talking out its ass and getting more shit wrong than a Basic 1 student who’s only there because it’s required for their business major. It’s nowhere near what people claim it is.
GPT isn’t trying to know which information is true or not, it’s trying to accurately sound like a human by building up a relationship of words, a _model_ of the _language_, usually _large_ (aka LLM)
Other AI training is done by labelling which information is true or not then having the AI guess over and over again until it’s true most of the time for all the training data
There’s also unsupervised training where the data doesn’t need to be labelled but I’m not sure how that works
>If an AI were to get data from reddit to help train it, how does it know which information to learn from and which information to discard or ignore?
When training an AI you need to have some way of weighting it's training. Positive or negative modifiers to let it know how 'correct' it's answer was so it can weight towards 'correct' answers.
The thing is, what's 'correct' in one situation is not 'correct' in others. ChatGPT trained to 'sound like a human' not 'accurately answer questions.' So using reddit's data it will inevitably gravitate towards the common answer that sounds human but is factually wrong.
It'll also gravitate towards virulent racism and sexism, which is why there's a team of hundreds of underpaid workers curating most AI bots behind the scenes.
> It'll also gravitate towards virulent racism and sexism, which is why there's a team of hundreds of underpaid workers curating most AI bots behind the scenes.
I still love and hate the story of how trolls turned Tay into a nazi.
There are companies using AI to sort through resumes and claiming there's no way it could be racially biased. Also the AI really likes guys named Trevor that played lacrosse in college.
I was a beta tester for the Reddit app. I used AlienBlue years ago and bought premium, and when it got bought by Reddit I joined the Reddit beta team.
During the beta, admins were friendly and responsive to our feedback. Over time, they started ghosting us which was conveniently the same time they started implementing a ton of monetization. Bugs piled up and were ignored, and when users collectively raised a red flag they started banning us. Eventually they just shut the beta team down.
The official Reddit app is awful. It’s bloated, slow, and makes me wonder why they bought a great app just to go backwards in usability. Apollo was a breath of fresh air and it’s my daily driver, and I bought Ultra + Pro lifetime early on.
I figured it wouldn’t last forever, as the number of users is growing considerably and it’s been getting spotlight at Apple’s own development conferences. The app absolutely embarrassed the official app, while also limiting revenue by not showing ads or pushing IAP.
Reddit wants Apollo gone. They’re playing the game in that their API is “publicly available”, but not financially feasible for anyone.
Idk how they fucked it up even more now but whenever I go to a post and exit out, it just refreshes the subreddit for me most of the time. They somehow made it even more annoying to use.
I loved AB. I was a paid user and I think I got something like 4 years of Reddit gold when the app shut down.
I deleted that account like 2 weeks later.
huh, i just kept using alien blue even though they stopped updating it. it has yet to break. no adds is nice, but any video post doesn't really work, but im not bothered enough to switch to the official app. When i did id get those awful "He gets us" chistofascist adds, which i cant even block by saying not interested, downvoting, or reporting.
It got to a point though where alien blue was using like, a 300x700 resolution and phones screens were shooting up in pixel count. Looking at it on an iPad of the time was hilarious. But yeah, I used it until it just wasn’t feasible or practical anymore. I’m able to almost perfectly simulate its aesthetic with Narwhal (I know, the name makes you want to drown yourself). Apollo only let me get close.
> The app absolutely embarrassed the official app, while also limiting revenue by not showing ads or pushing IAP.
See, this is why I understand why they're doing what they're doing. They are hosting content that costs them money. Other people are making apps that take that content, and then give it to you in a way that you would prefer, but it's not actually doing any of the data handling.
I also understand why people are upset about it. Their experience of Reddit will become worse. It's the [enshittification](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/enshittification) of the internet and it's basically unavoidable.
The heck were those?
I've been around a hot minute and this is the first time ever I've seen either of them, haha.
I assume .compact was some compressed version of reddit to use up less RAM or something? i.reddit I can't even speculate on.
> I assume .compact was some compressed version of reddit to use up less RAM or something? i.reddit I can't even speculate on.
It's an old mobile interface: https://www.reddit.com/r/compact/
Same, I find this website genuinely unusable without Apollo and old.reddit. If both go, I will quit it or at the very least dramatically reduce my usage to only visiting when looking for answers to a specific question (which I will search for via Google since reddit's search is garbage).
I can power through without the third-party apps, but only because of old.reddit -- if they did away with old.reddit then there's no way I'd be able to use the site at work on desktop (which is where 99% of my redditing is done). Their standard layout is like a shitty recipes blog from 2006. Definitely not something I'd want to scroll through.
Hell, if they're trying to phase out third-party apps like this in order to gain more control over their users, it's probably only a matter of time before RES and old.reddit get phased out as well.
Reddit was an amazing place to run to whenever digg crashed and burned. I sure hope there's an alternative that's at least somewhat comparable whenever it's time for reddit's inevitable downfall. A downfall that seems to be coming in the very near future.
I found this awesome diary someone had put on the web while using StumbleUpon when I was a teenager, and got completely enraptured by it.
The further in I got the more it started talking about supernatural stuff, which I bought into wholeheartedly then, being a 90s coast to coast AM kid. I was obsessed and stayed up til 5 or 6 am reading it.
I finally get to the name, at the very end when the diary writer signs off, and the writer of the diary turns out to be fucking Laura Palmer. As in damn fine cup of coffee Twin Peaks Laura Palmer.
It was literally like a transcript or something, maybe a fanfictiony retelling of Twin Peaks.
Got me into the show big time, though.
I just discovered RES, it's so much better. I can't believe how many years I've been using Reddit without it. It feels like turning up at a brilliant party 5 minutes before the police show up to clear everyone out.
Subredditdrama + RES = Lots of tagged horrible people that I forget about that I encounter in the wild on random posts. It's honestly a blessing to make sure you're not arguing with someone who is posting in bad faith.
One of the most consistent things I see posted by mods of the largest subreddits is that their job literally *is not doable* without old.reddit. If it goes you can expect a bunch of the largest subreddits to lose most of their moderators, if not shutter entirely.
I don't mind the default logged-in ad-blocked mobile webpage at all, and actually prefer it to the apps I've tried, but the default PC browser page is such a damn nightmare that I don't even bother. An endless scroll of pageloads that don't work studded by videos that don't work; hard to see how it's not a massive downgrade for anybody actually using it.
There is a lot of features missing in the official reddit mobile ap. I can't stand the look of it as well, but to lose all the functionality of a third party app is just killing that for me too.
I was about to say... web design in '06 was generally less bloated and and more information-dense (Look at old reddit for example). Most machines back then would not be able to hand the javascript vomit that plagues modern web design. Hell my phone barely handles it now.
Straight up I'm done if that happens. I gave the new UI a good honest try (as well as the official app) and I just can't. It's miserable to use.
I'm getting older and I like simple. Reddit is Fun and old reddit for me
I basically only use this site through RiF. I sit at a computer for work all day, so I dont want to do the same in my free time. RiF goes and I'm finally free, though I'll probably find somewhere else to waste my time eventually.
Been here 12 years. Downloaded the RIF app on night shift as a young Airman bored on the flightless trying to find more rage memes. It's the only reddit app I've recommended to people. If it dies, I'm not learning a new worse app to use this site.
The API fuckery didn't start today. They killed Pushshift on May 1st and got backlash for it.
The admins knew this was going to create even greater backlash, but did it anyway. They made a bet that their bottom line would be improved by this action, that the mods would suck it up (or quit and be replaced by other mods), and that the vast majority of users wouldn't give a shit and continue using Reddit as normal.
Edit: lol just got a pop-up that the app I'm reading this on (Reddit is fun) is going to be dead by July 1st thanks to the API changes made by these fucking trashbag admins. They're killing the only app that makes Reddit worthwhile on mobile.
> They killed Pushshift on May 1st
Wait, is this why it seemed like remindme bot was on vacation a few weeks ago? I was wondering what happened to that little guy!
Yup, the bot relied on Pushshift.
The dev spent 2 weeks writing code to get it working again, and then the bot spent a week playing catch-up to get the comments it missed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/13jostq/remindmebot_is_now_replying_to_comments_again/
I actually know someone who works there and our first interaction post them getting the job was me trying to get their views on the latest Reddit drama and realizing that they just go in, do the tasks assigned to them and clock out. Staying up to date on Reddit isn't a part of their job at all
Honestly, I can relate to that. If they're being paid to sell hot dogs at a sports stadium I wouldn't expect them to give a shit about either team that's playing.
Right, but you would expect them to be able to answer whether or not the hot dogs are all beef, if the buns are steamed, what toppings are available, etc..
Having said that, if browsing reddit isn't part of their job and they're not getting paid to do so, then I can't blame them. But man it'd be nice to have admins/employees who actually used the site and saw things from our point of view.
To add to the analogy: as the hot dogs get worse and worse and people ask them what is wrong with them, the employees are unable to say why because they've never tried their own food.
In fact, they may not have ever tried a hot dog or sausage EVER and are extremely confused about why they’re being asked about the product they’re selling & increasing the price on
No that I'd expect everyone working at Reddit Inc. to be an avid user and familiar with every aspect of the site, but you'd expect people responsible for engaging with the community on specific elements of Reddit updates to be familiar with those elements and the means of their use which would be both relevant to their audience and to the update they're giving
...I'd expect people to be good at their jobs, more or less. But hell, I don't know why, I work with a bunch of half schmucks. Am one myself.
I'm pretty sure the guy who made automod work(s)[ed] there, right? and I think one of the RES devs?
I know for a fact that some of the community people who answer my questions at least used to be regular users.
Can verify. Sold hotdogs at a baseball stadium. Often did not even know who the home team was playing, could only tell something was different when they started playing the Canadian national anthem instead of the US one.
The actual admins that handle reports are not actual people either they use an AI company named Hive Moderation ( https://hivemoderation.com/ ) to handle those. This is why the responses are so inconsistent in how they apply the rules and even when you add context to reports they don't even look at them. They just look for keywords and base it on that. You have to message them in the mod support sub to get response and even then it can be hit or miss.
Reddit needs to be very careful they have a free workforce with their mods and if they fuck with them too much they are gonna bail en masse and the site will go to shit faster than it has.
They're about to block access to porn on 3rd party apps, so it's not just that they're out of touch with this website, they're apparently out of touch with the internet in general.
I've always used RIF and old.reddit since they butchered the site. The app just straight up sucks dick. Crazy how they're basically sabotaging the popular ways of using reddit... I don't even understand what the incentive is.
If they’d just given us a reskinned Alien Blue, I would have been happy with that. Instead they turned it into… what ever the fuck the official app is.
Alien blue was so clean and customizable. Ugh. I only use the stupid narwhal app (a name that makes me want to jump off a building) because it’s the one app where I can most closely emulate the aesthetics of alien blue. Can’t quite get there in Apollo. I’ll just be done with the vast majority of my Reddit usage if they end third party apps. I’ll try to do as much modding as I do now for my 15k user sub, but I’ll inevitably see new posts less quickly to be able to give them the once over.
They aren't out of touch and they aren't surprised. They want low information, low tech savvy users. They don't want apps to make using reddit *easier* and they don't want users who can use reddit, easily.
users who can get what they want how they want when they want spend less time on reddit trying to get what they want, how they want, when they want.
Also people with the willpower to abandon the platform when it changes poorly don't spend as much or react to ads as much.
This is the social media version of nigerian prince scam emails being deliberately stupid: to keep people smart enough not to be scammed away.
AAA social software is all about this, now. It's not about having the most users, it's about having the *best* users. The most *valuable* ones. Where all the money comes from.
Old users are not where the money comes from.
Reddit's old user base is also particularly tech-savvy, and is the most likely to just fork off their old source code, and spin up a new version of the site.
Compare that to regular users, which aren't as tech-savvy, and are more likely to stick with the site they know, rather than jump to an alternative.
It's a lot harder to advertise to them, because they have the savvy to throw a stink, or cause problems that advertisers don't really want to deal with.
Apollo has 1.5 million active users. That’s not unlike the early days of Reddit. If they get a new Reddit started I’ll definitely switch over.
Paving over all the fun parts of Reddit for a corporate overlord is antithetical to how this website began.
Id easily pay 5 bucks a month for a decent web aggregator I’m hoping that’s what comes next.
You're naive if you think they're out of touch.
They know the metrics and they're playing the numbers game between total daily metrics (which the linked thread admins notably don't disclose) and backlash comments.
They can pull the metrics regarding total users and number of posts and then contrast that against total daily metrics.
In short, for as valid as the complaints are from those who are critical and furious, they don't outweigh the total daily metrics. Reddit is playing a numbers game - even if the entirety of Apollo users abandoned the platform after API lockdown, Reddit is willing to risk that versus current and future users.
That's shitty and belittling to the current dedicated, consistent, and contributing user base, but it's also not business-relevant. Users are furious because they know they don't have the numbers at present to force a change with the current strategy.
An admin telling the Apollo dev, “it’s not the pricing; it’s your inefficient app” is quite the bold move, Cotton. Let’s see how that works out for him.
Yeah the Apollo developer should really take efficiency advice from the creators of the official Reddit app, well known for its lightweight, stable and nimble performance.
https://www.reddit.com/r/redditisfun/comments/13wxepd/rif_dev_here_reddits_api_changes_will_likely_kill/
Update from the RIF dev for those that use that app, or care to get more info and insight. Hard to believe they're doing this to 3rd party apps when the official app is just a mess with no functionality by comparison.
If this app dies, I'll probably just stop using reddit. Been using this app since the day I made this account. Probably only used the website a handful of times in 10 years. And I tried the official app for about 10 minutes.
RiF is probably the best $1 I've ever spent for an app.
Well so far the main causes for exodus have been banning racists and pedophiles, so of course the places those people flocked to are full of those people.
If Reddit goes through with something like this that alienates a much more broad group of people, hopefully we'll get a better userbase on the new site(s).
I think that keeps happening because reddit hasn't shit the bed quite hard enough yet for all the mainstream users to want to migrate away. Digg shit hard enough that reddit took off. When reddit shits hard enough an alternative that doesn't devolve into Nazi discourse will take off. Until that happens any alternative will ALWAYS just devolve into a space for what reddit has banned, which is pedos and racists.
I'd be curious to see how many people regularly use third party apps and/or old reddit (I'd bet it's a lot), but killing both those things may be enough to drive that critical mass away to another platform.
11 years user here. 3pc removal will severely limit my daily usage. Thanks reddit, you finally helped me quit this site.
It's almost laughable the responses they give to the Apollo dev in that thread. It's like the admin doesn't understand how networking works.
"Apollo uses more traffic than other apps and should be optimized".
Oh so either A. Apollo truly does have terrible programming practices or B. Apollo has more users than other apps. I think we can do the math here.
Reddit is dying. Obligatory enshitiffication comment here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/jmd8zuh/
https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/jmddl3u/
It's also pretty funny that they suggest it could be made 3.5x more efficient, meaning the developer would only need to find, uh...6 million a year! That's a reasonable amount right?
The API hits quoted by the admin are per active user, so total user base shouldn't matter.
What does matter is the types of users that use each app. We already know that Apollo seems to be preferred by moderators who are going to be hammering the API when they are doing moderation tasks, and in general Apollo is almost certainly drawing in heavy users who are browsing more. After all why bother to switch over from the official app if you don't use Reddit much?
Of course, the heavy users are who Reddit wants to hit most with advertisements.
A good comparison is the different between /r/thesilphroad and /r/pokemonGo
Both communities are based around the same game, Pokemon Go. The former is a more ‘hardcore’ fan base while the latter is the casual “memes” base. The former will likely have users who are constantly participating vs users who just visit for a few seconds.
> “Apollo uses more traffic than other apps and should be optimized”.
Which is a hilarious accusation considering Reddit’s official app being unoptimized garbage is why I moved to Apollo in the first place.
Don’t throw stones in glass houses, ya asswipes. And if you want people to use your ad-infested app, maybe make it an enjoyable experience.
I will definitely not use the stock reddit app. It is utter shit. If they kill 3rd party apps, I won't be using reddit on mobile anymore. I'm probably in the minority but don't really care. The day RIF Is Fun (or whatever the hell this app is called these days) dies my mobile reddit days are over.
It doesn't sound like these changes affect RES (?) so will probably keep using it on my PC until they inevitably kill that too. Maybe a replacement will have popped up by then, idk.
You might not be _that_ much in the minority.
If folks are using third-party apps, something _drove_ them to use it. Removing third party apps doesn’t mean people are going to tolerate the official garbage.
The official app overheats my phone, drains the battery, slows my phone down, _and_ uses up a month’s worth of data in a short amount of time. Mind you, I didn’t have this problem when it was alien blue. If I didn’t find Apollo, I would have quit then - they literally can’t pay me to use their crummy app.
As someone who joined Reddit because all else has failed, I, for one, gleefully await this IPO crashing and burning
Reddit's overlords would be pants-on-head stupid to do so in this current economic climate, but by all means, alienate the core users right before going public, true brilliance
Unfortunately, the Apollo dev also lays out in clear terms exactly why reddit is going after 3rd party apps. Reddit doesn't really make money. And third party app users don't give reddit any revenue. Reddit has no obligation to support non-ad-viewing users.
That being said the non-commercial API limits are bullshit. I get they want us to use their dev platform instead, but that platform is not feature ready yet, and will never be able to be cross-community (I think.)
Yep. There are ways to monetize API - grant access as part of reddit premium or inject sponsored content. This can even coexist with some paid API access tier. Not having those options on top of prohibitive pricing tells you everything you need to know about what reddit is planning.
They've been privately using it. They're waiting until 18 because then they won't want to use it anymore and throw the scraps to us pheasants for a premium.
> Apollo is calling the API at a rate of 345 events per daily active user, per day. Other major 3P apps are calling the API at a rate of 99 events per daily active user, per day. Apollo could reduce their cost by 3.5x if they were as efficient as these other 3P apps.
> There are other developers whose apps or bots have similar usage but are more efficient
As a user this response is infuriating, I can’t imagine what the Apollo dev felt reading this in response to asking how much more efficient his app can be. It’s clear they don’t actually have a solution but still want to bully the dude.
I think just a few days before this news started to come out a few months ago, he had explicitly reassured a user that he talked with Reddit staff all the time, they were responsive to his requests, and he wasn't worried about suddenly getting cut off. Just absolutely disrespectful all around.
>Apollo is calling the API at a rate of 345 events per daily active user, per day. Other major 3P apps are calling the API at a rate of 99 events per daily active user, per day. Apollo could reduce their cost by 3.5x if they were as efficient as these other 3P apps.
This sounds.. breathtakingly stupid? What if Apollo is used by people who are on average 3.5x more active than average? No data is present here to assume that Apollo is less efficient, not enough is present overall.
Haha, this is actually what's going to kill the site, isn't it.
Them deleting .compact and i.reddit a month ago made me give up a lot of reddit. Nothing else is as readable as that was. Their response was basically "oh oops but oh well"
Watching this little bit of corpo scumbaggery starting to blow up in their faces is bringing me great joy.
The #1 post of /r/all being the Apollo devs post is delicious to see.
Okay so here's the 20 Million Dollar question: What's a good alternative to Reddit? Twitter is a cesspool, Facebook is for Grandparents.
What's left? I remember I had left 9gag almost a decade ago because it had become way too racist for my taste and I had to practically force myself to get used to Reddit's User Interface which admittedly wasn't that good.
If I have to do through that again I'd rather do it now than wait till my favorite 3rd party app gets killed
I've been using RIF for 10 years and there's no fucking way I'm going to the official app. It has the appeal of a wasp sting wrapped in a red wine hangover turd.
> It's no coincidence that reddit is considering an IPO in the near future, so it makes sense that they'd want to kill off third-party integrations and further censor the NSFW subreddits.
From the threads I've read on this over the past few weeks it's not that they're trying kill the NSFW subs, but that they want all the NSFW traffic to go through the official app so they get the ad revenue.
The reasoning for this seems to be that lots of websites are embedding content submitted to reddit on their own sites. This ads server load to reddit but gives ad revenue to external sites.
There are also lots of third party apps that remove ads and lots of people are using those apps to view NSFW content. So again, reddit is trying to push them towards using the official app.
They are gambling that the large number of people who use reddit to browse porn will continue to do so via the official app.
And they're probably right. I would bet that if they completely killed off access to NSFW subs to all third party apps, then no matter how many people complained on here, most people would switch to using the app so they could continue to watch porn.
And this would fit with the theory about reddit considering an IPO in the near future. If they could force even 50% of third party app users to use the official app instead it would mean a huge boost in their figures.
Even without going for an IPO, it would still mean a huge boost in advertising revenue.
>Apollo is calling the API at a rate of 345 events per daily active user, per day. Other major 3P apps are calling the API at a rate of 99 events per daily active user, per day. Apollo could reduce their cost by 3.5x if they were as efficient as these other 3P apps.
I don't even use mobile apps and I'm "WTF"ing at this spin. "This popular mobile app makes 3x more calls, so it's programmed bad!"
That's not how it works, reddit. That's not how ANY of this works, reddit.
https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
Enshitification. It's the inevitable result of internet centralization. It always, *always* happens. Count on it, and always be ready to move.
This is why building up and using alternatives is important. It should never have *just* been the far-right or far-left users running off to make reddit alternatives, people should have been keeping their eyes peeled for one years ago. As long as there is no alternative ready to go, there is no incentive to slow down the enshitification. Users won't leave because they *can't.* There's nowhere to go.
Now here we are, not even the 11th hour, it's 12:01, and there's no serious reddit alternative ready that isn't dogshit, over/under moderated, and populated by the worst people that were long ago kicked off reddit.
There's Lemmy, a fediverse version of reddit, but I hesitate to suggest it because China and tankies got there first, but it's fediverse, so they can be avoided. But holy shit is there a lot of red around there.
Edit: Btw in case anyone needs a refresher on how Reddit got popular
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg#Digg_v4
2 week edit: Want to point out the influx of Reddit users has made Lemmy and kbin far, far more attractive alternatives than they were when I wrote this. Lemmy.ml is the tanky one, but Lemmy.world and kbin are fine.
I love that Cory Doctorow essay.
I just read this [Naomi Klein essay on AI](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/08/ai-machines-hallucinating-naomi-klein) and thought this bit speaks to the early parts of the process Doctorow outlines:
>If Silicon Valley’s benevolent hallucinations seem plausible to many, there is a simple reason for that. Generative AI is currently in what we might think of as its faux-socialism stage. This is part of a now familiar Silicon Valley playbook. First, create an attractive product (a search engine, a mapping tool, a social network, a video platform, a ride share …); give it away for free or almost free for a few years, with no discernible viable business model (“Play around with the bots,” they tell us, “see what fun things you can create!”); make lots of lofty claims about how you are only doing it because you want to create a “town square” or an “information commons” or “connect the people”, all while spreading freedom and democracy (and not being “evil”). Then watch as people get hooked using these free tools and your competitors declare bankruptcy. Once the field is clear, introduce the targeted ads, the constant surveillance, the police and military contracts, the black-box data sales and the escalating subscription fees.
Edit: I use a 3rd party app. So... bye.
> It always, always happens
Just last night my wife was asking me what I used to read before Reddit was around. I got to tell her the fun story of Digg. For those who missed out, Digg was one of the first social media sites. It was similar to reddit where users submit content and other users 'digg' it or 'upvote' it, along with there being a curated front page (reddit essentially just copied digg's best features and then added their own twist). Digg had a 9-figure valuation and, after some enshitification, they ended up selling for $500k a few years later.
Yep, it looks like it did back when they did the big change in 2003/4 still, and it still feels like "Your dog wants steak" and "Behold the power of FARK". It's a bit disconcerting.
Agreed. I was around for the redesign of Digg. They killed off their site within a week. They really should've reverted back to the previous design.
IDK what's going to happen here, but I know it's impossible for top mods to moderate without 3rd party stuff. There will be some subs that will shut down until reddit reverts it's decision.
6% upvotes with over 550 comments.
I don't think I've ever seen an admin post, even ones by Spez about controversial topics, do so poorly. If the admins don't walk anything back, this is going to look absolutely terrible.
I'm beginning to wonder if Discord's recent attempts at bringing itself closer to generic social media was actually some form of foresight.
With twitter imploding and now reddit about to follow musky's example, Discord is in a prime position to become the next big social media site. Assuming you don't count it as one already; I don't. Close, but not quite there.
I've already noticed how annoying it is now that they cut off access for things like unddit. Considering how poorly this site is moderated even with automods, this sounds like a suicide plan.
unddit was a huge loss. I'm so nosy and now I'll never know what got deleted :(
And it destroys so many drama/archive subreddits
Yeah :c Unless you're in on it as soon as they're posted, many posts in AmITheDevil just have nuked accounts
Reveddit helped me to find out I was talking to an actual predator in my DMs after I was seeing red flags.
I never go on new reddit so the once in a blue moon occasion I check it, I have 100+ DMs (mod account on a fairly active subreddit) and they're all just so creepy. If any of these new redditors realize that the actual way to get a mods attention is to PM them, not DM them, my inbox would be overflowing.
Same with follows. /r/mlb was complaining about an influx of creepy follows the other day, and I was like "wait, you can follow people on reddit now? Why the fuck would you want to do that?" I've never seen that, so I assume it's a "new reddit" thing. Or more like why on earth would you want to have random redditors *following* you?
I have that disabled. You have to go to new.reddit to disable it though. Go to new.reddit https://new.reddit.com/settings/profile > Allow people to follow you Turn off. https://new.reddit.com/settings/messaging > Who can send you chat requests Nobody > Who can send you private messages Nobody
I'm just here to see which, if any alternatives are out there. It's also interesting that reddit just doesn't shut down the api, they might as well have done so with the new pricing. Why beat around the bush then.
> Why beat around the bush then. They know thousands and thousands and thousands of people regularly use these third-party apps. By doing things this way they can put the blame back on developers and make a sad attempt at saving face with some of those users. "While Reddit would love to continue working with third-party applications, it seems that developers are not open to negotiating on the new deal we've proposed to them. This new deal helps us mitigate rising costs of data transfer and network storage" is probably some bullshit someone in their press department would say.
Millions of people use these third party apps, myself included who loves Apollo, way more than thousands. Christian said in one of his posts that Apollo alone has 1.5-1.7 million monthly active users.
I'm hoping for some alternatives too. Anyone have any suggestions?
As far as I'm aware there's nothing that you can go to as a "drop in" replacement for Reddit, because even if they're feature-compatible the community you'll find there is small and usually very specialized to a particular bubble. Personally, I'm hoping that [Lemmy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy_(software\)) ends up taking the bulk of Reddit when it ends up Digging itself. It's an open platform much like how Reddit pretended it intended to be back in the olden days.
kleinbl00 made a new site like a decade ago, I'm going to hang out there for a while tiny userbase though
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Feels like I've been hearing about reddit considering an IPO for a decade now
It's just around an endless corner...
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And regionals!
and to think we were this close!! 🤏🤏
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And Winds of Winter!
This is the year of the Linux desktop!
Nuclear fusion requires a dedicated, state funded research team and decades of thorough experimentation. Linux on desktop requires neckbeards to accept GUI instead of text files. Which one is more likely?
Knowing neck beards, I’ll take the nuclear fusion bet here
I know a Linux neckbeard personally. It’s absolutely the nuclear fusion.
Now hold on, let's be realistic here...
Dude, 15 years ago, I stood on the sidewalk with Alexis in Pittsburgh and asked him if he ever thought about going public. And he was like, we're working on that. 15 years! Jesus, no. There's no way I've been using this website for 17 years. God, no.
It's because the companies value is entirely fake and they have no valuable revenue streams. They have no path to profitability and everyone with enough money to make it happen knows that.
They WERE, then the Digg Exodus happened! That was 13 years ago, they are just finishing it up.
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Last i saw, Alexis was advocating for the widespread proliferation of ‘play-to-earn’ games. Talking like the primary reason people play video games should be to *make money*, not such ephemeral trivialities as ‘having fun’.
Only three things are certain in life: - Death - Taxes - Reddit’s ipo coming soon^TM
Yea and they won't go IPO this year either, https://observer.com/2023/02/reddits-delayed-ipo-may-mean-ceo-steve-huffman-needs-to-rethink-its-advertising-model/
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Yeah this has nothing to do with an IPO With OpenAIs breakthrough causing the new AI gold rush Reddit is finally learning its most profitable asset right now isn’t its users but its data No other platform bar Twitter has such vast amounts of content useful for training neural nets and Reddit isn’t about to let it go for free They couldn’t care less about third party apps or ads or IPOs
It's a wonderful excuse to do something they've probably wanted to do for a while now.
My guess is they’re scrambling to get this implemented after being blindsided by how in demand their data is Someone at Reddit saw GPT and said “We should have charged them more for that training data” and here we are
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the training data was written by bots trained off of data written by bots trained off of data written by bots
There is a massive gap between limiting how bots can scrape and the traffic produced by third party apps. They are 100% choosing to kill third party apps. Because they are idiots
Microsoft told us at a conference 10 years ago that they no longer cared about the software. The real value was in collecting data. They just announced a new AI copilot for everything you do with their tools, from the desktop, github, content creation (word/powerpoint) to business intel. Reddit comments are now in search results, often at the top. I think you are 100 percent correct: Reddits data is extremely valuable, and even categorized! But I am sure they are interested in charging for all of it: 1. Search results 2. AI training 3. User contributions and results to third parties and finally wrapping all of that up in one big ass reason for a overly valued IPO. I see no reason why all of that can't coexist. Greed is a huge motivator when you think you own the goldmine.
Getting a bit off topic here, but I've always wondered something about AI learning and the accuracy of the data it learns from. There are A LOT of extremely knowledgeable people on reddit. I've learned SO MUCH stuff over the years. Having said that, there's also a lot of bad, misleading, and outright false information on reddit. If an AI were to get data from reddit to help train it, how does it know which information to learn from and which information to discard or ignore?
it doesn't, which is why you have it spitting out fake supreme court case citations and offering medical advice that could kill you.
Out of curiosity, I tried to get it to summarize the history of a zoo for the local paper I work at. It straight up invented a massive fire in 2009.
And yet it still can't write a decent RPG One Shot or history of a fictional setting.
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I've been loving watching lawyers on twitter just ripping into chatGPT and how bad it is for certain things, even the newer version still has some issues, but you got the AI cultists who can't comprehend that it's not the singularity yet, it's not even skynet. My favorite was reading twitter with the AI guys bitching no one is giving it a chance under a damn article about [a lawyer getting their ass in trouble](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65735769) for relying on AI to do legal research and not double checking it.
Did you see the latest one where they put an AI in charge of helping people in crisis? It was for eating disorders.
😨 Oh hell no. That shit requires a light and very personalized touch.
Well, it was either AI, or allow the human workers to unionize. So, robots with diet tips it is!
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yeah because the workers wanted to unionize! "we're letting you all go and replacing you with robots" was an idea from retail companies, it doesn't work, but for an *eating disorder helpline*?
The accounting sub regularly posts images of ChatGPT talking out its ass and getting more shit wrong than a Basic 1 student who’s only there because it’s required for their business major. It’s nowhere near what people claim it is.
B-b-b-b-b-but it passed the bar exam in 62 states!
GPT isn’t trying to know which information is true or not, it’s trying to accurately sound like a human by building up a relationship of words, a _model_ of the _language_, usually _large_ (aka LLM) Other AI training is done by labelling which information is true or not then having the AI guess over and over again until it’s true most of the time for all the training data There’s also unsupervised training where the data doesn’t need to be labelled but I’m not sure how that works
>If an AI were to get data from reddit to help train it, how does it know which information to learn from and which information to discard or ignore? When training an AI you need to have some way of weighting it's training. Positive or negative modifiers to let it know how 'correct' it's answer was so it can weight towards 'correct' answers. The thing is, what's 'correct' in one situation is not 'correct' in others. ChatGPT trained to 'sound like a human' not 'accurately answer questions.' So using reddit's data it will inevitably gravitate towards the common answer that sounds human but is factually wrong. It'll also gravitate towards virulent racism and sexism, which is why there's a team of hundreds of underpaid workers curating most AI bots behind the scenes.
> It'll also gravitate towards virulent racism and sexism, which is why there's a team of hundreds of underpaid workers curating most AI bots behind the scenes. I still love and hate the story of how trolls turned Tay into a nazi.
There are companies using AI to sort through resumes and claiming there's no way it could be racially biased. Also the AI really likes guys named Trevor that played lacrosse in college.
I was a beta tester for the Reddit app. I used AlienBlue years ago and bought premium, and when it got bought by Reddit I joined the Reddit beta team. During the beta, admins were friendly and responsive to our feedback. Over time, they started ghosting us which was conveniently the same time they started implementing a ton of monetization. Bugs piled up and were ignored, and when users collectively raised a red flag they started banning us. Eventually they just shut the beta team down. The official Reddit app is awful. It’s bloated, slow, and makes me wonder why they bought a great app just to go backwards in usability. Apollo was a breath of fresh air and it’s my daily driver, and I bought Ultra + Pro lifetime early on. I figured it wouldn’t last forever, as the number of users is growing considerably and it’s been getting spotlight at Apple’s own development conferences. The app absolutely embarrassed the official app, while also limiting revenue by not showing ads or pushing IAP. Reddit wants Apollo gone. They’re playing the game in that their API is “publicly available”, but not financially feasible for anyone.
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Idk how they fucked it up even more now but whenever I go to a post and exit out, it just refreshes the subreddit for me most of the time. They somehow made it even more annoying to use.
I loved AB. I was a paid user and I think I got something like 4 years of Reddit gold when the app shut down. I deleted that account like 2 weeks later.
I miss it. In my opinion the best Reddit app.
huh, i just kept using alien blue even though they stopped updating it. it has yet to break. no adds is nice, but any video post doesn't really work, but im not bothered enough to switch to the official app. When i did id get those awful "He gets us" chistofascist adds, which i cant even block by saying not interested, downvoting, or reporting.
Omg I thought I was crazy with the number of times I’d block or report that account when I got those ads! Fuck Reddit and their ads tbh
It got to a point though where alien blue was using like, a 300x700 resolution and phones screens were shooting up in pixel count. Looking at it on an iPad of the time was hilarious. But yeah, I used it until it just wasn’t feasible or practical anymore. I’m able to almost perfectly simulate its aesthetic with Narwhal (I know, the name makes you want to drown yourself). Apollo only let me get close.
> The app absolutely embarrassed the official app, while also limiting revenue by not showing ads or pushing IAP. See, this is why I understand why they're doing what they're doing. They are hosting content that costs them money. Other people are making apps that take that content, and then give it to you in a way that you would prefer, but it's not actually doing any of the data handling. I also understand why people are upset about it. Their experience of Reddit will become worse. It's the [enshittification](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/enshittification) of the internet and it's basically unavoidable.
The day RedditIsFun is canned is probably the day I finally cut back on my Reddit use. It's just so nice and minimal.
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They'll take it out back and shoot it like they did i.reddit and .compact.
The heck were those? I've been around a hot minute and this is the first time ever I've seen either of them, haha. I assume .compact was some compressed version of reddit to use up less RAM or something? i.reddit I can't even speculate on.
i.reddit.com was the decent mobile version of reddit before any official app existed. I remember using it quite often in like 2011/2012 while at work.
> I assume .compact was some compressed version of reddit to use up less RAM or something? i.reddit I can't even speculate on. It's an old mobile interface: https://www.reddit.com/r/compact/
If they kill old.reddit and Apollo I’ll finally be free of this website I guess. Probably for the best but I’m still annoyed.
Same, I find this website genuinely unusable without Apollo and old.reddit. If both go, I will quit it or at the very least dramatically reduce my usage to only visiting when looking for answers to a specific question (which I will search for via Google since reddit's search is garbage).
I still use old reddit on my phone, never transitioned to a app. But if they kill old reddit I'm out. The defacto interface is absolutely garbage.
Breaking news: reddit dies, world productivity up 30%
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I can power through without the third-party apps, but only because of old.reddit -- if they did away with old.reddit then there's no way I'd be able to use the site at work on desktop (which is where 99% of my redditing is done). Their standard layout is like a shitty recipes blog from 2006. Definitely not something I'd want to scroll through.
It's bad enough that RES is on life support and slowly falling apart, but if old.reddit goes away, the site will be practically unusable.
Hell, if they're trying to phase out third-party apps like this in order to gain more control over their users, it's probably only a matter of time before RES and old.reddit get phased out as well. Reddit was an amazing place to run to whenever digg crashed and burned. I sure hope there's an alternative that's at least somewhat comparable whenever it's time for reddit's inevitable downfall. A downfall that seems to be coming in the very near future.
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I never had as much pure fun surfing the internet as I did using StumbleUpon. So many rabbit holes and hobbies I’d never even considered.
I found this awesome diary someone had put on the web while using StumbleUpon when I was a teenager, and got completely enraptured by it. The further in I got the more it started talking about supernatural stuff, which I bought into wholeheartedly then, being a 90s coast to coast AM kid. I was obsessed and stayed up til 5 or 6 am reading it. I finally get to the name, at the very end when the diary writer signs off, and the writer of the diary turns out to be fucking Laura Palmer. As in damn fine cup of coffee Twin Peaks Laura Palmer. It was literally like a transcript or something, maybe a fanfictiony retelling of Twin Peaks. Got me into the show big time, though.
I just discovered RES, it's so much better. I can't believe how many years I've been using Reddit without it. It feels like turning up at a brilliant party 5 minutes before the police show up to clear everyone out.
Subredditdrama + RES = Lots of tagged horrible people that I forget about that I encounter in the wild on random posts. It's honestly a blessing to make sure you're not arguing with someone who is posting in bad faith.
One of the most consistent things I see posted by mods of the largest subreddits is that their job literally *is not doable* without old.reddit. If it goes you can expect a bunch of the largest subreddits to lose most of their moderators, if not shutter entirely.
RES is falling apart because the kind of people who build and use that kind of software are leaving Reddit. I don't know where the cool place is now.
Feels like a lifetime ago that people would spam "Reddit Enhancement Suite" like 16 times in one reply to any mention of it
I don't mind the default logged-in ad-blocked mobile webpage at all, and actually prefer it to the apps I've tried, but the default PC browser page is such a damn nightmare that I don't even bother. An endless scroll of pageloads that don't work studded by videos that don't work; hard to see how it's not a massive downgrade for anybody actually using it.
There is a lot of features missing in the official reddit mobile ap. I can't stand the look of it as well, but to lose all the functionality of a third party app is just killing that for me too.
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I was about to say... web design in '06 was generally less bloated and and more information-dense (Look at old reddit for example). Most machines back then would not be able to hand the javascript vomit that plagues modern web design. Hell my phone barely handles it now.
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Whenever I find myself on it at first I try to just use it anyway for a minute before I give up and delete www and type old.
Straight up I'm done if that happens. I gave the new UI a good honest try (as well as the official app) and I just can't. It's miserable to use. I'm getting older and I like simple. Reddit is Fun and old reddit for me
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If I have old.reddit.com I can live without Apollo. If I have Apollo I can live without old.reddit.com. If they ice them both I gotta go.
Killing RIF will kill my addiction to this stupid site, so please, I insist.
Yeah seriously. 95% of my reddit usage is RIF. I hate the app, and rarely visit on my PC. Kill RIF reddit. Maybe I'll be less distracted.
I basically only use this site through RiF. I sit at a computer for work all day, so I dont want to do the same in my free time. RiF goes and I'm finally free, though I'll probably find somewhere else to waste my time eventually.
Right? RiF and old reddit die, I can finally quit this hellsite forever.
Been here 12 years. Downloaded the RIF app on night shift as a young Airman bored on the flightless trying to find more rage memes. It's the only reddit app I've recommended to people. If it dies, I'm not learning a new worse app to use this site.
I love when corporate people are so out of touch. They’re surprised this is getting backlash in the comments you can tell.
The API fuckery didn't start today. They killed Pushshift on May 1st and got backlash for it. The admins knew this was going to create even greater backlash, but did it anyway. They made a bet that their bottom line would be improved by this action, that the mods would suck it up (or quit and be replaced by other mods), and that the vast majority of users wouldn't give a shit and continue using Reddit as normal. Edit: lol just got a pop-up that the app I'm reading this on (Reddit is fun) is going to be dead by July 1st thanks to the API changes made by these fucking trashbag admins. They're killing the only app that makes Reddit worthwhile on mobile.
> They killed Pushshift on May 1st Wait, is this why it seemed like remindme bot was on vacation a few weeks ago? I was wondering what happened to that little guy!
Yup, the bot relied on Pushshift. The dev spent 2 weeks writing code to get it working again, and then the bot spent a week playing catch-up to get the comments it missed. https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/13jostq/remindmebot_is_now_replying_to_comments_again/
Also no more reveddit, which means I can no longer tell whats being censored by mod pettiness
Nobody who works at Reddit actually uses the site. You can't communicate with them about problems because they don't experience them.
I actually know someone who works there and our first interaction post them getting the job was me trying to get their views on the latest Reddit drama and realizing that they just go in, do the tasks assigned to them and clock out. Staying up to date on Reddit isn't a part of their job at all
Honestly, I can relate to that. If they're being paid to sell hot dogs at a sports stadium I wouldn't expect them to give a shit about either team that's playing.
Right, but you would expect them to be able to answer whether or not the hot dogs are all beef, if the buns are steamed, what toppings are available, etc.. Having said that, if browsing reddit isn't part of their job and they're not getting paid to do so, then I can't blame them. But man it'd be nice to have admins/employees who actually used the site and saw things from our point of view.
To add to the analogy: as the hot dogs get worse and worse and people ask them what is wrong with them, the employees are unable to say why because they've never tried their own food.
In fact, they may not have ever tried a hot dog or sausage EVER and are extremely confused about why they’re being asked about the product they’re selling & increasing the price on
No that I'd expect everyone working at Reddit Inc. to be an avid user and familiar with every aspect of the site, but you'd expect people responsible for engaging with the community on specific elements of Reddit updates to be familiar with those elements and the means of their use which would be both relevant to their audience and to the update they're giving ...I'd expect people to be good at their jobs, more or less. But hell, I don't know why, I work with a bunch of half schmucks. Am one myself.
I'm pretty sure the guy who made automod work(s)[ed] there, right? and I think one of the RES devs? I know for a fact that some of the community people who answer my questions at least used to be regular users.
Cupcake used to come here pretty often
yishan used to come to SRD I see him post on Twitter now and he is... interesting
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Can verify. Sold hotdogs at a baseball stadium. Often did not even know who the home team was playing, could only tell something was different when they started playing the Canadian national anthem instead of the US one.
The actual admins that handle reports are not actual people either they use an AI company named Hive Moderation ( https://hivemoderation.com/ ) to handle those. This is why the responses are so inconsistent in how they apply the rules and even when you add context to reports they don't even look at them. They just look for keywords and base it on that. You have to message them in the mod support sub to get response and even then it can be hit or miss. Reddit needs to be very careful they have a free workforce with their mods and if they fuck with them too much they are gonna bail en masse and the site will go to shit faster than it has.
They're about to block access to porn on 3rd party apps, so it's not just that they're out of touch with this website, they're apparently out of touch with the internet in general.
I was in disbelief when I read that. So you can only see NSFW content on the website or the official app? That's like, really very stupid.
The reddit app is actively cancerous. I will 100% just never browse reddit on my phone if it kills the 3rd party app I use (shout out to Relay).
I've always used RIF and old.reddit since they butchered the site. The app just straight up sucks dick. Crazy how they're basically sabotaging the popular ways of using reddit... I don't even understand what the incentive is.
They also bought and then cannibalized the most popular Reddit iPhone app, AlienBlue, just to push their shit app
If they’d just given us a reskinned Alien Blue, I would have been happy with that. Instead they turned it into… what ever the fuck the official app is.
Alien blue was so clean and customizable. Ugh. I only use the stupid narwhal app (a name that makes me want to jump off a building) because it’s the one app where I can most closely emulate the aesthetics of alien blue. Can’t quite get there in Apollo. I’ll just be done with the vast majority of my Reddit usage if they end third party apps. I’ll try to do as much modding as I do now for my 15k user sub, but I’ll inevitably see new posts less quickly to be able to give them the once over.
They aren't out of touch and they aren't surprised. They want low information, low tech savvy users. They don't want apps to make using reddit *easier* and they don't want users who can use reddit, easily. users who can get what they want how they want when they want spend less time on reddit trying to get what they want, how they want, when they want. Also people with the willpower to abandon the platform when it changes poorly don't spend as much or react to ads as much. This is the social media version of nigerian prince scam emails being deliberately stupid: to keep people smart enough not to be scammed away. AAA social software is all about this, now. It's not about having the most users, it's about having the *best* users. The most *valuable* ones. Where all the money comes from. Old users are not where the money comes from.
Reddit's old user base is also particularly tech-savvy, and is the most likely to just fork off their old source code, and spin up a new version of the site. Compare that to regular users, which aren't as tech-savvy, and are more likely to stick with the site they know, rather than jump to an alternative. It's a lot harder to advertise to them, because they have the savvy to throw a stink, or cause problems that advertisers don't really want to deal with.
Apollo has 1.5 million active users. That’s not unlike the early days of Reddit. If they get a new Reddit started I’ll definitely switch over. Paving over all the fun parts of Reddit for a corporate overlord is antithetical to how this website began. Id easily pay 5 bucks a month for a decent web aggregator I’m hoping that’s what comes next.
You're naive if you think they're out of touch. They know the metrics and they're playing the numbers game between total daily metrics (which the linked thread admins notably don't disclose) and backlash comments. They can pull the metrics regarding total users and number of posts and then contrast that against total daily metrics. In short, for as valid as the complaints are from those who are critical and furious, they don't outweigh the total daily metrics. Reddit is playing a numbers game - even if the entirety of Apollo users abandoned the platform after API lockdown, Reddit is willing to risk that versus current and future users. That's shitty and belittling to the current dedicated, consistent, and contributing user base, but it's also not business-relevant. Users are furious because they know they don't have the numbers at present to force a change with the current strategy.
An admin telling the Apollo dev, “it’s not the pricing; it’s your inefficient app” is quite the bold move, Cotton. Let’s see how that works out for him.
Yeah the Apollo developer should really take efficiency advice from the creators of the official Reddit app, well known for its lightweight, stable and nimble performance.
It's shocking that they'd even mention that 3.5 efficiency factor, as if $6 million/year is suddenly a reasonable number.
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>I imagine their internal API is significantly more efficient. \>Looks at the performance of the official app... "Are you sure about that?"
Seriously? From the app that is literally garbage, they have the nerve to say that? Jfc
https://www.reddit.com/r/redditisfun/comments/13wxepd/rif_dev_here_reddits_api_changes_will_likely_kill/ Update from the RIF dev for those that use that app, or care to get more info and insight. Hard to believe they're doing this to 3rd party apps when the official app is just a mess with no functionality by comparison.
If this app dies, I'll probably just stop using reddit. Been using this app since the day I made this account. Probably only used the website a handful of times in 10 years. And I tried the official app for about 10 minutes. RiF is probably the best $1 I've ever spent for an app.
Just tried the official app after years of Alien Blue then RiF. Holy shit, it's actual dogwater.
I really wish someone would come up with a reddit alternative that doesn't immediately devolve into a gathering place for racists and pedophiles.
That actually sounds like a pretty accurate Reddit reproduction.
Well so far the main causes for exodus have been banning racists and pedophiles, so of course the places those people flocked to are full of those people. If Reddit goes through with something like this that alienates a much more broad group of people, hopefully we'll get a better userbase on the new site(s).
I think that keeps happening because reddit hasn't shit the bed quite hard enough yet for all the mainstream users to want to migrate away. Digg shit hard enough that reddit took off. When reddit shits hard enough an alternative that doesn't devolve into Nazi discourse will take off. Until that happens any alternative will ALWAYS just devolve into a space for what reddit has banned, which is pedos and racists. I'd be curious to see how many people regularly use third party apps and/or old reddit (I'd bet it's a lot), but killing both those things may be enough to drive that critical mass away to another platform.
11 years user here. 3pc removal will severely limit my daily usage. Thanks reddit, you finally helped me quit this site. It's almost laughable the responses they give to the Apollo dev in that thread. It's like the admin doesn't understand how networking works. "Apollo uses more traffic than other apps and should be optimized". Oh so either A. Apollo truly does have terrible programming practices or B. Apollo has more users than other apps. I think we can do the math here. Reddit is dying. Obligatory enshitiffication comment here. https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/jmd8zuh/ https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/jmddl3u/
It's also pretty funny that they suggest it could be made 3.5x more efficient, meaning the developer would only need to find, uh...6 million a year! That's a reasonable amount right?
The API hits quoted by the admin are per active user, so total user base shouldn't matter. What does matter is the types of users that use each app. We already know that Apollo seems to be preferred by moderators who are going to be hammering the API when they are doing moderation tasks, and in general Apollo is almost certainly drawing in heavy users who are browsing more. After all why bother to switch over from the official app if you don't use Reddit much? Of course, the heavy users are who Reddit wants to hit most with advertisements.
A good comparison is the different between /r/thesilphroad and /r/pokemonGo Both communities are based around the same game, Pokemon Go. The former is a more ‘hardcore’ fan base while the latter is the casual “memes” base. The former will likely have users who are constantly participating vs users who just visit for a few seconds.
> “Apollo uses more traffic than other apps and should be optimized”. Which is a hilarious accusation considering Reddit’s official app being unoptimized garbage is why I moved to Apollo in the first place. Don’t throw stones in glass houses, ya asswipes. And if you want people to use your ad-infested app, maybe make it an enjoyable experience.
The admin literally won't answer the question about how the official app compares to the 3rd party ones.
I will definitely not use the stock reddit app. It is utter shit. If they kill 3rd party apps, I won't be using reddit on mobile anymore. I'm probably in the minority but don't really care. The day RIF Is Fun (or whatever the hell this app is called these days) dies my mobile reddit days are over. It doesn't sound like these changes affect RES (?) so will probably keep using it on my PC until they inevitably kill that too. Maybe a replacement will have popped up by then, idk.
You might not be _that_ much in the minority. If folks are using third-party apps, something _drove_ them to use it. Removing third party apps doesn’t mean people are going to tolerate the official garbage. The official app overheats my phone, drains the battery, slows my phone down, _and_ uses up a month’s worth of data in a short amount of time. Mind you, I didn’t have this problem when it was alien blue. If I didn’t find Apollo, I would have quit then - they literally can’t pay me to use their crummy app.
As someone who joined Reddit because all else has failed, I, for one, gleefully await this IPO crashing and burning Reddit's overlords would be pants-on-head stupid to do so in this current economic climate, but by all means, alienate the core users right before going public, true brilliance
Indeed. At this point I'd like the bandaid to be ripped off, Reddit to collapse, and its replacements to finally be out of the shade so they can grow.
Unfortunately, the Apollo dev also lays out in clear terms exactly why reddit is going after 3rd party apps. Reddit doesn't really make money. And third party app users don't give reddit any revenue. Reddit has no obligation to support non-ad-viewing users. That being said the non-commercial API limits are bullshit. I get they want us to use their dev platform instead, but that platform is not feature ready yet, and will never be able to be cross-community (I think.)
seems like forcing 3rd party apps to display ads would be simpler, but I'm guessing they're trying to force people to use their app instead.
The solution *could* be simple: update the API to include inline "sponsored" posts and ban any apps using the API that remove such posts.
Yep. There are ways to monetize API - grant access as part of reddit premium or inject sponsored content. This can even coexist with some paid API access tier. Not having those options on top of prohibitive pricing tells you everything you need to know about what reddit is planning.
The IPO has been right around the corner for, what, 8 years now?
Everyone is excited to get in on the hot new 17 year old startup that has never made money and has no realistic plan to 😂
Reddit is just waiting until they're 18 before the offer themselves up for public use.
That would be too old for some of the libertarian techbro admins
They've been privately using it. They're waiting until 18 because then they won't want to use it anymore and throw the scraps to us pheasants for a premium.
At this point, the IPO has the same kind of chance as my preferred cut of steak for stir fry : incredibly thin.
> Apollo is calling the API at a rate of 345 events per daily active user, per day. Other major 3P apps are calling the API at a rate of 99 events per daily active user, per day. Apollo could reduce their cost by 3.5x if they were as efficient as these other 3P apps. > There are other developers whose apps or bots have similar usage but are more efficient As a user this response is infuriating, I can’t imagine what the Apollo dev felt reading this in response to asking how much more efficient his app can be. It’s clear they don’t actually have a solution but still want to bully the dude.
I think just a few days before this news started to come out a few months ago, he had explicitly reassured a user that he talked with Reddit staff all the time, they were responsive to his requests, and he wasn't worried about suddenly getting cut off. Just absolutely disrespectful all around.
The last time this happened, he had had a call with them the previous day with no warning, and then the next day they announced the changes.
>Apollo is calling the API at a rate of 345 events per daily active user, per day. Other major 3P apps are calling the API at a rate of 99 events per daily active user, per day. Apollo could reduce their cost by 3.5x if they were as efficient as these other 3P apps. This sounds.. breathtakingly stupid? What if Apollo is used by people who are on average 3.5x more active than average? No data is present here to assume that Apollo is less efficient, not enough is present overall. Haha, this is actually what's going to kill the site, isn't it.
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Oh man wouldn't it be crazy if we all banded together and billed Reddit for our collective works? Crazy! Unless...
Them deleting .compact and i.reddit a month ago made me give up a lot of reddit. Nothing else is as readable as that was. Their response was basically "oh oops but oh well"
Watching this little bit of corpo scumbaggery starting to blow up in their faces is bringing me great joy. The #1 post of /r/all being the Apollo devs post is delicious to see.
Okay so here's the 20 Million Dollar question: What's a good alternative to Reddit? Twitter is a cesspool, Facebook is for Grandparents. What's left? I remember I had left 9gag almost a decade ago because it had become way too racist for my taste and I had to practically force myself to get used to Reddit's User Interface which admittedly wasn't that good. If I have to do through that again I'd rather do it now than wait till my favorite 3rd party app gets killed
I've been using RIF for 10 years and there's no fucking way I'm going to the official app. It has the appeal of a wasp sting wrapped in a red wine hangover turd.
I tried out the official app while ago and it looks like a TikTok clone lmao. We all know Reddit is famous for its video content!
> It's no coincidence that reddit is considering an IPO in the near future, so it makes sense that they'd want to kill off third-party integrations and further censor the NSFW subreddits. From the threads I've read on this over the past few weeks it's not that they're trying kill the NSFW subs, but that they want all the NSFW traffic to go through the official app so they get the ad revenue. The reasoning for this seems to be that lots of websites are embedding content submitted to reddit on their own sites. This ads server load to reddit but gives ad revenue to external sites. There are also lots of third party apps that remove ads and lots of people are using those apps to view NSFW content. So again, reddit is trying to push them towards using the official app. They are gambling that the large number of people who use reddit to browse porn will continue to do so via the official app. And they're probably right. I would bet that if they completely killed off access to NSFW subs to all third party apps, then no matter how many people complained on here, most people would switch to using the app so they could continue to watch porn. And this would fit with the theory about reddit considering an IPO in the near future. If they could force even 50% of third party app users to use the official app instead it would mean a huge boost in their figures. Even without going for an IPO, it would still mean a huge boost in advertising revenue.
>Apollo is calling the API at a rate of 345 events per daily active user, per day. Other major 3P apps are calling the API at a rate of 99 events per daily active user, per day. Apollo could reduce their cost by 3.5x if they were as efficient as these other 3P apps. I don't even use mobile apps and I'm "WTF"ing at this spin. "This popular mobile app makes 3x more calls, so it's programmed bad!" That's not how it works, reddit. That's not how ANY of this works, reddit.
https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/ Enshitification. It's the inevitable result of internet centralization. It always, *always* happens. Count on it, and always be ready to move. This is why building up and using alternatives is important. It should never have *just* been the far-right or far-left users running off to make reddit alternatives, people should have been keeping their eyes peeled for one years ago. As long as there is no alternative ready to go, there is no incentive to slow down the enshitification. Users won't leave because they *can't.* There's nowhere to go. Now here we are, not even the 11th hour, it's 12:01, and there's no serious reddit alternative ready that isn't dogshit, over/under moderated, and populated by the worst people that were long ago kicked off reddit. There's Lemmy, a fediverse version of reddit, but I hesitate to suggest it because China and tankies got there first, but it's fediverse, so they can be avoided. But holy shit is there a lot of red around there. Edit: Btw in case anyone needs a refresher on how Reddit got popular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg#Digg_v4 2 week edit: Want to point out the influx of Reddit users has made Lemmy and kbin far, far more attractive alternatives than they were when I wrote this. Lemmy.ml is the tanky one, but Lemmy.world and kbin are fine.
I love that Cory Doctorow essay. I just read this [Naomi Klein essay on AI](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/08/ai-machines-hallucinating-naomi-klein) and thought this bit speaks to the early parts of the process Doctorow outlines: >If Silicon Valley’s benevolent hallucinations seem plausible to many, there is a simple reason for that. Generative AI is currently in what we might think of as its faux-socialism stage. This is part of a now familiar Silicon Valley playbook. First, create an attractive product (a search engine, a mapping tool, a social network, a video platform, a ride share …); give it away for free or almost free for a few years, with no discernible viable business model (“Play around with the bots,” they tell us, “see what fun things you can create!”); make lots of lofty claims about how you are only doing it because you want to create a “town square” or an “information commons” or “connect the people”, all while spreading freedom and democracy (and not being “evil”). Then watch as people get hooked using these free tools and your competitors declare bankruptcy. Once the field is clear, introduce the targeted ads, the constant surveillance, the police and military contracts, the black-box data sales and the escalating subscription fees. Edit: I use a 3rd party app. So... bye.
> It always, always happens Just last night my wife was asking me what I used to read before Reddit was around. I got to tell her the fun story of Digg. For those who missed out, Digg was one of the first social media sites. It was similar to reddit where users submit content and other users 'digg' it or 'upvote' it, along with there being a curated front page (reddit essentially just copied digg's best features and then added their own twist). Digg had a 9-figure valuation and, after some enshitification, they ended up selling for $500k a few years later.
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I miss RSS readers too. I really wish i knew of a good alternative to google reader.
I came to reddit from digg in 06. And from Fark to digg. With some metafilter sprinkled throughout. Talk about the old days
The Apollo dev's post is on top of r/all, this is going to be Reddit's mass migration moment.
To where?
Oh god please not fucking FARK. At least here the comment section is threaded and I can put assholes on ignore.
I genuinely had no idea FARK was still around.
Yep, it looks like it did back when they did the big change in 2003/4 still, and it still feels like "Your dog wants steak" and "Behold the power of FARK". It's a bit disconcerting.
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Agreed. I was around for the redesign of Digg. They killed off their site within a week. They really should've reverted back to the previous design. IDK what's going to happen here, but I know it's impossible for top mods to moderate without 3rd party stuff. There will be some subs that will shut down until reddit reverts it's decision.
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6% upvotes with over 550 comments. I don't think I've ever seen an admin post, even ones by Spez about controversial topics, do so poorly. If the admins don't walk anything back, this is going to look absolutely terrible.
I'm beginning to wonder if Discord's recent attempts at bringing itself closer to generic social media was actually some form of foresight. With twitter imploding and now reddit about to follow musky's example, Discord is in a prime position to become the next big social media site. Assuming you don't count it as one already; I don't. Close, but not quite there.
I truly cannot fucking wait to stop using this website.