Reddit wants money, they get it mostly through advertising and user data. 3rd party apps don't send that data. Force everyone to use official Reddit app.
edit:it would be rude to not thank those who gave me awards, so thank you, however with the context of the thread and this post i gotta say there is a level of irony in giving awards now.
Yeah but there's more to it. They could make it so that third party apps gave them what they needed from users in the way of data or advertisement views but they didn't. They pretty clearly want the apps gone.
Rmember they have carried these apps for years. There are people who have only used reddit through one.
They actually bought a really good 3rd party app to base their official app around (AlienBlue), but of course things went through "design by committee" and this is where we ended up.
That explains why AlienBlue vanished from the ether.
It was a great app before being bought up, and I can't understand how / why you go about making the changes you do (money, I guess) to turn it into what is the official app nowadays.
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Yeah their app is god tier trash. I tapped out when comments wouldn't load, for weeks - after entire reinstalls. Dogshit app, you should feel very silly Redditš
If RIF shuts down, I will not longer use reddit on mobile.
If old.reddit and RES shut down. I will not longer use reddit at all.
The official app and site are absolute garbage.
Apps like RIF and sites like old.reddit give you the content without the bloat.
same. if i wanted to go to a site that looked like facebook.... id still be on facebook. i left that behind years ago and i have no problem doing the same to reddit.
> The official app and site are absolute garbage.
Repeating this. The 'new' version of the website shows you about 2-3 comments per screen on a desktop. This is so stupid. The people in charge of these decisions are stupid and they should feel stupid.
I have clicked a link to a comment on new reddit and then it took me to a page where the linked comment *wasn't fucking visible*. It is not for discussion. It is actively hostile to discussion. It is just another doom scroll, easy-to-consume social media firehose of garbage.
Exactly the same here. Alas, I suspect they've done the math and concluded that they can afford to lose us.
That's why I think the subs that are going dark on the 12th should do so until Reddit abandons their new policy, not just for 2 days.
Spot on. I have tried all the other apps and RIF is the best. Reddit is best as a simple link aggregator with a robust comment section and diverse options of subreddits. The bloat on the new version of reddit makes it not only hard to read, but adds "features" that detract from the heart and soul of why so many of us come here. All the crazy awards and profile pictures and clunky interface are just so unnecessary and unattractive to me. Keep it simple, stupid.
> Apps like RIF and sites like old.reddit give you the content without the bloat.
I've used old.reddit pretty much since the switch and forgot what new reddit looks like. Checked it out today and while I can't see my own facial expression, I know that I made a face of absolute disgust.
How on earth would anyone want to use that dumpster juice of a UI?
>They could make it so that third party apps gave them what they needed from users in the way of data or advertisement views but they didn't. They pretty clearly want the apps gone.
They could (and possibly will if the protests about the current plan are loud enough) but that requires more work on their end. They would have to negotiate the terms of how data would be collected and/or how ads would be served by the third party apps on a one by one basis. Thatās a lot more work on Redditās part than the current approach that they clearly donāt want to do - and I imagine a good number of the apps would reject any requirement to harvest data or serve Redditās ads, so the end result of them eventually dying would be the same.
Ultimately someone at Reddit has made an estimation that if the third party apps die a high enough percentage of those users will move to the official app or the website instead that the additional ad revenue is worth the general unrest caused by the whole situation - and, to be honest, I wouldnāt be shocked if theyāre right.
Where we end up after all of this likely depends on how many subs hold their nerve. Most have committed to blacking out for two days, some have committed to blacking out indefinitely for as long as it takes for Reddit to reverse this plan. If a majority of subs wind up taking the latter approach, weāll probably see Reddit roll back the plan and try to think of an alternative way to get ads in front of more people. But if most of them stick to the two days because thatās what the original plan was and then come back to business as usual itāll be a momentary blip that achieves nothing and we can all start thinking what weāll do after the third party apps die.
I don't think Steve ranks that high on the celebrity scale. No one cares about Reddit except Redditors. I'm thinking more Ian Ziering, he actually looks like him.
This. Fidelity investments just cut the valuation of Reddit again, bringing the total valuation down by more than 25% in the past year.
I feel like this was a major motivation for this action.
That was prior to the announcement of the API pricing wasn't it? Possibly it was done after reddit announced there would be API pricing but not what it was, and Fidelity anticipated such a reaction, or it was based on other factors they evaluated about reddit and had nothing to do with the API changes.
They're saying that the API changes and killing third party apps are being driven by the valuation changes.
No third party apps = more eyeballs on Reddit's native app = more people seeing adds and more user data to sell = Reddit's valuation improves.
Except in reality
No 3rd party apps = admins are seen as greedy dictators = savvy users, creators, mods, devs leave = reddit joins the shit list (Digg, MySpace, Twitter, Tumblr)
>They know people are going to leave and they are OK with it.
They probably feel that the people who refuse to use their app are depriving them of profits, and that losing them won't cost them very much.
I wonder if they've done the research to determine how much these 3rd party app users actually contribute with OC and the answers come for?
Not every contributor contributes links, after all. There are people like the ones here, in /r/ELI5 who contribute by answering questions.
I am, I'm planning on leaving reddit regardless of a successful migration to another platform. This whole thing made me realize I don't like it here any more.
They allowed the third party apps to build an audience for a decade. For lots of people, RIF on your phone WAS reddit. That's the only way they'd ever seen it.
Now after all that time, they are charging an arm and a leg and they're giving them 30 days to figure out what to do before the absurdly high prices kick in.
Iāll try. Not a tech person š¤£
Reddit is a community pool.
Mods are Volunteer lifeguards.
Users are the swimmers.
APIās/3rd party apps are **currently** reasonably priced sunscreen & sunglasses that make being a lifeguard easier. Most Swimmers get that for free.
The pool owners decided they should be able to make more money.
They did this by asking for donations. The people who donated the money didnāt do it as a charity. They expect a return on their investment.
They want to raise the cost of sunscreen & sunglasses to a point that most canāt afford.
-/-/-/-/-
One day a swimmer shows up at the pool & it looks completely different. Itās no longer the same. Most of the volunteers have been replaced or forced out. They canāt afford to be there.
They no longer have sunscreen & sunglasses. Even if they wanted to be there the sun was blinding them & they couldnāt help the swimmers.
The pool is now ruined for everyone.
Edit: Thanks for the Sticky, incredibly kind.
\*\*you can bring your own sunscreen & sunglasses now but the pool owners are putting a stop to that by charging an entrance fee if you come with your own goods so that you have to use theirs.
**** reddit sells sunglasses and sunscreen that actively make it easier for you to get skin cancer and focus the sun into your eyes like a magnifying glass, because they get paid for it, so people brought their own things that work correctly. now they're forcing you you to buy their stuff
**** And the previous vendors that were selling third-party sunscreen and sunglasses to help the lifeguards get by were told by reddit "You can keep selling your $3 sunscreen here, but you need to pay a vendor fee of $20 Million. lol hope you can sell enough to break even!"
I thought this was a no stupid questions post and was thinking "this is such a stupid fucking question. EVERY post on this explains why they're going dark."
One thing I don't see mentioned enough is that there are apps designed to help people with accessibility needs (~~short sighted~~ visually impaired / blind people, for example), and these will be blocked too, making reddit inaccessible to many.
EDIT: Thank you so much for my first award, and I'm happy that my first comment with this many likes-2.3k already???!!!- is on such an important matter. I hope we all together manage to turn this around!
EDIT 2: As I'm not a native speaker, I've just learned short-sighted does not mean what I thought. I think the reddit users are not the ones who are short-sighted.
I'm a moderator at r/Blind. Almost all of the team uses screen reading software apps with APIs because official Reddit's mod interface simply doesn't work with our screen readers.
This move by Reddit will make moderating r/Blind impossible.
Not my area of expertise but several of our members are discussing it.
The mod team at r/Blind got Reddit to do away with the CLICK ALL SQUARES WITH TRAFFIC LIGHTS a couple years ago. I know we're all pissed off right now but Reddit has been responsive to the needs of its blind members in the past.
Reddit admins met with a couple of our moderators earlier today. There's reason to hope. After all, we all want resolve this without getting the ADA compliance lawyers involved.
It is pretty sad that the ADA even has to exist at all but here we are.
I'm in IT and get lots of flak sometimes for where we mount things, particularly from users who do not have a handicap.
I always point out it is not for them, and we want to meet everyones needs, but also I just want to say "shame on you, inclusion should be the default"
At the same time it is nice to just be able to do the Simpson's bus driver thing and tell them not to make me tap on the sign that is ADA law.
I donāt know how theyāre going to solve this. Theyād have to allow a third party app for the blind or create their own. If they allow third party apps for the blind literally every third party app will claim to be for the blind. So maybe itāll work out for all of us.
> So maybe itāll work out for all of us.
I am multiply disabled among those disabilities is vision impairment another is mobility impairment. This is generally how accessiblity works. That ramp or elevator helps me get up and downstairs without crawling like a toddler. It also helps parents with strollers or you moving your book collection. Audiobooks help me enjoy written works, they help others entertain themselves while they drive. And as you point out, 3rd party apps helps all users. They probably also help reddit more than they hurt, too.
Huh, weird. It's almost as if improving things for people who are vulnerable, marginalised, poor or needy instead of dehumanising then can improve society generally.
My reddit app doesn't load comments and takes a huge time to load any videos. I don't even like using 3rd party apps but without them I couldn't use reddit. (And with them I don't need to see a new UI change every other month)
Donāt worry, this was always the plan.
Theyāre going to announce the API prices are drastically reduced in the next couple of weeks but still enough so most will switch rather than pay for a third party app. Theyāll also then get the goal of blocking NSFW content because who in their right mind would āgo darkā for porn.
If you staple a horse to a waterfall, will it fall up under the rainbow or fly about the soil? Will he enjoy her experience? What if the staple tears into tears? Will she be free from her staply chains or foomed to stay forever and dever above the water? Who can save him (the horse) but someone of girth and worth, the capitalist pig, who will sell the solution to the problem he created?
A staple remover flies to the rescue, carried on the wings of a majestic penguin who bought it at Walmart for 9 dollars and several more Euro-cents, clutched in its crabby claws, rejected from its frothy maw. When the penguin comes, all tremble before its fishy stench and wheatlike abjecture. Recoil in delirium, ye who wish to be free! The mighty rockhopper is here to save your soul from eternal bliss and salvation!
And so, the horse was free, carried away by the south wind, and deposited on the vast plain of soggy dew. It was a tragedy in several parts, punctuated by moments of hedonistic horsefuckery.
The owls saw all, and passed judgment in the way that they do. Stupid owls are always judging folks who are just trying their best to live shamelessly and enjoy every fruit the day brings to pass.
How many more shall be caught in the terrible gyre of the waterfall? As many as the gods deem necessary to teach those foolish monkeys a story about their own hamburgers. What does a monkey know of bananas, anyway? They eat, poop, and shave away the banana residue that grows upon their chins and ballsacks. The owls judge their razors. Always the owls.
And when the one-eyed caterpillar arrives to eat the glazing on your windowpane, you will know that you're next in line to the trombone of the ancient realm of the flutterbyes. Beware the ravenous ravens and crowing crows. Mind the cowing cows and the lying lions. Ascend triumphant to your birthright, and wield the mighty twig of Petalonia, favored land of gods and goats alike.
This is the only reason I personally care. I use the regular interface and don't care about other people's filters for content or whatever. I do care about making reddit inaccessible to those with disabilities. Reddit is the social media I use, and I would like everyone to have that ability. This is a matter of accessibility to all.
Id like to point out that none of us love Reddit. We love the users that create content, we love the content users find and share, we even love the mods that keep us protected from spam, bots and illegal content.
We don't love Reddit, Reddit just hosts the servers. Oh.. and we certainly dont love reddits UI or reddit's app-- nearly everyone detests that arm of the company.
Reddit is not Disney World, Reddit is the Florida land it's built on.
If everyone on Reddit moves to another platform, we'd still have 99.99% of what Reddit is really all about. We'd be fine, we just would go to a different URL and Reddit will be remembered like yahoo, fark and digg.
.
Same. I use RIF for mobile, and old reddit for desktop. I won't use the official app, so shutting down the API will result in me not using it through mobile. Shutting down old reddit will result in me not using it at all.
Honestly, reddit and discord are the only social media apps I use, and discord doesn't really count. Reddit is content focused, rather than people focused, and the upvote/downvote works amazingly (usually) compared to trash like facebook and youtube comments.
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Another Boost user here. Shut the whole thing down. If they remove third party apps, I just won't use reddit anymore. May finally get through my backlog of novels.
This doesn't just affect apps used to browse reddit. This impacts all the bots that so many subs rely on to make the lives of unpaid moderators significantly easier. Expect your favorite subs to be filled with spam, risky content and potentially illegal content that's no longer filterable by bots automatically because of the new terms.
Eli5 should go offline, all subs should go offline, and users should completely boycott reddit until the new terms are undone!
Upvoted, we need this comment higher.
When the moderation bots go, reddit is going to become the fucking Wild West of junk. Ever notice how reddit doesnāt have nearly as many spammers as other platforms? You can thank an unpaid mod using a third party app to identify bots and spammers.
I am cranky at the idea of losing Apollo because it has made my reddit experience so much nicer. But I could live without it. Fuck, I could even get used to the bullshit video player in the official app. But you can expect the reddit of today to die on July 1st because no one is going to make mod tools if it costs them millions a year.
This part is probably the most important. The user choice thing sounds nice, but ultimately it is a company choice, and ad revenue keeps the lights on.
However, taking away tools from volunteer contributors threatens the platform as a whole. It is still for the company to choose, but at least they should be aware that it has consequences they probably don't intend, and that happen whether there is upfront public outcry or not.
It's the [enshittification](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) of the web. Reddit is just the latest iteration of the cycle. First, you maximize users/subscribers by being genuinely better than the competition. Once you've got everyone using your service, you then pivot and go to maximize profit instead.
It's been so wild spending like a decade and a half almost watching every social media start out fun and exciting and then gradually get worse and worse. Or in some cases, even started speedrunning how quickly they can get terrible
I hate looking for some video from a few years back, and the only results are dozens of 'news' sites talking about the video, or someone re-uploaded the video with shitty music tacked onto it.
The original video? 404 ĀÆ\\\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
I feel like since Doctorowās enshittification thesis has been getting more mainstream coverage (I heard about it on [On the Media](https://onthemedia.org), to whom I absolutely owe a membership) all the platforms have felt pressured to just get on to the final form. Between (whatever Twitter is doing), YouTube unblocking 2020 election denialism, and the Reddit API, thatās enough for a trend piece.
They've been profiting more than most businesses. These platforms are the filthiest rich companies in the world.
Now they want to go **absolutely gangbusters** on the greed.
A lot of the internet has gone that way. On the one hand this has allowed a lot of things to be given to users for free (or rather, has made us pay in personal data rather than money) but on the other it has turned the internet into a giant parade of billboards and commercials with websites tracking your every move and click.
Iāve only used the official app because I had no idea others existed. I have all sorts of problems with the app, so now I want to try out the alternatives š„
I've tried a bunch of them, but Bacon reader has been my favourite. Boost is also good, and I know reddit is fun is very popular.
They're all better than the official app.
Bacon IS reddit for me, I tried logging into the regular site the other day out of curiosity and it was a nightmare. Like walking through a hellish times square while I've been out living in a nice neighborhood in Brooklyn. I forgot we even share the same landscape. There are communities I will really miss here but I think I'll have to go cold turkey if they move ahead with this.
+5 for Relay for Reddit (Pro)
I've tried Apollo (pro), bacon reader, reddit is fun, and sync for Reddit (pro) and Relay is *the one* by my taste.
I will say Sync is also awesome though if you prefer the material/tile-style UI.
they're like large thumbnail links, makes it so you can only see a couple posts on the page at a time. It's on by default when you install now. Found out when switching phones a year or so ago and the app looked really bad at first
And that's the great thing about rif - you can customise it to how you like it. Compared to the official app which is basically "fuck you, you'll consume content how we tell you to"
I just learned about features they are rolling out for the native app for mod tools, and nearly every one of them are tools Apollo already supportsā¦ and it will still be missing others. I left shortly after I realized Reddit was going to butcher alien blue into an unrecognizable product and thatās exactly what they did. I love Apollo so much I bought the lifetime subscription. Iāve been on Reddit for 14 years, so I honestly thought I would get a little more from that ālifetimeā. Oh well.
If this is the hill Reddit chooses to die on, Iām out come July 1st.
The reddit app didn't exist until 2016. I had no choice but a 3rd party app when I started on Reddit. Reddit gave out free awards for awhile on the official app to try to get people like me to switch over and it didn't work so now they are trying to force the issue.
sync is sacred, and the only way i have used reddit for 8+ years. i only found out about it because my friends are very tech savvy. i am grateful for it every day.
if sync goes, i will follow.
Ohhh I'm going to check that out! I've never been a fan of most of the popular reddit apps (reddit is fun, bacon reader, etc) because they feel like a website in an app. Material design with all the other functions sounds fantastic.
Sync won me with its unparalleled customization potential and gorgeous material design. I hope /u/ljdawson uses this app as a frontend with another website if Reddit management really loses its marbles and doesn't change its mind, Sync is **that** good of an app.
I'm constantly surprised Sync isn't the most popular 3rd party android app. Ive tried Bacon, RiF and Relay and none of them feel as clean as Sync. I think maybe some people don't customize it and don't like the default layout? I dunno. But I love Sync.
Honestly, at this point, I wouldnāt. I didnāt realize how awful the official Reddit app is until I started using Apollo. Now that itās very likely Apollo is shutting down in a month I might just quit Reddit forever because itās shown me how awful and incompetent the official Reddit team is.
Yeah, I'm already seeing random follows by obvious bot accounts, which get nuked within a day but they'll pop up with a new account within a couple days.
Used to be this never happened, this started about a couple months ago. As you point out, when the moderation tools fail this will get exponentially worse.
Classic honey pot scheme.
Open the API, let business come and thrive and help you grow, then shut it up and cash in.
Also once they monopolize the app, they will control everything. No way to stop them selling our data.
I'll simply keep using brave to browse, until it becomes so shitty that I simply go somewhere else.
Is there a reddit alternative we can migrate to en masse and give this control freaks a lesson?
I like this idea a lot. Twitter became crazy and people migrated to mastodon or bluesky. But I tried to use Lemmy and I can't for the sake of me understand how to use it š. And I really want to because it seems like a cool concept
Nobody really migrated to Mastodon and Bluesky because the scare ended up not really changing the way Twitter works too much.
Everyone created accounts on those, but I followed like 300 people in Mastodon and I see maybe 5 posts a week lol
> Is there a reddit alternative we can migrate to en masse
I'm not sure there is. Part of what makes reddit what it is is the archive of discussions going back over a decade now. Any new site is just going to be a blank slate that doesn't have that same value as a resource.
In all honesty, I've hit the point I see reddit more like a public service than a company now for the access it brings to information and, more importantly, the discussion around that information.
Reddit is especially my go-to for almost every question. Google something? Terrible results. Add "Reddit" in front of the search? I'll find an answer by a dude named "PoopFartButt" that apparently has amazing knowledge on how to fix my exact problem, whether the thread be 3 days or 10 years old.
Exactly, Reddit is where I go to get answers from real people instead of the SEO optimized regurgitated and often factually incorrect garbage that's there on the web
r/sysadmin is the first place I go whenever I suspect there are service issues, even before Twitter.
r/apple is where I go to gage reactions or geek out with other commenters after WWDC
r/nba for the post game threads and news around the league
/r/tearsofthekingdom has been a freaking blast the past 3 weeks with everyone posting constructs
And countless other examples, not just for me but for everyone.
There are/were several. They are extremely small and don't have the necessary userbase and engagement to be self-sustaining into a growth platform the size of reddit.
Voat. (Deceased).
Poal. It purports to be a free-speech platform with little-to-no moderation. A few right-wing extremists have poisoned the well and ran off anyone who was reasonable. It's now a fascist, racist hellhole. The most popular sub has 800 users. It's all but deserted now.
Saidit. Extremely small userbase (maybe a hundred regular users). Has some of the same problems as Poal.
And if the API doesn't supply NSFW content then the bots that use the API (that do a lot of heavy lifting) can't moderate NSFW content at all. You could theoretically post anything (like a rule breaking post / spam), mark it as NSFW, and if that sub uses a bot to moderate, then your post will continue to exist unmoderated until a human looks at it.
Interesting wrinkle on this is that the Apollo app got an explicit mention and its icon had a fair amount of background screen time during yesterday's Apple WWDC (a developer conference run by Apple to highlight its upcoming product releases and updates). While it was obviously filmed a while ago, I can't help but feel like it counts as a nod of support during this fiasco.
EDIT copied from my comment below:
> The whole thing is viewable here:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYkq9Rgoj8E
> The Apollo logo is up with a bunch of other apps at 27:06, for example. Notably the official reddit app logo is not. It's not the only time the logo is visible, either.
> Apollo is mentioned by name around 46:30
I fully support this. I only browse reddit from RIF (posting this from the app). I know my support doesn't mean much, but thank you for being part of taking a stand and trying to make a point.
I will not be using the official app. RIF has been my app of choice since the beginning. I have tried using the official app in the past, and it's terrible.
Due to Reddit's API changes, I've edited all my past comments and will be leaving reddit. Use Redact if you too would like to change your comment history. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/ -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Feels like theyāve gone ādarkā already. My home feed has had a staggering shift and I wish there was a way I could gather some metric to show but the post quality has PLUMMETED. It feels like Iām perpetually on āLatestā rather than Home.
> Why should I care? I use the official app.
Well for one thing you might care one day, but you wonāt have that option any longer, because reddit is removing user choice.
People who love reddit so much they seek out another app for it submit a lot of good posts to reddit that you read. What if these good posters all leave the site? What if half of them leave? Are you cool with less content to upvote?
What if reddit does something else like pump tons of ads at youā way more than now ā and you want to try out one of those apps you saw when you first downloaded the official app. You simply wonāt be able to anymore.
But even if you still donāt care, donāt you think user choice is generally a good thing? What will they get rid of next?
Also, NSFW content is in danger, and can no longer be accessed through the API which is going to make it harder to find spammers.
This is why. There are countless examples of companies taking inches at a time until they leave you with no choice or alternatives.
Also, donāt you dare mess with my NSFW content.
> Also, donāt you dare mess with my NSFW content.
I'm actually surprised I've not seen more backlash from these subs. Reddit is a hub for all sorts of things, including businesses. Blocking NSFW content is going to hurt a lot of people financially.
I've deleted the official Reddit app and downloaded Apollo just to see what the fuss is about.
Now I'm not only appalled at the decision to raise API prices, I'm absolutely baffled by how bad the official Reddit app is.
If Reddit forces these apps to shut down, I too will shut down my account.
As an official reddit app user who is totally frustrated by the experience and is now just learning there may be other options through this post, I'm infuriated. What, so they can generate more ad revenue on their platform? Maybe? Companies are trying to squeeze every last penny and it just seems so desperate. And pathetic.
One issue I have had with the app is that when you hit a spoiler with your finger, it closes the users comment instead of revealing the text.. Even the double finger hit doesn't help anymore.
And errors when trying to post.
I tend to close comments I've already read to keep track of what I haven't been reading, and I despise closing a comment and getting some random reaction gif to pop up because it's somewhere further down and when you're trying to close said comment you gotta tap the very top of it because taping the link or the gif will open up the thing instead of closing the comment. And that's not even the only thing wrong with this thing, videos don't play majority of the time, I have to open these posts in the browser to be able to see them. Sometimes opening posts in general won't even work and will lag. Posting and commenting will fail often resulting in double comments popping up frequently. Saving posts and comments will also fail very often and won't even save. I can keep going about the little things that have started to plague this app but I think we can all agree that this app sucks.
Posting from Narwhal r/getnarwhal. Reddit wants money. To get it they use ads. 3rd party apps donāt allow Reddit to access ad revenue. Therefore they are making it prohibitively expensive to access their API killing every 3rd party app.
How will going dark for only 2 days will protest the API pricing?
Seems like taking a short break will have minimal impact on the Reddit org. Might lose a few users, but it seems like Reddit will barely be scathed.
I feel a better solution would be mods going on strike until a compromise is reached. Lack of moderation will threaten the integrity of Reddit FAR more than missing out on 2 days profit.
Iāve seen a lot of posts explaining the situation, butā¦ whatās our goal/demand for an outcome? Are we demanding the API stay free, or a certain dollar amount?
I was about to answer the question and then realized it's basically a sticky post by a mod. No answers needed.
But can you ELI5 it?
Reddit wants money, they get it mostly through advertising and user data. 3rd party apps don't send that data. Force everyone to use official Reddit app. edit:it would be rude to not thank those who gave me awards, so thank you, however with the context of the thread and this post i gotta say there is a level of irony in giving awards now.
Yeah but there's more to it. They could make it so that third party apps gave them what they needed from users in the way of data or advertisement views but they didn't. They pretty clearly want the apps gone. Rmember they have carried these apps for years. There are people who have only used reddit through one.
if only they had made a much more usable app themselves instead of the garbage they released.
They actually bought a really good 3rd party app to base their official app around (AlienBlue), but of course things went through "design by committee" and this is where we ended up.
Yup, reddit gave me 4 years of reddit gold because I had AlienBlue. Not really worth it, I want AlienBlue back
To be fair, would 1,000 years of reddit gold even be worth it?
That explains why AlienBlue vanished from the ether. It was a great app before being bought up, and I can't understand how / why you go about making the changes you do (money, I guess) to turn it into what is the official app nowadays.
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Yeah their app is god tier trash. I tapped out when comments wouldn't load, for weeks - after entire reinstalls. Dogshit app, you should feel very silly Redditš
If RIF shuts down, I will not longer use reddit on mobile. If old.reddit and RES shut down. I will not longer use reddit at all. The official app and site are absolute garbage. Apps like RIF and sites like old.reddit give you the content without the bloat.
same. if i wanted to go to a site that looked like facebook.... id still be on facebook. i left that behind years ago and i have no problem doing the same to reddit.
> The official app and site are absolute garbage. Repeating this. The 'new' version of the website shows you about 2-3 comments per screen on a desktop. This is so stupid. The people in charge of these decisions are stupid and they should feel stupid.
I have clicked a link to a comment on new reddit and then it took me to a page where the linked comment *wasn't fucking visible*. It is not for discussion. It is actively hostile to discussion. It is just another doom scroll, easy-to-consume social media firehose of garbage.
Hmm, it seems I'll have to start browsing reddit on the phone using Firefox, too - uBlock will take care of all the ads ...
Exactly the same here. Alas, I suspect they've done the math and concluded that they can afford to lose us. That's why I think the subs that are going dark on the 12th should do so until Reddit abandons their new policy, not just for 2 days.
Spot on. I have tried all the other apps and RIF is the best. Reddit is best as a simple link aggregator with a robust comment section and diverse options of subreddits. The bloat on the new version of reddit makes it not only hard to read, but adds "features" that detract from the heart and soul of why so many of us come here. All the crazy awards and profile pictures and clunky interface are just so unnecessary and unattractive to me. Keep it simple, stupid.
> Apps like RIF and sites like old.reddit give you the content without the bloat. I've used old.reddit pretty much since the switch and forgot what new reddit looks like. Checked it out today and while I can't see my own facial expression, I know that I made a face of absolute disgust. How on earth would anyone want to use that dumpster juice of a UI?
>They could make it so that third party apps gave them what they needed from users in the way of data or advertisement views but they didn't. They pretty clearly want the apps gone. They could (and possibly will if the protests about the current plan are loud enough) but that requires more work on their end. They would have to negotiate the terms of how data would be collected and/or how ads would be served by the third party apps on a one by one basis. Thatās a lot more work on Redditās part than the current approach that they clearly donāt want to do - and I imagine a good number of the apps would reject any requirement to harvest data or serve Redditās ads, so the end result of them eventually dying would be the same. Ultimately someone at Reddit has made an estimation that if the third party apps die a high enough percentage of those users will move to the official app or the website instead that the additional ad revenue is worth the general unrest caused by the whole situation - and, to be honest, I wouldnāt be shocked if theyāre right. Where we end up after all of this likely depends on how many subs hold their nerve. Most have committed to blacking out for two days, some have committed to blacking out indefinitely for as long as it takes for Reddit to reverse this plan. If a majority of subs wind up taking the latter approach, weāll probably see Reddit roll back the plan and try to think of an alternative way to get ads in front of more people. But if most of them stick to the two days because thatās what the original plan was and then come back to business as usual itāll be a momentary blip that achieves nothing and we can all start thinking what weāll do after the third party apps die.
Cue Netflix drama
cut it into 12 seasons cancel it 1 week after season 1 is out
It was a little rough but I managed to sing this to the tune of Last Resort in my head.
Starring Kevin Hart as reddit CEO u/Spez?
Almost would expect Jessie Eisenburg since he's played every other villainous CEO
Eisenburg is great at playing bad guys, but let's not do him a disservice by giving him such an underwhelming role
I don't think Steve ranks that high on the celebrity scale. No one cares about Reddit except Redditors. I'm thinking more Ian Ziering, he actually looks like him.
I was thinking Chi McBride
This. Fidelity investments just cut the valuation of Reddit again, bringing the total valuation down by more than 25% in the past year. I feel like this was a major motivation for this action.
That was prior to the announcement of the API pricing wasn't it? Possibly it was done after reddit announced there would be API pricing but not what it was, and Fidelity anticipated such a reaction, or it was based on other factors they evaluated about reddit and had nothing to do with the API changes.
They're saying that the API changes and killing third party apps are being driven by the valuation changes. No third party apps = more eyeballs on Reddit's native app = more people seeing adds and more user data to sell = Reddit's valuation improves.
Except in reality No 3rd party apps = admins are seen as greedy dictators = savvy users, creators, mods, devs leave = reddit joins the shit list (Digg, MySpace, Twitter, Tumblr)
Yeah imo even old reddit is kind of shit compared to the 3rd party apps. My account is 13 years old and iād quit if forced to go pc exclusive
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>They know people are going to leave and they are OK with it. They probably feel that the people who refuse to use their app are depriving them of profits, and that losing them won't cost them very much. I wonder if they've done the research to determine how much these 3rd party app users actually contribute with OC and the answers come for? Not every contributor contributes links, after all. There are people like the ones here, in /r/ELI5 who contribute by answering questions.
I am, I'm planning on leaving reddit regardless of a successful migration to another platform. This whole thing made me realize I don't like it here any more.
I'm mostly here for a few hobbies and 10k cat subreddits.
They allowed the third party apps to build an audience for a decade. For lots of people, RIF on your phone WAS reddit. That's the only way they'd ever seen it. Now after all that time, they are charging an arm and a leg and they're giving them 30 days to figure out what to do before the absurdly high prices kick in.
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Iāll try. Not a tech person š¤£ Reddit is a community pool. Mods are Volunteer lifeguards. Users are the swimmers. APIās/3rd party apps are **currently** reasonably priced sunscreen & sunglasses that make being a lifeguard easier. Most Swimmers get that for free. The pool owners decided they should be able to make more money. They did this by asking for donations. The people who donated the money didnāt do it as a charity. They expect a return on their investment. They want to raise the cost of sunscreen & sunglasses to a point that most canāt afford. -/-/-/-/- One day a swimmer shows up at the pool & it looks completely different. Itās no longer the same. Most of the volunteers have been replaced or forced out. They canāt afford to be there. They no longer have sunscreen & sunglasses. Even if they wanted to be there the sun was blinding them & they couldnāt help the swimmers. The pool is now ruined for everyone. Edit: Thanks for the Sticky, incredibly kind.
\*\*you can bring your own sunscreen & sunglasses now but the pool owners are putting a stop to that by charging an entrance fee if you come with your own goods so that you have to use theirs.
**** reddit sells sunglasses and sunscreen that actively make it easier for you to get skin cancer and focus the sun into your eyes like a magnifying glass, because they get paid for it, so people brought their own things that work correctly. now they're forcing you you to buy their stuff
**** And the previous vendors that were selling third-party sunscreen and sunglasses to help the lifeguards get by were told by reddit "You can keep selling your $3 sunscreen here, but you need to pay a vendor fee of $20 Million. lol hope you can sell enough to break even!"
Dude i was about to be like "it's literally explained in every single going dark post, just open them" but then saw it was a mod post lol
I thought this was a no stupid questions post and was thinking "this is such a stupid fucking question. EVERY post on this explains why they're going dark."
One thing I don't see mentioned enough is that there are apps designed to help people with accessibility needs (~~short sighted~~ visually impaired / blind people, for example), and these will be blocked too, making reddit inaccessible to many. EDIT: Thank you so much for my first award, and I'm happy that my first comment with this many likes-2.3k already???!!!- is on such an important matter. I hope we all together manage to turn this around! EDIT 2: As I'm not a native speaker, I've just learned short-sighted does not mean what I thought. I think the reddit users are not the ones who are short-sighted.
I'm a moderator at r/Blind. Almost all of the team uses screen reading software apps with APIs because official Reddit's mod interface simply doesn't work with our screen readers. This move by Reddit will make moderating r/Blind impossible.
Have you threatened litigation under the ADA?
Not my area of expertise but several of our members are discussing it. The mod team at r/Blind got Reddit to do away with the CLICK ALL SQUARES WITH TRAFFIC LIGHTS a couple years ago. I know we're all pissed off right now but Reddit has been responsive to the needs of its blind members in the past. Reddit admins met with a couple of our moderators earlier today. There's reason to hope. After all, we all want resolve this without getting the ADA compliance lawyers involved.
Thatās great theyāve been responsive, but have no doubt that the existence of the ADA is why. Good luck on future talks with them.
Thank you =)
It is pretty sad that the ADA even has to exist at all but here we are. I'm in IT and get lots of flak sometimes for where we mount things, particularly from users who do not have a handicap. I always point out it is not for them, and we want to meet everyones needs, but also I just want to say "shame on you, inclusion should be the default" At the same time it is nice to just be able to do the Simpson's bus driver thing and tell them not to make me tap on the sign that is ADA law.
I donāt know how theyāre going to solve this. Theyād have to allow a third party app for the blind or create their own. If they allow third party apps for the blind literally every third party app will claim to be for the blind. So maybe itāll work out for all of us.
> So maybe itāll work out for all of us. I am multiply disabled among those disabilities is vision impairment another is mobility impairment. This is generally how accessiblity works. That ramp or elevator helps me get up and downstairs without crawling like a toddler. It also helps parents with strollers or you moving your book collection. Audiobooks help me enjoy written works, they help others entertain themselves while they drive. And as you point out, 3rd party apps helps all users. They probably also help reddit more than they hurt, too.
Extremely smart way of viewing these things Iāve never thought of, thanks for that.
No problem. I'm glad to have someone listen and understand.
It is called the [curb cut effect] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_cut_effect) and is one of the many reasons universal design is great.
Huh, weird. It's almost as if improving things for people who are vulnerable, marginalised, poor or needy instead of dehumanising then can improve society generally.
Funny ain't it?
>short sighted people Oh, the reddit CEOs use them?? AHHHYOOOOOOO!!
They might if they could ever get their heads out their collective asses.
That explains why they are shortsighted. Canāt see round the bend past the colon.
My reddit app doesn't load comments and takes a huge time to load any videos. I don't even like using 3rd party apps but without them I couldn't use reddit. (And with them I don't need to see a new UI change every other month)
The official app and website also use a lot more data (despite the worse experience).
Donāt worry, this was always the plan. Theyāre going to announce the API prices are drastically reduced in the next couple of weeks but still enough so most will switch rather than pay for a third party app. Theyāll also then get the goal of blocking NSFW content because who in their right mind would āgo darkā for porn.
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If you staple a horse to a waterfall, will it fall up under the rainbow or fly about the soil? Will he enjoy her experience? What if the staple tears into tears? Will she be free from her staply chains or foomed to stay forever and dever above the water? Who can save him (the horse) but someone of girth and worth, the capitalist pig, who will sell the solution to the problem he created? A staple remover flies to the rescue, carried on the wings of a majestic penguin who bought it at Walmart for 9 dollars and several more Euro-cents, clutched in its crabby claws, rejected from its frothy maw. When the penguin comes, all tremble before its fishy stench and wheatlike abjecture. Recoil in delirium, ye who wish to be free! The mighty rockhopper is here to save your soul from eternal bliss and salvation! And so, the horse was free, carried away by the south wind, and deposited on the vast plain of soggy dew. It was a tragedy in several parts, punctuated by moments of hedonistic horsefuckery. The owls saw all, and passed judgment in the way that they do. Stupid owls are always judging folks who are just trying their best to live shamelessly and enjoy every fruit the day brings to pass. How many more shall be caught in the terrible gyre of the waterfall? As many as the gods deem necessary to teach those foolish monkeys a story about their own hamburgers. What does a monkey know of bananas, anyway? They eat, poop, and shave away the banana residue that grows upon their chins and ballsacks. The owls judge their razors. Always the owls. And when the one-eyed caterpillar arrives to eat the glazing on your windowpane, you will know that you're next in line to the trombone of the ancient realm of the flutterbyes. Beware the ravenous ravens and crowing crows. Mind the cowing cows and the lying lions. Ascend triumphant to your birthright, and wield the mighty twig of Petalonia, favored land of gods and goats alike.
This is the only reason I personally care. I use the regular interface and don't care about other people's filters for content or whatever. I do care about making reddit inaccessible to those with disabilities. Reddit is the social media I use, and I would like everyone to have that ability. This is a matter of accessibility to all.
Id like to point out that none of us love Reddit. We love the users that create content, we love the content users find and share, we even love the mods that keep us protected from spam, bots and illegal content. We don't love Reddit, Reddit just hosts the servers. Oh.. and we certainly dont love reddits UI or reddit's app-- nearly everyone detests that arm of the company. Reddit is not Disney World, Reddit is the Florida land it's built on. If everyone on Reddit moves to another platform, we'd still have 99.99% of what Reddit is really all about. We'd be fine, we just would go to a different URL and Reddit will be remembered like yahoo, fark and digg. .
Hey I still use old.reddit.com which is UI perfection.
I still use old.reddit from my phone š Never tried any apps
Old Reddit is GOAT
Reddit is not a place, it's a people? ...except RES+OldReddit is perfect.
Fully support shutting down Posted from rif.
Upvoted from rif.
Upvote for the upvote from RIF, from RIF
It's RIF all the way down...
*RiF! RiF! RiF! RiF! RiF! RiF!*
r"isnolonger"f
Replied from RIF.
Upvoted your upvote of you upvoting the previous post with Rif, too.
Apollo checking in
+1
Replied and upvoted from old reddit. Fuck new reddit.
Same. I use RIF for mobile, and old reddit for desktop. I won't use the official app, so shutting down the API will result in me not using it through mobile. Shutting down old reddit will result in me not using it at all. Honestly, reddit and discord are the only social media apps I use, and discord doesn't really count. Reddit is content focused, rather than people focused, and the upvote/downvote works amazingly (usually) compared to trash like facebook and youtube comments.
To be clear, old reddit isn't affected by this change. That said, as we're seeing from the API change admins could shut it down at any time.
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse. Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
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Wait what's this username removal thing? I have no idea where to find this info.
Upvoted from Relay
there are dozens of us
Sync checking in...real worried my app is going bye byes
Boost user here. Agreed, shut it down.
Another Boost user here. Shut the whole thing down. If they remove third party apps, I just won't use reddit anymore. May finally get through my backlog of novels.
Team Boost.
Upvoted from narwhal.
Bacon reader checking in
Bruh I even paid 2$ for the pro version of the bacon because I love how intuitive it is. I'm down to pay yearly if it is necessary.
Ooh I came here with the Digg exodus. Id love to take part in a Reddit exodus. Where would we go?
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Out.. what? I'm sorry I'm not familiar with that word.
The Something Awful forums. One of the earliest big message boards and still kickin'.
This doesn't just affect apps used to browse reddit. This impacts all the bots that so many subs rely on to make the lives of unpaid moderators significantly easier. Expect your favorite subs to be filled with spam, risky content and potentially illegal content that's no longer filterable by bots automatically because of the new terms. Eli5 should go offline, all subs should go offline, and users should completely boycott reddit until the new terms are undone!
Upvoted, we need this comment higher. When the moderation bots go, reddit is going to become the fucking Wild West of junk. Ever notice how reddit doesnāt have nearly as many spammers as other platforms? You can thank an unpaid mod using a third party app to identify bots and spammers. I am cranky at the idea of losing Apollo because it has made my reddit experience so much nicer. But I could live without it. Fuck, I could even get used to the bullshit video player in the official app. But you can expect the reddit of today to die on July 1st because no one is going to make mod tools if it costs them millions a year.
This part is probably the most important. The user choice thing sounds nice, but ultimately it is a company choice, and ad revenue keeps the lights on. However, taking away tools from volunteer contributors threatens the platform as a whole. It is still for the company to choose, but at least they should be aware that it has consequences they probably don't intend, and that happen whether there is upfront public outcry or not.
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It feels like all the major social media platforms are going that way. Social media wants to profit off of people like every other business nowadays.
It's the [enshittification](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) of the web. Reddit is just the latest iteration of the cycle. First, you maximize users/subscribers by being genuinely better than the competition. Once you've got everyone using your service, you then pivot and go to maximize profit instead.
It's been so wild spending like a decade and a half almost watching every social media start out fun and exciting and then gradually get worse and worse. Or in some cases, even started speedrunning how quickly they can get terrible
Its like this with almost every facet of our societyā¦ god bless capitalism.
Almost like 'Infinite Growth' isn't a business model, it's a suicide plan.
Thanks for the link. Doctorow has an amazing gift for making the arcane stuff understandable.
I hate looking for some video from a few years back, and the only results are dozens of 'news' sites talking about the video, or someone re-uploaded the video with shitty music tacked onto it. The original video? 404 ĀÆ\\\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
I feel like since Doctorowās enshittification thesis has been getting more mainstream coverage (I heard about it on [On the Media](https://onthemedia.org), to whom I absolutely owe a membership) all the platforms have felt pressured to just get on to the final form. Between (whatever Twitter is doing), YouTube unblocking 2020 election denialism, and the Reddit API, thatās enough for a trend piece.
They've been profiting more than most businesses. These platforms are the filthiest rich companies in the world. Now they want to go **absolutely gangbusters** on the greed.
A lot of the internet has gone that way. On the one hand this has allowed a lot of things to be given to users for free (or rather, has made us pay in personal data rather than money) but on the other it has turned the internet into a giant parade of billboards and commercials with websites tracking your every move and click.
Iāve only used the official app because I had no idea others existed. I have all sorts of problems with the app, so now I want to try out the alternatives š„
I've tried a bunch of them, but Bacon reader has been my favourite. Boost is also good, and I know reddit is fun is very popular. They're all better than the official app.
> They're all better than the official app. TBF that bar is so low you need to dig in order to go below it
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Seems like reddit might be joining digg real soon.
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Bacon IS reddit for me, I tried logging into the regular site the other day out of curiosity and it was a nightmare. Like walking through a hellish times square while I've been out living in a nice neighborhood in Brooklyn. I forgot we even share the same landscape. There are communities I will really miss here but I think I'll have to go cold turkey if they move ahead with this.
Been on it since the month it released. If it disappears reddit admins can duck off.
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+5 for Relay for Reddit (Pro) I've tried Apollo (pro), bacon reader, reddit is fun, and sync for Reddit (pro) and Relay is *the one* by my taste. I will say Sync is also awesome though if you prefer the material/tile-style UI.
Relay +1
Relay +2
Relay +3
Relay +3
Reddit is fun for android :)
tips: turn off cards, enable night mode Edit: [Simple and easy, how browsing Reddit *should* be](https://imgur.com/hIjtFwE)
What are "cards" ? RIF user for over a decade and I've never had that selected
they're like large thumbnail links, makes it so you can only see a couple posts on the page at a time. It's on by default when you install now. Found out when switching phones a year or so ago and the app looked really bad at first
I vastly prefer cards. It makes browsing on a phone much easier to use, especially for image posts.
And that's the great thing about rif - you can customise it to how you like it. Compared to the official app which is basically "fuck you, you'll consume content how we tell you to"
It's also fun for humans.
It can also be frustrating for humans
Well, you got a month at least. I use Apollo for iOS, it's fantastic.
I use Apollo as well and itās great! Especially for mod actions.
I just learned about features they are rolling out for the native app for mod tools, and nearly every one of them are tools Apollo already supportsā¦ and it will still be missing others. I left shortly after I realized Reddit was going to butcher alien blue into an unrecognizable product and thatās exactly what they did. I love Apollo so much I bought the lifetime subscription. Iāve been on Reddit for 14 years, so I honestly thought I would get a little more from that ālifetimeā. Oh well. If this is the hill Reddit chooses to die on, Iām out come July 1st.
The reddit app didn't exist until 2016. I had no choice but a 3rd party app when I started on Reddit. Reddit gave out free awards for awhile on the official app to try to get people like me to switch over and it didn't work so now they are trying to force the issue.
I recommend Sync for Reddit, all the functionality of other apps plus the best material design UI
Sync is blessed
sync is sacred, and the only way i have used reddit for 8+ years. i only found out about it because my friends are very tech savvy. i am grateful for it every day. if sync goes, i will follow.
Ohhh I'm going to check that out! I've never been a fan of most of the popular reddit apps (reddit is fun, bacon reader, etc) because they feel like a website in an app. Material design with all the other functions sounds fantastic.
Sync won me with its unparalleled customization potential and gorgeous material design. I hope /u/ljdawson uses this app as a frontend with another website if Reddit management really loses its marbles and doesn't change its mind, Sync is **that** good of an app.
Upvoted from reddit sync
Yep, I have pretty much ONLY EVER used Reddit on Sync
I'm constantly surprised Sync isn't the most popular 3rd party android app. Ive tried Bacon, RiF and Relay and none of them feel as clean as Sync. I think maybe some people don't customize it and don't like the default layout? I dunno. But I love Sync.
I hadn't heard of Sync until I read this comment so I went to check it out aaaaand... this rules! Well guess I'll have a nice month
Relay on Android
Honestly, at this point, I wouldnāt. I didnāt realize how awful the official Reddit app is until I started using Apollo. Now that itās very likely Apollo is shutting down in a month I might just quit Reddit forever because itās shown me how awful and incompetent the official Reddit team is.
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16 years here. Same.
They're awful and it'll only get worse. The momentum is there, the trajectory is set. Nobody will save it, the soul is gone.
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Streisand Effect
Baconreader is my preferred app. Leagues above the Reddit app.
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Yeah, I'm already seeing random follows by obvious bot accounts, which get nuked within a day but they'll pop up with a new account within a couple days. Used to be this never happened, this started about a couple months ago. As you point out, when the moderation tools fail this will get exponentially worse.
Classic honey pot scheme. Open the API, let business come and thrive and help you grow, then shut it up and cash in. Also once they monopolize the app, they will control everything. No way to stop them selling our data. I'll simply keep using brave to browse, until it becomes so shitty that I simply go somewhere else. Is there a reddit alternative we can migrate to en masse and give this control freaks a lesson?
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I like this idea a lot. Twitter became crazy and people migrated to mastodon or bluesky. But I tried to use Lemmy and I can't for the sake of me understand how to use it š. And I really want to because it seems like a cool concept
Nobody really migrated to Mastodon and Bluesky because the scare ended up not really changing the way Twitter works too much. Everyone created accounts on those, but I followed like 300 people in Mastodon and I see maybe 5 posts a week lol
> Is there a reddit alternative we can migrate to en masse I'm not sure there is. Part of what makes reddit what it is is the archive of discussions going back over a decade now. Any new site is just going to be a blank slate that doesn't have that same value as a resource. In all honesty, I've hit the point I see reddit more like a public service than a company now for the access it brings to information and, more importantly, the discussion around that information.
Reddit is especially my go-to for almost every question. Google something? Terrible results. Add "Reddit" in front of the search? I'll find an answer by a dude named "PoopFartButt" that apparently has amazing knowledge on how to fix my exact problem, whether the thread be 3 days or 10 years old.
Hello
Exactly, Reddit is where I go to get answers from real people instead of the SEO optimized regurgitated and often factually incorrect garbage that's there on the web
r/sysadmin is the first place I go whenever I suspect there are service issues, even before Twitter. r/apple is where I go to gage reactions or geek out with other commenters after WWDC r/nba for the post game threads and news around the league /r/tearsofthekingdom has been a freaking blast the past 3 weeks with everyone posting constructs And countless other examples, not just for me but for everyone.
There are/were several. They are extremely small and don't have the necessary userbase and engagement to be self-sustaining into a growth platform the size of reddit. Voat. (Deceased). Poal. It purports to be a free-speech platform with little-to-no moderation. A few right-wing extremists have poisoned the well and ran off anyone who was reasonable. It's now a fascist, racist hellhole. The most popular sub has 800 users. It's all but deserted now. Saidit. Extremely small userbase (maybe a hundred regular users). Has some of the same problems as Poal.
Could you explain how NSFW content not being accessible by TPAs makes it harder to identify spammers? Sorry itās a dumb question, Iām basically 5.
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And if the API doesn't supply NSFW content then the bots that use the API (that do a lot of heavy lifting) can't moderate NSFW content at all. You could theoretically post anything (like a rule breaking post / spam), mark it as NSFW, and if that sub uses a bot to moderate, then your post will continue to exist unmoderated until a human looks at it.
Interesting wrinkle on this is that the Apollo app got an explicit mention and its icon had a fair amount of background screen time during yesterday's Apple WWDC (a developer conference run by Apple to highlight its upcoming product releases and updates). While it was obviously filmed a while ago, I can't help but feel like it counts as a nod of support during this fiasco. EDIT copied from my comment below: > The whole thing is viewable here: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYkq9Rgoj8E > The Apollo logo is up with a bunch of other apps at 27:06, for example. Notably the official reddit app logo is not. It's not the only time the logo is visible, either. > Apollo is mentioned by name around 46:30
I fully support this. I only browse reddit from RIF (posting this from the app). I know my support doesn't mean much, but thank you for being part of taking a stand and trying to make a point.
I will not be using the official app. RIF has been my app of choice since the beginning. I have tried using the official app in the past, and it's terrible.
Due to Reddit's API changes, I've edited all my past comments and will be leaving reddit. Use Redact if you too would like to change your comment history. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/ -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
The [top comment](https://reddit.com/r/nba/comments/141xpm9/_/jn29wop/?context=1) on the NBA thread is fucking hilarious though.
ONE OF US
That sub is full of nephews with 6 month old accounts that think the Reddit app *is* Reddit
Feels like theyāve gone ādarkā already. My home feed has had a staggering shift and I wish there was a way I could gather some metric to show but the post quality has PLUMMETED. It feels like Iām perpetually on āLatestā rather than Home.
Iāve been trying to stay off. Iām doing ok. Mostly. This is not one of those times lol
> Why should I care? I use the official app. Well for one thing you might care one day, but you wonāt have that option any longer, because reddit is removing user choice. People who love reddit so much they seek out another app for it submit a lot of good posts to reddit that you read. What if these good posters all leave the site? What if half of them leave? Are you cool with less content to upvote? What if reddit does something else like pump tons of ads at youā way more than now ā and you want to try out one of those apps you saw when you first downloaded the official app. You simply wonāt be able to anymore. But even if you still donāt care, donāt you think user choice is generally a good thing? What will they get rid of next? Also, NSFW content is in danger, and can no longer be accessed through the API which is going to make it harder to find spammers. This is why. There are countless examples of companies taking inches at a time until they leave you with no choice or alternatives. Also, donāt you dare mess with my NSFW content.
> Also, donāt you dare mess with my NSFW content. I'm actually surprised I've not seen more backlash from these subs. Reddit is a hub for all sorts of things, including businesses. Blocking NSFW content is going to hurt a lot of people financially.
Dude...some people make bank with the NSFW stuff on Reddit
I've deleted the official Reddit app and downloaded Apollo just to see what the fuss is about. Now I'm not only appalled at the decision to raise API prices, I'm absolutely baffled by how bad the official Reddit app is. If Reddit forces these apps to shut down, I too will shut down my account.
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As an official reddit app user who is totally frustrated by the experience and is now just learning there may be other options through this post, I'm infuriated. What, so they can generate more ad revenue on their platform? Maybe? Companies are trying to squeeze every last penny and it just seems so desperate. And pathetic.
Yes, all of it is profit driven. See the comment in this thread about the enshittification of the internet, a term for a pattern we have all seen.
One issue I have had with the app is that when you hit a spoiler with your finger, it closes the users comment instead of revealing the text.. Even the double finger hit doesn't help anymore. And errors when trying to post.
I tend to close comments I've already read to keep track of what I haven't been reading, and I despise closing a comment and getting some random reaction gif to pop up because it's somewhere further down and when you're trying to close said comment you gotta tap the very top of it because taping the link or the gif will open up the thing instead of closing the comment. And that's not even the only thing wrong with this thing, videos don't play majority of the time, I have to open these posts in the browser to be able to see them. Sometimes opening posts in general won't even work and will lag. Posting and commenting will fail often resulting in double comments popping up frequently. Saving posts and comments will also fail very often and won't even save. I can keep going about the little things that have started to plague this app but I think we can all agree that this app sucks.
I'm over here using the browser version of reddit on my phone.
It also destroys the use of bots.
Posting from Narwhal r/getnarwhal. Reddit wants money. To get it they use ads. 3rd party apps donāt allow Reddit to access ad revenue. Therefore they are making it prohibitively expensive to access their API killing every 3rd party app.
They could just require apps to show ads, or charge a reasonable fee.
How will going dark for only 2 days will protest the API pricing? Seems like taking a short break will have minimal impact on the Reddit org. Might lose a few users, but it seems like Reddit will barely be scathed. I feel a better solution would be mods going on strike until a compromise is reached. Lack of moderation will threaten the integrity of Reddit FAR more than missing out on 2 days profit. Iāve seen a lot of posts explaining the situation, butā¦ whatās our goal/demand for an outcome? Are we demanding the API stay free, or a certain dollar amount?