Reddit feels like it's gone back to 100% normalcy already. Was the protest a failure?

I was looking at reddit today, and the front-page felt like nothing happened. I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and clicked into comments. Everything is popping off buzzing with activity. All the subreddits I was subscribed to that went dark are now back up and business as usual.

I knew we were a minority, but I didn't expect this level of apathy. It feels like Spez was 100% right and this did in fact blow over. What's your take on it it? I didn't expect Reddit to immediately be a failure, but man I guess I expected a bigger impact than that.

Pamasich, (edited )
@Pamasich@kbin.social avatar

A quarter of all subreddits are still private or restricted (can't post in them). This includes ones like /r/music or /r/programming. Of the 6 30+ million subscriber subreddits, only 3 have returned to normalcy. One is restricted, two others are in john oliver mode. The developers of Minecraft have officially abandoned Reddit as a platform, and advertisers are still pulling out as well.

atocci,
@atocci@kbin.social avatar

Just one important distinction: not a quarter of all subreddits, but a quarter of the subreddits that said they would go private for at least 2 days are still private.

Jaysyn,
@Jaysyn@kbin.social avatar

When I looked at RedDark yesterday, it was a quarter of all subreddits.

atocci,
@atocci@kbin.social avatar

Ah, Reddark is only tracking subreddits that said they were participating, the ones that listed themselves in the Modcoord threads. There are far more subreddits that exist than the 8,829 they're tracking.

Jaysyn,
@Jaysyn@kbin.social avatar

Ah ok, didn't realize that.

Xathonn,
@Xathonn@kbin.social avatar

It's been a week and /r/interestingasfuck is still locked with no mod team

Anomander,
@Anomander@kbin.social avatar

Reddit removed the mod team for 'making the community inaccessible' - and then have left the community inaccessible due to no moderation for longer than the original mod team had it closed.

I know the irony there is damn near horse pate at this point, but that shit's still funny every time it comes up.

ProtonBadger,

Oh advertisers are pulling out? That's something they will be able to feel. Do we know to what extent currently?

Cube6392,
@Cube6392@beehaw.org avatar

This is still a developing migration. There are new active users on the threadiverse that weren't there before. The threadiverse has reached a form of critical mass where if people stick around, they can still have an enjoyable social experience without revisiting Reddit. If Reddit continues to exist, that's fine, I guess. I can't control what other people do. The important thing to me is that things that aren't Reddit are becoming viable in ways they were not before. We don't rely on this tech company anymore, we rely on ourselves.

Further, I predict that while traffic is stabilizing back to pre-protest days, that quality will continue to decline. It's not going to be instant that Reddit dies. It's a slow, steady, crawl into the grave for them

African_Grey,
@African_Grey@beehaw.org avatar

I'm kind of torn on this. On one hand, yes reddit sucks, but on the other hand it's an extremely search friendly source of information. Does Lemmy even play nice with search engines? The one good thing I can say about a centralized community like reddit is everything is there and easily accessible. Whenever I search for something I need a quick informed answer on I already prefix it with "Reddit."

chgowiz,
@chgowiz@kbin.social avatar

It's a good search target for what has happened up to 12 Jun 23... after that? I can go incognito to reddit, get what I need then come back to here and continue using this as a resource and share what I've got.

EmptyRadar,

Does it? I hadn't noticed, I haven't been over there in quite a while.

MrComradeTaco,

100k active users at Lemmy don’t think the same.

lowdownfool,
@lowdownfool@kbin.social avatar

Thinks seem to be picking up in the Threadiverse, so something definitely changed. It's nowhere near Reddit levels of activity but getting better. Personally, my 12 year account is now gone which is significant for me.

Crazymick,

Same for me.. cancelled my Apollo subscription and denied the auto refund so Christian could keep the cash, cancelled my Reddit Premium Sub and started donating to the Fediverse Instance I use for Kbin and Mastodon. Haven’t been on Reddit since.

I may just be one guy but I spoke with my money and my website activity/data.

Sordid,
@Sordid@beehaw.org avatar

I don't mean to toot my own horn too much, but it went exactly as I expected. Reddit is a huge business, it was never going to let a bunch of volunteers dictate its policies and business practices. And people are apathetic sheep, so an effective boycott was not in the cards either.

That said, it remains to be seen whether or not the protest was a failure. If nothing else, it motivated a ton of people to seek out alternatives, and those alternatives are getting better, in no small part due to the influx of new users, while Reddit is all but certain to continue getting worse. Digg suffered a sudden drop in popularity following its disastrous redesign, but it kept limping along for years afterward. Did Spez win this battle or did he doom his company? We'll see in five years or so.

Cube6392,
@Cube6392@beehaw.org avatar

I anticipate spez leaving as soon as the IPO is done on the basis of "fuck you got mine"

Armadous,

I’m also thinking about the ongoing Hollywood writers strike. I still use my streaming subscriptions oblivious to the fact that the industry is largely at a standstill. The blackout is great for raising awareness but it’s a whimper compared to the rebellion we were hoping for.

novamdomum,
@novamdomum@kbin.social avatar

Well, I'm reading and writing about it on kbin and haven't been back to reddit since, so the protests were 100% effective on me. I've had to learn that if I'm in an abusive relationship there's no point trying to get the abuser to change. I have to make sure I'm not under their control anymore. So on that front the protests were the push I needed to leave and find a better community. 100% success :)

Jaysyn,
@Jaysyn@kbin.social avatar

The actual connection data says that's an illusion.

spaduf,
@spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Nope. The bot problem is insane over there. See here: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/499424

Doll_Tow_Jet-ski,

I've also read that many threads in Reddit are being kept active by Large Language Model (e.g. ChatGPT)-based bots pretending to be users to give a sense of normality

muftiboy,

"I don't know how to use reddit. does that mean the protest was a failure?"

African_Grey,
@African_Grey@beehaw.org avatar

Unnecessarily hostile comment. We’re getting closer to a true Reddit replacement!

sdothum,
@sdothum@kbin.social avatar

i would not have found this federated alternative if not for the protest.

i, for one, am glad to not have to put up with the ever increasing ads, the constant "install reddit app" popup, the crappy "new" interface (vs the "old".. which i continued to use)...

Remains to be seen how the post June 30 impact to mobile apps and the mod community shapes up. But the drive to further monetize the platform for the IPO is the writing on the wall afaiac.

Yes, the federated user base is still in its infancy.. but quality over quantity :)

liontigerwings,

No. It seeded the fediverse. More will come tomorrow when the app stops working.

Reddit went from an untouchable site without any competition to something that needs to appease users or risk sending them to competition.

OldGreyTroll,
@OldGreyTroll@kbin.social avatar

I view the protest as a shot across the bow. The warning about how much impact the changes are going to cause if Reddit doesn't back off. Reddit management has gone with "damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead". It is the next round that is going to indicate whether mods and users are really ready to bail.

EnglishMobster,
@EnglishMobster@kbin.social avatar

Digg didn't die all at once. It was a very slow, miserable death.

And even now, Digg still exists, with some users even. As long as the Threadiverse gets better and Reddit gets worse, we'll see continued waves of people leaving.

The real question is whether it'll look like Digg -> Reddit (where most everyone left eventually) or Twitter -> Mastodon (where large groups of people were "too confused" and didn't move).

Eggyhead,
@Eggyhead@kbin.social avatar

I don’t know. I’m here, I’m happy about that, and there are more people making this place better by the week. So as far as I’m concerned, it was a huge success. Reddit can be Reddit.

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