As a content creator who posted to Reddit since it began, the API blackout did more than drive me away from Reddit - it led me to discover the Fediverse. And it’s just so… much… better. No concerns about power tripping mods, endless pun threads, shadowbanning or obtuse rules. You interact with real people interested in what you post, not just bots and karma removed - even in the most popular threads. If a community turns sour, you just block them, and then follow the same themed community on another instance.
Reddit relied the thrill of contributing to a large audience to drive the desire to participate. This worked as long as it was the only and best game in town. Now they’ve broken that thrill by making it clear that any community that doesn’t contribute to Spez’s wallet isn’t welcome on Reddit. If this program had been in place, it might have blunted the exodus of content creators from Reddit, but trying to implement it now smacks of desperation.
Besides, Reddit isn’t profitable when their mods and contributors work for free. Expecting a power-tripping broke motherfucker to possibly pay me in the future for work I previously did for free for them is like expecting the rapture - it’s a nice thought in theory, but even if it does happen, you’re probably not gonna like how it turns out.
I don’t think this is aimed at winning us over. It’s really just them doubling down on the type of users they want to see going forward (and it’s not us).
Too little, too late.
As a content creator who posted to Reddit since it began, the API blackout did more than drive me away from Reddit - it led me to discover the Fediverse. And it’s just so… much… better. No concerns about power tripping mods, endless pun threads, shadowbanning or obtuse rules. You interact with real people interested in what you post, not just bots and karma removed - even in the most popular threads. If a community turns sour, you just block them, and then follow the same themed community on another instance.
Reddit relied the thrill of contributing to a large audience to drive the desire to participate. This worked as long as it was the only and best game in town. Now they’ve broken that thrill by making it clear that any community that doesn’t contribute to Spez’s wallet isn’t welcome on Reddit. If this program had been in place, it might have blunted the exodus of content creators from Reddit, but trying to implement it now smacks of desperation.
Besides, Reddit isn’t profitable when their mods and contributors work for free. Expecting a power-tripping broke motherfucker to possibly pay me in the future for work I previously did for free for them is like expecting the rapture - it’s a nice thought in theory, but even if it does happen, you’re probably not gonna like how it turns out.
I don’t think this is aimed at winning us over. It’s really just them doubling down on the type of users they want to see going forward (and it’s not us).