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Comment by idlewords | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the point of a protest like this without some sort of concrete demand. If you're going to take down most of a popular site, you should:

1. Articulate the reason for your action

2. Explain what specific things need to happen to redress the problem

I haven't seen any clear statement of (2). Am I missing something?

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It seems pretty clear to me, given the context:

Dear Reddit, You are about to do a bad thing. Don't do that thing, or I will leave your platform. kthnxbai

Read their post! It's impossible to tell which of these, if any, they want:

- roll back all API pricing changes to the status quo ante

- Offer more reasonable pricing tiers, for some value of 'more reasonable'

- do what you want with the API, but give moderators the tools they need (right now only available in third party apps)

- something else

Those all sound like valid compromises.

What are you missing?

So they communicated to you that it's a combination of all the above. You're just being difficult for the sake of being difficult here.

I think that's good advice in principle, but the practical limitation is the ability of a bunch of redditors to come to an agreement on point #2 on short notice.

Maybe they figure the implied message of "you are doing a bad thing we don't like. Don't do the bad thing" may be enough to get some change to happen, if change is a real possibility.

If you can't come together around even one demand, then the message your protest conveys to management is that you are momentarily upset but there is zero risk in ignoring you.

I agree that making a clear demand seems more effective if possible, but I don't think disorganization necessarily implies that displeasure is only momentary and involves no risk. Many people can be upset about something and agree on a way to protest it without agreeing on what the solution should be.

I feel like it's obvious? They want 3rd party apps to stay in some reasonable capacity. The definition of reasonable can vary, (free - low cost API usage), but it's not that important.

Articulating a clear demand is extremely important; it demonstrates that you have some organizational capacity beyond saying no.

The demand is clear enough, I don't know why you're just repeating that it isn't

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