Reddit is doing so much injury to the free labor mods. They are so massively disproportionately injured by these changes, as people who direly need advanced changes. Absolutely wild own goal.
My feelings about the site have evolved so much over the years but in the past couple of years the vibe has been turning consistently negative. I'm getting fed up and I imagine a lot of others are as well and I can't imagine this will end up benefiting Reddit in general.
Might I recommend you to turn towards places like Lemmy or other less-commercial and less exploitive websites?
Reddit relies on free work, but doesn't value or help the mods. And now, they're doubling down on screwing everyone and manufacturing fake content for what appears their IPO.
I think it's time to skedaddle.
I wish people would quit shitting on mods like they're idiots for taking out the trash.
Yes, though, the larger subreddits are political and repost astroturf. Anti-american garbage. But not every sub is like that. I'll look into Lemmy though.
Both of those things can be true.
The reality is those communities--which only thrive on Reddit because of effective moderation--are built on a private platform whose primary method of generating profits is to monetize the attention of those community members.
So, yes, those mods are absolutely contributing free labour that Reddit is turning into private profits, and that labour comes in the form of volunteering to keep those forums polite and productive. Whether or not that's a reasonable tradeoff is up to each individual, though I have to confess I don't personally understand it (despite, in the past, benefiting from it). At least my day job pays me for the labour that they monetize.
And now Reddit is taking a dump all over those free labourers by taking away critical tools that they use to make those forums polite and productive in the first place.
That's why I recommended putting "volunteering time" with actual non-profit orgs and groups, so that 100% of the labor goes to all. I didn't advocate "quit volunteering for a community", cause that's the wrong thing to advocate.
There's mastodon, Lemmy for 2. Discord isn't great, given earlier in the curve of monetization. Same for other for-profit areas. But again, I'd recommend finding communities in a not-profit-driven area and work there.
The for-profit side of things has the same death spirals. I'm just sick of this "web2" crap profiteering and killing useful community stuff.
The point is Reddit is pocketing profits from you donating your free labour to the benefit of their private platform.
Dress it up however you like, that core fact remains true.
The other persons rationale make perfect sense. Any one can justify anything they want as much as they want, profits still went to Reddit.
I stopped modding Reddit by 2019. My politics evolved. I didn’t think it made sense to provide Reddit with free labor.
That's fine. You do you.
But it is what it is.
Maybe the lesson, here, is that private platforms cannot and should not be seen as the "town square" or a place for "community", and that if you make that choice, you need to be ready to move if the platform turns in an unfavourable direction.
Of course, what we're seeing with things like Bluesky is that, unfortunately, for many, that lesson continues to remain unlearned.
I was a moron doing free work for a for-profit company.
I deserved to be shat on.
I was the mod for a city subreddit for a while and while it was tiring, it was easy to do (especially with a medium sized group, each pitching in a little bit). Keep the spam and trolling down, and community engagement up. (Then I got banned for calling a spammer on a large message board a spammer).
Name an online community space that isn't a for-profit company, that more than a few hundred people could name.
Facebook Instagram Nextdoor Meetup Reddit
Whoops.
I have nothing against for profit companies.
I am vehemently against of donating labor to for-profit companies. Especially when they will betray those that provided free labor when it becomes convenient.
Reddit proved me right.
Community building doesn’t have to be only picking one general social media mega platform to live off of.
They work for themselves, and use reddit resources free. If anything, this relationship is beneficial for the community, but reddit.
As a regular user, I gave up on reddit a couple of years ago because of exactly this problem.
How little will it take for the communities to spiral?
How would a developer's performance be if you removed their tooling? Could they still develop, sure. Will they want to? Is there some where for them to move.
If not, how long until the pain forces a thousand clones?
I've been around long enough to see the decline of Reddit. Predicted many times but eventually, the bottom will fall out and with the sentiment of the world towards big business and reddit wanting to IPO. I see this as a place people may make a stand. Because what better place than the place itself.