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Comment by whatsuphotdog | Hacker News Reader

I love that the CEO calls the users voicing their displeasure "noise".

When those users voice opinions on other things, it's called content. When those users voice their opinions against reddit, it's noise.

Hoffman continues to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what Reddit is.

The very people that give your platform its value are revolting against you, and you think it's noise.

What's your product? What do you create? In what way will Reddit thrive only with what you put into it? Where do you think the content you lace your ads between comes from?

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My personal (cynical) bet is that Huffman actually understands what Reddit is better than us, and Reddit will be just fine after this.

To be completely honest, if a two-day blackout is proven to be the most serious "protest" the community can do, I'll buy Reddit stock when it IPO.

If Reddit isn't going to value its communities, it's just going to turn into a clone of the bloated corpse of "I Can Has Cheeseburger", an endless stream of cat pictures and short videos, posted and reposted. High in traffic, maybe, but catering only to the lowest common denominator, stripped of the things that made it valuable to long-time users.

But that's probably fine with them. Reddit seems to have taken that the position that users are fungible, which (particularly when they depend on volunteer moderators) seems somewhat dubious to me.

That's exactly what it's going to become. Lop in the eternal September of new users aging-in every year that don't even know what it used to be like and they're set.

That's kind of all that Reddit is to me. There are some exceptions, but for the most part Reddit posters are some of the stupidest humans on the internet.

They are great fun with cat pictures and other stupid content. And you'll have the occasional laser-focused sub-reddit (that will be a loss).

But the vast vast vast majority? Utter stupidity.

The occasional laser-focused subreddit has been my bread and butter on reddit for the past 15 years.

I never access /r/popular or /r/all or any of the default subreddits, all my usage on reddit is from niche communities about my hobbies, and through the past 15 years each new hobby I started there was a subreddit to kickstart it full of information and a community. That's going to be the biggest loss.

Most of reddit the past 10 years has been shifting towards new users just lazily scrolling /r/popular but those users are not profitable, they don't generate value, the ads will be poorly targeted. The laser-focused subreddits is where the value of reddit as a platform comes from, I don't like advertising but I could tolerate targeting on those subreddits as it'd be relevant without invading users' privacy (like the old days of AdSense using the context of the page for ads, not profiling the user).

The vast majority is utter stupidity, I agree, but that is a part of reddit that you can completely avoid if you are a bit more of a power user... It will suck when it dies.

Like my username says, I'm definitely not anything close to a power user, but you're 100% right. Moving to a new city, need info on your current city, or just visiting somewhere? Check their reddit out, between searches, maybe the wiki, and asking questions, you're set. Got a question on random topics? Find the 3-4 subreddits and fire away, no need to worry about quora or stupid articles online. Worst case the community you ask will have some RTFM-attitude to them, but boom - now you got a manual. And like you said, new hobby? Bruh, hit the wiki & the sidebar, go through their resources, ask the community for more if you feel like it. Get detailed help for your issues inside a week, for sure. It's ridiculous how useful it is to have a curated list of resources and a community ready to talk you through those resources, on day 1 of your future hobby, for free. For pretty much all interests. Shit was glorious.

I've read about some people calling for a return to forums. That lacks the one-stop-shop-for-all-interests feel, though - besides, subreddits are quick to tell you about other online communities you should hit up. For some of the older folks on here, how were the old newsgroups compared to reddit? From the little I know - and I mean "I learned about newsgroups from a joke on the Simpsons" little - it kind of sounds like Reddit...

That's OK, you don't have to subscribe to the ones with stupid content. Just subscribe to the ones with laser-focused content.

Creating an alternative to Reddit would be pretty easy, but the challenge is the critical mass of users necessary for anyone to ever replace it. (We are even using a clone right now.) Another challenge would be scalability, but this is not as difficult as it was in 2005(?) when Reddit came to life. They are playing a dangerous game disrespecting their users.

We're going to see a lot more clones in the coming weeks/months, which arguably also prevents most of them from doing their intended job as a replacement. Eventually, one will form when the dust settles.

It's a slow process, but an inevitable one. Twitter has demonstrated this, where it isn't this instant switch, but a slow burn. We're only now getting Meta's take on such a replacement for example. Same will happen with Reddit now people are aware how fragile it really is. I just don't see direct replacements happening this year.

Anecdotally I do see far more aggressive displacement on Reddit than I did with Twitter however, perhaps due to how impersonal Reddit is where most feel they can abandon it much easier than a Twitter account with many professional colleagues attached.

That's what the average hooman being wants tho, why do you think Tiktok is so popular. Most of the content on there is scripted bullshit/fake scenarios and some dumbass' face "reacting" to some other content. That's what people like...for some reason...

I agree. I think that this is a turning point for Reddit but not towards failure: they’re ditching the hardcore nerd audience that made them. But they’ve long since outgrown that audience and will likely (as a company) do just fine without them. As a community there will be a notable loss.

They better get their buck quick before investors realize what that means for the future of content on reddit.

Because much as some folks here seem to believe, there IS actually more to reddit, reddit as it exists today, than just ad impression counts. I'm not some social media genius but the way that this being talked about by some people, who I guess haven't been a part of reddit over 17+ years, I am flabbergasted at how y'all think these things grow and thrive.

What's the market value of 9gag? iFunny?

Digg?

> how y'all think these things grow and thrive

Reddit has grown and has thrived, now the company is prioritising turning on the money tap. They’re prepared to lose X users if it means they can monetise the remaining users by Y amount.

I’m not saying this as a defence, I’ve also been using Reddit for 15+ years and I’m disappointed by what I see. I’m just clear eyed about the game plan.

I totally agree. I just think the mental calculations some folks are doing don't even come close to accounting for power users, mods, and the amount that some of those pissed off users made reddit what it is.

I guess I just find it baffling that people think that the site will have the same value it had today (to users and advertisers) if it is loses its soul. I don't even think I'm being idealistic. I've been through this before. Reddit is more than a view count, or else people wouldn't care they way we do. Did? Something.

How do you monetize what's more than ad impression counts? Also apart from various types of nerds it appears to be mostly outrage echo chambers.

My name's not Steve and I don't think anyone would hire me to consult, but oh I dunno, this sure wouldn't be the way I'd go about it. I've actually read some horrifying hypotheticals on how reddit could've boiled this frog a lot slower, probably quiet silently.

In some sense, as a non-share holder who wants to see people build these communities in the open, I appreciate this approach.

I think that started with the redesign. It's so weird looking at some of the default subs, just pure trash imo, yet there are still the incredibly diverse, bespoke communities ranging from knitting to woodworking. Users in those subs are the real losers out of this.

Those "incredibly bespoke communities" are almost entirely people posting images of a professional/elaborate project, and then asking for feedback in the form of "hey you guys this is the first thing I've ever made please give me some feedback but go easy on me OK?"

It's a massive circle jerk and echo chamber of regurgitated opinions. So in other words: exactly like the rest of Reddit.

And it's also people posting reviews of some tool, or long tutorials on some technique, or answering questions from beginners, or collecting a FAQ with the basics/intermediate level of learning of a hobby which becomes an intro manual of what you probably need to learn as a foundation.

It can be also a massive circle jerk but if that's the only thing you can see from niche subreddits you are coming into this with a massive bias and ignoring the good parts, and these good parts are missing from most of the rest of the web.

I feel that your opinion is the same, just an attempt at a massive circle jerk about how terrible reddit is. It is, but it's also not and if you sincerely can't see how useful reddit is for a wide range of hobbies it's probably because you're a little myopic.

If that's your definition of circle jerk then basically you can't have a conversation with anyone, on any medium.

A conversation is always at some level about voicing your opinion or showing something you've done or bought and basically ask for feedback/reactions.

> they’re ditching the hardcore nerd audience that made them

If it's just the nerd audience I'll bet Reddit win without thinking. But it's more than that: they're ditching some mods who rely on 3rd party apps, and some users who stay on Reddit for NSFW content.

So yeah, I still think Reddit will be fine, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

Who is going to mod it.. couple reddits that I follow daily are public again, however there are no new posts as mods stopped accepting anything.

I am genuinely curious how this is going to work going forward.

Reddit (the company) controls the platform. They can just install new mods if the current mods arent doing their job. I doubt most users would even notice that the mod names have changed.

Facebook spends $500m annual on moderation. That's a top-down estimate of moderation costs for a large website.

You can try to do a bottom-up estimate, but how much do you think it costs to moderate the (8th?) largest domain on earth? More or less than that? More or less than what Reddit's current operating income is?

They will then need to find an pay those mods.

Steve's out here slandering would-be partners, lying to employees, and shoving increasing mountains of poop under the rug. We're approaching 4D-chess big brain energy here.

Also, let's not keep conveniently leaving out that a growing number of subs are pledging to continue the protest.

Eh...the real problem with shutting down Apollo is that it makes the volunteer moderators lives much harder. Those are the people who provide any value to reddit as a platform.

The protest could end today, the 3rd party apps go...and if the volunteer mods go with it, then the site as a whole tumbles onto a decline that eventually kills it.

Some of the things that volunteer mods defend against is bot spam, repost spam, karma mining, abusive comments, and brigading. Unless Reddit has AI solutions for all of these (not a real suggestion - it's an arms race against similarly-AI-using spammers, and if Reddit had the engineering culture of ByteDance then it would have already built the moderator tools people had been requesting since 2015!) then its niche and generalist subreddits alike will lose their culture and quality faster than one can blink an eye.

I moderated a subreddit once. It sucked all the joy out of Reddit for me. Every time I visited the site, I got stressed as to what new nonsense happened.

Fun stuff I had to deal with include: The admin's "Anti-Evil Operations" frequently deleting user comments with no explanation. A persistent pedophile who just wouldn't go away. Getting guilt tripped by a severely mentally ill guy whenever we had to ban him (and his many alts) for breaking the rules. Doxx. Gore. Brigading. White supremacists. Racists with their "racial crime statistics". An impossible to moderate Reddit Chat (there were no chat moderation logs at all). And much more.

I completely checked out of moderation when I remembered that I wasn't getting paid to deal with any of the above. And since then, I've had much more appreciation for all the moderators who were willing to put in time and effort into maintaining a community for free.

> Some of the things that volunteer mods defend against is traffic, traffic, engagement, traffic, and engagement.

> then its niche and generalist subreddits alike will lose their culture and quality faster than one can blink an eye

reddit chaotically overriding subreddit moderation decisions has had that effect for a while.

This. Have you ever seen unmoderated Reddit, it’s called 4chan.

This comparison doesn't really work because 4chan boards tend to be pretty strictly moderated. It's just that the threshold of what's considered acceptable is lower.

This is actually a great way to protest. If the subreddits going dark for two days isn’t enough, start posting porn or other bad type of content to popular subs that don’t have many mods.

As someone that has been using reddit for a decade and a half, I agree with you. We the old timers are stuck in the "good ol' days", when reddit didn't have any subreddits, discussions were mostly about technical topics, and the meme du jour was to put dollar signs in Microsoft's name.

I think it has stopped being that a long, long time ago, and Steve kept track better than us what the new demographics of reddit are. I am sad that the reddit I enjoyed is no more, but I am looking forwards to the new crop of discussion platforms (or whatever else) that will crop up.

buying stock makes little sense when an avg user is many times less valuable than IG or tiktok.

they're already struggling with worse service on the way.

at least Google and meta have world-class programmers. what's reddit's moat?

The only moat Reddit has is the critical mass of users. Numerous clones exist (such as Hacker News), and a new minimum viable product could be built in a couple of weeks. But once you have the users, it is pretty easy to keep them... unless you make them turn against you.

We still don't know what the impact will be of Instagram's upcoming Twitter clone.

It does look like more of a hybrid between Twitter and Reddit with the threaded conversations and nerd-friendly API layer i.e. ActivityPub.

It will never have the one thing that people come to Reddit for right? NSFW. Not porn precisely, but a range of freedom of expression that goes beyond the narrow band of expression allowed on Zuck’s platforms.

Reddit has always tried to thread the needle of having 4chan-like freedom without 4chan-like anarchy. That’s the secret to its success.

He could use it as an excuse to restructure the Mod authority, flagging it as shareholder risk. And that will kick off the slow demise.

Is there any measure of how many accounts were scrubbed by scripts and deleted?

Sounds like something you could use an API to find out … oh wait.

I kinda agree, but on the other hand, the statistics were sad. The site I used [0] is currently down, but from what I remember, even with so many subreddits being private, posts per minute went from 1.2k to 1k, and comments per minute from 8k to 7k (talking about the peaks of the curve in both cases).

That is a pretty low reduction and imo shows how those of us who care are not a majority, and the whole thing might end up being nothing more than a gamer-protest.

edit: back up, peak comments from below 7k to below 6k; peak posts from about 1.2k to 1.1k

[0]: https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/

> Hoffman continues to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what Reddit is.

hoffman founded reddit ... together with btw aaron swartz.

this is a well known fact that he trumpets all the time. founders getting out of touch with their products isn't anything new.

>Hoffman continues to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what Reddit is.

No, you and others' wishful thinking lead you to a fundamental misunderstanding of what Reddit and Hoffman are. This is just the standard "how to run a business" MBA crap at play. The website you think Reddit is doesn't exist; and that doesn't even matter, as for them it's just another black box that makes money.

"Windows users"...?

Probably "When those".. Maybe GP is using dictaton?

When does oozers dun flown da coop…

When those.

yeah this really has been a mask-off moment for spez.

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