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Comment by mattmaroon | Hacker News Reader

I don’t blame them. Reddit owns the subreddits, not redditors.

I have no idea why someone would put the time required into moderating a large sub for no money just for Reddit’s benefit in the first place. A Reddit model where the mods share in profits (kind of how YouTube creators do) would be interesting.

But if you’re going to sign up for that, you can’t expect Reddit to just let you tank their site. It was never yours.

I’d do the same thing if I were Reddit, though I guess I’d also not be in this situation if I were them either because I’d just price the API reasonably.

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There are distinct questions here: whether Reddit has the right to forcibly reopen subreddits, whether it’s justified in doing so, and whether it’s a good idea at all. The first isn’t in dispute, but the other two are open for debate.

It could all go super well and everyone forgets about this shakeup, or it could engender further animosity and chase people (particularly trend-setting power users) to some other platform. It could also ruin some communities if the wrong new mods are chosen.

I’m not sure how likely this is but it is plausible.

> whether Reddit has the right to forcibly reopen subreddits

Reddit owns Reddit, no? They have the right to do whatever they want with their website.

Reread the comment you are replying to.

> *The first isn’t in dispute*

Yeah. I get the whole fear of the same thing happening to Reddit that happened to Digg. But digg had Reddit nipping at its heels and it was still small, Reddit is huge there’s nowhere to chase them to.

The other alternative is for Reddit to just stand by and let the blackouts chase people away indefinitely. It is hard to imagine that is better. It will upset the people who have already decided to leave Reddit anyway, but for most of the people who just want to see funny GIFs, it will be better.

The other other alternative is for Reddit to meaningfully engage with the issues that the mods have raised around API pricing.

They’ve clearly considered and rejected that idea.

>Reddit owns the subreddits, not redditors.

Community is a bit like a butterfly. Try to grip it too tightly and you no longer have a butterfly just mush

A subreddit is made up of users, not an entry on reddit.

Reddit can do whatever they want with their site but they can't force users to do anything.

Thats why I argue that the boycott should be user driven and not mod driven. Let each user individually decide if they want to boycott rather than trying to force everyone into a boycott but shutting down entire subs.

Every subreddit I read that closed down first had a poll. All the polls were overwhemlingly for closing indefinitely.

Reddit doesn't seem to be ok with that either as there are reports they're undeleting content users delete in protest. The basic message is: "we control every aspect of content you put on here".

Well, according to their TOS, they do. It's really no different than any other site being able to use what you post on there.

They have the right to reverse deletions, but it's a supremely bad look and if they're really doing it (this is the first I've heard of it) I hope they catch a huge amount of flack. There could be very good reasons for some of those deletions that might impact safety, job security, or personal relationships.

I manually deleted all my content on Wednesday afternoon. As of 8 am this morning all the comments were restored. So, yep, they're definitely undeleting content.

> I have no idea why someone would put the time required into moderating a large sub for no money just for Reddit’s benefit

feeling of power and purpose?

Pretty much.

Remember, "Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People". <https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_...>. This also applies to powermods, assuming they're not being paid on the side to push some ideology.

Weird conclusion. Power users are often groups of people operating under one account. (Motivations vary) not insane people.

> Power users are often groups of people operating under one account.

As I said,

>assuming they're not being paid on the side to push some ideology

Landlordism is a parasitical economic strategy.

And yet mods sign up for it!

I don't like mods either but parasites? I mean sure they act like the communities they mod belong to them but that's a bit much!

I'm referring to the owners of the company, or rather their executive proxies.

There's a quite simple non-malicious reason to become an unpaid mod - to make a community that you use better. I'm sure a substantial percent of mods joined for this reason. I've been a part of poorly moderated communities and thought: "wish I could just take down this non-compliant story or abusive comment".

Then there's a lot of negative reasons to join. For power, to gain a sphere of influence, possible to sell this as a product.

> Reddit owns the subreddits, not redditors.

I view a subreddit as a composite of three parts: The authors, the curators, and the host.

Reddit, Inc. owns only one of those three, and it's arguably the one that's most easily replaced.

I think it’s the one that’s hardest to replace. There’s no viable competitor. People aren’t going anywhere else.

To large extent, the authors are only authors because the sub is on Reddit. They have the network effect that brings the other two. That’s very hard to replace. You could easily find another person to make up dumb rules and arbitrarily enforce them, which is what they’re doing and we’re discussing. They will succeed.

> would be interesting.

In what way would it be interesting?

You might get a lot better mods and more participation with profit motive. It certainly had that effect with YouTube.

There would, of course, be some downsides too.

Content moderators do not get paid on Youtube unless you're talking about employees, which do not share in the profit but get paid a salary.

No I’m talking about content creators getting paid on YouTube. They get a cut of the advertising.

A Reddit Mod should be able to make money. They do a lot of work and growing a subreddit is a lot like growing a YouTube channel. Like a YouTube channel, it creates a lot of value for the site owner.

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