Reddit’s daily traffic fell during blackout, according to third-party data

Personally I was browsing Reddit for 1-3 hours a day from my phone (3rd party app) and the website. After this whole debacle, I haven’t been on once. This drama is exactly what I needed to step back and see that Reddit wasn’t actually providing me much value other than a place to scroll when I’m avoiding work or avoiding responsibilities.

I can’t remember the last time I felt like I learned something valuable there. It used to be id learn about a random subject from some random expert who had lots to say in a random subreddit. Now, even after continually pruning, all the stuff that comes up in my feed would be considered mental junk food. So seeing how the users are seen by the Reddit big wigs was just final nail in the coffin.

Someone once said to quit smoking you should imagine the CEO of the smoking company laughing at how dumb you are, and how you’re a sucker. The idea being that once you see the manipulation, it’s easier to see how you’ve been manipulated and therefore easier to break it. Well, ladies and gentlemen, imagine what spez is saying about you all right now.

I'm undecided, I'll give you two reasons:

Reddit will bounce back: there is simply no alternative for Reddit. HN? Too technical, too little social. Facebook? Too scattered too few experts. Too personal. 4Chan? Come on.

Reddit is done for: The third party apps are the only way to do moderation at scale. A large forum like reddit or Wikipedia simply needs software assisted moderation. Kill the apps, and Reddit will sink in a Twitteresque cesspool from which it will never arise.

It'll recover fast too I think.

I still don't see how it was worth it. They're not profitable, so forcing people off Apollo and onto their own app isn't a massive win financially. Marginal contribution towards fixed cost I guess. Apollo is dead so they're not giving any money regardless of API rates.

...and that's what you got for key parts of your user base thinking you're evil AF and a ton of negative PR ahead of an IPO?

Seems like attrocious deal to me.