I remember when Reddit announced it would begin charging commercial developers for access to its API, and in response, thousands of subreddits went dark in protest. I think it lasted for a couple of weeks. The CEO threatened the Reddit mods that he would replace them if they didn’t reopen the subs, so nearly every mod reopened and everything went back to normal. The CEO won easily without offering anything, and he was right when he said that ‘this too shall pass.’ Those third-party apps offered accessibility features for disabled people that Reddit still hasn’t implemented today. Now Reddit is getting even worse. How come there wasn’t a protest like that when they made even worse decisions?

  • maniajack@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    3 months ago

    I think it’s down to they kept or replaced enough subreddit mods that actually make reddit work. That and crucially lemmy or any alternative barrier to entry is/was still too difficult. Less users less content.

    It’s a long difficult road to break people’s social media inertia and habits. Also reddit is obviously trying to become more addictive like TikTok, another barrier for alternatives that rightfully refuse to so that, but in some way they’re fighting biology as well.