Standup response, I hope Christian finds a promising career ahead of him.
If I'm being honest, I wouldn't be nearly so kind to Reddit following his ordeal. Even if Reddit renegs on the API pricing completely and go back to making it free, the trust has already been sufficiently broken that I wouldn't return. They won't stop monetizing the site just because they lost some users and pissed off their developer partners. They'll just be subtler, quieter the next time they try to screw you over.
Second chances are important, but there are limits to trust. Reddit slapped their users across the face today; despite any promise or apology they make in the meantime, there is no indication that they won't do it again tomorrow to get what they want.
I agree, I don't think they would just keep the API free forever, they've already said that Reddit is not profitable, and so they will continue to add more "features" to be more like tiktok.
Third party devs have said they don’t mind a reasonable API rate, but both the cost (~$20 million/year just for Apollo) and the timing (30 days to make the pricing changes, update the app, work out bugs, get Apple to approve it, etc) were just stupid.
It was done this way to kill the third party apps, period.
If Reddit didn’t insist on hosting all pics & videos themselves, they would probably already be profitable.
If the API pricing was reasonable, users & third party devs would happily pay it.
If Reddit had given more time (3-6 months) for third party devs to implement changes, then they could and would do so (assuming reasonable API price).
Insanity. I’ve been around a few times when people were talking about migrating but this truly does seem like the most real possibility yet. And I welcome it with open arms.
What if they're doing this, letting us all get riled up, and then after the black out they go "ok ok, we get it. We'll reduce the cost down to insert still high but irritatingly doable number" and that was the plan all along. That they started outrageously high so they can land where they actually expected to be. A bunch of users go back grumbling but feeling like they still won, yet we got 4d cheesed.
To add a bit more context, this comment is from a former Reddit dev, who is now the creator and developer of Tildes, one of the Reddit alternatives that's been gaining traction in the last week:
(I used to work as a backend developer at Reddit - I left 6 years ago but I doubt the way things work has changed much)
I think it's extremely unlikely that this is deliberate. The way that Reddit builds "mixed" subreddit listings (where you see posts from multiple subreddits, like users' front pages) is inefficient and strange, and relies heavily on multiple layers of caches. Having so many subreddits private with their posts inaccessible has never happened before, and is probably causing a bunch of issues with this process.
Same. At this point, I'm open to using almost any reddit-like site that isn't reddit. With this many disgruntled former users, there's bound to at least one major alternative that blows up, just a matter of finding (and seeding) it.
Looking at this from a leadership perspective when communicating to investors, it’s a lot easier to explain the low user engagement over the next couple days as a blip due to a service outage blocking access rather than due to an intentional protest against using the site.
Not suggesting this is deliberate, but I do imagine this is actually a best case scenario to them in some ways.
Exactly. If people want this protest to be taken seriously, they shouldn't have pre-emptively announced it would only be 48 hours long. 48 hours is nothing to worry about when you know it's coming. Like you said, they'll just blame the lack of engagement on server issues.
I love the format of kbin, with some TLC i can see it taking off. I like it better than Lemmy's layout. As to people returning after 48 hours, doesn't that depend on Reddit caving in? I don't see that happening, so why would anyone return if Reddit's terms are egregious? They going to cough up the money to Reddit to use their API? People just going to cave in and use their shit app, enduring the ads and personal data farming? This should be interesting.
They already were killing the experience by tanking the algorithm, and there was straight up no path to me ever using the mobile site or their horrendous app, but their full on meltdown in response to the backlash is next level.
The fediverse exploded after Twitter became a dumpster fire. This is another huge migration, so the numbers are going up quite a bit again. I'm excited to see what we build with such a large number of new people!
I feel sort of lost, because one of my sources of information is cut off. Besides being able to be a part of that highly-specific community you were looking for, reddit also was very good for finding answers to any random question and avoiding bad google-search articles that are quite often unhelpful.
Yes! For me, it was extremely effective at its primary goal of being a content aggregator. I kept up with sooooo much news that was thematicly linked (national news, world news, politics, specific country's news/politics) that I could be the smartest person in most rooms I occupied in irl.
I think though that the corresponding magazines will be the first massly populated here on kbin.
This is the thing for me. I think I'm experiencing a bit of news FOMO. Reddit has been reliable for years at supplying news, cat antics, and pretty girls. I also agree that google+reddit has been really useful in solving very specific problems.
I think people are jumping the gun a bit on what Kbin is and are expecting it to be as huge as Reddit which it might never be. Most of my news I’m getting via the free version of Feedly which is an RSS reader and I’m only really using Kbin to scratch that itch for a bit of commenting.
I hope people are exploring their options with being able to interact with Lemmy and Beehaw boards via Federation too. If this setup ever gets as big as Reddit it’ll be through the federated whole not one individual site. Considering how much data costs to host I think pushing one site towards a monopoly will always force increased advertIsing and with popularity comes financial predators. This is of course what Reddit is going through now.
I'm no longer in the sadness stage of grief, now I am angry. I have thought of all the stupid things they've done since I joined in 2018
First they made the awful new layout
Then they promised to implement css in new reddit, only to never do so
Then they introduced too many award variations, and made it so people could get them for free, removing what value the awards had.
Then they made customizable snoos, which while cute were uneccesary.
Then they introduced, barely advertised, then killed reddit cspan. Never heard of it? Can't blame you!
Then the introduced NFT avatars.
Then they did that awful april fools arg that was so hidden only a few did it and those who found the answer found it on discord. Also the answer was reddit was run on a literal potato which seems to be truer by the day.
Then they did this API shit.
During all that time where they could have introduced features that were useful to their app and fixing up the cruft with new reddit, they slaked off in order to increase profits. Only two features that were useful were ever introduced during 2018 - 2023: polls and gallery uploads. That's it.
So I am sad for the communities, but reddit itself? Nah.
i've caved a few times today, briefly. and i'm frustrated because reddit is basically google for me. i go to it for a lot of info. the fediverse can't do that just yet. if it becomes popular it will, but yeah. not yet.
and it's good for random info too. like even when i'm not looking for anything. i'm already subscribed to topics i care about. so i will see relevant things.
other sites aren't really fulfilling that for me right now.
Well since you mention it, googling things just brings me to reddit threads.
It's frustrating because 1) right now subs that are private are completely lost of information (which is good! But also, sad to lose for why we lost it) and 2) because it just shows results from reddit...
I guess this is the new Reddit! Time to kick our feet up.
I expected as much. 2 days is a pitiful protest length. I will not be using Reddit any longer whilst keeping an eye on updates from here and other news sites. I'm hoping this memo encourages all subreddits to protest idnefinitely until this assclown of a CEO is willing to negotiate lower API prices. And if he's not, onto greener pastures. And watching /r/wallstreetbets figure out a way to destroy their IPO when it eventually launches.
I agree i'm in no hurry to use Reddit. I'll be satisfied if enough people stick around and keep the place interesting. In fact i would say sticking around the fediverse is the only answer to dystopic corporate domination. Those who return, enjoy your exploitation, lol.
"Investors are fed up. Fidelity, which led Reddit’s $700 million funding round in 2021 with a $10 billion valuation, has cut its Reddit company valuation by 41% since it invested. This could scupper Reddit’s plans to eventually go public with a reported valuation of $15 billion."
The app owners will work with him to prevent AI training from taking data from the site for free. And any issues the third party apps have doing that will be shared by the official app. They're not special in that regard. You can't really have public secrets behind a paywall. It doesn't really work.
There are many, many options here that are only being held back by Huffman's ego. Imagine losing billions in valuation because of personal ego. I bet investors are thrilled.
How are y'all spreading yourself out in the fediverse so far? Right now I'm just browsing the front page of kbin and occasionally check in on my feed in mastodon, but I'm yet to find my "niche" communities.
Well this ernest dude seems like he's reacting quickly to criticisms. The NSFW posts were showing full pictures and there was a complaint to have the preview blurred out. Took less than 12 hours for him to implement that so that's a plus
Ernest actually reminds me of u/ljdawson, the dev behind the Sync app. He's responsive, takes criticism well, and seems to genuinely care about the platform he's created. Hard to go wrong with that.
Ernest is a Chad for sure. We've exploded in number almost overnight and he's been working his ass off to keep everything not only up and running but improving.
I hope @ernest opens up a page somewhere that allows me to make monthly donations, because I'd really like to support the continued development of this app and the hosting of this site.
I like kbin a lot already too. I like the highly functional feel. It's close enough to Reddit that I hope it draws in more users. I found it a lot more approachable than Mastodon, and "Lemmy" just doesn't have a nice ring to it IMO.
One of my biggest challenges is getting the 'front page' to fill up with the kind of thing I'd get on r/all. I think at the moment it only shows posts from the subs I subscribe to. But I can easily see how Kbin could replace Reddit (im not going back).
The reason it seems like that is because this kbin instance (kbin.social) isn't federated right now because of heavy traffic. So you'll only see magazines that were created here. As soon as the restrictions are relaxed you'll see other instances in the default feed. Or you could sign up for a different kbin instance like fedia.io which are currently still federated.
Even so, the other instances that are working as intended don't quite have that r/all feel yet just because there aren't nearly the same number of users in all of the fediverse as there were on reddit. It'll take time for the content to catch up.
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