Interested in getting a feel for what people may be likely to do IF reddit reverses their decision regarding API access, or reduces access fees to a reasonable level and 3rd party apps remain sustainable.
While I know the chances of this are extreeeemely slim, until 1st July there is an ever so slight chance this could still happen.
From my perspective, the community harm is done, and those who have left prior to July 1 have left due to principles, not because their app stopped working. As such, I’d be inclined to think most of those migrators would stay here in the fediverse.
But would we see a mass exodus back to reddit if the changes were undone? It’s easy to say no, but if it went back to operations as relatively normal, it may be easy to justify going back for some users.
I’d like to think I wouldn’t go back. I’ve deleted content and account from reddit. I’ll be happy here so long as there is enough userbase for some discussion.
For me, it’s not just that they screwed up the API changes, it’s that they’ve repeatedly kept doubling down since then.
It’s also … I keep thinking back to Ellen Pao. They brought her in knowing that they wanted her to get rid of FPH and Victoria, knowing that at least the FPH thing was going to make her a target of the misogynistic GamerGate haters and bringing in a woman anyway, and they deliberately and repeatedly refused to give her any public support. It was completely reprehensible, and they cheerfully scapegoated her and kicked her to the curb when it was done.
As bad as that was, I also see elements of the same thing happening here, where this is a highly unpopular change, and there’s no one else from reddit speaking up to support spez. I think they’re going to have him force through the changes and then kick him to the curb like they did Ellen. They’re not going to reverse any of the changes - it’s what they want, after all, but they’re going to let spez take all the heat and go on their merry way completely unphased.
To be completely honest, I think spez deserves this: his job as CEO is to have vision, manage public relations, and handle crises, and he’s miserably failed at all of those. He misunderstood reddit’s most valuable assets (it’s commentary and the large group of people contributing and moderating the site for free), and he literally paid the API fees for some very profitable and potentially profitable companies to suck every piece of data from reddit; then he publicly targeted small publishers who enhance reddit instead of presenting them as collateral damage of the AI wars (I suspect to avoid bringing attention to his incredible lack of vision in letting everyone freely harvest data for their own lucrative products). And he’s clearly failing in the PR and managing crises front as well. But I truly believe that everyone at reddit is perfectly happy to let spez do this thing that they want done, and then they’ll throw him away when it’s done in an attempt to appease the users.
Anyway, your question is “what will I do if reddit undoes the API changes”. Given my beliefs, I simply don’t see how I could possibly trust reddit management ever again. And trust is a really big thing with me; I don’t think I could ever go back.
Unless you’re reddit management, here to gauge user temperament, in which case I will totally return if the API changes are undone, yes, of course I will, just trust me!
Yeah, not a healthy working team there exactly.
Can Reddit also un-slander the 3pa devs?
After Steve’s behavior and treatment of the mods and developers, I wouldn’t go back if they paid me. Even in the best case scenarios, they can’t undo the damage that’s already been done.
Lmao even if it weren’t just no out of principle, after spez’s comments about how Twitter under Elon is a model for Reddit to look to - why would I waste an ounce of energy on such a platform?
They wont.
This is so far that they cannot back off anymore, they know it, users know it, their investors know it
They could abandon their plans, apologize and then give everyone a cute puppy as a sorry, and I still wouldn’t go back. Spez and his group of admins have shown their true colors, and it’s because of them that I refuse to ever rejoin. Their actions this past week have been downright dictatorial, engaging in doublethink, hyperbole and creating rules when it benefits them despite no prior communication with the communities they’ve steamrolled by force.
As someone who recently had a 12 year old account, reddit and Spez can go fuck themselves.
The damage is done. The administration at Reddit has shown they will do whatever it takes to stamp out dissent… except for actually listen to the users.
I want to avoid enshitification, and enshitification is more or less the ultimate goal of those who own reddit. This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to extract value from the site with utter disregard for users and moderators. If they didn’t get their way this time, they’ll just try again later. Perhaps more politely or more slowly, but the writing is on the wall. Has been for a while.
I don’t see that a reversal at this point would be any different to Twitter suddenly becoming usable again. The damage has already been done, it can’t be reversed. Even with a pinky swear that Reddit will never pull this shit again, the trust is gone. Just like with Twitter - Elon could f*** off to Mars tomorrow, but the next person to step in and run Twitter could be just as bad, or worse. And both companies can implement any changes they like at any time with zero worry about what happens to the users. Thus - it’s the wake-up call we all needed, that someone else’s platform is really someone else’s platform - regardless of how long we have had a home there. It’s time for own platform, a community run platform.
Does not matter if they revert the changes or not at this point. I found a new home here and will keep using it.
I will still keep my reddit-Account and do the same as with my FB-account: Visit the site once a month to check up on the one or two communities that unfortunately stayed there.In my case? Nothing. They thoroughly burned that bridge. They would have to rebuild it, and merely returning to the status quo after showing their hand isn’t enough.
Reddit has clearly shown their priorities. If they change the policies now, they only do it for the money, not for the users.
Imagine if your partner is abusive as fuck and took advantage of you for years, and you managed to go away from them, then they stop being abusive and say they won’t be like that again, How can you be sure that they’ll stay that way? What keeps them from acting like a total piece of shit again?
Imagine we’re at the point where the Titanic has split in two, and the remaining portion is held afloat by trapped air. You can patch the hole made by the iceberg, but it probably won’t change my plans too much.
Reddit has been so transparently awful in handling this whole situation that I wouldn’t go back. I can only imagine something similar would happen again not too far in the future anyway, regardless if they were to reverse their decision with the API.
