I signed onto Reddit six years ago because that was where I could discuss stuff I liked intelligently. Due to social awkwardness and poor conversational skills, I feel like I contribute nothing to the conversation anywhere, on forums or IRL. I even signed up for Stack Exchange, Hacker News, and Ars Techinca for discussion, but they all look like you need a Ph.D. to contribute anything meaningful?

Am I alone on this? How can I be a productive part of the conversation?

What's it like over there right now? IIRC the blackout was supposed to finish today. I've decided to quit reddit unless something changes, so I want to do my best not to visit the site, but I am very curious about what the website and culture has been like for the past few days. And now that the initial blackout is 'over', how many subreddits have started to emerge again? Are people coming back now and acting like they've won? Has reddit responded to the blackout at all?

In the worst case scenario that Reddit dies; I'm going to miss the /r/exmormon community the most. It's a religion that is not easy to leave (many societal repercussions); and many ex-members experiencing a "faith transition" rely on the discussions in that sub (275K+ subscribers).

I have never been a leader at a big company (or anywhere...), and honestly I am pretty ignorant when it comes to money and business, so maybe that's why I feel this way but... isn't this what for-profit companies ultimately are supposed to do? (make money?)

Reddit is blowing up today over his internal memo, and that's when I kind of started to feel bad for him. Wouldn't an internal memo be expected at a time right now? Wouldn't it say that kind of stuff? I'm just curious but for others, if you were in his position, what would you do right now? Is there a better move to be made? What should he have said in that memo? I kind of feel bad for him. At the end of the day he helped create reddit, and it must kind of suck to watch your own project devolve and people come to hate you.

The thing about this API decision that got to me is how abrupt it was - 30 days or thereabout. That doesn't seem like very long. But aren't these decisions usually made by multiple people? (not just a CEO?) I also think it sucks that reddit app hasn't been made accessible to vision impaired folks. So maybe he sucks as a leader, but is that a reason to hate him?

I'd love to better understand.

I'm no luddite. I'm a tech consultant who likes shaving microseconds off API calls.

But for social media, dear tildellows, please consider embracing a slower web. I mention this as I hear a few people for example missing push notifications for messages, etc.

Consider that nobody on social media websites needs to reach you instantly.
Consider that there is nothing happening on such sites that you need to read ASAP.
Consider that you will never be able to keep up with the world, and that trying to stay at the edge of some information will just mean you're missing out on some other edge.

Read your town's local news, which is a lot more likely to impact you. And it's ok to respond to your DMs after a couple days.

With the death of third party apps, I'm gone. Way over 90% of my interactions are on RIF Is Fun, and I don't see myself changing over. (Ironically, I'm typing this on my laptop, but this is definitely the exception.)

The u/spez "AMA" (quotes because it was anything but an AMA) yesterday made clear that there was no vision, no plan, no grand strategy, no genius behind the scenes trying to make a bad situation better. There is next-quarterism, venture vulture capital destruction, and a fundamental misunderstanding of where Reddit gets its value. Without the users, the mods, and the developers who make this insane place work, it will never turn a profit.

Who wants to advertise on a website when there is random nsfw spam? Or where there is rampant racism without folks to clean it up? Or where nobody goes because there is no content? Developers, mods, and users provide (in order) the methods of interaction that then get applied to lead to the economic driver of the company. In the "AMA," the most damning comment in my mind was "we’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive". You can't cut costs out of a budget hole when most of the work done comes from free labor, and when the content that drives eyeballs to the site is free too.

Reddit is cutting the legs off of the 1% and <0.1% of users by seeking short-sighted profits off the backs of third-party developers. Reddit is gaslighting and libelling and doing a pretty shit job of it, because we all can see what's done and said here...And it is just going to accelerate the decline of the site.

I'm not going to be deleting, because I have unreasonable hope that things can change for the better, I'll just not coming on nearly as much. I'll probably sleep or something with the extra time. Or maybe I'll read books on my phone, or develop a new strange addiction.

Here lies Reddit, a hive of scum and villainy to rival Mos Eisley. It was home. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Personally, I would recommend Pixlriffs. A few days ago, he has started a new season of his Minecraft Survival Guide series coinciding with the release of Minecraft 1.20. The series goes over each step, including the basic ones, to get yourself started and beyond on a Minecraft world. Here is a direct link to the start of season 3 inside a playlist. If you are a new or returning player to the game, I think it's a very nice resource to get the hang of it.

The channel has been going for quite a few years now so there's a lot of content to watch, including a separate channel that he handles the writing and narration for dedicated to recapping the event of the Hermitcraft multiplayer server. The Hermitcraft players are themselves content creators I'd recommend checking out.

Hi all,

I just took a look at the Tildes subreddit after the recent announcements, and there are tons and tons of invite requests there. I just wanted to draw the site's attention to that as right now it seems like mostly @cfabbro (and probably @Deimos behind the scenes) handling them. I almost never use my invites, so I intend to go through and send out my 10 and help with the backlog a bit. I would encourage you all to do the same as well! Some good practices;

• Reply to users once you have sent so that we do not double up, and can reach the most people with finite invites.

• As always, be mindful of who you are inviting, and take a cursory look at their post history to make sure there are no crazy red flags. We are all responsible for the community we build here, so be mindful of who you are inviting!

I've been a reddit user for a long time, it scares me how big the number is (death is marching my way quickly).

Before reddit I was on digg, and before that, usenet (before google ruined it). God I miss usenet. I know it technically still exists, but it seems to be mostly binaries and spam.

But the new interface really stinks, and since they've killed .compact, I decided it was time to go. (There were dozens of us using i.reddit.com! Dozens!)

And like the title says, it's a lot like kicking smokes. I was pretty jonesd the first couple days, and the experience comes like an impulse (Brain: "I'm bored! Check Reddit!"), followed by my conscious, no thank you, followed by, "What? No! We have to check reddit! Have to! We must do it now! Now! NOW!" followed by a gradual diminution in intensity of that same message, then a period of life, then repeat. The repeats slowly diminish in frequency, duration, and degree, so that now, only once or twice to I want to hit it.

A couple exceptions: I still check my relevant geographic reddits once in a while, and if relevant, I'll add "reddit" to my google results. I also use stackexchange and wikipedia more for some of those informational reasons, but those two, due to their labyrinthine and fiefish rules constrain content. Another discussion. There are also certain, ah, visual distractions for which reddit is still a good source (and for that I use teddit.net, thanks friendly tilderino!).

To ease withdrawals, I've been clicking tildes a lot more, also slashdot, and fark, and also ibooks. I'm proud of myself, and happy I've done it.

A moment of reflection-why do I like these sites so much? And why not facebook, twitter, etc.? I do like to argue, occasionally even as a third grader, but facebook and twitter have plenty of opporunity for that sort of thing. No, the difference is that reddit (and tildes, and usenet) are structured around ideas, whereas facebook etc. are structured around personalities. I'm an introvert, smarter than most people I encounter (at least along certain axes, many of which may be of dubious merit), curious and interested. Interested in ideas. Which is not to say I do not find people interesting, or do not value close, intimate, personal relationships. But I like to talk about ideas, and most people do not, except on places like reddit and here.

Perhaps I will start my own substack now.

Someday when I leave for good, I'll very likely say r/politicalcompassmemes. The place has always had a right-wing presence but at some point pretty long ago it just became the dominant POV and the place is now solidly a no-go for minorities and 95+% of leftists unless they were turned into a term of 'endearment' on 4chan first like how 4chan users call themselves autists and whatever. The place is also pretty bad at sourcing the articles it posts about purported leftists doing ridiculous things. I have mostly looked at the place from the POV of "rightwingers saying stuff" for quite some time now, but I haven't gotten around for leaving for good because occasionally there's a moderately critical post of the sub and that I am accustomed to the jargon used more often there that's less commonly used elsewhere.

Official Announcement

NYTimes Article

Apollo Apollo (well known iOS client) developer talking about the specifics. Sounds like the API will now be paid based on usage.

It's a bit easier to have an opinion after the Apollo developer revealed the specifics Reddit gave him. Other than the NSFW part, which seems odd considering the API will be one of the revenue streams that isn't advertiser supported, it seems reasonable, of course waiting on the final price per usage.

It was never going to be sustainable for Reddit's API to be fully free. It was just silly - you could use the whole site, which certainly costs money in both AWS fees and developers doing KTLO, and not see any advertisements via the API.

App developers will pass the costs along to the user, many will likely fold because it won't be commercially viable with the additional cost, but, well, that's the way of things.