44 votes

The not-so-subtle ways reddit shows it doesn't care

Increasingly over time, I've been seeing reddit less and less like the cool startup I used to think it was and more like a business. Not a day goes by where I don't see a post breaking the site wide rules, but Reddit does nothing. And that's on top of other hate subreddits like r/The_Donald that break the rules every day. Occasionally you'll hear about subreddit mods getting PMed by admins asking them to control their users in the same way Winrar tells you your free trial is about to run out. The worst are when the admins are clearly only banning to appease their user base, like banning r/incels just for it to come back as r/braincels and the admins once again ignore it.

45 comments

  1. [6]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. [5]
      thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      Wait... reddit isn't open source anymore? I guess because they didn't like so many sites copying them but if you're going to make your project open source, embrace what the community does. Nobody...

      Wait... reddit isn't open source anymore? I guess because they didn't like so many sites copying them but if you're going to make your project open source, embrace what the community does. Nobody forced you to make it open source.

      11 votes
      1. [5]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. [4]
          thisonemakesyouthink
          Link Parent
          Oh my god it's so 2008 and he seems so down to earth. Stop you're gonna make me feel bad about dissing reddit :(

          Oh my god it's so 2008 and he seems so down to earth. Stop you're gonna make me feel bad about dissing reddit :(

          6 votes
          1. [4]
            Comment deleted by author
            Link Parent
            1. nathan
              Link Parent
              For anyone who (like me) didn’t follow the reddit kerfuffle, “chimpire” is the collective term for the racist (particularly anti black) subreddits that existed. It was kind of ambiguous from...

              For anyone who (like me) didn’t follow the reddit kerfuffle, “chimpire” is the collective term for the racist (particularly anti black) subreddits that existed. It was kind of ambiguous from context so I had to google it.

              9 votes
            2. thisonemakesyouthink
              Link Parent
              Yeah, he's pretty active in the community. I've spoken to him a few times and he seems like a down to earth nice guy. Maybe he's more of a gold bar in a toilet.

              Yeah, he's pretty active in the community. I've spoken to him a few times and he seems like a down to earth nice guy. Maybe he's more of a gold bar in a toilet.

              5 votes
  2. [9]
    Deimos
    Link
    You can probably place most of the blame for this on the large amount of venture capital that they've taken recently. Reddit was a surprisingly small company for most of its life. When I started...

    Increasingly over time, I've been seeing reddit less and less like the cool startup I used to think it was and more like a business.

    You can probably place most of the blame for this on the large amount of venture capital that they've taken recently. Reddit was a surprisingly small company for most of its life. When I started there in January 2013 (when the site was already over 7 years old), there were still only about 10-15 people working on reddit itself, and the company didn't seem to have much pressure from its investors.

    Then in 2014, they took $50M in venture capital, and Yishan left as CEO a couple of months later. Ellen was CEO for about 7 months, and then Steve came back and replaced her. When I left in October 2016, the company had grown to over 150 employees, about 10x as large as when I started less than 4 years before (and most of them hired in the previous year).

    Last year, they took $200 million more, and the company now has over 450 employees and is still hiring a lot.

    They're under a lot of pressure now to monetize the site, because those investors expect a large return and their valuation is very low compared to their traffic. Reddit probably needs to raise their valuation to at least the $10B-$15B range now, and then aim to be acquired or IPO. That's their goal now, and almost everything they do will be in pursuit of that.

    28 votes
    1. [2]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        I started here on Tildes 2½ months ago, and I already spend more time here than Reddit. I'd been an active user there for 7 years, and a moderator for about 6 of those years, but this redesign is...

        I started here on Tildes 2½ months ago, and I already spend more time here than Reddit. I'd been an active user there for 7 years, and a moderator for about 6 of those years, but this redesign is a step too far for me.

        I'd been a moderator of /r/Help for a couple of years, and I was starting to consider whether to resign from that subreddit, as the redesign became more and more prominent. On the one hand, I wasn't using the redesign, so I would have to invest extra time training myself how it works in order to be able to answer questions about it. On the other hand, remaining as moderator of the officially sanctioned help community was a form of implicit support for what Reddit was doing. I was already considering stepping down from /r/Help. Then Tildes came along. I stepped down from /r/Help a couple of weeks later.

        I've always had a bit of unease about the larger context of Reddit and the behaviour they allow there, but as long as I focussed on just my little patches, I could ignore everything else. Then the redesign came along and was an omnipresent reminder that Reddit was going in a different direction to me, and I realised I didn't want to be dragged along that path.

        Even their approach to implementing the redesign was wrong (regardless of the software itself). It was incomplete and buggy software in alpha-testing, and they started just pushing it out to all users. That's just wrong. That proved to me that they really don't care about their users.

        I've reduced my activity on Reddit to a bare minimum. I go there only to moderate two subreddits that I really don't want to let go of: I made them (created one, founding co-moderator of the other). I've been there since Day One for both of them, and they're my babies. But they're the only things keeping me on Reddit these days.

        8 votes
    2. thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      I didn't know you used to work for reddit? But yeah, it's obvious reddit's been adding more and more ways to make revenue lately.

      I didn't know you used to work for reddit? But yeah, it's obvious reddit's been adding more and more ways to make revenue lately.

      2 votes
    3. [6]
      dances-with-shills
      Link Parent
      What was it like working for Pao? As someone who spent a good 48 hours stuck to their computer screen during The Fattening and seeing her get fired just a little while after that, I'd absolutely...

      What was it like working for Pao? As someone who spent a good 48 hours stuck to their computer screen during The Fattening and seeing her get fired just a little while after that, I'd absolutely love to hear what her reaction was like during that period - and really, what was the overall mood in reddit's office back then!

      I understand you may not want to discuss this subject, being an ex-employee and all but if you feel like sharing, it would mean a lot to me personally. Feel free to shoot me a PM too if you want some good ol' plausible deniability :)

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        Deimos
        Link Parent
        I probably can't/shouldn't say much, but I doubt I'd have much interesting to say anyway. I worked almost entirely remotely (I'd only go to the office for a week every few months), so almost all...

        I probably can't/shouldn't say much, but I doubt I'd have much interesting to say anyway. I worked almost entirely remotely (I'd only go to the office for a week every few months), so almost all of my visibility into things was through email or the company chat rooms. I'm sure being in the office was very different.

        2 votes
        1. dances-with-shills
          Link Parent
          Ah, what a shame! But you actually answering me is more than honor enough for a single day :D I betcha! I can't even imagine... those were some of the most tense couple of days in my life, and...

          Ah, what a shame! But you actually answering me is more than honor enough for a single day :D

          I'm sure being in the office was very different.

          I betcha! I can't even imagine... those were some of the most tense couple of days in my life, and I've been through some IRL shit you wouldn't believe even if I told you (I know because some people don't believe me when I do tell them) - but still... can't imagine what that must've been like at the very center of the storm...

          I'm sure outwardly they must've been patting each other in the back and praising how right they were to ban r/fatpeoplehate and others but the backslash was wilder and lasted longer than any other reddit crisis so far. It must have gotten under everyone's skins real good... I mean, Pao did end up getting fired not long at all after all that.

          2 votes
      2. [3]
        starchturrets
        Link Parent
        I wasn't on reddit when all that happened, but isn't it called the fappening?

        The Fattening

        I wasn't on reddit when all that happened, but isn't it called the fappening?

        1. [3]
          Comment removed by site admin
          Link Parent
          1. [2]
            StellarV
            Link Parent
            Can we agree to not use that name for the event? It's all part of the horrible harassment of Ellen Pao and overweight people and I don't think it's appropriate to use here. Not to mention that...

            Can we agree to not use that name for the event? It's all part of the horrible harassment of Ellen Pao and overweight people and I don't think it's appropriate to use here. Not to mention that link you included is absolutely disgusting and is justifying harassment of overweight people.

            3 votes
            1. [2]
              Comment deleted by author
              Link Parent
              1. StellarV
                Link Parent
                Yeah it's a common practice in the corporate world so I wouldn't be surprised she was used. They use someone as a scapegoat to implement unpopular changes, give the people "justice" when they...

                Yeah it's a common practice in the corporate world so I wouldn't be surprised she was used. They use someone as a scapegoat to implement unpopular changes, give the people "justice" when they complain, and then keep the changes.

                1 vote
  3. [5]
    StellarV
    Link
    I heard of a great new site that's way better than Reddit called Tildes. You should check it out! ;) Honestly I think Reddit is allowing controversial posts to stay up because it brings people to...

    I heard of a great new site that's way better than Reddit called Tildes. You should check it out! ;)

    Honestly I think Reddit is allowing controversial posts to stay up because it brings people to Reddit to debate or defend it and it just means more activity and more ad revenue all around. Any publicity is good publicity to them. When /r/The_Donald came about conservative people were flocking to Reddit in droves to brigade subreddits and troll. They absolutely don't care about their users, they just want Reddit to stay on people's minds.

    23 votes
    1. [4]
      thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      Never heard of Tildes, thanks for the suggestion. It's invite only though :/ Absolutely correct, they're one of the top websites in the world now and certainly making bank, who cares what their...

      Never heard of Tildes, thanks for the suggestion. It's invite only though :/

      Absolutely correct, they're one of the top websites in the world now and certainly making bank, who cares what their users think as long as they can keep pumping those numbers up?

      12 votes
      1. [4]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. [2]
          thisonemakesyouthink
          Link Parent
          For altright unethical shit-post garbage visit Voat

          For altright unethical shit-post garbage visit Voat

          14 votes
          1. starchturrets
            Link Parent
            Psst, there have been proposals to merge the two together! Not that the notabug community is a shining example of high quality civilty either. (No offense to @go1dfish, but the first ones to leave...

            Psst, there have been proposals to merge the two together!

            Not that the notabug community is a shining example of high quality civilty either. (No offense to @go1dfish, but the first ones to leave reddit are the worst.)

            6 votes
        2. teaearlgraycold
          Link Parent
          Oh hey, the site loads rather quickly now :D

          Oh hey, the site loads rather quickly now :D

          1 vote
  4. [10]
    39hp
    Link
    The one that really sticks me is what happened to kotakuinaction. Reddit staff make a big deal about letting hate subs just burn themselves out or implode naturally as the best way to do away with...

    The one that really sticks me is what happened to kotakuinaction. Reddit staff make a big deal about letting hate subs just burn themselves out or implode naturally as the best way to do away with them. Enter the founder of KiA who finally accepts that his sub is just a cesspool of transphobia, racism, and misogyny and closes KiA.

    In the spirit of letting hate subs implode on their own, Reddit staff put the hate machine back together so it can keep churning out discourse.

    19 votes
    1. [9]
      thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      Yeah, Kotaku in action sucks. It's pretty much just r/CringeAnarchy GAMER edition, who think their time is best spent whining about what some random female game developer said. However, they did...

      Yeah, Kotaku in action sucks. It's pretty much just r/CringeAnarchy GAMER edition, who think their time is best spent whining about what some random female game developer said. However, they did give us this glorious copy pasta:

      They targeted gamers.

      Gamers.

      We're a group of people who will sit for hours, days, even weeks on end performing some of the hardest, most mentally demanding tasks. Over, and over, and over all for nothing more than a little digital token saying we did.

      We'll punish our selfs doing things others would consider torture, because we think it's fun.

      We'll spend most if not all of our free time min maxing the stats of a fictional character all to draw out a single extra point of damage per second.

      Many of us have made careers out of doing just these things: slogging through the grind, all day, the same quests over and over, hundreds of times to the point where we know evety little detail such that some have attained such gamer nirvana that they can literally play these games blindfolded.

      Do these people have any idea how many controllers have been smashed, systems over heated, disks and carts destroyed 8n frustration? All to latter be referred to as bragging rights?

      These people honestly think this is a battle they can win? They take our media? We're already building a new one without them. They take our devs? Gamers aren't shy about throwing their money else where, or even making the games our selves. They think calling us racist, mysoginistic, rape apologists is going to change us? We've been called worse things by prepubescent 10 year olds with a shitty head set. They picked a fight against a group that's already grown desensitized to their strategies and methods. Who enjoy the battle of attrition they've threatened us with. Who take it as a challange when they tell us we no longer matter. Our obsession with proving we can after being told we can't is so deeply ingrained from years of dealing with big brothers/sisters and friends laughing at how pathetic we used to be that proving you people wrong has become a very real need; a honed reflex.

      Gamers are competative, hard core, by nature. We love a challange. The worst thing you did in all of this was to challange us. You're not special, you're not original, you're not the first; this is just another boss fight.

      14 votes
      1. [6]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. [4]
          thisonemakesyouthink
          Link Parent
          Yeah, that and all the battlefield controversy shit makes it hard.

          Yeah, that and all the battlefield controversy shit makes it hard.

          6 votes
          1. [3]
            39hp
            Link Parent
            Gamers: I just wish they would respect historical accuracy. Also gamers: Watch me hop out of a plane and no-scope counter-snipe.

            Gamers: I just wish they would respect historical accuracy.

            Also gamers: Watch me hop out of a plane and no-scope counter-snipe.

            12 votes
            1. thisonemakesyouthink
              Link Parent
              Then land in someone else's plane, shoot down another plane, then dive out and parachute to the ground into an abandoned tank.

              Then land in someone else's plane, shoot down another plane, then dive out and parachute to the ground into an abandoned tank.

              6 votes
        2. crius
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          I'm sorry but it's them that are not "gamer". Also, if gamer is a person definer adjective, my god things are far worse than I thought. I'm a gamer and proud of my interest because of this far...

          I'm sorry but it's them that are not "gamer".

          Also, if gamer is a person definer adjective, my god things are far worse than I thought.

          I'm a gamer and proud of my interest because of this far over just playing games.

          That being said, is not the thing that defines me.

          Those clowns are on par with the Twitter feminists that are simply sad frustrated little people that hide behind a label they don't even understand.

          1 vote
      2. [2]
        39hp
        Link Parent
        lol, true, I guess. That said, memes are a dime a dozen. I could do with KiA never having existed.

        lol, true, I guess.

        That said, memes are a dime a dozen. I could do with KiA never having existed.

        9 votes
      3. starchturrets
        Link Parent
        That copypasta was indirectly responsible for my first ever gold. I finally was able to visit the lounge and do goldish stuff.

        That copypasta was indirectly responsible for my first ever gold. I finally was able to visit the lounge and do goldish stuff.

  5. [7]
    pleure
    Link
    The redesign should have been incontrovertible proof that the reddit administrators don't care about users (in the sense of the users that actually make up the reddit community, not the "new"...

    The redesign should have been incontrovertible proof that the reddit administrators don't care about users (in the sense of the users that actually make up the reddit community, not the "new" users they're trying to attract now).

    10 votes
    1. [4]
      thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      What you don't like an overly modernized bland and confusing layout with less functionality and less customization options?

      What you don't like an overly modernized bland and confusing layout with less functionality and less customization options?

      5 votes
      1. [3]
        pleure
        Link Parent
        It's absurdly bad, it's still buggy as hell and they're pushing for mass adoption. I have a userscript to redirect the original design for the few subreddits I still use.

        It's absurdly bad, it's still buggy as hell and they're pushing for mass adoption. I have a userscript to redirect the original design for the few subreddits I still use.

        5 votes
        1. thisonemakesyouthink
          Link Parent
          At least you can just opt out. There's no need for an extension or the old link. Otherwise agreed, redesign sucks.

          At least you can just opt out. There's no need for an extension or the old link. Otherwise agreed, redesign sucks.

          2 votes
        2. teaearlgraycold
          Link Parent
          I'm not 100% against the redesign, and think if it was more polished and less focused on keeping you on the site it'd be great. But even now it's beta software at best.

          I'm not 100% against the redesign, and think if it was more polished and less focused on keeping you on the site it'd be great. But even now it's beta software at best.

          2 votes
    2. MangoTiger
      Link Parent
      Once they limit or prevent third-party apps from accessing their API and/or fully depreciate the old design (assuming they do either of those), I've promised myself (I swear!) that I'll stop using...

      Once they limit or prevent third-party apps from accessing their API and/or fully depreciate the old design (assuming they do either of those), I've promised myself (I swear!) that I'll stop using Reddit all together. I've already started using it less and less after the ugliness of 2016 (which has only gotten worse), but since joining Tildes I'm spending much less time on it. Hopefully by the time they kill 3-p apps/the old design I won't be using it much anyway. That's my plan, at least.

      5 votes
    3. dances-with-shills
      Link Parent
      But that's the problem isn't it: they're trying to grab some of that Facebook marketshare but no one is going to leave Facebook and use an anonymous website that tries to be Facebook instead. It...

      not the "new" users they're trying to attract now

      But that's the problem isn't it: they're trying to grab some of that Facebook marketshare but no one is going to leave Facebook and use an anonymous website that tries to be Facebook instead. It just doesn't work!

      They're a top-10 most-accessed website on the USA throwing away the entire user-experience that got them there to begin with for the sake of a strategy that cannot possibly work... what is happening at reddit?!

  6. [4]
    zoec
    Link
    I missed the reference to What's about that? The title of this post reminds me of an essay by Rebecca Solnit: Not Caring Is a Political Art Form. It was about immigration, race, and policies, but...

    I missed the reference to

    the [way] Winrar tells you your free trial is about to run out

    What's about that?


    The title of this post reminds me of an essay by Rebecca Solnit: Not Caring Is a Political Art Form. It was about immigration, race, and policies, but I'm reading a more substantial connection in there, more than the similarity of titles.

    In the Solnit piece, she wrote that the US government, represented by Trump and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, uses the MS-13 gang as a bogeyman to drive up fear and xenophobic sentiments and an excuse for American policies. The reality is that the MS-13 gang was a result of American policies -- specifically, running the civil war for the Salvadoran government while rejecting the refugees.

    Not to invoke moral equivalence, the similarity of behaviours can be noticed. Reddit appears to care about solving a problem, but this problem is the very feature of Reddit. It's the way Reddit ought to be run as conceived largely implicitly but purposefully built into it by Reddit itself.

    As I quoted in another post, for the corporate social media, online identities are commodities. And you don't care for commodities. You exploit them and make capital in their circulation.

    In order for there to be care, a social media platform must embrace online identities as more than commodities (and in duality to this, we ought to be more than consumers of the commodified online identities of ourselves and others -- we need to practice self-care in resistance to self-consumption).

    8 votes
    1. [3]
      thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      Winrar gives you a 30 day free trial but you can just click the X on the "pay for winrar" popup and keep using it. Yes, when I was new to reddit I saw it as this awesome place that cared only...

      Winrar gives you a 30 day free trial but you can just click the X on the "pay for winrar" popup and keep using it. Yes, when I was new to reddit I saw it as this awesome place that cared only about the users. Now, years later, it's just a corporate money maker that tried to appeal to the kids.

      6 votes
      1. [2]
        zoec
        Link Parent
        Thank you for the explanation. I get what you mean by "try[ing] to appeal to the kids", but I'd say all of the Big Social Media try to appeal to "virulence" (adj. "viral"). In this process, they...

        Thank you for the explanation.

        I get what you mean by "try[ing] to appeal to the kids", but I'd say all of the Big Social Media try to appeal to "virulence" (adj. "viral"). In this process, they indeed can end up with generating a bunch of byproducts, such as real but rare opportunities for connection. But the corporate nature of Big Social Media is to appropriate them and turn them into another cog in the virulence machine.

        3 votes
        1. thisonemakesyouthink
          Link Parent
          True, but there was a time when reddit was the cool kid.

          True, but there was a time when reddit was the cool kid.

          2 votes
  7. [3]
    lars
    Link
    It's a fairly common stance though. Care about what affects you directly.

    It's a fairly common stance though. Care about what affects you directly.

    2 votes
    1. [2]
      thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      And in this what they care about is the biggest possible user base for ad rev.

      And in this what they care about is the biggest possible user base for ad rev.

      5 votes
      1. lars
        Link Parent
        Oh yeah. Definitely.

        Oh yeah. Definitely.

        1 vote
  8. [2]
    alexandre9099
    Link
    Their official app showing 2/3 ads next to each other and saying that is a bug that will™ be fixed

    Their official app showing 2/3 ads next to each other and saying that is a bug that will™ be fixed

    2 votes
    1. dances-with-shills
      Link Parent
      Oh yes, I remember when the app I used to work on suddenly got a super duper nasty bug that made a whole lot of ad deals to be closed and start printing for revenue on my webpage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

      Oh yes, I remember when the app I used to work on suddenly got a super duper nasty bug that made a whole lot of ad deals to be closed and start printing for revenue on my webpage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      I was soooo upset at all the profit that bug was making me, to this day I coudln't tell you what caused it! In all likelihood I just must have forgotten to update the antivirus for my webserver!!!

      Seriously reddit..?

      1 vote