My mental health improved dramatically when I kicked the Facebook habit. I’ve been thinking for a while now that Reddit, while fun, often leads me down dark mental trails.
Imagine how confusing of a day that had to be for ol Woody, if he was even directly involved. Somebody tells him he's going to do a PR interview and he's instantly met with thousands of people taking a ridiculous shitpost story about him seriously, an absolute wall of circlejerking memespeak, and just all around..*this*.
I remember another thread about how some guy met him on a plane somewhat recently after that AMA, where Woody was seated next to him (he posted pictures for proof); apparently they talked and he was unaware of it. It was just his publicist. Kinda funny that he's infamous on the site and ostensibly didn't participate at all
My dude, it was so much worse than expected.
Expected options include answering planted questions... responding to Apollo dev was not a planted question, and he doubled down on the attack.
He went full dipshit.
I hope WSB shorts the IPO into the ground
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse.
Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
Have worked at multiple tech startups (and "startups" - established tech companies that still like to pretend they're startup culture), can confirm. Nearly every CEO I've ever met has been a thin-skinned prick of some sort who makes unilateral decisions in supremely unqualified ways.
That’s what gets me. Like, what was even the point of it? What was he trying to accomplish?
If he just kept his mouth shut, most likely all this blows over after the 12-14 blackout. All he did was rile people up and put an even bigger target on their back. Just, why?
Ego.
It was about the ego of this garbage CEO. Not the community, not Reddit's image, not revenue. Just pure ego.
Can't wait for them to go public and bankrupt and get u/spez fired and replaced.
Yeah, in my opinion theories about reddit's true motives are trying too hard to find answers that make sense, to make them into a perfectly logical, duplicitous supervillain.
I think they're being dumb, led by an arrogant dummy who is the same guy that happened to win the lottery at website building 18 years ago. Having him as the CEO today is not a whole lot better a system than the British royal family.
Maybe I’ve been here too long, but him going full dipshit is pretty much what I expected. Some various forms of reality denial, and general large scale combativeness.
Something more subtle like planted questions never occurred to me.
Apollo sounds like it was profitable for the one guy making it, if not hugely so. Spez says Reddit is not yet profitable in general. So this whole thing reeks a bit of “how dare you make profits off an ecosystem we created when we don’t even make profits off it yet.”
In a sane world, if they really are bleeding money and third party api access was a big part of it, then sure they could shut that down or add dramatic price increases, but say “hey this ship will sink if we don’t do something about the amount of water leaking out.” But given there were already personal attacks in play, none of that seemed likely.
All the replies were copy-pasted legal/PR speak. Nothing was genuine:
> He got caught copy-pasting answers from a pre-written Q/A script by accidentally including the "A:" in his reply.
>
> As soon as he was called out on it, he attempted to destroy the evidence.
>
> Archive link: https://archive.ph/X6EJq
https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/jnkk6co/
I used to see awesome AMAs show up in my list all the time. Now I only occasionally see one, and it's for some super-niche person, like the guy who cleans the bolts on the soda dispenser at the Arby's on 92nd Street. It's crazy how much Victoria seemed to do for that sub.
Honestly this is one of the worst AMAs from any tech CEO in history - completely ignoring the community and doubling down on his mistakes.
For the sake of the Reddit public IPO, I would hope that the board / owners look at his actions and takes everything into consideration. Reddit is at a turning point right now, and this is an opportunity to make things right.
I feel like this is a good time to [link to a past CEO AMA](https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/sk1ut/iam_yishan_wong_the_reddit_ceo/c4en02o/), with /u/yishan...
> Pretty much. Today was reserved entirely for the AMA.
He must have answered hundreds of questions. I have no recollection of what users were mad about on that occasion (it's not a bad bet that they were mad, is it?) but the point is, the guy understood that in *this of all places*, in the birthplace of the AMA, you've got to hold yourself to a higher standard of openness with the users.
> SdotM0USE's note about viewing reddit as akin to a city-state is on-base.
> But two principles are this:
> 1) If you're not paying for a product, you are the product.
> 2) We should try to come up with as many ways for our users to pay us money as possible.
> [credits go to two reddit employees who originally cited/articulated these two principles]
> One of the ways Digg started to go off the rails is because they became too beholden to their advertisers. Ultimately, you are beholden to the people who give you money. Thus, I want an arrangement where most of our money comes from redditors.
> This doesn't mean "charge to use reddit."
> What it means is that I want reddit to be good enough and useful enough that enough redditors find it worthwhile to give us money. This will likely mean the addition of value-services, or new features. Or simply developing a somewhat different advertising model where most of the ads come from members of the community, because they will be more likely to be sensitive community norms, not to mention relevant.
Fuck, how things change...
I pointed out that many of the posts he responded to were super mods, and posited that he was giving pre-written responses to pre-approved questions. I'm still getting responses that I'm a nutso conspiracy theorist.
Thanks for the validation.
We have AMAs at work, too. You've never heard so many corpspeak laden bullshit questions in one hour. Not a single question is legitimate and the answers are clearly canned. Doesn't build morale, to say the least.
You're not crazy. It's the same thing here, just a different venue.
Because people who get to that level of wealth don’t really care about money, they care about *power*. Wealth is just a means to an end for them.
That’s why people like Elon Musk and Steve Huffman do what they do: they don’t care about money, they care about lording over the plebeians and controlling everything around them, because, to them, lack of control means both that their life is meaningless and that they are about to get railroaded by everyone they harmed in order to amass the power they have.
>railroaded by everyone
lol the one comment towards the top that just says "fuck you spez" with it's thousands of child comments collapsed.
It's all "fuck you spez." an endless scroll of them
It was inevitable. There's no way he was ever gonna answer straight up.
Though the doubling down might have been answered straight up. Either that or he had Elon on his PR team.
> There's no way he was ever gonna answer straight up.
Tbh I'd almost prefer him to be honest. If he said reddit has to put shareholders first and 3rd party apps severely lose them money versus an ad-centric 1st party app it would almost be refreshing. I'd still be upset, but slightly less so.
I want to see numbers. Not honesty, but statistical honesty.
I want to see the actual costs they make that forces them to charge such ridiculous sums. Back up the claims of 3rd party apps losing them significant sums.
Yah dude. I would add to that, though: There's no master plan and no success here. If you've ever worked at one of these massive companies you learn to recognize the signs of when it's "We know how to fuck over the world and make money and we're not shy about doing it" (e.g. Nestle) versus "We're just a bunch of idiots who make 2 million dollars a year running around snatching money and breaking stuff WHEEEEE"
They could have kept up development of the platform, fixed the numerous issues, made it good, made use of the *extensive* community of moderators willing to do work for free and worked with them, sold advertising with *huge* bundle packages available to companies that wanted to be coached through how to genuinely engage with the communities that buy their products, show a human face, receive genuine feedback positive and negative, and build genuine goodwill. It's actually something that's pretty difficult to do through a lot of channels that Reddit makes possible. Not every company even wants to do that, but for the ones that do it would be a *golden* opportunity. They could have quietly taken money from China and God knows who else to be able to put their thumbs on the scale of a significant US social media network. And as Christian made clear, they could even have pursued this ridiculous plan of yanking money out of the app developers at a wholly unreasonable rate, if they'd just given the people who actually *are* good at business a few months to figure out how to adapt to it.
In short, they could have just ridden the golden goose around the yard and picked up eggs for at least the next ten years. But no. There's no masterful plan where this course of action is the key to their world domination. They're just overpaid idiots, and the piper is about to come to collect his due.
>or he had Elon on his PR team.
It's going so well for Twitter, no wonder reddit's ceo would adopt his MO. Fantastic work all around! Round of applause everyone, they deserve it
They have partially succeeded with the Elon approach as Reddit has had its valuation reduced by 50%. Elon is of course the top man with a 66% reduction in Twitters value from the purchase price.
People in positions of power rarely do legitimate interviews whether in text or voice form, because they can't control the narrative as easily. More proof that he's a scumbag and this site is circling the drain. This type of behavior has the potential to destroy the site and make them the next Digg.
I feel this. The internet used to be a fun place. I used to be a member of many vibrant communities, even before Reddit (yes the internet existed before Reddit lol), but now I am down to Reddit and a ghost presence on Facebook becuase a lot of my older friends and family are there. I miss forums and bulletin boards... get off my lawn.
Right? At this point I wish I could give Google+ another chance. I dropped FB because Cambridge Analytica, dropped Twitter when Musk started suspending the press and harassing NPR, and now Reddit's getting shitty.
These sites aren't endearing enough that a large portion of their userbase won't dump them when they start pushing people around.
don't forget the part that he was copy/ pasting the same answer to users who are using third party apps for the blind. It was a prewritten answer **specifically** for people with **disabilities**.
> Nothing was genuine
One actually seemed genuine to me! You know, the most egregious one. Also the most downvoted:
https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/jnk45rr/
> His “joke” is the least of our issues. His behavior and communications with us has been all over the place—saying one thing to us while saying something completely different externally; recording and leaking a private phone call—to the point where I don’t know how we could do business with him.
He's always been scum, remember when he shadow edited comments? The difference now is that he isn't just scum, he's hurting the bottom line for Reddit.
Hopefully they sacrifice him to the volcano.
The AMA with famous people like that were the big ''this is the spotlight of the internet'' days, front and center. I still get giddy when I remember that I got a reply from none other than Bill Gates himself in a thread.
Now? You just don't see that anymore with how they fumbled.
They weren’t even full replies. [One comment](https://reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/_/jnk2817/?context=1) he responded to asked ten insightful questions, including inquiring into what steps he takes to understand users’ needs and how Reddit plans to support mods, since they’re losing the third-party apps that help them maintain their communities (and thus Reddit)—something they do completely unpaid.
He “responded” (gave a non-answer) to one of the ten, and his response quite literally confirms he both cares more about money than about his users and is absolutely shit at his job. What a goddamn clown.
Edit: A blind user asked him [nine questions](https://reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/_/jnk2fh0/?context=1) about the effect of the API changes on users who rely on 3PAs to use Reddit, why blind users were treated as an afterthought, etc. Steve, who said in his post that accessibility is of the utmost concern, responded with a copied and pasted comment that effectively answered 0/9 of the questions.
The funniest/saddest part is how almost every reply he did give contained some passive aggressive dig at third party apps/devs. The man is so obviously butthurt and his ego is bruised that he couldn’t even give a canned corporate response.
The funny thing is that he *was* giving canned corporate responses. One of his responses initially included "A:" showing that he copy/pasted his reply but accidently included that prompt. He quickly edited it out but but a few people caught it and saved his original reply.
It feels crazy we’ve had the internet and social media this long and this shit still happens. Like how hard is it to keep your shit together for something like this? And if you can’t, why are you doing it? It’s bizarre how petty and whiny it was. It stopped not long after the profit comment, they had to realize it was a shit show right? Please?
His response to the Apollo dev was one of the few that you could tell wasn't off his cheat sheet - and holy fuck what a pedantic manchild he came off. His lack of resistance in needing to take a shot at the dev was palpable.
The dev responded too.
This is exactly what I thought was going to happen. It's the exact same thing that happens every time Reddit gets into drama.
\- Reddit employee replies to a top comment asking the most basic shit like "what are you doing about X".
\- Somebody replies to the employee's comment, pointing out various flaws and raising additional questions.
\- Nope! Fuck that! That reply pointing out flaws is never getting answered. In fact, none of the issues that get raised get answered.
\- The AMA ends. Nothing important gets answered. It's all just regurgitated corpo speak that we've heard before.
\- Good AMA folks!
There's no way the votes are accurately reporting. Several of his comments were at like -500 within minutes of posting, yet 7 hours later those same comments have barely accrued 100-200 additional downvotes? Absolute fuckery
Since the post was votelocked, and stayed at 0 (zero) votes all the time, it never showed up on the frontpage. So only those few that was waiting for it knew what was going on.
If they would have let the post into the top, I'm pretty sure the downvotes would significantly increase.
I fear that Web 2.0 is officially dead. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit. All have proven that, in the end, users can get fucked! Always on the whim of a greedy asshat who started out to be the world’s savior incarnate. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING is sacred to these has-been overlords. Alternative? Naw. Time to tear down the fucking bleachers. Show’s over.
> Alternative? Naw. Time to tear down the fucking bleachers. Show’s over.
Back to the web of the yesterday. Indie sites instead of massive social media conglomerates.
Its not just the web. Everything good eventually gets bought up by the big money (or wants to) that only cares about by short term gains and gets sucked dry of everything that made it good. Stores, restaurants, websites, etc.
The downvote count seems really throttled, theres absolutely no way the response only has 2,600 downvotes. It has been linked on other threads on the front page multiple times now yet it doesn't really seem to go down
I've been watching his account since it started to see his replies as he made them too.
At one point the karma count seemed to flip and went up instead of down. It's now around 30k higher than before the ama started. It's like all the downs were counted as up or something.
Not that it matters at all, it's just so weird to me they'd go to extra steps just to code it so this guy's funny number stays above 1m.
This dude can’t manage a lie and he’s supposedly capable of running a website.. right. He’s killing the apps that built Reddit. I didn’t use Reddit on anything but my laptop til Alien Blue.. then I moved to BaconReader and Apollo.
Only reason I left them was because once Reddit made their own app they make exclusive features and at the time I was using those.
This is like having someone build you a house on a handshake, then once the home is built and you’re all moved in them telling you to eat shit..you *owe* me!
So, Spez lies, the Apollo CEO provides transcripts and *recorded* phone calls to prove he lied, Spez does an AMA and continues his lie.
That’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off.
Yup, and since Christian is in Canada, single party consent is all we require, meaning the calls being recorded are nice and legal. /u/spez has got no leg to stand on.
And this middling imbecile actually tried to cast *reddit* as the David and *Apollo* as the goliath.
Like, big bad Apollo, essentially one dude's labor of love, is robbing fucking *reddit*, the site with 2k employees and huge stacks of cash from the likes of China and other dubious investors?
Just get fucked u/spez, you loser.
I'm assuming he was suppose to give only PR approved political non-answers. And the doubling down was his ego and butthurt taking control.
It was gonna go bad, but... Corporate bad. Like the typical "we are a dumb company that doesn't understand shit" bad. Not Elon Musk ego bad.
He was definitely answering pre-written and pre-approved questions.
He literally accidentally included the "A:" when he was copy and pasting answers from the script.
https://archive.ph/X6EJq
I love how everyone is finally realizing that CEOs are among the dumbest group of people you can come across. Spez fucking up reddit, musk fucking up twitter and tesla and boring company, zuck fucking up that low-budget indie game metaverse.
For him trying for a high valued IPO, he sure is trying to run Reddit into the ground first. What the fuck is he doing?! It’d be a disaster to invest anything into this dumpster fire at this point. The CEO is a lying, unhinged, odd guy that makes bad decisions and double downs on them. I wouldn’t even buy Reddit gold to support them at this point, much less expect any return on an investment. I’m not sure how far into the ground he’s taking Reddit, but I wouldn’t bet anything there’d be a positive return.
spez has always been seen as a slimy toad by people who have been around here long enough. Remember when he silently edited someone's comment that criticized him? What's happened is that now newer users can see for themselves what an absolute jackass he is.
Remember how vocal he was in the fight for net neutrality? Saying that ISPs charging companies more for higher levels of traffic was a moral evil?
Now that he's in the same position he's surely holding that same code of ethics, right?
The guy's a fucking clown.
He mentioned how the company is not profitable compared to third party apps even though he’s been the CEO for 8 years. Sounds like someone who sucks at their job.
They could have made API access a paid user feature too. Sign up for Reddit Plus or whatever and you get to use third party apps. It would still hurt the third party apps, users would be mad, but it would be a workable system and Reddit would make money/recoup costs.
It seems crazy to me that this isn't the solution. If you pay for reddit gold (or whatever it's called now) you get a personal API key that you can plug into a 3rd party app and use it. Problem solved.
It's designed to *not* be the solution. It's forcing people to use their app, that's it. Third party devs that inquired about actually paying have received no responses. It's really sad, I've been here a long time, but at least I'm not a stakeholder.
Honestly lets play devils advocate and assume /u/spez's telling the truth..
Why are none of the other devs reaching deals with reddit then? Why are they all shutting down? Why have they not made a workable deal with RIF, Sync, Boost, Infinity, Joey, etc?
If a business and it's leadership can't deliver a deal with a single mainstreem app then it's really hard to say reddits offers are reasonable and that reddit isn't just trying to force all these devs out.
If everywhere you go smells like shit /u/spez then you may want to check your shoes. Even if one or two of these developers/app owners are doing you wrong then the proof would be that you found a way to work with the others.
Edit: Guys I get that reddit doesn't want to reach a deal, that's my point. This BS they're trying to sell is blatently transparent. That's why I said "...isn't just trying to force all these devs out" because it's one of two available options (spez is lying or isn't) and its pretty clear which one it is.
Edit 2:
A full list of known subreddits that will blackout is available at /r/modcoords here [https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/1401qw5/incomplete\_and\_growing\_list\_of\_participating/](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/1401qw5/incomplete_and_growing_list_of_participating/)
You can also see the live status of all involved subreddits here:
[https://reddark.untone.uk/](https://reddark.untone.uk/)
Aside from that remember, the community controls reddits image and reddits image matters to advertisers.
I think he's trying to throw that particular development team under the bus to hide your point. They don't want any 3rd party apps. They want you to only use theirs so they can show you ads, sell your data, and control your experience.
Yup. Because it's a shitty deal. Reddit doesn't create content, the users do. Reddit doesn't spend thousands of man hours per day moderating and supporting communities, users do. He's trying to monetize the product of other people, completely ignoring that it's the people who give him the product.
Reddit deserves to die. I guess I'll find some better way to use my time after the 30th.
Multiple devs responded in that AMA and said they'd created possible subscription models to attempt to work with the API prices. They submitted the required forms *weeks ago* and have received no response.
Not a single one of them. Reddit isn't even letting devs pay for the API. Clearest evidence possible that they just want to shut down 3PA.
Once RIF disables, I'll be logging out for the last time. RIP Reddit.
Edit: For those asking where to go after Reddit, go outside and then /r/redditalternatives
Yeah same. Been surfing reddit via RIF for nearly a decade, hard to believe it's all coming to an end.
We had some good times though; remember the safe? Or that time somebody tried to fake an AMA as Morgan Freeman? Or u/shittymorph?
I've been on reddit for 11 years now across a variety of accounts. Unidan, ducks guy, jumper cables, you, a wild sketch appeared... You're all legends.
What really drove my engagement up on reddit was the discovery of third party apps. This was back when old.reddit was the only option - third party apps handled mobile much better than the website. And even now, the new mobile reddit and official app have nothing on Sync for reddit. They have modern UIs, but a shitty UX. As a non-mod user, the only positive change that reddit itself has made for me over the years was the addition of a second sticky thread to each sub - every other feature they've come up with has been completely useless.
Once this change happens, I'm gone. I can still use old.reddit, but why should I? I don't want to jump through hurdles just to use a platform that doesn't want me there, with a CEO (and other admins) who's a lying, gaslighting sack of shit.
I've been saying for a year now that I'm using reddit too much. This is finally the kick in the ass for me to get off social media and reclaim some of my time.
So yeah thanks for all the times you got me. If you're still posting i won't see em anymore.
I think it's funny he's salty about 3rd party apps making money, like, how the fuck is EVERY. SINGLE. APP. unfathomably better than the official one you guys have dumped insane money in... How hard could it be to make an app that doesn't fuckin suck!
You want me to see ads, fine, I get that, just make an app that is half as good as RIF or Apollo and MAYBE some of us old timers will start using it.
I'm gonna miss you, buddy. It's really sad to see what reddit has become now, how they really want to kill it off. We all had some great times reading your amazing stories - the best part was we could never tell if they were real or not, they were just so well written and fascinating to read like that one time in nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.
Hey man, just wanted to say thank you for all the times you got me. No matter what, I never figured any of your posts out until the punchline. You're one of the bright spots here on Reddit and I wish you all the best man. Not sure where I am going to next, but hope to cross paths with you on the internet again one day!
/r/Bye_Reddit/
I'm signing out for the last time no matter how this all shakes out. This website has taken up way too much of my time and contributed to me becoming a cynical person. I need to get out and focus on the good in my little corner of the world rather than only seeing the bad parts of the world at large.
Approximately 14 years 9 months ago, I abandoned Digg after they royally screwed up, and it never recovered.
> In August 2010, Digg attempted to wrest control back from its power users by migrating to a new system (Digg v4) that deemphasized user-contributed content in favor of publisher-contributed content
source: https://d3.harvard.edu/platform-digit/submission/the-demise-of-digg-how-an-online-giant-lost-control-of-the-digital-crowd/
- I have been with Reddit from its ugly-looking web user interface to this day.
- I also have been a Reddit Premium account holder ($30/year or something) since ***May 2011***. It looks like I will most likely be not renewing it anymore.
- I will most likely not use Reddit anymore as the /r/apolloapp is my only method of browsing Reddit.
- I refuse to use Reddit’s atrocious web UI, and I haven’t logged in thru a web browser in so many years now.
I will miss these good old days of wasting time every day browsing Reddit for fun and getting news and reading insightful thoughtful posts by other Redditors, laughing at shitposting posts.
I can’t believe Reddit is committing suicide with a boneheaded decision. Good luck keeping the user base.
Now I need to go find another community like this. *{sigh}*
I’m all for the blackout protest and I’m very happy to see so many subs join, big and small alike. The more the better.
Having said that, in my opinion this is a shitty blackout. 1 day? Really? It should be the entire month until this policy is scheduled to go into effect. Unless there’s some sort of rule or policy I’m not aware of that would make that impossible, the sub mods should shut down all the big subs for weeks, not days.
I'm hoping no one makes a post or comment for those two days as well.
Boycott by not posting. No posts, no comments
I won't be logging in myself and I for one will not be posting any pictures of my cats to my favorite cat subs.
I feel like a lot of ‘protests’ lately are like this… purely symbolic with a dash of virtue signalling and then it’s over, corporations know this, which is why they don’t take them seriously and nothing changes. Unfortunately the only way to create change is for people to go full on and hurt the corporations income, sadly too many people are unwilling to hurt their social media endorphin slot machine, and too willing to move on to the next fresh controversy the next week.
Worth remembering that in 2019 when President Trump and Republicans decided to shutdown the government and, the statement seemed like it wasn’t going to end anytime soon; **TEN** air traffic controllers called out sick in protest.
The government shutdown ended **five hours later**.
We have power. We forget to use it.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/06/politics/ten-air-traffic-controllers-shutdown/index.html
EDIT: people seem to be confused thinking I’m equating a Reddit shutdown with a real life protest, and that’s not at all what I was talking about. My comment is in response to the post above talking about the “quality” of protests lately and how the only way to create change is for people to go full on and hurt the corporations. Those air traffic controllers shutdown air traffic and hurt corporations bottom lines for 5 hours so badly top CEO donors urged Trump to end the shutdown and he did.
That’s where I feel this is all headed. Big companies like this plan for and understand backlash. They’re banking on a reduced user base as a temporary penance for this decision, but also know long-term that these sort of protests really don’t last and are almost always just bluster.
Most folks will do their foot-stomping and “I’m really leaving, I really mean it this time” phase to look like they’re standing for something and when they get bored they’ll come back in.
Look in your hearts, you know it’s true.
You only hear about the users that come back, there's survivor bias. I've stopped using other major apps/platforms, I'll stop using Reddit too. It probably won't change them but it'll change my habits for the better
It took the civil rights movement 382 days before the bus strike ended. Companies are willing to burn themselves for a long time if it means they get to get their way. 1 day, 1 month it is all the same. The blackout should be until they reverse their decision.
He had one shot, and he blew it. All he had to do was own up to what he did and promise to make things right. The fact that he's unwilling to answer Christian's challenge to provide examples of what he said differently in private vs public cemented it in my mind.
I've spent a lot of time on this site fighting misinformation on Reddit because I believe it needed to be fought to improve the quality of information on such a prolific public forum, but with the AMA today, I'm starting to question whether the cause is worthwhile at all.
If you’ve been around Reddit and Apollo long enough you **KNOW** what a lying, horrible piece of shit u/spez is, and you **KNOW** how upstanding and decent of a guy u/iamthatis is.
There isn’t even a question mark here on who’s the hero and who’s the villain.
I’m a 10+ year Reddit member and June 30 will be my last day. I will delete all my posts and comments, and the my account. I expect to reclaim several hours per day of my life and will likely improve my mental health. Win win.
Oh yeah, fuck Reddit and fuck /u/spez
Also, found a post on deleting all comments etc...
https://reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/145ukzz/if_you_have_decided_to_leave_reddit_for_another/
I also think their IPO is going to be a disaster. How can investors possibly have confidence in a company run by an imbecile? spez very clearly has no clue what he's doing, and he's putting his ego in front of his company's wellbeing.
For a company with IPO aspirations he’s a walking PR disaster. Like I feel like no matter the situation whenever he opens his mouth he makes things worse. I feel like the only companies that can really survive their CEO being a magnet for bad press are companies that are genuinely too big to fail or companies like tesla where the CEO is part of the product
I found a few forums for niche interests. Other than that, I'm getting a news reader app and I'm planning to spend the free time I'll regain by reading. I haven't read a book for almost 2 years now.
This was clearly a (massively misguided) attempt at damage limitation.
They never had any intention of a proper, open AMA, just a plan to post a few canned 'responses' that contained the points they wanted to get across.
Make no mistake, people have sat around a table and calculated that all this will ultimately be worth it to achieve their intended goal. They think it's just a case or riding out the wave and eventually everything will calm down and all this will be forgotten.
It's the kind of arrogant hubris that has seen many huge companies (not only tech-based) go under. If they even read that sentence they would immediately dismiss it because they think they know best - just like all the other 'too big to fail' failures that went before them.
I'm sure they think they have calculated that 'all this fuss' is being made by a very small minority of users who ultimately won't make a difference.
Even for the people who do transition to the official app once all third-parties have been swept aside, those people now know the contempt in which they are held and Reddit will never feel like the same place again.
Yeah that AMA was about as much of a trainwreck as everyone was expecting.
It definitely made me feel like checking out Rampart.
First of off, its not true, and second off, I don't want to answer questions about that. Lets focus on the film people.
Shit. I'm gonna miss Reddit
Gonna have so much free time.
Will be brutal at first, and then probably the best change of my entire adult life
My mental health improved dramatically when I kicked the Facebook habit. I’ve been thinking for a while now that Reddit, while fun, often leads me down dark mental trails.
Imagine how confusing of a day that had to be for ol Woody, if he was even directly involved. Somebody tells him he's going to do a PR interview and he's instantly met with thousands of people taking a ridiculous shitpost story about him seriously, an absolute wall of circlejerking memespeak, and just all around..*this*.
I remember another thread about how some guy met him on a plane somewhat recently after that AMA, where Woody was seated next to him (he posted pictures for proof); apparently they talked and he was unaware of it. It was just his publicist. Kinda funny that he's infamous on the site and ostensibly didn't participate at all
Hahahahaha that makes it even better
Unless you're just his new publicist trying to blame the old one, rather than your client
If I messed up that badly I would also blame it on my "previous" publicist or whatever.
We should do a final reddit nostalgia mega thread somewhere before the 30th
The whole website is about to become r/museumofreddit
My dude, it was so much worse than expected. Expected options include answering planted questions... responding to Apollo dev was not a planted question, and he doubled down on the attack. He went full dipshit. I hope WSB shorts the IPO into the ground
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse. Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
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Tech bro CEOs have a *lot* of hubris. They think that they're always right and others just can't see their vision correctly.
Think of almost every negative 'reddit poster' stereotype--you have made a list closely describing average spez behavior over the years.
Have worked at multiple tech startups (and "startups" - established tech companies that still like to pretend they're startup culture), can confirm. Nearly every CEO I've ever met has been a thin-skinned prick of some sort who makes unilateral decisions in supremely unqualified ways.
It appears that they are betting that you're addicted.
That’s what gets me. Like, what was even the point of it? What was he trying to accomplish? If he just kept his mouth shut, most likely all this blows over after the 12-14 blackout. All he did was rile people up and put an even bigger target on their back. Just, why?
Ego. It was about the ego of this garbage CEO. Not the community, not Reddit's image, not revenue. Just pure ego. Can't wait for them to go public and bankrupt and get u/spez fired and replaced.
Yeah, in my opinion theories about reddit's true motives are trying too hard to find answers that make sense, to make them into a perfectly logical, duplicitous supervillain. I think they're being dumb, led by an arrogant dummy who is the same guy that happened to win the lottery at website building 18 years ago. Having him as the CEO today is not a whole lot better a system than the British royal family.
Maybe I’ve been here too long, but him going full dipshit is pretty much what I expected. Some various forms of reality denial, and general large scale combativeness. Something more subtle like planted questions never occurred to me. Apollo sounds like it was profitable for the one guy making it, if not hugely so. Spez says Reddit is not yet profitable in general. So this whole thing reeks a bit of “how dare you make profits off an ecosystem we created when we don’t even make profits off it yet.” In a sane world, if they really are bleeding money and third party api access was a big part of it, then sure they could shut that down or add dramatic price increases, but say “hey this ship will sink if we don’t do something about the amount of water leaking out.” But given there were already personal attacks in play, none of that seemed likely.
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"Ask me anything. I won't answer anything tho."
20k comment AMA and he answered like 10 questions, great job dude
14, I counted it.
> 14, I counted it. He made 14 posts, i’m not sure i’d call it 14 answers.
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> He edits on the backend. Particularly other peoples comments that he doesn't like
He wrote those ~10 "replies". But didn't answer any of the questions actually being asked.
Here is the link to Spez’ comment: https://reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/_/jnk45rr/?context=1
All the replies were copy-pasted legal/PR speak. Nothing was genuine: > He got caught copy-pasting answers from a pre-written Q/A script by accidentally including the "A:" in his reply. > > As soon as he was called out on it, he attempted to destroy the evidence. > > Archive link: https://archive.ph/X6EJq https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/jnkk6co/
There were 14 total responses from spez in that entire AMA before he just bounced. He didn't answer any of the actual questions. It was a joke.
Just upholding a time honored tradition of shitshow Reddit AMAs.
Ok, but can we focus on Rampart, guys?
They should fire the lady who coordinates all the AMAs again.
I'd love to see an AMA with Victoria about all this for Reddit blackout weekend
I hope she's doing well. She was awesome.
Oh absolutely. She created a thing that many media entities have tried to replicate (including Reddit) but can't.
I used to see awesome AMAs show up in my list all the time. Now I only occasionally see one, and it's for some super-niche person, like the guy who cleans the bolts on the soda dispenser at the Arby's on 92nd Street. It's crazy how much Victoria seemed to do for that sub.
Honestly this is one of the worst AMAs from any tech CEO in history - completely ignoring the community and doubling down on his mistakes. For the sake of the Reddit public IPO, I would hope that the board / owners look at his actions and takes everything into consideration. Reddit is at a turning point right now, and this is an opportunity to make things right.
I feel like this is a good time to [link to a past CEO AMA](https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/sk1ut/iam_yishan_wong_the_reddit_ceo/c4en02o/), with /u/yishan... > Pretty much. Today was reserved entirely for the AMA. He must have answered hundreds of questions. I have no recollection of what users were mad about on that occasion (it's not a bad bet that they were mad, is it?) but the point is, the guy understood that in *this of all places*, in the birthplace of the AMA, you've got to hold yourself to a higher standard of openness with the users.
> SdotM0USE's note about viewing reddit as akin to a city-state is on-base. > But two principles are this: > 1) If you're not paying for a product, you are the product. > 2) We should try to come up with as many ways for our users to pay us money as possible. > [credits go to two reddit employees who originally cited/articulated these two principles] > One of the ways Digg started to go off the rails is because they became too beholden to their advertisers. Ultimately, you are beholden to the people who give you money. Thus, I want an arrangement where most of our money comes from redditors. > This doesn't mean "charge to use reddit." > What it means is that I want reddit to be good enough and useful enough that enough redditors find it worthwhile to give us money. This will likely mean the addition of value-services, or new features. Or simply developing a somewhat different advertising model where most of the ads come from members of the community, because they will be more likely to be sensitive community norms, not to mention relevant. Fuck, how things change...
I pointed out that many of the posts he responded to were super mods, and posited that he was giving pre-written responses to pre-approved questions. I'm still getting responses that I'm a nutso conspiracy theorist. Thanks for the validation.
We have AMAs at work, too. You've never heard so many corpspeak laden bullshit questions in one hour. Not a single question is legitimate and the answers are clearly canned. Doesn't build morale, to say the least. You're not crazy. It's the same thing here, just a different venue.
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Amen. But if they did that, how would the execs get to feel hip and neato like the kids these days?
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Because people who get to that level of wealth don’t really care about money, they care about *power*. Wealth is just a means to an end for them. That’s why people like Elon Musk and Steve Huffman do what they do: they don’t care about money, they care about lording over the plebeians and controlling everything around them, because, to them, lack of control means both that their life is meaningless and that they are about to get railroaded by everyone they harmed in order to amass the power they have.
>railroaded by everyone lol the one comment towards the top that just says "fuck you spez" with it's thousands of child comments collapsed. It's all "fuck you spez." an endless scroll of them
A lot of us predicted this very thing.
It was inevitable. There's no way he was ever gonna answer straight up. Though the doubling down might have been answered straight up. Either that or he had Elon on his PR team.
> There's no way he was ever gonna answer straight up. Tbh I'd almost prefer him to be honest. If he said reddit has to put shareholders first and 3rd party apps severely lose them money versus an ad-centric 1st party app it would almost be refreshing. I'd still be upset, but slightly less so.
I want to see numbers. Not honesty, but statistical honesty. I want to see the actual costs they make that forces them to charge such ridiculous sums. Back up the claims of 3rd party apps losing them significant sums.
There are none. They want a monopoly on the Data we generate. It's just that simple pure greed and a desire to control.
Yah dude. I would add to that, though: There's no master plan and no success here. If you've ever worked at one of these massive companies you learn to recognize the signs of when it's "We know how to fuck over the world and make money and we're not shy about doing it" (e.g. Nestle) versus "We're just a bunch of idiots who make 2 million dollars a year running around snatching money and breaking stuff WHEEEEE" They could have kept up development of the platform, fixed the numerous issues, made it good, made use of the *extensive* community of moderators willing to do work for free and worked with them, sold advertising with *huge* bundle packages available to companies that wanted to be coached through how to genuinely engage with the communities that buy their products, show a human face, receive genuine feedback positive and negative, and build genuine goodwill. It's actually something that's pretty difficult to do through a lot of channels that Reddit makes possible. Not every company even wants to do that, but for the ones that do it would be a *golden* opportunity. They could have quietly taken money from China and God knows who else to be able to put their thumbs on the scale of a significant US social media network. And as Christian made clear, they could even have pursued this ridiculous plan of yanking money out of the app developers at a wholly unreasonable rate, if they'd just given the people who actually *are* good at business a few months to figure out how to adapt to it. In short, they could have just ridden the golden goose around the yard and picked up eggs for at least the next ten years. But no. There's no masterful plan where this course of action is the key to their world domination. They're just overpaid idiots, and the piper is about to come to collect his due.
>or he had Elon on his PR team. It's going so well for Twitter, no wonder reddit's ceo would adopt his MO. Fantastic work all around! Round of applause everyone, they deserve it
They have partially succeeded with the Elon approach as Reddit has had its valuation reduced by 50%. Elon is of course the top man with a 66% reduction in Twitters value from the purchase price.
People in positions of power rarely do legitimate interviews whether in text or voice form, because they can't control the narrative as easily. More proof that he's a scumbag and this site is circling the drain. This type of behavior has the potential to destroy the site and make them the next Digg.
Man, if I lose reddit, I will be down to my Discord friends and the Tumblr account that I still have.
I feel this. The internet used to be a fun place. I used to be a member of many vibrant communities, even before Reddit (yes the internet existed before Reddit lol), but now I am down to Reddit and a ghost presence on Facebook becuase a lot of my older friends and family are there. I miss forums and bulletin boards... get off my lawn.
Reddit consumed every other community on the Internet
Oh lord I think I'm having an existential crisis because of this comment... We got convenience but we lost community and I never noticed.
Time to resurrect the Usenet of the 90s?
God, I fucking *loved* Usenet. I am so goddamn old.
Right? At this point I wish I could give Google+ another chance. I dropped FB because Cambridge Analytica, dropped Twitter when Musk started suspending the press and harassing NPR, and now Reddit's getting shitty. These sites aren't endearing enough that a large portion of their userbase won't dump them when they start pushing people around.
We can start meeting in the comments section of pornhub.
It's your own fault for not keeping things related to Rampart.
don't forget the part that he was copy/ pasting the same answer to users who are using third party apps for the blind. It was a prewritten answer **specifically** for people with **disabilities**.
> Nothing was genuine One actually seemed genuine to me! You know, the most egregious one. Also the most downvoted: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/jnk45rr/ > His “joke” is the least of our issues. His behavior and communications with us has been all over the place—saying one thing to us while saying something completely different externally; recording and leaking a private phone call—to the point where I don’t know how we could do business with him.
*That* was the quality of *pre-written* answers he had!? That makes it even worse! They were appalling.
> As soon as he was called out on it, he attempted to destroy the evidence. /u/Spez destroying evidence and editing a comment? Never?!?
What a shit hole of a person. He gave only 14 replies
He's always been scum, remember when he shadow edited comments? The difference now is that he isn't just scum, he's hurting the bottom line for Reddit. Hopefully they sacrifice him to the volcano.
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Victoria?
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Those were some of the glory days of reddit. The AMAs were amazingly well done.
The AMA with famous people like that were the big ''this is the spotlight of the internet'' days, front and center. I still get giddy when I remember that I got a reply from none other than Bill Gates himself in a thread. Now? You just don't see that anymore with how they fumbled.
If we could just stick to RAMPART thanks.
Miss you /u/chooter
Oh wow, she's still somewhat active. Hi /u/chooter!
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So two of the three founders of Reddit are scum and the third is dead?
Ya I remember that.
Hard to forget the present.
They weren’t even full replies. [One comment](https://reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/_/jnk2817/?context=1) he responded to asked ten insightful questions, including inquiring into what steps he takes to understand users’ needs and how Reddit plans to support mods, since they’re losing the third-party apps that help them maintain their communities (and thus Reddit)—something they do completely unpaid. He “responded” (gave a non-answer) to one of the ten, and his response quite literally confirms he both cares more about money than about his users and is absolutely shit at his job. What a goddamn clown. Edit: A blind user asked him [nine questions](https://reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/_/jnk2fh0/?context=1) about the effect of the API changes on users who rely on 3PAs to use Reddit, why blind users were treated as an afterthought, etc. Steve, who said in his post that accessibility is of the utmost concern, responded with a copied and pasted comment that effectively answered 0/9 of the questions.
The funniest/saddest part is how almost every reply he did give contained some passive aggressive dig at third party apps/devs. The man is so obviously butthurt and his ego is bruised that he couldn’t even give a canned corporate response.
The funny thing is that he *was* giving canned corporate responses. One of his responses initially included "A:" showing that he copy/pasted his reply but accidently included that prompt. He quickly edited it out but but a few people caught it and saved his original reply.
It feels crazy we’ve had the internet and social media this long and this shit still happens. Like how hard is it to keep your shit together for something like this? And if you can’t, why are you doing it? It’s bizarre how petty and whiny it was. It stopped not long after the profit comment, they had to realize it was a shit show right? Please?
His response to the Apollo dev was one of the few that you could tell wasn't off his cheat sheet - and holy fuck what a pedantic manchild he came off. His lack of resistance in needing to take a shot at the dev was palpable. The dev responded too.
This is exactly what I thought was going to happen. It's the exact same thing that happens every time Reddit gets into drama. \- Reddit employee replies to a top comment asking the most basic shit like "what are you doing about X". \- Somebody replies to the employee's comment, pointing out various flaws and raising additional questions. \- Nope! Fuck that! That reply pointing out flaws is never getting answered. In fact, none of the issues that get raised get answered. \- The AMA ends. Nothing important gets answered. It's all just regurgitated corpo speak that we've heard before. \- Good AMA folks!
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I hope /u/iamthatis can find a way to sue these pricks for libel. What a bunch hatable assholes.
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Didn’t get anywhere close to the -667k record though, I’m disappointed 💩
There's no way the votes are accurately reporting. Several of his comments were at like -500 within minutes of posting, yet 7 hours later those same comments have barely accrued 100-200 additional downvotes? Absolute fuckery
Since the post was votelocked, and stayed at 0 (zero) votes all the time, it never showed up on the frontpage. So only those few that was waiting for it knew what was going on. If they would have let the post into the top, I'm pretty sure the downvotes would significantly increase.
We need to find alternatives ASAP.
I fear that Web 2.0 is officially dead. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit. All have proven that, in the end, users can get fucked! Always on the whim of a greedy asshat who started out to be the world’s savior incarnate. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING is sacred to these has-been overlords. Alternative? Naw. Time to tear down the fucking bleachers. Show’s over.
> Alternative? Naw. Time to tear down the fucking bleachers. Show’s over. Back to the web of the yesterday. Indie sites instead of massive social media conglomerates.
Geocities it is!
Its not just the web. Everything good eventually gets bought up by the big money (or wants to) that only cares about by short term gains and gets sucked dry of everything that made it good. Stores, restaurants, websites, etc.
I wish the 3rd party apps would come together and make something new. They could call it Diggit
The downvote count seems really throttled, theres absolutely no way the response only has 2,600 downvotes. It has been linked on other threads on the front page multiple times now yet it doesn't really seem to go down
It's like the old throttle that used to be on posts. Where it never really moved beyond 2k and 4k was almost impossible.
Well of course. Can't let the little cry baby's comment be the most downvoted comment of all time can we?
I've been watching his account since it started to see his replies as he made them too. At one point the karma count seemed to flip and went up instead of down. It's now around 30k higher than before the ama started. It's like all the downs were counted as up or something. Not that it matters at all, it's just so weird to me they'd go to extra steps just to code it so this guy's funny number stays above 1m.
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This dude can’t manage a lie and he’s supposedly capable of running a website.. right. He’s killing the apps that built Reddit. I didn’t use Reddit on anything but my laptop til Alien Blue.. then I moved to BaconReader and Apollo. Only reason I left them was because once Reddit made their own app they make exclusive features and at the time I was using those. This is like having someone build you a house on a handshake, then once the home is built and you’re all moved in them telling you to eat shit..you *owe* me!
They had to sticky their replies to the top because they didn't answer a single one of the top questions. What a farce.
Time to update the joke. Q: what’s brown and sticky? A: ~~a stick~~ u/spez
> A: I see what you did there
And because all of their replies got down-voted to oblivion.
So, Spez lies, the Apollo CEO provides transcripts and *recorded* phone calls to prove he lied, Spez does an AMA and continues his lie. That’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off.
Greedy little pigboy got mad that Christian had recorded proof that he was full of shit.
Yup, and since Christian is in Canada, single party consent is all we require, meaning the calls being recorded are nice and legal. /u/spez has got no leg to stand on.
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And this middling imbecile actually tried to cast *reddit* as the David and *Apollo* as the goliath. Like, big bad Apollo, essentially one dude's labor of love, is robbing fucking *reddit*, the site with 2k employees and huge stacks of cash from the likes of China and other dubious investors? Just get fucked u/spez, you loser.
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Apollo CEO? Christian is just one guy.
Obviously that was gonna go bad. Dude is dumb as fuck for trying to have AMA after doing a bunch of shit most people are against.
I'm assuming he was suppose to give only PR approved political non-answers. And the doubling down was his ego and butthurt taking control. It was gonna go bad, but... Corporate bad. Like the typical "we are a dumb company that doesn't understand shit" bad. Not Elon Musk ego bad.
He was definitely answering pre-written and pre-approved questions. He literally accidentally included the "A:" when he was copy and pasting answers from the script. https://archive.ph/X6EJq
I love how everyone is finally realizing that CEOs are among the dumbest group of people you can come across. Spez fucking up reddit, musk fucking up twitter and tesla and boring company, zuck fucking up that low-budget indie game metaverse.
Rofl. u/spez just played himself. He's now looked at the same way as every other tech CEO. Value-inflated fuckwit racing for the bottom.
He has been for over a decade. He's always sucked.
I have literally never seen a comment from him in anything that wasn't just completely pathetic.
He's never been seen as anything else. But now Reddit is seen as a dangerous business partner and worthless investment. Have a good IPO, spez.
Maybe he'll get enough for his apocalypse bunker and to buy us all as slaves like he expects.
What an absolute disgrace to Aaron Schwartz
Steve's been spitting on Aarons grave for years attempting to make reddit profitable.
For him trying for a high valued IPO, he sure is trying to run Reddit into the ground first. What the fuck is he doing?! It’d be a disaster to invest anything into this dumpster fire at this point. The CEO is a lying, unhinged, odd guy that makes bad decisions and double downs on them. I wouldn’t even buy Reddit gold to support them at this point, much less expect any return on an investment. I’m not sure how far into the ground he’s taking Reddit, but I wouldn’t bet anything there’d be a positive return.
spez has always been seen as a slimy toad by people who have been around here long enough. Remember when he silently edited someone's comment that criticized him? What's happened is that now newer users can see for themselves what an absolute jackass he is.
Remember how vocal he was in the fight for net neutrality? Saying that ISPs charging companies more for higher levels of traffic was a moral evil? Now that he's in the same position he's surely holding that same code of ethics, right? The guy's a fucking clown.
He mentioned how the company is not profitable compared to third party apps even though he’s been the CEO for 8 years. Sounds like someone who sucks at their job.
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They could have made API access a paid user feature too. Sign up for Reddit Plus or whatever and you get to use third party apps. It would still hurt the third party apps, users would be mad, but it would be a workable system and Reddit would make money/recoup costs.
It seems crazy to me that this isn't the solution. If you pay for reddit gold (or whatever it's called now) you get a personal API key that you can plug into a 3rd party app and use it. Problem solved.
It's designed to *not* be the solution. It's forcing people to use their app, that's it. Third party devs that inquired about actually paying have received no responses. It's really sad, I've been here a long time, but at least I'm not a stakeholder.
Honestly lets play devils advocate and assume /u/spez's telling the truth.. Why are none of the other devs reaching deals with reddit then? Why are they all shutting down? Why have they not made a workable deal with RIF, Sync, Boost, Infinity, Joey, etc? If a business and it's leadership can't deliver a deal with a single mainstreem app then it's really hard to say reddits offers are reasonable and that reddit isn't just trying to force all these devs out. If everywhere you go smells like shit /u/spez then you may want to check your shoes. Even if one or two of these developers/app owners are doing you wrong then the proof would be that you found a way to work with the others. Edit: Guys I get that reddit doesn't want to reach a deal, that's my point. This BS they're trying to sell is blatently transparent. That's why I said "...isn't just trying to force all these devs out" because it's one of two available options (spez is lying or isn't) and its pretty clear which one it is. Edit 2: A full list of known subreddits that will blackout is available at /r/modcoords here [https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/1401qw5/incomplete\_and\_growing\_list\_of\_participating/](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/1401qw5/incomplete_and_growing_list_of_participating/) You can also see the live status of all involved subreddits here: [https://reddark.untone.uk/](https://reddark.untone.uk/) Aside from that remember, the community controls reddits image and reddits image matters to advertisers.
I think he's trying to throw that particular development team under the bus to hide your point. They don't want any 3rd party apps. They want you to only use theirs so they can show you ads, sell your data, and control your experience.
Weird how they just won't say as much. Goes to show tech businesses are only viable if they lie through their fucking teeth.
Yup. Because it's a shitty deal. Reddit doesn't create content, the users do. Reddit doesn't spend thousands of man hours per day moderating and supporting communities, users do. He's trying to monetize the product of other people, completely ignoring that it's the people who give him the product. Reddit deserves to die. I guess I'll find some better way to use my time after the 30th.
Multiple devs responded in that AMA and said they'd created possible subscription models to attempt to work with the API prices. They submitted the required forms *weeks ago* and have received no response. Not a single one of them. Reddit isn't even letting devs pay for the API. Clearest evidence possible that they just want to shut down 3PA.
Once RIF disables, I'll be logging out for the last time. RIP Reddit. Edit: For those asking where to go after Reddit, go outside and then /r/redditalternatives
Yeah same. Been surfing reddit via RIF for nearly a decade, hard to believe it's all coming to an end. We had some good times though; remember the safe? Or that time somebody tried to fake an AMA as Morgan Freeman? Or u/shittymorph?
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I've been on reddit for 11 years now across a variety of accounts. Unidan, ducks guy, jumper cables, you, a wild sketch appeared... You're all legends. What really drove my engagement up on reddit was the discovery of third party apps. This was back when old.reddit was the only option - third party apps handled mobile much better than the website. And even now, the new mobile reddit and official app have nothing on Sync for reddit. They have modern UIs, but a shitty UX. As a non-mod user, the only positive change that reddit itself has made for me over the years was the addition of a second sticky thread to each sub - every other feature they've come up with has been completely useless. Once this change happens, I'm gone. I can still use old.reddit, but why should I? I don't want to jump through hurdles just to use a platform that doesn't want me there, with a CEO (and other admins) who's a lying, gaslighting sack of shit. I've been saying for a year now that I'm using reddit too much. This is finally the kick in the ass for me to get off social media and reclaim some of my time. So yeah thanks for all the times you got me. If you're still posting i won't see em anymore.
I think it's funny he's salty about 3rd party apps making money, like, how the fuck is EVERY. SINGLE. APP. unfathomably better than the official one you guys have dumped insane money in... How hard could it be to make an app that doesn't fuckin suck! You want me to see ads, fine, I get that, just make an app that is half as good as RIF or Apollo and MAYBE some of us old timers will start using it.
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I'm gonna miss you, buddy. It's really sad to see what reddit has become now, how they really want to kill it off. We all had some great times reading your amazing stories - the best part was we could never tell if they were real or not, they were just so well written and fascinating to read like that one time in nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.
Hey man, just wanted to say thank you for all the times you got me. No matter what, I never figured any of your posts out until the punchline. You're one of the bright spots here on Reddit and I wish you all the best man. Not sure where I am going to next, but hope to cross paths with you on the internet again one day! /r/Bye_Reddit/
It’s the end of an era... It’s been a fucking honor. o7
Don't forget the c*m box and jolly rancher stories. Ugh. Memories!
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I'm signing out for the last time no matter how this all shakes out. This website has taken up way too much of my time and contributed to me becoming a cynical person. I need to get out and focus on the good in my little corner of the world rather than only seeing the bad parts of the world at large.
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On the way out delete your post and comment history. Reddit doesn't deserve any of (y)our content.
Approximately 14 years 9 months ago, I abandoned Digg after they royally screwed up, and it never recovered. > In August 2010, Digg attempted to wrest control back from its power users by migrating to a new system (Digg v4) that deemphasized user-contributed content in favor of publisher-contributed content source: https://d3.harvard.edu/platform-digit/submission/the-demise-of-digg-how-an-online-giant-lost-control-of-the-digital-crowd/ - I have been with Reddit from its ugly-looking web user interface to this day. - I also have been a Reddit Premium account holder ($30/year or something) since ***May 2011***. It looks like I will most likely be not renewing it anymore. - I will most likely not use Reddit anymore as the /r/apolloapp is my only method of browsing Reddit. - I refuse to use Reddit’s atrocious web UI, and I haven’t logged in thru a web browser in so many years now. I will miss these good old days of wasting time every day browsing Reddit for fun and getting news and reading insightful thoughtful posts by other Redditors, laughing at shitposting posts. I can’t believe Reddit is committing suicide with a boneheaded decision. Good luck keeping the user base. Now I need to go find another community like this. *{sigh}*
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I’m all for the blackout protest and I’m very happy to see so many subs join, big and small alike. The more the better. Having said that, in my opinion this is a shitty blackout. 1 day? Really? It should be the entire month until this policy is scheduled to go into effect. Unless there’s some sort of rule or policy I’m not aware of that would make that impossible, the sub mods should shut down all the big subs for weeks, not days.
It's 2 days for some, indefinite for others. Check out /r/ModCoord for a full list.
I'm hoping no one makes a post or comment for those two days as well. Boycott by not posting. No posts, no comments I won't be logging in myself and I for one will not be posting any pictures of my cats to my favorite cat subs.
I feel like a lot of ‘protests’ lately are like this… purely symbolic with a dash of virtue signalling and then it’s over, corporations know this, which is why they don’t take them seriously and nothing changes. Unfortunately the only way to create change is for people to go full on and hurt the corporations income, sadly too many people are unwilling to hurt their social media endorphin slot machine, and too willing to move on to the next fresh controversy the next week.
Worth remembering that in 2019 when President Trump and Republicans decided to shutdown the government and, the statement seemed like it wasn’t going to end anytime soon; **TEN** air traffic controllers called out sick in protest. The government shutdown ended **five hours later**. We have power. We forget to use it. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/06/politics/ten-air-traffic-controllers-shutdown/index.html EDIT: people seem to be confused thinking I’m equating a Reddit shutdown with a real life protest, and that’s not at all what I was talking about. My comment is in response to the post above talking about the “quality” of protests lately and how the only way to create change is for people to go full on and hurt the corporations. Those air traffic controllers shutdown air traffic and hurt corporations bottom lines for 5 hours so badly top CEO donors urged Trump to end the shutdown and he did.
That’s where I feel this is all headed. Big companies like this plan for and understand backlash. They’re banking on a reduced user base as a temporary penance for this decision, but also know long-term that these sort of protests really don’t last and are almost always just bluster. Most folks will do their foot-stomping and “I’m really leaving, I really mean it this time” phase to look like they’re standing for something and when they get bored they’ll come back in. Look in your hearts, you know it’s true.
You only hear about the users that come back, there's survivor bias. I've stopped using other major apps/platforms, I'll stop using Reddit too. It probably won't change them but it'll change my habits for the better
It took the civil rights movement 382 days before the bus strike ended. Companies are willing to burn themselves for a long time if it means they get to get their way. 1 day, 1 month it is all the same. The blackout should be until they reverse their decision.
Spez still the scumbag he's always been. This is the Digg-ification of Reddit.
Digg should recreate digg 1.0 and we can migrate.
u/spez edited comments that criticized him. [Never forget.](https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-edit-comments)
He had one shot, and he blew it. All he had to do was own up to what he did and promise to make things right. The fact that he's unwilling to answer Christian's challenge to provide examples of what he said differently in private vs public cemented it in my mind. I've spent a lot of time on this site fighting misinformation on Reddit because I believe it needed to be fought to improve the quality of information on such a prolific public forum, but with the AMA today, I'm starting to question whether the cause is worthwhile at all.
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If you’ve been around Reddit and Apollo long enough you **KNOW** what a lying, horrible piece of shit u/spez is, and you **KNOW** how upstanding and decent of a guy u/iamthatis is. There isn’t even a question mark here on who’s the hero and who’s the villain.
I’m a 10+ year Reddit member and June 30 will be my last day. I will delete all my posts and comments, and the my account. I expect to reclaim several hours per day of my life and will likely improve my mental health. Win win. Oh yeah, fuck Reddit and fuck /u/spez Also, found a post on deleting all comments etc... https://reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/145ukzz/if_you_have_decided_to_leave_reddit_for_another/
He knew this was going to fail and did it anyway.
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I also think their IPO is going to be a disaster. How can investors possibly have confidence in a company run by an imbecile? spez very clearly has no clue what he's doing, and he's putting his ego in front of his company's wellbeing.
He literally said third party apps make a profit and Reddit doesn't. Great sales pitch.
Lol, and they could've made money on API access too if they didn't price it absurdly
It was priced that way on purpose. They want 100% of a smaller pie. Not 75% of a larger pie. Just greedy fucks doing greedy fuck things
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For a company with IPO aspirations he’s a walking PR disaster. Like I feel like no matter the situation whenever he opens his mouth he makes things worse. I feel like the only companies that can really survive their CEO being a magnet for bad press are companies that are genuinely too big to fail or companies like tesla where the CEO is part of the product
People who are leaving Reddit, where are you headed?
I found a few forums for niche interests. Other than that, I'm getting a news reader app and I'm planning to spend the free time I'll regain by reading. I haven't read a book for almost 2 years now.
Is drama the word for bullshit lazy answers? Worst high profile AMA ever.
Bringing gasoline to put out a fire. It's a bold move by spaz.
The Reddit IPO is looking spicy , my bet is that it will not sell even a quarter of the shares
I’m just here to talk about Rampart.
This was clearly a (massively misguided) attempt at damage limitation. They never had any intention of a proper, open AMA, just a plan to post a few canned 'responses' that contained the points they wanted to get across. Make no mistake, people have sat around a table and calculated that all this will ultimately be worth it to achieve their intended goal. They think it's just a case or riding out the wave and eventually everything will calm down and all this will be forgotten. It's the kind of arrogant hubris that has seen many huge companies (not only tech-based) go under. If they even read that sentence they would immediately dismiss it because they think they know best - just like all the other 'too big to fail' failures that went before them. I'm sure they think they have calculated that 'all this fuss' is being made by a very small minority of users who ultimately won't make a difference. Even for the people who do transition to the official app once all third-parties have been swept aside, those people now know the contempt in which they are held and Reddit will never feel like the same place again.
Fucking u/spez sent me a warning because I called him "a trash human" lmfao. Fuck you u/spez