I remember when Reddit announced it would begin charging commercial developers for access to its API, and in response, thousands of subreddits went dark in protest. I think it lasted for a couple of weeks. The CEO threatened the Reddit mods that he would replace them if they didn’t reopen the subs, so nearly every mod reopened and everything went back to normal. The CEO won easily without offering anything, and he was right when he said that ‘this too shall pass.’ Those third-party apps offered accessibility features for disabled people that Reddit still hasn’t implemented today. Now Reddit is getting even worse. How come there wasn’t a protest like that when they made even worse decisions?

  • gastroglizzy@piefed.socialEnglish
    6·
    10 hours ago

    I think it lasted for a couple of weeks.
    It lasted exactly two weeks. No demands were met. No further action was taken.

    How come there wasn’t a protest like that when they made even worse decisions?
    Following the original “protest” some subs remained dark to continue the boycott. These communities were either banned or had their moderators replaced with more compliant ones. Some subs saw their moderators banned for dissent, then the entire sub was banned for being unmoderted. After that, dissenting users were systematically banned, either explicitly for dissenting, or implicitly for various BS reasons. Now, Reddit is mostly AI bots with a handful of real people who either drink the kool-aid or have learned that the nail who sticks out gets the hammer.