I’ve seen that some subreddits went dark and said they’d come back in 2 days (June 14th), and others said they’d go dark indefinitely, until the API changes are rolled back. I’d like to make an appeal for the admins who’re willing to go back: please don’t.
I think Reddit wouldn’t withstand 2 weeks to a month without their largest subreddits, and maybe they’d change their minds about API changes. Some may say they’d just make the subreddits public again and promote someone to mod (which I totally agree, they’ll probably do that if the blackout endures for too much time), but I think most people don’t realise the PITA it is to be a good mod, and just want to be one because of the status (I’m not an ex-mod btw, I just heard it is very complicated to moderate and I believe it really is).
Secondly, there’s no guarantee that Reddit won’t pull the rug again. Even if they roll back the changes and everyone goes back, they’ll probably come up with this strategy again some time in the future. So instead of going back, stay in the Fediverse: all applications are open source AFAIK; you can run your own instance if you wish; you can defederate other instances if you wish; you can contribute with new features you miss or create a fork aplication of your own if you want to; heck, you could create your own Fediverse application if you want. And there won’t be a scumbag to come and try stop you.
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I agree but I think also most of the quality posters will begin leaving as the platform becomes more shittified, beyond those of us that are quitting in protest. I have been noticing a significant decline in the quality of conversations in the last couple of years in a few of my subs, as some people obsessed with karma started inserting themselves in every possible conversation and steering the subs in the direction they wanted. Which is not Reddit’s fault, but it seems to happen every time a social media platform reaches critical mass, and the karma system encouraged that. Some people almost literally live for the karma - how many times have you seen redditors complain about being downvoted? That sort of thing ends up attracting people desperate for attention.
Quality posts may be gone, but that doesn’t mean more people will leave the platform. For most of humanity, it just works. Shitposts, OF promotion subs and just general “show me your genitals” subs will continue to exist. And that is what most of humanity cares about. I myself do enjoy that from time to time, but in a regulated manner, which is why I have multiple accounts here and on reddit. Most people just wanna see some nudes, wanna laugh at some posts, cringe things, etc. Those subs won’t go dark and didn’t go dark. I have a few of them on one of my accounts and they still thrive. Not to mention the relationship/dating/amiugly subs, they also have a massive following, more than 1k comments on a single post, that’s huge.
So, basically, that just leaves the tech (and not all of them BTW) and politics related subs that might shift directions to switch to lemmy. Everythings else will more or less stay on reddit.
That being said, there is a spike of bots posting on reddit for the past 2, 3 days. Most notably on the NSFW subs cuz no one actually cares what’s being posted there (moderation is almosy none existent). And that, allong with the subs with most posts, that will make up for the posts of the communities protesting and everything will continue as if nothing happened.