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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38489 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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Even when TheMotte was on Reddit, I never used Reddit for anything other than... interacting with TheMotte (OK, OK, I lurked some porn subs too). So for someone with very little experience interacting with Reddit, can you explain to me how the proposed changes would actually be expected to affect the modal Reddit user?

Because I expect that the modal Reddit user doesn't even know what an API is, and certainly never previously paid for it. So messing with its price ain't gonna affect him or her.

The changes sound like a problem exclusively for nerds and corpos who like to data-harvest off of the backend; something which has no effect on the modal user AND no effect on the stereotypical powermod who's there to defend Cathedral talking points. With these two vital demographics' interests therefore apparently having no intersection with this change, they SHOULD be completely disinterested. Can anyone explain / speculate how it is, then, that the nerds and corpos have managed to rile them into rebellion?

can you explain to me how the proposed changes would actually be expected to affect the modal Reddit user?

it would not affect the average user at all

Not really true. Lots of average reddit users use 3rd party apps. My wife has like 4 total posts and browses it once a day and still uses baconreader.

The problem is that the new API prices are high enough to price almost all third-party apps and services out of existence. Many of them are shutting down before it happens to avoid getting stuck with huge bills that they won't be able to pay. The problem is that reportedly lots of sub moderators rely on these apps and tools to do their moderation work, and they say that the official app and tools are inadequate. Since they're all unpaid volunteers anyways, they might just quit, and it's not clear what will happen to Reddit if a significant number do quit.

The one riling the masses up are the powerusers who don't use the current modern version of the website and detest the official app. They see the unorganic and inauthentic from algorithms presented in the official site/app and tolerate it. With this change of the API is killing the customized experience of the powerusers and forcing a different reddit on them which they don't use but they are aware off. With this policy change is that they are being forced into using the official and it is not what they signed up for. The powerusers are able to rile up the regular Reddit users with ease because they know the sentiment and meta of the subreddits. And for all intents and purposes moderators are powerusers and can't work with the officlal mod tools, they have always relied on third party tools and those are about to be killed to.

The problem here is that the core of the protest is that we have a bunch of corporations that don't understand that regular people want something authentic if they can afford it. It is almost like all of the corporate college educated management read themselves stupid on Baudrillard and how the hyperreal supplant reality and how we can force the masses accept the new. Reddit is about to find out if they can force the new experience on everyone and keep the most profilic users and if they are truly important for regular users.

Thanks for the explanation. I don't use the app at all (I avoid the app version of any site because reading on your phone is horrible experience) and I agree the new Reddit is awful too.

But since I only use Reddit for a couple sites, at most, this doesn't really affect me. I suppose if I were technically skilled and used the tools to curate the experience, as it were, I'd be lighting my hair on fire now also.

something which has no effect on the modal user

Blind people can't use the official app and rely on third-party apps, which are getting killed by the API changes. So there's an ableism angle to this, which makes lots of people upset about the changes even if they aren't blind.

AND no effect on the stereotypical powermod who's there to defend Cathedral talking points.

Many mods, including those on /r/AskHistorians, rely on third-party apps to do moderation. AskHistorians in particular has a reputation for high-quality modding, which makes the prospect of losing concerning to average users too.

Blind people can't use the official app and rely on third-party apps, which are getting killed by the API changes. So there's an ableism angle to this, which makes lots of people upset about the changes even if they aren't blind.

Not my usual area of practice, but sounds like there might be an ADA lawsuit(s) incoming...

I think reddit is much more decentralized than you are implying; the super mods are vastly outnumbered by regular mods who care about these changes a lot and have the ability to pin whatever they want to the top of their subreddit. While a typical user spends a lot of time in big subs, they are also probably subbed to several small subs for their niche interests, and unlike the big subs they actually care about and interact with the mods in the smaller subs so they’re more likely to listen to what they say. If all the mods of smaller subs quit it would potentially change the reddit user experience a lot. I don’t think many of them will actually quit over this, in the end they will mostly cave and accept the worse experience, but it’s not surprising that they’re able to effectively get their message out and inspire a short-term boycott.

All the nerds use old.reddit.com because new.reddit.com is fully focused on centering content rather than comments and spamming page reloads so it can show more ads. (You get like five comments per page load.) Lots of people, me included, would leave the site if old.reddit was ever turned off, it's that bad.

The Reddit app imitates new Reddit. If you want old Reddit experience on a phone, you need an unofficial app. These use the API.

Regular Reddit app is shit. People use unofficial apps that rely on the API. API changes kill unofficial apps.

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