I’ve never been sentimental about a social media site but it’s sad for me to see reddit so clearly killing itself. Pushshift is already banned and Apollo is soon to follow. Reddit will either pivot fully to a mainstream audience or die out. It’s just sad for me to see it doing it to itself.
I’m really fucking pissed because reddit is the only forum for a lot of topics. Realistically, I can’t say I’m going to stop using it totally. Like, you can clearly see it is at risk of a tumblr-esque descent. The CEO has repeatedly said they are “fighting” for nsfw content to remain, but I trust 0% of what that guy says considering he’s repeatedly lied, slandered people and freely admits to just trying to get profitable as soon as possible (see latest ama, for the IPO so he can cash out, presumably). If this really is a Tumblr level decline which it remains to be seen if it is, they’ll be in desperate need of more VC cash so porn is as good as gone.
Anyways, I hope some communities start coming over. The blackout is a good protest, but meaningless if there’s no actual action apart from that. Regarding the blackout, I don’t even really give a shit about “saving” Reddit anymore, as they’ve made it very clear they are beyond saving. I just want the same experience with the same level of community somewhere else (fuck capitalism and centralization though)
I agree with you about the communities and forums. Those take years to develop, even with promising options like Lemmy. Reddit became so popular there was a niche community for literally anything you can imagine. I hope the enthusiasm carries over and develops elsewhere/here.
I really hope that Reddit never becomes profitable despite all of their best efforts–at least as long as Steve is running it. He is so unprofessional and does not deserve to cash in. I hope he loses money slowly but surely due to his incompetent decisions, just as Lowtax did at SomethingAwful.