Here’s the list of highlights from the article, as it’s a good TL;DR:
- The Reddit app-pocalyse is here: Apollo, Sync, and BaconReader go dark
- How Reddit crushed the biggest protest in its history
- Reddit will remove mods of private communities unless they reopen
- Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview
- Why disabled users joined the Reddit blackout
- Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit — and why users revolted
- A developer says Reddit could charge him $20 million a year to keep his app working
I am not sure they will leave even then. They are bored, wanting easy fulfillment, and even if every other post was an ad and every other commenter was a bot, still their lethargy may keep them there. And we must become okay with that, if that is what they desire.
I think that they might because even people with low standards would rather consume higher quality stuff. They probably rank content quality the same way as the others do; it’s just that their threshold for “unfit for human consumption” is rock bottom.
My go-to analogy for that is food. Would you be fine eating four days old stale bread? Plenty would say “it’s fine” - dip the murderously hard bun in some coffee to make it more palatable and move on. However, if you offer that person a sandwich - with good quality soft bread, a slice of meat that melts in your mouth, a bit of cheese, and just the right amount of relish - they’ll still devour it, regardless of their low standards. And if they know that they can consistently get that sandwich, they won’t consume the stale bread, even if they’d be otherwise OK doing it. (Perhaps they’ll even eat some stale bread again, after a few weeks, for the nostalgia factor. But then they’ll be back to sandwich-eating business.)
Transposing the analogy to this situation: they might be fine consuming post-appocalyptic Reddit content, but once it becomes stale enough, they’ll look for content elsewhere. And there’ll be always places with slightly less ads, slightly less bots, that quenches their boredom and fills their brain-stomachs.
Part 2 of my reply, b/c I was slightly over the character limit and did not want to abandon anything, so here goes:
I do disagree with you on one point, however:
No, I am certain that they do not. Maybe in some ways interests can align, but brains are not like stomaches: most people across the world regardless of class, gender, education level etc. have fundamentally the same stomach organ (there is a particular notable ethnic aberration wrt ability to process milk, but other than that, they seem to all be the same?). However, people are not all at the same intellectual level, and moreover they do not even desire to be. A longer comment such as this one that I am writing now, I have literally receive spiteful (occasionally crossing the line over into outright hateful!) replies to when posted to Reddit - even if you and I explicitly agreed, in advance, to have that exact longer-form conversation together, the fact that it so much exists where their eyes can view it, even in a slightly older (several days) post, somehow offends them. I admit that I do not understand this to any degree - if you dislike something, why not just scroll down past it, especially now that Reddit makes that easier on the mobile app? HOW HARD IS IT TO WITH A SINGLE FLICK OF YOUR WRIST, MOVE PAST SOMETHING!? I have receive literal awards from the people I actually responded to, bubbling effusively at how grateful they were that I would take the time out of my day to type all of that out for their edification - sometimes I would include screenshots, often links to exact places to go for further detail, and describe in-depth how to arrive at that same location more easily in the future. And yet even with all that, even with the award having been displayed, even with the response already there - and as comments were sorted by New by default in one place I am thinking of, very prominently so - even then, they actively took time out of their day, to involve themselves in a conversation between other people, both of whom were enjoying themselves, to tell the one who was talking to STFU. To be clear, I’m not talking about this happening once or twice, I’m saying that it happened MORE OFTEN THEN IT DID NOT HAPPEN.
So your food analogy seems doubly flawed then, imho, b/c not only is their willingness to tolerate imbibing lower-quality content significantly lower, as you say rock-bottom, but they ALSO are actively hostile to a great sandwich even so much as existing. I wrote out several additional stories as further supporting evidence, but due to character limitations had to cut it, and hopefully you get what I am saying even without them (I will add this relevant link in case you are interested - even I am tired of shouting about it into a void that does not want to hear about it, but it is quite relevant to this topic). If this were to happen irl like as I visit a particular section of a city, then I would stop going there. Hence, with it happening so very often on Reddit, I finally stopped going there. (I need to sometimes though, like for official announcements, but I suspect I will be 99% more of a lurker than contributor from now on, and that ironically has nothing to do with spez’s emotional meltdown recently - that just woke me up to what has been going on for YEARS over there, as it turned from “discussion forum” to “social media” site.)
Sorry for the late reply, it’s just that I’d rather take my time reading and answering accordingly.
Those people in Reddit might believe that crushing the protests was right, but I don’t think that their beliefs matter in the long run - what matters is the subjective value that they get from browsing the platform, versus doing something else. It’s kind of funny because, in their lack of insight and rationality, they behave in groups a lot more like perfectly rational and selfish agents than we (the ones who migrated) do.
Amen to that. Going from Digg to Reddit was running away from the fire and falling right into the frying pan. The Fediverse makes me a bit optimistic on that, though; it doesn’t expect you to trust anyone - instead, it assumes that at least some people will fuck it up, and gives you relatively painless escape routes. (e.g. admin goes rogue? there’s another instance right there!)
[off-topic] your mention of Time Machine reminded me two other books:
I recommend both, although there’s a good chance that you’ve read the first one already (given that you like HG Wells).[/off-topic]
There are two things here that make me think that the analogy isn’t that flawed, and actually valuable. Although… well, it’s an analogy. Analogies always become mushy if we push them too far, I’m aware.
One of the things is that our food tastes are mostly the result of our brain, just like the digital content that we consume. Not just our stomach. Our food tastes depend mostly on social class and raising conditions, culture and region, our former experiences with one or another dish, so goes on. It’s the reason for example that, if you ask “polenta or rice?” to someone, you’ll get one answer in the Po’ Valley and another in Japan. The major caveat is that you won’t die if you avoid digital content altogether, so there’s a lower pressure to fulfil this need than the one to eat. (Or as people say here, “a hungry cat eats even soap” - but a bored person might not eat “digital soap” for entertainment.)
The second thing is that this analogy yields some useful results. Alongside your comment on the screeching Reddit moron, it made me realise that we got two types of bad content, not one; and they should be handled separately. They are:
They might oppose the sandwich in comparison with the junk food; some people actively prefer junk food over good meals, and some consume both in different situations. But I don’t think that they’d oppose a good sammich over one made with stale bread and a burned piece of is-this-even-steak.
I predict that the amount of “junk food” in Reddit won’t meaningfully increase; it’ll be a bit more evident, but only because the ones preparing “good sandwiches” aren’t there any more. However the amount of “burned food” will increase by a lot, and that is the sort of bad content that’ll eventually make people leave.
(Some morons there will screech at you for replying to a comment after twelve hours. TWELVE HOURS! I got this once. I simply answered “I’m not spending 24/7 in Reddit, unlike you basement dwellers I got a life.”)
Yup - the focus of the site has been slowly shifting from “Reddit is about the content” (forum) to “Reddit is about the people whom you connect to” (FB/Twitter style social media). It never completely flipped though; maybe because Reddit Inc. couldn’t compete well with the big ones out there.
Fwiw I do not consider this “late” - perhaps we can reassess our standards over here, for quality >> quantity / speed:-D. Fwiw I never got that particular reply, though I did get screeched at for offering things like a URL to answer questions like “does anyone know how to…”, despite how the website perfectly answered said question. Choosing beggars and so on. And just to push this further: I have not logged onto kbin to even so much as look for your reply for the last 18 hours, so even if you had replied sooner, I would not have seen it:-).
It does seem rather odd to associate the word “rational” with that line of thinking but…yes, “robotic” even, very formulaic as in “does this benefit me in the short-term? if so then I will do it”. The odd part is that it seems to presume that people not wanting to leave then are considering those who did as “irrational” actors, when in reality both are rational, just looking at different time-scales: short vs. long-term.
Yes sci-fi really does break down all conventions, as we transition away from our mammalian past and morph into biotech, robotech, or othertech beings, like 2001 A Space Odyssey demonstrated. Although films like The Matrix and the Stargate series showcase an entirely different mode of leaving: jumping up to the next level of reality itself!:-P I love books that show even odder futures for us, like we all send our consciousnesses into the sun and then spread out to the galaxy as stellar beings, who then run “humanity” as a simulation, so that you can be all of the people all at once. If it can be done, it will, although it may be good to think about what is lost at each stage even as also move forward into what is gained - e.g. in Star Trek they tried genetic engineering, but later abandoned it in order to ~~make a more stable premise for the TV show~~ something something remain “human”? :-P
I suppose, remaining entirely inside your food analogy, what I was getting at (as you also said) is how people CHOOSE to value different things - e.g. for some of us, bacon on a cheeseburger with a coke/soda/pop/cola for dinner/supper/late meal is the most heavenly & delightful food available on earth, while for others it is outright forbidden/haram (but not always for the same reasons, e.g. for a Mormon the pork is fine, in moderation, while the coke is the bad part iirc) and for still others it is permissible but merely disgusting, e.g. if you are already overweight and realize how long you would have to exercise to burn it off, or think ahead to how you will toss and turn that night instead of sleep peacefully.
Which reminds me of the STEM adage that a simple concept behind the word “good” does not exist, but rather something is always either “good” or “bad” or whatever FOR a given purpose. But even ignoring that, for someone who has never had such a burger in their entire life, I am not entirely certain that they would find it even so much as “tasty” (the concept of sinfully delicious perhaps? :-P), and many Asians for instance do not enjoy the taste of chocolate for whatever reason.
But yes, the two bads I can get behind: spam vs. candy, both in opposition to real food - the former objectively bad (whether someone is edumacashiated enough to realize that or not) while the latter is addictive, and can be used to “good” effect if treated with proper caution but long-term usage may lead to problems.
I think Reddit was always content-based though? That was its beauty - like if you have an issue, you do not care so much who solves it, so much as that you can find your answer. But yes, very rarely you meet someone worth talking to over and over, and those are excellent days indeed:-).
The economic “rational agent” that I’m referring to is, in large part, robotic. It (yup, “it” - it’s an abstraction, not a real person) is devoid of emotion and motivated by self-interest alone. It would gladly burn a circus full of people to make some popcorn. It does take long term into account, but only for itself, never for the others.
I just find it funny that, even if it’s called “rational”, its behaviour describes rather well how irrational masses behave.
Bacon on a cheeseburger: isn’t that basically porn? Some outright enjoy it, some avoid it, and some try to avoid it but still consume it in small amounts. Or even politics, for some, who apparently see apolitical content as disgusting.
Yes. Yes and it goes further - “good” and “bad” don’t have intrinsic value, they depend on a point of reference and a specific attribute. And there’s often implicit but never stated moral statements, when people using it. Those aren’t taboo words for me, mind you, but we need to be a bit careful about how and why we use them, and make sure that the others are on the same page on what should be called “good” / “bad”.
For example. When I talk about “good content”, that “good” can be two things:
Yes but it’s clear that the admins were making it more social media-based. Posting to profile, livestream, chat, those things are practically useless in a content-centric site, but they’re essential for a social interactions-based one.
Rational agents can take long-term into account, so if people on Reddit watching it all burn & fall apart before their eyes are choosing to ignore that, are they “fully” rational agents then?
In any case, they might be correct in staying, IF we only only allow looking ahead like a month or so in time - b/c inertia is a real thing. Even then, for some of us it is no longer worth it, while for others it is.
Also, why would upvoting a comment such as “^THIS 1000%” constitute a long-term style of rational acting? It adds nothing to the discussion, so when all “discussion” becomes replaced by such, which float to the top b/c of the large number of upvotes (& maybe awards, etc.), then “real” content such that people might actually come to Reddit - like via a Google search for a specific query - get buried below them? If that is “rational”, then it seems short-sighted to me.
Or in opposition to rational, there is maybe “emotional”, so that you have a feeling and want to express it, and you see something that expresses that, so you “like” it further, in addition to liking / upvoting the original comment - without considering the long-term ramifications.
True - many were resisting that, but it was happening, truth.
Not fully rational, but their average/typical behaviour is closer to the economical “rational agent” than our average is.
Let’s take your example of upvoting a "THIS 1000%” comment. For the rational agent, upvoting it has pros and cons:
If the pros > cons, it’ll upvote the comment. Otherwise, it won’t.
The upvote will also make it harder for other people to find relevant info, but the rational agent doesn’t care; not because it’s short-sighted, but because it’s 100% selfish. Its individual actions only make the platform slightly worse for itself, but they give it a really nice ego boost that more than compensates it.
And, if the platform becomes too shitty, the rational agent knows that it can simply migrate to another. But unlike us it’ll only do it once the new platform offers more subjective value than its former platform, by a small margin (what you called “inertia”, aka “cost of switch”).
The economy-style fully rational agent does take into account emotions. But only its own emotions, never the ones of other people.
To them, they really, truly, honestly do believe that Reddit “was right to just quell the protest and stay their course”. After all, “first they came for X, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a X”.
Now, mind you, when Reddit eventually comes for THEM (maybe killing off old-Reddit, maybe they’ll need to ditch NSFW content in order to keep advertisers happy, moderation will be of noticeably lower quality, bots will be rampant, etc.), they will be shocked, shocked I tell you, SHOCKED (well, they shouldn’t be that shocked, imho:-), and probably even then they will agree with ~~daddy~~ spez that it is all the fault of those ~~hard-working volunteers~~ traitorous basturds who abandoned their communities for… (checks notes) “no (real) reason whatsoever”. Some, I should say, might be nice people… but nonetheless they will go along with it, “for the sake of peace”. Those who do not know their history must consistently be doomed to repeating it, and these days the word “collaborator” has no meaning whatsoever, since very few alive has had to live through the reality of what it means (although a Ukrainian might be able to shed some light on that point… and possibly, dare I say, even a handful of Russians whose entire families have already been killed for the glory of the motherland:-D).
Another point is that people should never have trusted Reddit to begin with. We could have been developing social media technology like this all along this whole entire time, at the very least giving Reddit the tiniest of competition. Tbf, the world didn’t know what it was like inside the “walled gardens” of Meta, Apple, Google (Don’t Be Evil), except for those of us who actually read books that predicted such things, sometimes hundreds of years in advance. HG Wells’ Time Machine springs to mind for some reason, with the whole underclass of humans as food animals and the real engineers having diverged into a literally different species (the exact opposite of what Homo sapiens did to neanderthals!:-P). There is nothing new under the sun - people who see far are able to do so b/c they see clear to the true hearts of men. OF COURSE Reddit was going to do this - it was inevitable, and always only a matter of time. Well, now we know, I suppose.