• LostCause
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    2 years ago

    This news is what brought me back to check out Lemmy. I‘m just not gonna pay just to be able to use an alternative app to browse Reddit, no way, I‘d rather dump Reddit entirely.

    • CalcProgrammer1
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      2 years ago

      The only social media I’m willing to pay for is community developed social media. I’ll gladly donate to support Mastodon and if Lemmy gains enough popularity I regularly visit I’d donate to support it too, but screw paying for “premium” “features” on corporate social media that is actively taking away from users to make the paid option more attractive.

  • Ephera
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    2 years ago

    I used to think projects like Nitter or NewPipe were a bit overzealous, scraping the webpage or using the webpage’s API rather than the official API, but it’s starting to look like simply less of a pain in the butt. 🙃

    • JoYo
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      2 years ago

      get bit too many times and you start wearing gloves.

      • Ephera
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        2 years ago

        Yeah, I just could not imagine a scenario where these companies would close up their API. You don’t offer an API as a service toward others. You offer it, so 3rd party devs don’t scrape your webpage, which is not an ‘API’ you want to keep stable. It’s a service toward your own devs.

    • big
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      2 years ago

      API - Adversarial Programming Interface

  • Preston Maness ☭@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 years ago

    Edit: alt text below. The OCRbot would (understandably) have trouble with this one. @CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml

    Virgin vs Chad meme.

    On the left, virgin, captioned “Virgin API consumer,” wearing a blue long sleeve shirt and black pants and shoes, and holding a mac book. There is a collar and chain around his neck, and a ball and chains attached to his feet. Numerous text bubbles and logos surround him: “JSON”, “Fears HTML,” “Limited to what the API can do,” “Has to identify himself even for read-only APIs,” “A slave to the API provider,” “Json,” “Tokens,” “has to agree to Terms of Service and follow the the rules,” “API keys,” “Thinks that he is making his life easier,” “Has to worry about quota.”

    On the right, chad, captioned “Chad Independent Scraper,” wearing an orange tank-top (with the HTML 5 logo on it), blue pants, and brown shoes, and holding two different types of paint scrapers, one in each (outstretched) hand. Numerous text bubbles and logos surround him: “follows no rules, doesn’t agree to any terms of service,” Selenium logo, “has no limitations can access any data he wants,” cURL logo, “His software is always independent,” “Doesn’t care about changes in policies,” unknown logo, Python Requests library logo, “Websites can do nothing to stop him,” “Can do whatever he wants,” “handles HTML like a real Chad,” “Doesn’t fear HTML,” “can work anonymously,” Python Requests-HTML library logo, “Even Javascript can’t stop him.”

    • CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 years ago

      Thanks for the edit. Part of the reason I’m spamming that bot so much is to see how it handles different images, and partly so people know that it exists if they ever want a quick and dirty OCR scan of images in a post or comment.

    • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 years ago

      I’ve been meaning to learn more libreddit, teddit, nitter et al obtain reddit and twitter data. I am 90% sure they don’t use official APIs so it has to be scraping. I tried looking at the libreddit code once but it made no sense to me (skill issue).

      Edit: looks like libreddit uses the api

      • OCRBot@lemmygrad.mlB
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        2 years ago
        Image 1 text

        Virgin API Consumer {JSON} poso Chad Independent Scraper follows no rules, doesn’t agree to any terms of service Fears HTML Limited to the what the API can do Has to identify himself even for read-only APIs A slave to the API provider son Has to worry about quota Thinks that he is making his life easier API keys has to agree to Terms of Service and follow the the rules Even Javascript can’t stop him Se Rettests- can work anonymously has no limitations can access any data he wants His software is always independent Doesn’t care about changes in policies Doesn’t fear HTML handles HTML like a real Chad h do whatever he wants Websites can do nothing to stop him Tokens

        This action was performed by a bot.

  • CalcProgrammer1
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    2 years ago

    I don’t use apps, but if they get rid of old.reddit.com I’m done. I’ve been on Reddit since the Digg migration and Digg for several years prior. It’s high time to ditch corporate backed social media. I’ve been enjoying Mastodon recently, so time to join Lemmy too. The Reddit ship is sinking and has been for years (since the stupid redesign) but there’s not much left above water at this point.

  • comfy
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    2 years ago

    If it affects alternative frontends like libreddit, teddit, etc., that will be enough for me to almost completely quit browsing.

    Events like this are unpredictable, and it is why places like Lemmy need to always be ready to receive and retain users. I lost some interest because I felt the main instances had similar problems (culturally) to reddit instead of trying to be something better, and that community feedback seemed to go unreceived. The technology can help, but the rest is up to people putting in extra effort.

    • nutomicA
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      2 years ago

      Yes there is definitely a lack in variety regarding instances. So people just need to go ahead and create new ones.

  • Thoralf Will@feddit.de
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    2 years ago

    Might be the beginning of the end for Reddit and might have similar effects for Lemmy as it had for Mastodon.

  • xevizero
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    2 years ago

    And…now I’m here. I guess I hope that works out for them.

  • Muad'Dibber@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 years ago

    It begins. Not too long a step until they start charging app developers and various clients for usage. If the goal is to funnel people to using only their official apps, like twitter, fb, and instagram do, they need to start this as a first step.

    • Ephera
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      2 years ago

      They would need to make their webpage only accessible with a login, or try to obfuscate it as hard as Instagram does, otherwise 3rd-party devs will scrape that. And that would hurt their discoverability massively.

      I mean, it does have the same self-destructive energy as closing up your API, so I’m not saying they won’t do it, but it would be stupid.

  • if_you_can_keep_it
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    2 years ago

    It’s funny because I just recently created a tiny web app that I run off my own computer which allows me to aggregate the feeds of any subreddit I want along with posts from Lemmy and other Reddit-like forums. Because of this, this change won’t really affect me. While I do occasionally use a third party Reddit app to surf Reddit, I mostly just use my web app and it doesn’t use any Reddit APIs but just scrapes the website directly. Only thing is I’ve heard that they might be getting rid of old Reddit. I currently scrape from old Reddit rather than the new one because the old one has easier HTML objects to identify. Still, it shouldn’t be too hard start scraping the new UI, if I have to.

  • boot20
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    2 years ago

    And reddit will go the way of Digg if they continue on doing this nonsense.

  • const_void
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    2 years ago

    Stupidmove motived by greed on their part but good for Lemmy

  • BlazingFlames6073
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    2 years ago

    I was wondering about libreddit and teddit as well lol.

    Reddit’s announcement made me open lemmy to check the discussion happening here lol. Now I’ll check hackernews as well.

    Also, can someone help me access other instances from the jerbora app? I’m a bit new to lemmy. I can’t seem to get it working by following the official help pages. The three dot on the top right of the search bar tab doesn’t seem to work and I’m not sure what that is for.

  • mibzman
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    2 years ago

    Initially I my response was “big whoop” I just realized that I pretty much only use reddit through RIF. I won’t pay a subscription, so guess I’ll mostly be done with reddit.

    Hopefully the communities on reddit will have a bit more usage on lemmy in the near future.