If you use Reddit at all, you may notice your favorite Subreddit has gone “private” today. And it’s not alone; it’s probably part of an organized mass 48 hours “blackout” in protest to Reddit’s new pricing policy.
Here is one report that explains the details. You can find a host of similar reports all over the internet today.
I do frequent a few Subreddits myself, including r/Gaming, r/STO, r/STOBuilds. r/GuildWars2, r/GuildWarsDyeJob etc. plus a few that are not gaming-related. Specifically, the STO subreddits are pretty informative when it comes to news and stuff, while the GW2 subreddit is a good place to read people’s theorycrafting and builds. Lots of people will tell you that Reddit can be a pretty toxic place, but I think that’s to be expected for any open forum with a lot of members — although I can tell you that some niched online forums make Reddit like the kiddie pool.
In any event, while I scan the Subreddits fairly regularly, I’m not really a big user. I certainly don’t use, nor am I even aware of these third-party apps; I can only assume Reddit wants to snuff out all these third-party apps to make everyone use their native app, because Reddit’s main source of income comes from ads. I am also guessing the “Blackout” as a protest is to cut into that same advertising incoming.
Well, the message is delivered. The question is whether the loss of 48 hours of ad income is enough to convince Reddit their customers are unhappy. From the sounds of things, that’s not happening.
What boggles my mind is, what’s so special about Reddit? To me, Reddit has always looked to be a very bare-bones and haphazardly-designed online forum. The “Promoted Ad” placements are intrusive and annoying. The single redeeming feature I’ve seen is the size of its database (and server capacity), which seems to be able to handle an infinite number of subreddits; this allows you to have a single account and involve yourself in a wide range of discussions and communities. But is that feature really so unique that it can’t be replicated by another company? I’m sure someone with deep pockets who really wants a piece of that pie… can do it.
Then again, look at the mass protest of Twitter after the Elon Musk buyout in October 2022. It got rocky for a bit, but today Twitter is still going strong despite the mass user uproar. Just goes to show what a topsy turvy world we live in, where the masses inevitably bow to the big social media presences.
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I’m not on Reddit or any sort of social media anymore so I don’t really have a proverbial dog in this fight, but as for the masses bowing to the social media presences, that’s mostly just inertia; people tend to just stay on the platforms their friends are on, making it really hard for any new platforms to gain any sort of traction.
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