A ton of moderators have been making changes to their subreddits’ rules (e.g., only allowing certain posts, going NSFW, loosening rules a ton) to protest without getting kicked out. Do you think this strategy of turning a subreddit into shitposts is effective or not?
I’m curious to see what the people in this community think, so please share your thoughts.
My opinion is that these forms of protest, while fun, don’t actually help. Most bring more attention and activity to the sub if anything, giving Reddit more ad revenue (which is really all they care about). And the few that are actually harmful (e.g., allowing NSFW content) are being shut down by Reddit.
It’s been made clear that Reddit doesn’t care about what its users want and is willing to reorder, remove, and shadowban moderators to protect profits, so I’d like to see more people moving away from the platform. Even if the alternatives still need development and are missing important features, mods should start making plans to establish communities outside of Reddit.
The Facebook comparison really resonates with me. I’ve always been the type of person to just throw pictures of my kids on Facebook for my family’s benefit, but was never a daily user. During the reddit blackout, I checked Facebook a few times and realized that it is a complete shell of its former self. Browsing it is literally “ad, ad, content not relevant to me, 6 day-old post from a distant friend, ad, ad, repeat.”
It’s not like these companies just die and turn off forever. It’s a slow and gradual death that’s easy not to notice if you’re not paying attention. A lot of redditors are acting like it’s still business as usual, but they can’t see that it’s starting to go downhill.