The main 2 changes they want to make before the IPO are killing old reddit (no/less data siphoning, css, no stupid nfts/animations/other dumb attempts at monetization) and removing anything nsfw (not just porn, anything considered nsfw like gore, violence, etc. This means state/police violence gets removed, anything to do with war gets removed.)
idk how much impact banning third party apps will have, but if/when they get rid of old reddit, that will be much worse for them. right now at least there’s that as the last bastion of classic reddit pre-enshittification. Many subreddits will just outright stop working as they rely on classic css for critical features (as well as bots, the api will eventually be rendered unusable for them as well probably). Also, moderation is hard/impossible on new reddit or the official app. At that point, discussions about moving the subreddit to a custom css lemmy instance start happening.
then goes porn subreddits. Tbh, those users and that content is actually a net negative on the business in general i’m guessing (no ads served, google/apple/mastercard/visa breathing down their necks). That’s still a hell of a lot of users lost permanently, which is X less on the active user count to show to investors.
I’m just wondering, by the time they get to their IPO, all of these changes will have turned away basically all veteran reddit users and moderators. I don’t think they’re going to put up with rebellious moderators, they’ll just replace them (there’s already going to be a list of “reddit approved moderators” that can use mod bots, this is the start of that). Will there even be anything left by IPO time? Will there even be an IPO, if the users go down by 40% like tumblr? I mean, they could easily just pivot to a mainstream facebook/instagram/tiktok alternative, but will it work? Those apps already exist. Why would anyone ever go from them to reddit? They’d have to be filling a market gap, like tiktok did after vine got shut down. I just don’t see it happening.
I thought that the nsfw content was going to be still available, just not exposed in the API. They know that porn sells so I think that the idea is: you wanna see NSFW? You gotta go through the official app so we can get that sweet money of ads/user usage/user engagement, thing that if they allowed the NSFW content through the API they will lose
even though he said old.reddit will stay around, and him lying on everything today in the AMA i wouldn’t be surprised if it got taken down soon after the API change goes into effect
this is what im expecting too, which is why im trying the migration thing rather than just sticking to desktop/browser-only. might as well stay ahead of them
Personally, after reading about how they’ve behaved with the apollo dev, I’ve decided to move away from them anyway. I’ll miss the communities but hopefully I can find a home here
I know this is blasphemy and I’ve always understood how shit the app is, but I don’t even use third party apps (I tried them before, never felt fully comfortable with any of them idk) and use the official app. So this wouldn’t even totally affect me but I can see how bad this change is and why many people use third party apps because of said app’s shitness and didn’t even consider blind/low vision accessibility before now but obviously that’s a major issue, before the accessibility exception they literally wouldn’t be able to use the site on their phone at all, the mobile website is actually unusable its spammed with 2-3 notifications per page telling you to get the app, and they killed compact reddit which could be used with a screenreader. Also I can see despite spez saying he’s keeping old reddit and nsfw, he’s a proven liar and manipulator.
The ama convinced me they kill old.Reddit as soon as they get the sense that this has ‘blown over.’ By October for sure.
spoiler
The main 2 changes they want to make before the IPO are killing old reddit (no/less data siphoning, css, no stupid nfts/animations/other dumb attempts at monetization) and removing anything nsfw (not just porn, anything considered nsfw like gore, violence, etc. This means state/police violence gets removed, anything to do with war gets removed.)
idk how much impact banning third party apps will have, but if/when they get rid of old reddit, that will be much worse for them. right now at least there’s that as the last bastion of classic reddit pre-enshittification. Many subreddits will just outright stop working as they rely on classic css for critical features (as well as bots, the api will eventually be rendered unusable for them as well probably). Also, moderation is hard/impossible on new reddit or the official app. At that point, discussions about moving the subreddit to a custom css lemmy instance start happening.
then goes porn subreddits. Tbh, those users and that content is actually a net negative on the business in general i’m guessing (no ads served, google/apple/mastercard/visa breathing down their necks). That’s still a hell of a lot of users lost permanently, which is X less on the active user count to show to investors.
I’m just wondering, by the time they get to their IPO, all of these changes will have turned away basically all veteran reddit users and moderators. I don’t think they’re going to put up with rebellious moderators, they’ll just replace them (there’s already going to be a list of “reddit approved moderators” that can use mod bots, this is the start of that). Will there even be anything left by IPO time? Will there even be an IPO, if the users go down by 40% like tumblr? I mean, they could easily just pivot to a mainstream facebook/instagram/tiktok alternative, but will it work? Those apps already exist. Why would anyone ever go from them to reddit? They’d have to be filling a market gap, like tiktok did after vine got shut down. I just don’t see it happening.
I thought that the nsfw content was going to be still available, just not exposed in the API. They know that porn sells so I think that the idea is: you wanna see NSFW? You gotta go through the official app so we can get that sweet money of ads/user usage/user engagement, thing that if they allowed the NSFW content through the API they will lose
It’ll still be available, but for how long? The way it was worded was similar to the way old.reddit would still be around…
Yep. I think this is pretty much guaranteed at this point. Can’t have anything users actually want to keep around, that might hurt profits.
even though he said old.reddit will stay around, and him lying on everything today in the AMA i wouldn’t be surprised if it got taken down soon after the API change goes into effect
It’s funny how he phrased it: "old.reddit.com isn’t going anywhere, and explicit content is still allowed.
Phrased it like it could change in the near future.
They sad in January that there won’t be any significant changes to the api, so I feel like their words became meaningless.
Yeah, I don’t see any reason for spez to put it in the OP unless it’s on the chopping block too.
this is what im expecting too, which is why im trying the migration thing rather than just sticking to desktop/browser-only. might as well stay ahead of them
Personally, after reading about how they’ve behaved with the apollo dev, I’ve decided to move away from them anyway. I’ll miss the communities but hopefully I can find a home here
I know this is blasphemy and I’ve always understood how shit the app is, but I don’t even use third party apps (I tried them before, never felt fully comfortable with any of them idk) and use the official app. So this wouldn’t even totally affect me but I can see how bad this change is and why many people use third party apps because of said app’s shitness and didn’t even consider blind/low vision accessibility before now but obviously that’s a major issue, before the accessibility exception they literally wouldn’t be able to use the site on their phone at all, the mobile website is actually unusable its spammed with 2-3 notifications per page telling you to get the app, and they killed compact reddit which could be used with a screenreader. Also I can see despite spez saying he’s keeping old reddit and nsfw, he’s a proven liar and manipulator.