Up with Sync, Down With Spez
Death of the 3rd party apps. I used to use BaconReader but switched to Sync for Reddit a couple of years ago. Both way above and beyond the official reddit app that’s full of bloat and ads (unless you pay for gold).
They really just didn’t seem like they were going to bring the functionality of a lot of the 3rd party apps so I can’t see myself using their official app long term.
Oh, plus the Sync dev said he is creating an app for Lemmy, which I had never heard of before this, so that’s how I found myself here!
Lemmy is to Reddit what Mastodon is to Twitter so I want to give it a try. I confess I haven’t left Reddit but I’ve certainly lessened my presence including removing their app.
When I first learned that Reddit would be pricing out third-party apps I was angry and upset, but I still entertained the notion of maybe continuing to use old.reddit on the desktop (until they inevitably killed that). I like many of the communities there and didn’t want to give them up.
But then came the AMA and the leaked memo and the crushing of the protests with threats and strongarm tactics. Everything spez wrote dripped with contempt for the community and the moderators that had made the site what it was through their unpaid labor. The message became clear: “Let the little users cry it out. They’ll have their little tantrum and then they’ll settle down and accept that the reality is that we can do anything we want to them and they have to just accept it. Their communities, their conversations, their culture, it all belongs to us, not to them. We have everything and they have nothing”.
I’m not going back to that.
Yeah, I completely agree. The main app I use didn’t even shut down (Relay) but the AMA convinced me to leave anyway. Spez and the rest of the admins came across as simply vile.
It left such a bad taste in my mouth realizing that they were absolutely just going to let people get their rage out, and then rely on the good ole human nature of just going with the flow. I mean realistically, once you have the momentum of a site like Reddit, you can do some pretty shitty stuff, and not get canned for it. I’m fairly certain they’re just going to rely on that, and then make money on what’s left after that.
I’ll probably still keep using old.reddit.com, but making an account on Lemmy has like 0 opportunity cost, so why not right?
Literally. Reddit users are both content producers and consumers. They are also (unpaid) moderators and developers who made the website usable on Android and iOS devices. In short, Reddit is (was) its users, and spez and Ellen Pao contributed nothing. He deserves to watch his baby (which wasn’t even his idea in the first place) die a fiery death.
Give it a few months of reddit users seeking an alternative and Reddit will follow in Twitter’s footsteps: 50% of the content will just be robots talking to each other.
Put simply, I’m tired of being the product, and it’s obvious that Reddit wanted to implement more data harvesting and more advertising to their platform. Couple that with the outrageous cost to use their API, and it’s bye, bye Reddit.
Spez and getting rid of 3rd party
I actually left Reddit in early 2022, I’m not from the latest migration wave. I left for a combination of these reasons, the first of which is the main one:
- algorithmic feed designed to arise strong emotions, often negative
- snark and noise in the comments
- ads
- impenetrable moderation rules that often make it difficult to figure why a post is rejected, even after carefully reading all the sub’s guidelines and FAQs cover to cover, as well as reviewing past threads
A less toxic alternative got enough users.
They killed RIF and Apollo.
Also, they killed off edgy content like /r/imgoingtohellforthis. And censorship got out of control. Sadly, I expect the same will happen here. But I remain cautiously optimistic.
The CEO is a total scumbag and Apollo closing down.
It was based on principal. And Apollo RIP
Same two reasons, but maybe in the opposite order. If Apollo is dead then by principle I’m not going to use Reddit by any other means. But if some other third party app had been banned and Apollo was still alive, I’m not sure I would have been strong enough to break away on principle alone.
What I’m able to say does not come across well in text. Please know that I’m using your comment as a diving board into a larger conversation and that this isn’t about your comment. I too am guilty of what I’m about to say.
But this attitude is the systemic reason why mega corporations, and billionaires are taking over. When the product we consume is good enough for us that we settle.
We’re exhausted into complacency until we’re personally affected by something.
Sorry, the we didn’t start the fire remake really put me in a mood
Yeah I totally agree and understand your point! I was admitting my own lack of a backbone when it comes to convenience vs morality; I’m certainly guilty of taking the easy route over the “right” one in many situations. I don’t love it but hey, we each only have bandwidth to fight so many battles.
I left Reddit because I gave them so many years of dedication (and $ via Reddit premium), not even considering the fact I bought coins on multiple accounts.
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Reddit became way too focused on Karma. Karma is great in concept, but more than half of the users are only posting for internet points at this point. It takes away from the validity of posts imo. How many “I stopped drinking for 30 days!” posts did you see on there with like 70k upvotes and thousands of karma?
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The amount of not genuine posts is alarming. People have become addicted to the upvote/downvote system moreso than boomers on Facebook have become attached to their pages.
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The amount of hate speech, misinformation and blatant lies the site actively promotes is insane.
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They literally made everyone NFT wallets…???
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NFT wallets?? Why the fuck was this ever approved? Oh yeah, more $, and something else for Spez to add to his IPO rubbish. Hey look at us we have some NFTs too type beat.
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The userbase is pretty shit and Spez has even admitted to not caring about the people who made his site what it is.
Why would anyone ever stay on a site where the literal CEO says he doesn’t need nor care about you?
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My main reason? The administration team, I can understand needing money and wanting to charge for the API services, and while they were higher than normal I would have probably been okay with paying a subscription to help keep the third party app I was using running.
That was until I saw the CEOs response to the development community and anyone who remotely asked about it. That was before he absolutely butchered the ama, and before he slandered one of the largest third-party developers in the community, and then when being called with evidence the bull crap he was spreading instead decided to attack said Community member saying that he didn’t realize that it was recorded and that he stands by what he said. That was before he decided to threaten the moderator teams on the platform who may I remind you was working for free as volunteers comparing them to a landed gentry.
It is very clear that what he says publicly is polar opposite of how he administrates, he may say that Reddit is an open Community where the community has final say, but his actions say completely otherwise; it’s his way or the highway. And since he is the CEO of the platform I’m choosing the highway and clearly I’m not the only one.
At this point even if he decided to do a complete 180, and made a formal apology to the site and reversed the actions of the API changes(which I personally think financially wise would be unwise they should have funneled it into Reddit Gold somehow) I wouldn’t go back, it’s clear how the leadership is on the site and quite frankly that’s not something I want to contribute to.
RiF shutting down, deleted my account on the 12th and cited it in the “why are you doing this?” Section. I doubt it even saw human eyes but if you want something to change you have to be willing to give it up 100%. Anything less and u/spez has already won.
Lemmy.world is a nice place and it’s getting pretty big. I hope other instances keep up. I’d enjoy seeing four or five main instances with dozens of smaller ones for specific use cases propping up the content aggregation side of the fediverse into a viable option. Mastodon already has the community size they need to be self sustaining IMO.
Hell if YouTube dumpsters it soon it might actually get the web 3 we really want to see off the ground.
I was forced out. I’ve used Apollo for years and now it’s gone, so…
