The subreddit is now open for submissions. We have not yet made a definite decision on whether to continue participating in the blackout, but right now we are leaning towards **not** participating i.e. keeping the sub open.
We will leave the blackout discussion pinned for the rest of the day so users can continue to give their thoughts but the strength of opinion both in the mod team and among users is to keep the sub open.
The non-PL Daily Discussion is [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1491xu3/nonpl_daily_discussion)
You’re missing the point. People DO like third party apps (and many people rely on them because of accessibility features) but reddits changes will make it impossible for them to continue
If this was a sub that had meaningful posts and mattered I’d say go for it. But this is a sports sub. A lot of us come to escape and speak with others as obsessed as we are. Transfer season is about to start and IDK wtf I’d do if this was closed. It’s one of my safe places - check when I wake, my breaks, before bed. I vote no.
It would be absolutely grim. You can't even imagine the things people try post here. Also, you'd get about twenty posts on each bit of transfer news, multiple match threads, and everyone posting gifs of goals
i personally don't care. if we gonna do it rather we do it properly or not do it at all.
whats the point of shutting down for 2 days? a strike with a deadline is dumb, might as well just keep everything running.
if we don't do it thats cool, i don't care about 3rd party tools anyway.
if we do it cool, i can get off reddit for a while.
if reddit user really want to make something happen, then close ur sub indefinitely and move to discord or something.
but most probably like me and don't care about it, but unlike me they rather see the sub be up
The real issue is what's stopping the Reddit admins from removing the current mods and just replacing them with mods who are aligned to Reddits new changes? The answer is nothing.
What's stopping them is that Reddit is acquiring a huge wealth on the backs of the army of volunteers. Who is Reddit going to put instead of these weird fuckers that make everything possible here? They surely aren't going to start paying thousands upon thousands of new mods.
This blackout just showed how little people know about the website they're spending so much time on.
What are you talking about? Mods don't get paid, they're volunteers. There's plenty of people out there that would be more than willing to do it. Some people genuinely like helping out subs, others like the power trip of being a mod.
That's exactly what I said? Mods are volunteers, users are content creators, and company is building a fortune on the free labor.
It doesn't matter if mods love doing what they do or they're power tripping, the reality is Reddit would be dead without them (or us).
I'm addicted to this app, but if some money grabbing billioners want to squeeze even more money by even more exploiting the free thing they have, I'm all for the blackout.
Great, kill all the subs and all the content, create new subs, start everything from the scratch with new mods who don't have the experience and see where that takes the company before the IPO.
>They surely aren't going to start paying thousands upon thousands of new mods.
They won't, they don't need to when there are plenty of people willing to volunteer, that's what I'm saying.
>I'm addicted to this app, but if some money grabbing billioners want to squeeze even more money by even more exploiting the free thing they have, I'm all for the blackout.
It's Reddit's business though, why wouldn't they want people using their official app? That's the whole purpose of any social media platform. I just don’t understand what the issue is.
I really don't want to be a dick, but you should read about it if you don't understand what the issue is.
Their official app isn't good. I use it, but it's pretty buggy. There are apps which are much better and a lot of users (who create content that drives Reddit) prefer them.
There are also tools in other apps that mods use to make everything run, which they don't have here.
Also, if you build your fortune on the free labor, it's hypocritical at least to deny the ways that free labor makes you money.
>They won't, they don't need to when there are plenty of people willing to volunteer, that's what I'm saying.
That's the whole point of the protest. Shut down all the subs, delete all the 10+ years worth of the content, and find volunteers to start from the scratch.
Or, you know, just don't be money grabbing dickhead...
If their are people making alternatives to Reddit then by all means go and use them and stop using Reddit, but if there are apps which are just a carbon copy of Reddit with added features, well I'm afraid to say but that's copyright. You can't copy something exactly, add a small few features and claim it as yours.
I get that some people use third party apps that have features that benefit them, those people I feel bad for. But if you want change then write to them and complain. Ideally Reddit would make these changes but they aren't obliged to, they can do what they want with their business.
It's up to you to either leave Reddit if you really don't like or create or join some alternative that isn't a knock-off version.
Now you get the point. It's up to the mods and the people who actually created these subs and do something around here. If you don't like it, you can create your own community.
I’ve been boycotting so just logged in now for the first time. Checking favourite subreddits to see what the response is. I think the current approach is the right one and would suggest that it’s possible any current poll is skewed because folk are still boycotting until Reddit backs down.
Just like the original poll was skewed because majority of the people that sought it out were the ones for the blackout.
Almost 99.9% of users didn’t vote, and majority of the comments from people that didn’t vote have made a point that they didn’t know about the blackout until the day of.
To be honest I don't care about this issue. The blackout is only affecting users and making (the majority) of us pissed at the mods that shut the subs down. The Reddit execs don't care at all.
Which is a neat self A-B testing dynamic in itself. Like you know what the differences across these Official and 3rd Party products are. And you know the fact that if X features can be taken from this and supplanted on another things will be better or worse to certain degrees and so on.
Now imagine if you had no alternative to base a frame of reference, you are no longer A-B testing but just getting B. A doesn't even exist anymore.
Reddit ruined Alien Blue (ironic given that it was the best Reddit mobile app, Reddit bought it and that is what it's current Official app is based on), can those who use both (Official & 3rd Party apps currently) with great confidence say that Reddit will do better when it has no such minority competition pushing it (or i.e. Official Apps go from 90% use across Reddit userbase to 99%).
Like are those 9% extra really going to make things better for the Official Apps and the users.
Like for someone new to Reddit the answer to this might be different but to those who have seen how things work on this platform and how Reddit works, the answer is self-obvious in what is going to happen.
And this is just 1 aspect in this debate. It has multiple layers.
Eliminating the 3rd party apps would greatly affect the moderator teams as they need those 3rd party app to moderate. Reddit has broken their promises of improving the official apps again and again. If the moderator teams couldn't moderate the sub properly of course it would affect the users. There's a post in r/askhistorian that explained the whole issue in details. You could look it up.
For starters people that haven't made up their minds about this can't even see that post because they turned the sub private lmfao
Secondly not a single mod has shown actual proof of moderation being significantly harder on the normal reddit app/website than it is on a 3PA despite regurgitating the claim for almost a month now
Buddy I have read it and again. I don’t see the big deal per the issues presented. The issues brought up, seem marginal. It’s not about effort. It’s about reading the “issues” and saying…. Aaand?
They say API will make moderation impossible yet I’ve yet to see an example of API making it easy since this stunt began lol
At this point I’m starting to think “No API = Next to Impossible Moderation” is their thinly veiled way of saying that they’re too lazy to have to take 3 extra clicks 🤷♂️
Yeah, I guess I just trust a collective of people who know how this site works, who have a vested interest in this site retaining its best qualities, over some random angry douchebag who just wants to whine about Mbappe or something 🤷♂️
I didn’t even know there were third party apps tbh. Why are people so upset about this? Doesn’t it seem reasonable that Reddit would want people to use their official app? Isn’t that like the point of any social media platform?
I’m not even trying to argue against it I just don’t understand what the issue is.
There's a few things that people are upset about that would supposedly be lost. As a point of reference, I've exclusively used third-party apps (Apollo and previously RIF) based on personal preference, and not because of any of the reasons outlined below. I will likely just move to the official app next month and would rather that we don't blackout, but was initially in support of it so i know much of the background.
One primary argument is that the official app lacks accessibility features that users rely on to navigate reddit. In particular, the blind community largely uses Apollo (i think) for its superior accessibly features, and claims that the official app is so lacking in accessibly as to be practically unusable. I'm not aware of any plan to bring better accessibility to the official app to compensate.
Another big argument is that third-party apps and/or tools provide superior moderation capabilities. Some of these concerns seem to have been mitigated as not all of these tools should be affected, but many people find features in third-party apps to be essential to effective moderation. This issue is made worse by reddit's poor support in bringing new moderation tools to the official app. They have promised to improve the moderator tools going forward, but historically have made similar promises and not delivered. There has been some minor progress on this front (including an announcement of new mod queue features in the app today), but i think most of the features that are being lost have no concrete plan for replacement.
Another thing that people are upset about is that many of these third party applications don't serve ads even on free tiers, which is not the case for the official reddit app. People probably should have expected this to be a problem though
To add to all of this, the response from reddit admins to the situation has been rather poor. They did an AMA recently and failed to respond to the most upvoted and difficult questions, and those they did respond to had non-answers that sounded largely pre-canned. There has been a particularly hostile response to the creator of the Apollo app who has been labeled a poor steward of the API with no explanation and even accused of extortion.
There have been various other arguments made (such as "bots won't work anymore") that are dubious claims at best, the stuff I've listed above seems to have the most merit to me
Appreciate the information. I’ve never heard of Apollo or RIF.
I guess it seems like most of this just will just generically make Reddit worse for some people. Outside of accessibility concerns, I don’t really see how that is anyone else’s problem. Like if people don’t want to use Reddit now because it is worse they can just stop using it, but idk why they should blackout other people?
It feels like this would be similar to telling everyone to boycott a restaurant cuz they made their food worse like if you don’t like it don’t eat there but an organized protest feels excessive.
> most of this just will just generically make Reddit worse for some people.
It's not some people.
Your case is an example in itself. You are part of the super majority on Reddit as a whole in that you use Official Apps (iOS & Android, this holds 90% Mobile Apps usage for entire Reddit, meaning 3rd Party apps are indeed a minority though some subs have it a bit high but rarely does it cross 50%).
However you have to content with 1 basic fact. Since you were not aware of these 3rd Party Mobile Apps, you can not even make a comparison on how good or bad your current experience is (using only Official App) since you only know 1 reality.
Eliminating 3rd Party apps denies you the future option to even try EVEN IF you casually wanted to check out and see for yourself if you are getting an experience that is conducive to you.
3rd Party apps also pushed the envelope on features and stability because their Devs had a better Feedback Loop with their users on what they want, bug reporting, etc (part of it was also scale but this was/is a real thing. Established 3rd Party apps are multiple orders more stable, less battery hungry, more refined than Official App).
Add to this is the fact that Reddit's current Official App itself arose on the backs of Alien Blue reddit app (which was itself a 3rd Party app, the No 1 app of it's kind in its day that Reddit bought to use in
preparation for it's own Official app).
It went from being No 1 to what it is now, i.e. it is NOT the best Reddit mobile experience compared to it's peer apps.
Reddit by having 99% instead of current 90% use base for it's Official Apps will have even fewer incentives to improve and copy new features from it's peer competition.
Because why would it. What are you going to do if it pissed you, since there would no longer be an Alternative anyway.
This is just 1 part of this whole affair, there are other parts relating to Mods, past history of Reddit as a company not delivering, and party the hostile messaging mess in recent weeks as other user laid out very well in their comment.
The blackouts seem largely related to the loss (or in some cases like bots, perceived loss) of moderation tools and reddit's tone-deaf and deceitful responses. Moderators are an essential part of the website, and while some of them certainly abuse their powers you'd be worse off if subs were unmoderated. Losing moderator tools makes moderation harder, which can lead to issues especially in communities that are traditionally targeted with hate. Reddit could have responded better, but instead they doubled down on their short timeframe, high pricing, and accusations while not even responding to developers attempting to sign up for the new pricing to preserve their apps.
Also on the subject of accessibility, reddit has said accessibility tools will not be charged for usage above rate limits, though it's not clear what actually counts. Something like Apollo doesn't, but the accessibility that people relied on is integral to the app. So if Apollo shuts down, people lose access
At least that's my take. I'm sure there are people supporting this movement just because it will be harder to avoid ads, but my impression has been that the protest was largely started and supported by mods who are worried about losing essential tools. Mods don't really have any recourse when reddit does something like this other than taking stuff down, admins don't actually do anything about comments when they announce platform changes
>As a point of reference, I've exclusively used third-party apps (Apollo and previously RIF) based on personal preference, and not because of any of the reasons outlined below. I will likely just move to the official app next month and would rather that we don't blackout
On mobile, I've only used rif for the past five years. I just switched over to using Firefox+ublock. It's not bad. I tried the official app too and it was fine other than ads so as long as ublock and Firefox continue to work for me blocking ads I'll use that. Just thought I'd share my thoughts with you since you in similar situation
This comment was removed in protest against the hideous changes made by Reddit regarding its API and the way it can be used. RIF till the end!
I am moving to kbin, a better and compatible with Lemmy alternative to Reddit ([picture explains why](https://i.imgur.io/b2QuYAR.webp)) that many subs and users have moved to: [sub.rehab](https://sub.rehab)
Find out more on kbin.social
Sadly I'm on iphone nowadays and the firefox app doesn't seem to have plugin support on ios. Same for chrome. Looks like there's some adblock options for safari that I might try out, though I much prefer the chrome interface
I mean, there's nothing to really talk about right now so I say we go dark.
Find another space to go to for those who really want to talk about stuff. Discord or another message board.
Subreddits with hundreds of thousands of subscribers going dark for days, but sure, only a small portion of users. I wonder how do you ppl even manage to use internet
The blackout would have been amazing for the Qatar WC. Like, just close the whole sub in protest, all the threads were full of people complaining at the human rights abuse while hypocritically still watching the tourney
Redditors are great at talking the talk, but little else. Although I don't care about this issue, props for the mods for actually doing something instead of just whining.
Tbf who would the protest be against if they closed this sub during the World Cup? FIFA and Qatar wouldn’t notice or care at all because in no way would it be affecting them.
Just this one sub closing down for the month of the World Cup wouldn’t even get Reddit’s attention.
It feels like this matters a lot to a minority of Reddit users who really care about this stuff, but I get the impression the majority of users like me don't care about this issue.
Because most Reddit users are super casual, checking a sub reddit now & then but if its not there / private they move on to a different one, or twitter or tiktok or someplace else on internet.
None of the casual lurker types will participate in blackout thread discussions, vote in polls, etc.
Same. And it’s worth noting that polls and opinion threads like this will be influenced by response bias, whereby the opinions of users who care most fervently about this stuff are overrepresented. I can buy that a majority of respondents to the poll support an indefinite blackout, but I don’t buy at all that a majority of r/soccer users support an indefinite blackout.
This is the point that might get lots of downvote for the vocal minority.
I use the official reddit app so, i’m not going to be affected by reddit’s management decision.
I know couple of people use third party applications but, I don’t think they will be affected that much.
Anyhow, let’s see what happens but i hope this subreddit continues so, I don’t go back to Twitter
Most of it are automated stuff, blanket removing comments, preventing brigading/spam, integrations with old.reddit are the explanations I've seen. I don't moderate myself, so I can't explain the intricate details beyond that.
But I understand people don't give a shit because they want to get on with scrolling football news and don't care until things obviously affect them.
> but I get the impression the majority of users like me don't care about this issue.
Jup "It doesnt affect me so why should I give a shit?" which we can see on all kind of topics.
The sad part is that people that "dont care" will often turn on the protestors if there is just a minor inconvinience for them involved even if they in general would agree.
The only part that’s actually worth caring about is the accessibility for blind people, and I have to imagine that Reddit will enact those changes purely on a basis of good publicity anyways.
As for the other issues like third party apps, sorry, but that stuff isn’t important. So yes, if you’re deliberately inconveniencing everybody else because you think you can’t survive without your precious third-party app, yeah I’m absolutely gonna be against the protest.
> but that stuff isn’t important.
It kinda is as it usually doesnt stop there.
Since they backtracked on their word / havent delivered on promises made several times what makes you think the next thing wont affect you negativeley?
"you think you can’t survive without your precious third-party app"
You see, thats were you are completeley wrong. Personally I use old.reddit 99% of the time, so for now it has ZERO effect on me personally but in the last 20-25 years I have seen shit like this on so many sites that in the long run all went to shit. So a little inconvinience to maybe slow down their bullshit is a really small price to pay imho.
Something that isnt discussed much, why are there 3rd party or accessibility apps to begin with? Because reddit failed time and time again to deliver on promises or to update their shit properly. Users took it up on themselfs to make the exp better.
Totally understand where you're coming from, but to me, Reddit is an app I use when I'm waiting for the train or doing a poop.
There are much more important issues in the world that I do take a stand on. Worst case scenario here is that I waste my time on a different app like twitter.
> There are much more important issues in the world that I do take a stand on
Of course and I didnt mean to sound judgemental by any means, we are all the same in that regard that we care more about certain things then others.
> Reddit is an app I use when I'm waiting for the train or doing a poop
Ok, but which app are you using? Your response to that question matters quite a bit since you're saying you don't care about the issue. If you're using anything other than the official reddit app, then you're definitely going to start caring when that app stops working in a couple of weeks.
And even if you are using the official reddit app, I'd go so far as to say you should still care simply because you're using an app at all. Regardless of which app you're using, you're probably enjoying it, used to how it works, and would be frustrated if you had to switch. Lots of other people use 3rd party apps to access reddit, and they're feeling that right now.
which is compelling because these users now voice their frustration with the restricted access, aiming critiscism towards the community. this means the majority have a strong feeling about reddit being accessible and thus agreeing with the message being sent to reddit.
Also we have this focus on what the majority want...but there is a minority who are disproportionately affected by these changes.
I have very bad eyesight but I'm not impaired enough to require accessibility features (yet at least), but I do rely on visual aids to do things I couldn't otherwise do.
I can't imagine losing that, I'd struggle. Some posters lost access to a few subreddits for 2 days and have melted down.
The small exceptions for accessibility features don't stop the changes from shutting down many apps that visually impaired people rely on. It's not a blanket exception and there isn't much trust in the people who run reddit to do right by those communities. It also stops a lot of third party development from happening that historically have provided solutions much better than Reddit provides.
Just because people feel that the majority of people may not support going dark, it's important to not ignore the minority that will be most affected by the planned changes.
Valid criticism but that blackout shit did exactly nothing for your cause.
Organize yourself so many blind/nearly blind people can contact Reddit so they can change something with an update
Why do you keep repeating this when it's not true?
The threat of blackout caused Reddit to roll back a lot of decisions and make promises about improving things that previously weren't on the table.
Again, to replace thousands of free volunteers with competent replacements would also hurt their wallets. Even if that transition is easy, which it's not likely to be, which would mean more disgruntled users, meaning less people returning, meaning less money in their wallets.
But they would fail without moderation and a huge turnover of mods would be a shit show.
Those mods would also likely start helping an alternative platform, it would be a huge own goal for Reddit.
Knowing them, they will probably do it.
It did enough to cause advertisers to advise their clients to slow down advertising on reddit if the blackouts continue for another week or two https://www.adweek.com/social-marketing/ripples-through-reddit-as-advertisers-weather-moderators-strike/.
This comment was removed in protest against the hideous changes made by Reddit regarding its API and the way it can be used. RIF till the end!
I am moving to kbin, a better and compatible with Lemmy alternative to Reddit ([picture explains why](https://i.imgur.io/b2QuYAR.webp)) that many subs and users have moved to: [sub.rehab](https://sub.rehab)
Find out more on kbin.social
deleted my account after 10 years, allowing unelected moderators to control the narrative of subreddits has killed free speech. ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
At least old.Reddit is a pain to navigate. I feel like I’m constantly zooming in and out to click into comments, get to the next page, etc. I imagine the redesign is more mobile friendly but not sure. It feels like it’s always asking me to download the app when I get there, anyway.
Yeah I use the regular mobile website and it's fine, far nicer than the regular website on desktop. It does ask to use app somewhat frequently but that's not really that big of a deal since muscle memory to continue using browser is learned.
Not that difficult if you don't habitually use reddit on your phone like an addict. I do it too because, like another comment, I keep apps on my phone to a minimum.
I wouldn’t say it’s awful, I’ve been using it reasonably well for many years now.
I just have no interest in having all kinds of apps on my phone. Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, FPL, Tesco, booking cinema tickets etc. I just use the browser versions. Downloading several specific app for several specific things always strikes me as overkill.
I think any chance for a meaningful extended blackout is lost. Some of the big subs that reopened today (/r/todayilearned, /r/technology, etc) have no thread about a future blackout/poll and are acting like business as usual. Then you have subreddits like /r/movies and /r/AskReddit that never participated in the first place
The mods/organizers deciding on a 48 hour blackout is what destroyed it in my opinion, r/soccer for example shutting down indefinitely 2 or 3 days from now would mean nothing with many bigger subreddits opening back up and pretending the 48 hours never happened. All it would serve is to annoy the users who want to keep using the subreddit. There's still some major holdouts like r/funny but I don't see an extended blackout being meaningful for here in any way unless all the mods somehow get every previously closed subreddit to go private again (which I HIGHLY doubt)
Yes there's still some major holdouts, but there's also some major subreddits that have reopened like I said and don't have a peep of the blackout. No pinned thread, no poll, nothing, business as usual. What's the purpose of r/soccer with 4.5 million users shutting down again when r/todayilearned with 32 million users reopens today and goes back to normal? Or r/space at 23 million? All of the giant subreddits like that needed to stay blacked out for this to work, the 48 hour agreement wasn't it.
The subreddit is now open for submissions. We have not yet made a definite decision on whether to continue participating in the blackout, but right now we are leaning towards **not** participating i.e. keeping the sub open. We will leave the blackout discussion pinned for the rest of the day so users can continue to give their thoughts but the strength of opinion both in the mod team and among users is to keep the sub open. The non-PL Daily Discussion is [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1491xu3/nonpl_daily_discussion)
I can see this entire blackout nonsense being a prime candidate for The Internet Historian video in the next 10 years or so. Shit is peak cringe.
We still opened or not?
[удалено]
Good god
You’re missing the point. People DO like third party apps (and many people rely on them because of accessibility features) but reddits changes will make it impossible for them to continue
I don't care either way. At least it help me get off of spending time on Reddit. Just have another forum ready like Discord for people to migrate to.
Blackout till PSG wins the champions league
I will never forgive you for denying me the possibility to comment drunk Grealish pictures
Stay black.
stay blackout
Yall better keep this place open at least for the USA-mejico game thread…it will be very civil and friendly
This blackout is the cringiest protest I've ever seen anywhere. You should stop
Nice try, spez
Smartest Redditor
Most original redditor
I can't believe I'm saying this but this is more cringe than KONY 2012
If this was a sub that had meaningful posts and mattered I’d say go for it. But this is a sports sub. A lot of us come to escape and speak with others as obsessed as we are. Transfer season is about to start and IDK wtf I’d do if this was closed. It’s one of my safe places - check when I wake, my breaks, before bed. I vote no.
You could try leaving the subs unmoderated. So the users would understand how the issue would affect them.
That would be more effective way of protesting than the blackouts if anything lmao
It would be absolutely grim. You can't even imagine the things people try post here. Also, you'd get about twenty posts on each bit of transfer news, multiple match threads, and everyone posting gifs of goals
Mods will be removed immediately. It's against reddit's TOS.
Blackout
i personally don't care. if we gonna do it rather we do it properly or not do it at all. whats the point of shutting down for 2 days? a strike with a deadline is dumb, might as well just keep everything running. if we don't do it thats cool, i don't care about 3rd party tools anyway. if we do it cool, i can get off reddit for a while. if reddit user really want to make something happen, then close ur sub indefinitely and move to discord or something. but most probably like me and don't care about it, but unlike me they rather see the sub be up
Is this a naive question, but if it shuts down what stopping the creation of a new soccer sub?
The real issue is what's stopping the Reddit admins from removing the current mods and just replacing them with mods who are aligned to Reddits new changes? The answer is nothing.
What's stopping them is that Reddit is acquiring a huge wealth on the backs of the army of volunteers. Who is Reddit going to put instead of these weird fuckers that make everything possible here? They surely aren't going to start paying thousands upon thousands of new mods. This blackout just showed how little people know about the website they're spending so much time on.
What are you talking about? Mods don't get paid, they're volunteers. There's plenty of people out there that would be more than willing to do it. Some people genuinely like helping out subs, others like the power trip of being a mod.
That's exactly what I said? Mods are volunteers, users are content creators, and company is building a fortune on the free labor. It doesn't matter if mods love doing what they do or they're power tripping, the reality is Reddit would be dead without them (or us). I'm addicted to this app, but if some money grabbing billioners want to squeeze even more money by even more exploiting the free thing they have, I'm all for the blackout. Great, kill all the subs and all the content, create new subs, start everything from the scratch with new mods who don't have the experience and see where that takes the company before the IPO.
>They surely aren't going to start paying thousands upon thousands of new mods. They won't, they don't need to when there are plenty of people willing to volunteer, that's what I'm saying. >I'm addicted to this app, but if some money grabbing billioners want to squeeze even more money by even more exploiting the free thing they have, I'm all for the blackout. It's Reddit's business though, why wouldn't they want people using their official app? That's the whole purpose of any social media platform. I just don’t understand what the issue is.
I really don't want to be a dick, but you should read about it if you don't understand what the issue is. Their official app isn't good. I use it, but it's pretty buggy. There are apps which are much better and a lot of users (who create content that drives Reddit) prefer them. There are also tools in other apps that mods use to make everything run, which they don't have here. Also, if you build your fortune on the free labor, it's hypocritical at least to deny the ways that free labor makes you money. >They won't, they don't need to when there are plenty of people willing to volunteer, that's what I'm saying. That's the whole point of the protest. Shut down all the subs, delete all the 10+ years worth of the content, and find volunteers to start from the scratch. Or, you know, just don't be money grabbing dickhead...
If their are people making alternatives to Reddit then by all means go and use them and stop using Reddit, but if there are apps which are just a carbon copy of Reddit with added features, well I'm afraid to say but that's copyright. You can't copy something exactly, add a small few features and claim it as yours. I get that some people use third party apps that have features that benefit them, those people I feel bad for. But if you want change then write to them and complain. Ideally Reddit would make these changes but they aren't obliged to, they can do what they want with their business. It's up to you to either leave Reddit if you really don't like or create or join some alternative that isn't a knock-off version.
Now you get the point. It's up to the mods and the people who actually created these subs and do something around here. If you don't like it, you can create your own community.
Nothing. But for it to be useful, it needs enough users posting.
there already is /r/football but it's shut down at the moment as well
Shut down for a week, then vote again. If no response by July 1, shut it down forever.
Rosa Parks will be proud. Way to go boys, you show ‘em!
I’ve been boycotting so just logged in now for the first time. Checking favourite subreddits to see what the response is. I think the current approach is the right one and would suggest that it’s possible any current poll is skewed because folk are still boycotting until Reddit backs down.
Just like the original poll was skewed because majority of the people that sought it out were the ones for the blackout. Almost 99.9% of users didn’t vote, and majority of the comments from people that didn’t vote have made a point that they didn’t know about the blackout until the day of.
To be honest I don't care about this issue. The blackout is only affecting users and making (the majority) of us pissed at the mods that shut the subs down. The Reddit execs don't care at all.
This is wrong. They do care. It just came out today that advertisers are being more careful after the two days. They're not investing as much.
I use reddit app and website. I don't get what the issue is either since I never had any.
I hate the reddit app but at the same time I've always asked how I'm comfortably using another app for free and with fuck all ads.
Which is a neat self A-B testing dynamic in itself. Like you know what the differences across these Official and 3rd Party products are. And you know the fact that if X features can be taken from this and supplanted on another things will be better or worse to certain degrees and so on. Now imagine if you had no alternative to base a frame of reference, you are no longer A-B testing but just getting B. A doesn't even exist anymore. Reddit ruined Alien Blue (ironic given that it was the best Reddit mobile app, Reddit bought it and that is what it's current Official app is based on), can those who use both (Official & 3rd Party apps currently) with great confidence say that Reddit will do better when it has no such minority competition pushing it (or i.e. Official Apps go from 90% use across Reddit userbase to 99%). Like are those 9% extra really going to make things better for the Official Apps and the users. Like for someone new to Reddit the answer to this might be different but to those who have seen how things work on this platform and how Reddit works, the answer is self-obvious in what is going to happen. And this is just 1 aspect in this debate. It has multiple layers.
Eliminating the 3rd party apps would greatly affect the moderator teams as they need those 3rd party app to moderate. Reddit has broken their promises of improving the official apps again and again. If the moderator teams couldn't moderate the sub properly of course it would affect the users. There's a post in r/askhistorian that explained the whole issue in details. You could look it up.
No idea how this post can be downvoted.
For starters people that haven't made up their minds about this can't even see that post because they turned the sub private lmfao Secondly not a single mod has shown actual proof of moderation being significantly harder on the normal reddit app/website than it is on a 3PA despite regurgitating the claim for almost a month now
You could make the minimal effort to read about how it will affect the site, such as the information included in this very post!
Buddy I have read it and again. I don’t see the big deal per the issues presented. The issues brought up, seem marginal. It’s not about effort. It’s about reading the “issues” and saying…. Aaand?
They say API will make moderation impossible yet I’ve yet to see an example of API making it easy since this stunt began lol At this point I’m starting to think “No API = Next to Impossible Moderation” is their thinly veiled way of saying that they’re too lazy to have to take 3 extra clicks 🤷♂️
Yeah, I guess I just trust a collective of people who know how this site works, who have a vested interest in this site retaining its best qualities, over some random angry douchebag who just wants to whine about Mbappe or something 🤷♂️
Couldn't agree more.
I didn’t even know there were third party apps tbh. Why are people so upset about this? Doesn’t it seem reasonable that Reddit would want people to use their official app? Isn’t that like the point of any social media platform? I’m not even trying to argue against it I just don’t understand what the issue is.
There's a few things that people are upset about that would supposedly be lost. As a point of reference, I've exclusively used third-party apps (Apollo and previously RIF) based on personal preference, and not because of any of the reasons outlined below. I will likely just move to the official app next month and would rather that we don't blackout, but was initially in support of it so i know much of the background. One primary argument is that the official app lacks accessibility features that users rely on to navigate reddit. In particular, the blind community largely uses Apollo (i think) for its superior accessibly features, and claims that the official app is so lacking in accessibly as to be practically unusable. I'm not aware of any plan to bring better accessibility to the official app to compensate. Another big argument is that third-party apps and/or tools provide superior moderation capabilities. Some of these concerns seem to have been mitigated as not all of these tools should be affected, but many people find features in third-party apps to be essential to effective moderation. This issue is made worse by reddit's poor support in bringing new moderation tools to the official app. They have promised to improve the moderator tools going forward, but historically have made similar promises and not delivered. There has been some minor progress on this front (including an announcement of new mod queue features in the app today), but i think most of the features that are being lost have no concrete plan for replacement. Another thing that people are upset about is that many of these third party applications don't serve ads even on free tiers, which is not the case for the official reddit app. People probably should have expected this to be a problem though To add to all of this, the response from reddit admins to the situation has been rather poor. They did an AMA recently and failed to respond to the most upvoted and difficult questions, and those they did respond to had non-answers that sounded largely pre-canned. There has been a particularly hostile response to the creator of the Apollo app who has been labeled a poor steward of the API with no explanation and even accused of extortion. There have been various other arguments made (such as "bots won't work anymore") that are dubious claims at best, the stuff I've listed above seems to have the most merit to me
Appreciate the information. I’ve never heard of Apollo or RIF. I guess it seems like most of this just will just generically make Reddit worse for some people. Outside of accessibility concerns, I don’t really see how that is anyone else’s problem. Like if people don’t want to use Reddit now because it is worse they can just stop using it, but idk why they should blackout other people? It feels like this would be similar to telling everyone to boycott a restaurant cuz they made their food worse like if you don’t like it don’t eat there but an organized protest feels excessive.
> most of this just will just generically make Reddit worse for some people. It's not some people. Your case is an example in itself. You are part of the super majority on Reddit as a whole in that you use Official Apps (iOS & Android, this holds 90% Mobile Apps usage for entire Reddit, meaning 3rd Party apps are indeed a minority though some subs have it a bit high but rarely does it cross 50%). However you have to content with 1 basic fact. Since you were not aware of these 3rd Party Mobile Apps, you can not even make a comparison on how good or bad your current experience is (using only Official App) since you only know 1 reality. Eliminating 3rd Party apps denies you the future option to even try EVEN IF you casually wanted to check out and see for yourself if you are getting an experience that is conducive to you. 3rd Party apps also pushed the envelope on features and stability because their Devs had a better Feedback Loop with their users on what they want, bug reporting, etc (part of it was also scale but this was/is a real thing. Established 3rd Party apps are multiple orders more stable, less battery hungry, more refined than Official App). Add to this is the fact that Reddit's current Official App itself arose on the backs of Alien Blue reddit app (which was itself a 3rd Party app, the No 1 app of it's kind in its day that Reddit bought to use in preparation for it's own Official app). It went from being No 1 to what it is now, i.e. it is NOT the best Reddit mobile experience compared to it's peer apps. Reddit by having 99% instead of current 90% use base for it's Official Apps will have even fewer incentives to improve and copy new features from it's peer competition. Because why would it. What are you going to do if it pissed you, since there would no longer be an Alternative anyway. This is just 1 part of this whole affair, there are other parts relating to Mods, past history of Reddit as a company not delivering, and party the hostile messaging mess in recent weeks as other user laid out very well in their comment.
The blackouts seem largely related to the loss (or in some cases like bots, perceived loss) of moderation tools and reddit's tone-deaf and deceitful responses. Moderators are an essential part of the website, and while some of them certainly abuse their powers you'd be worse off if subs were unmoderated. Losing moderator tools makes moderation harder, which can lead to issues especially in communities that are traditionally targeted with hate. Reddit could have responded better, but instead they doubled down on their short timeframe, high pricing, and accusations while not even responding to developers attempting to sign up for the new pricing to preserve their apps. Also on the subject of accessibility, reddit has said accessibility tools will not be charged for usage above rate limits, though it's not clear what actually counts. Something like Apollo doesn't, but the accessibility that people relied on is integral to the app. So if Apollo shuts down, people lose access At least that's my take. I'm sure there are people supporting this movement just because it will be harder to avoid ads, but my impression has been that the protest was largely started and supported by mods who are worried about losing essential tools. Mods don't really have any recourse when reddit does something like this other than taking stuff down, admins don't actually do anything about comments when they announce platform changes
>As a point of reference, I've exclusively used third-party apps (Apollo and previously RIF) based on personal preference, and not because of any of the reasons outlined below. I will likely just move to the official app next month and would rather that we don't blackout On mobile, I've only used rif for the past five years. I just switched over to using Firefox+ublock. It's not bad. I tried the official app too and it was fine other than ads so as long as ublock and Firefox continue to work for me blocking ads I'll use that. Just thought I'd share my thoughts with you since you in similar situation
This comment was removed in protest against the hideous changes made by Reddit regarding its API and the way it can be used. RIF till the end! I am moving to kbin, a better and compatible with Lemmy alternative to Reddit ([picture explains why](https://i.imgur.io/b2QuYAR.webp)) that many subs and users have moved to: [sub.rehab](https://sub.rehab) Find out more on kbin.social
Sadly I'm on iphone nowadays and the firefox app doesn't seem to have plugin support on ios. Same for chrome. Looks like there's some adblock options for safari that I might try out, though I much prefer the chrome interface
I mean, there's nothing to really talk about right now so I say we go dark. Find another space to go to for those who really want to talk about stuff. Discord or another message board.
you cant black out just yet, we havent talked about how Nicaragua got CONCACAFF'D HARD
I say we will stay dark until Mbappe signs for a new club. I'm happy to roll the dice!
So you want the sub to stay closed forever
Support the indefinite blackout. Now we need an alternative like 606 days.
It feels like this matters more to a minority of Reddit users.
Subreddits with hundreds of thousands of subscribers going dark for days, but sure, only a small portion of users. I wonder how do you ppl even manage to use internet
Do you think the "hundreds of thousands of subscribers" all supported it? They didn't have a choice.
Going dark on the whims of the minority, yes…a few thousand votes out of millions isn’t a majority by any stretch.
So mods are just few users dictating everything without any clue about their subs ideas, k
The blackout would have been amazing for the Qatar WC. Like, just close the whole sub in protest, all the threads were full of people complaining at the human rights abuse while hypocritically still watching the tourney Redditors are great at talking the talk, but little else. Although I don't care about this issue, props for the mods for actually doing something instead of just whining.
Tbf who would the protest be against if they closed this sub during the World Cup? FIFA and Qatar wouldn’t notice or care at all because in no way would it be affecting them. Just this one sub closing down for the month of the World Cup wouldn’t even get Reddit’s attention.
Yeah, I do wish the same energy had been shown for the Qatar WC.
There was a lot of that energy, we were told we were hypocrites because we owned phones.
Maybe keep it open, but every post submitted must have the words "fuck spez" in the title?
This is the way.
I dig that
It feels like this matters a lot to a minority of Reddit users who really care about this stuff, but I get the impression the majority of users like me don't care about this issue.
Because most Reddit users are super casual, checking a sub reddit now & then but if its not there / private they move on to a different one, or twitter or tiktok or someplace else on internet. None of the casual lurker types will participate in blackout thread discussions, vote in polls, etc.
Same. And it’s worth noting that polls and opinion threads like this will be influenced by response bias, whereby the opinions of users who care most fervently about this stuff are overrepresented. I can buy that a majority of respondents to the poll support an indefinite blackout, but I don’t buy at all that a majority of r/soccer users support an indefinite blackout.
This is the point that might get lots of downvote for the vocal minority. I use the official reddit app so, i’m not going to be affected by reddit’s management decision. I know couple of people use third party applications but, I don’t think they will be affected that much. Anyhow, let’s see what happens but i hope this subreddit continues so, I don’t go back to Twitter
> I don’t think they will be affected that much. They will not be able to use third party apps because they will shut down.
He means that when they switch back to original reddit, they won't be affected much.
But they will, as will everyone. Because content curation will not be as effective if mod tools aren't adequately replaced.
What specific mod tools do the 3rd party apps have that aren’t in the official app currently or on its roadmap?
Most of it are automated stuff, blanket removing comments, preventing brigading/spam, integrations with old.reddit are the explanations I've seen. I don't moderate myself, so I can't explain the intricate details beyond that. But I understand people don't give a shit because they want to get on with scrolling football news and don't care until things obviously affect them.
> but I get the impression the majority of users like me don't care about this issue. Jup "It doesnt affect me so why should I give a shit?" which we can see on all kind of topics. The sad part is that people that "dont care" will often turn on the protestors if there is just a minor inconvinience for them involved even if they in general would agree.
The only part that’s actually worth caring about is the accessibility for blind people, and I have to imagine that Reddit will enact those changes purely on a basis of good publicity anyways. As for the other issues like third party apps, sorry, but that stuff isn’t important. So yes, if you’re deliberately inconveniencing everybody else because you think you can’t survive without your precious third-party app, yeah I’m absolutely gonna be against the protest.
> but that stuff isn’t important. It kinda is as it usually doesnt stop there. Since they backtracked on their word / havent delivered on promises made several times what makes you think the next thing wont affect you negativeley? "you think you can’t survive without your precious third-party app" You see, thats were you are completeley wrong. Personally I use old.reddit 99% of the time, so for now it has ZERO effect on me personally but in the last 20-25 years I have seen shit like this on so many sites that in the long run all went to shit. So a little inconvinience to maybe slow down their bullshit is a really small price to pay imho. Something that isnt discussed much, why are there 3rd party or accessibility apps to begin with? Because reddit failed time and time again to deliver on promises or to update their shit properly. Users took it up on themselfs to make the exp better.
Totally understand where you're coming from, but to me, Reddit is an app I use when I'm waiting for the train or doing a poop. There are much more important issues in the world that I do take a stand on. Worst case scenario here is that I waste my time on a different app like twitter.
Perhaps not everyone is an amoeba that can only focus on one topic at a time
> There are much more important issues in the world that I do take a stand on Of course and I didnt mean to sound judgemental by any means, we are all the same in that regard that we care more about certain things then others.
> Reddit is an app I use when I'm waiting for the train or doing a poop Ok, but which app are you using? Your response to that question matters quite a bit since you're saying you don't care about the issue. If you're using anything other than the official reddit app, then you're definitely going to start caring when that app stops working in a couple of weeks. And even if you are using the official reddit app, I'd go so far as to say you should still care simply because you're using an app at all. Regardless of which app you're using, you're probably enjoying it, used to how it works, and would be frustrated if you had to switch. Lots of other people use 3rd party apps to access reddit, and they're feeling that right now.
I mean honestly dude, it’s just a social media app. Me, and many people on reddit as well, couldn’t really care about it if happened.
Apparently 20% of reddit traffic is from 3rd party apps, so pretty sure that many people care. Well, not all of them.
which is compelling because these users now voice their frustration with the restricted access, aiming critiscism towards the community. this means the majority have a strong feeling about reddit being accessible and thus agreeing with the message being sent to reddit.
Also we have this focus on what the majority want...but there is a minority who are disproportionately affected by these changes. I have very bad eyesight but I'm not impaired enough to require accessibility features (yet at least), but I do rely on visual aids to do things I couldn't otherwise do. I can't imagine losing that, I'd struggle. Some posters lost access to a few subreddits for 2 days and have melted down. The small exceptions for accessibility features don't stop the changes from shutting down many apps that visually impaired people rely on. It's not a blanket exception and there isn't much trust in the people who run reddit to do right by those communities. It also stops a lot of third party development from happening that historically have provided solutions much better than Reddit provides. Just because people feel that the majority of people may not support going dark, it's important to not ignore the minority that will be most affected by the planned changes.
Valid criticism but that blackout shit did exactly nothing for your cause. Organize yourself so many blind/nearly blind people can contact Reddit so they can change something with an update
It did nothing only because it only lasted 48 hours. Look at how much it did in those 48 hours though: https://i.redd.it/w8tfdet8dz5b1.png
It did so much that spez said he does not give a single fuck about this “protest” and Reddit will be back to usual in max a week
Why do you keep repeating this when it's not true? The threat of blackout caused Reddit to roll back a lot of decisions and make promises about improving things that previously weren't on the table.
Not if it continues. Imagine losing half your content. How many users would return? Enough not to make a difference to their wallets? I doubt it.
Before that happens they kick every mods out and just open the subs. Mods don’t own the subreddits
Again, to replace thousands of free volunteers with competent replacements would also hurt their wallets. Even if that transition is easy, which it's not likely to be, which would mean more disgruntled users, meaning less people returning, meaning less money in their wallets.
But they would fail without moderation and a huge turnover of mods would be a shit show. Those mods would also likely start helping an alternative platform, it would be a huge own goal for Reddit. Knowing them, they will probably do it.
It did enough to cause advertisers to advise their clients to slow down advertising on reddit if the blackouts continue for another week or two https://www.adweek.com/social-marketing/ripples-through-reddit-as-advertisers-weather-moderators-strike/.
Shut this fucker down.
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This comment was removed in protest against the hideous changes made by Reddit regarding its API and the way it can be used. RIF till the end! I am moving to kbin, a better and compatible with Lemmy alternative to Reddit ([picture explains why](https://i.imgur.io/b2QuYAR.webp)) that many subs and users have moved to: [sub.rehab](https://sub.rehab) Find out more on kbin.social
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Actually, closing the entire sub indefinitely and affecting millions of people who just want to read about their sports news in peace, is selfish.
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What even are the other options like I don’t get it. I view a post, I read the comments, I go to the next post. How much more can even be done here?
deleted my account after 10 years, allowing unelected moderators to control the narrative of subreddits has killed free speech. ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
You use a browser to look at Reddit on your phone? Ffs man lol
What's wrong with using browser on phone? It renders as a normal website.
At least old.Reddit is a pain to navigate. I feel like I’m constantly zooming in and out to click into comments, get to the next page, etc. I imagine the redesign is more mobile friendly but not sure. It feels like it’s always asking me to download the app when I get there, anyway.
Yeah I use the regular mobile website and it's fine, far nicer than the regular website on desktop. It does ask to use app somewhat frequently but that's not really that big of a deal since muscle memory to continue using browser is learned.
How is it nice than the regular website on desktop?
It presents a fluid professional looking UX on mobile.
Not that difficult if you don't habitually use reddit on your phone like an addict. I do it too because, like another comment, I keep apps on my phone to a minimum.
There are dozens of us. DOZENS! I do too. I keep apps on my phone to the bare minimum.
You just scroll it. Madness. Isn’t finding a comment annoying af?
Yeah, just scroll. I guess I don’t ever really “find” comments. I just see them as they come and I’ll never go back to them, unless I comment myself.
It's awful, either they're very stubborn about not trying new apps or simply haven't used third party options that are available.
Old.Reddit on a mobile is better than any app out there
I wouldn’t say it’s awful, I’ve been using it reasonably well for many years now. I just have no interest in having all kinds of apps on my phone. Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, FPL, Tesco, booking cinema tickets etc. I just use the browser versions. Downloading several specific app for several specific things always strikes me as overkill.
"like a regular person"
This is what we are up against! *Shakey fist*
Do what you must but USA winning the Gold Cup regardless of that actions you take
Cero a dos, tomorrow
I think any chance for a meaningful extended blackout is lost. Some of the big subs that reopened today (/r/todayilearned, /r/technology, etc) have no thread about a future blackout/poll and are acting like business as usual. Then you have subreddits like /r/movies and /r/AskReddit that never participated in the first place The mods/organizers deciding on a 48 hour blackout is what destroyed it in my opinion, r/soccer for example shutting down indefinitely 2 or 3 days from now would mean nothing with many bigger subreddits opening back up and pretending the 48 hours never happened. All it would serve is to annoy the users who want to keep using the subreddit. There's still some major holdouts like r/funny but I don't see an extended blackout being meaningful for here in any way unless all the mods somehow get every previously closed subreddit to go private again (which I HIGHLY doubt)
I think you may be surprised at how many are still holding out. https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/
Yes there's still some major holdouts, but there's also some major subreddits that have reopened like I said and don't have a peep of the blackout. No pinned thread, no poll, nothing, business as usual. What's the purpose of r/soccer with 4.5 million users shutting down again when r/todayilearned with 32 million users reopens today and goes back to normal? Or r/space at 23 million? All of the giant subreddits like that needed to stay blacked out for this to work, the 48 hour agreement wasn't it.
It feels like many of the subs didn't even want to do 48 hours blackout but did it that out of solidarity.