Insanity. I’ve been around a few times when people were talking about migrating but this truly does seem like the most real possibility yet. And I welcome it with open arms.
What if they’re doing this, letting us all get riled up, and then after the black out they go “ok ok, we get it. We’ll reduce the cost down to insert still high but irritatingly doable number” and that was the plan all along. That they started outrageously high so they can land where they actually expected to be. A bunch of users go back grumbling but feeling like they still won, yet we got 4d cheesed.
If this was meant to be a good PR thing for Reddit, they wouldn’t have done that terrible AMA. I really do thing Reddit is dead set on their plans right now.
Spez and his ego are too invested in it now. He can’t back down, his ego won’t allow him to. Although, I could see a vote of no confidence from the board removing him and them saying “Oops our bad, we’ve removed him and we’re going to listen to the community.”
Never forget what happened to digg.com People don’t seem to learn, although they managed to slowly bring the site to a halt in 14 years which a long time so they are not that stupid I guess.
I don’t think it’s a problem of not learning the lesson. The problem is that you can’t succeed in making a social network if you ask anyone to pay in any way. You need it to be useful, which means you need everyone on it, and everyone won’t be on it if it costs anything or is otherwise gated behind even the smallest of hurdles. So rich VCs come in and say, “here’s $100,000,000 to go make this thing invaluable, and then I want my money back with a handsome profit”. Everyone in the game always knows that the product is going to get shitty when it comes time to pay the piper. Being shitty is a side-effect of making money. The gamble is that it’ll be so ingrained in people’s life than they’ll begrudging eat the shit to keep using it. They’re looking for the elbow in the curve – how shitty can it be before everyone abandons it. That spot of maximum shittiness isn’t a mistake – it’s the target.
That won’t happen. The high API prices are there to fleece the AI bros desperate for training data for their new models.
What might happen is that they might offer some limited concessions to some devs under some conditions for some period of time in the hope that this gets misreported as “Reddit says okay to devs” and the fuss dies down despite nothing having changed in the long run.
I think come July, Reddit will remember why websites offer free/low cost API access.
Everyone who wants the data will start busting out the web scrapers again. Chat GPT makes deciphering any obscuration techniques (changing class names, table formats, etc.) absolutely trivial.
Insanity. I’ve been around a few times when people were talking about migrating but this truly does seem like the most real possibility yet. And I welcome it with open arms.
What if they’re doing this, letting us all get riled up, and then after the black out they go “ok ok, we get it. We’ll reduce the cost down to insert still high but irritatingly doable number” and that was the plan all along. That they started outrageously high so they can land where they actually expected to be. A bunch of users go back grumbling but feeling like they still won, yet we got 4d cheesed.
Or I’m just high.
If this was meant to be a good PR thing for Reddit, they wouldn’t have done that terrible AMA. I really do thing Reddit is dead set on their plans right now.
Spez and his ego are too invested in it now. He can’t back down, his ego won’t allow him to. Although, I could see a vote of no confidence from the board removing him and them saying “Oops our bad, we’ve removed him and we’re going to listen to the community.”
Reddit and their sham AMA will be remembered as how NOT to manage a social platform and its PR
Do we really need more examples of how to not manage a social platform and it’s PR?
can we get some positive examples instead
tom from myspace
end of list.
Tom was one of my first online friends. Tom made a bunch of money. Tom took the bag and fucked off doing what he loves. He really is the standard lol.
Doesn’t he post pictures of places he travels to on Instagram these days?
Man literally took the money and ran to persue his dreams. He is an inspiration.
Never forget what happened to digg.com People don’t seem to learn, although they managed to slowly bring the site to a halt in 14 years which a long time so they are not that stupid I guess.
I don’t think it’s a problem of not learning the lesson. The problem is that you can’t succeed in making a social network if you ask anyone to pay in any way. You need it to be useful, which means you need everyone on it, and everyone won’t be on it if it costs anything or is otherwise gated behind even the smallest of hurdles. So rich VCs come in and say, “here’s $100,000,000 to go make this thing invaluable, and then I want my money back with a handsome profit”. Everyone in the game always knows that the product is going to get shitty when it comes time to pay the piper. Being shitty is a side-effect of making money. The gamble is that it’ll be so ingrained in people’s life than they’ll begrudging eat the shit to keep using it. They’re looking for the elbow in the curve – how shitty can it be before everyone abandons it. That spot of maximum shittiness isn’t a mistake – it’s the target.
That won’t happen. The high API prices are there to fleece the AI bros desperate for training data for their new models.
What might happen is that they might offer some limited concessions to some devs under some conditions for some period of time in the hope that this gets misreported as “Reddit says okay to devs” and the fuss dies down despite nothing having changed in the long run.
I think come July, Reddit will remember why websites offer free/low cost API access.
Everyone who wants the data will start busting out the web scrapers again. Chat GPT makes deciphering any obscuration techniques (changing class names, table formats, etc.) absolutely trivial.
The real reddit was the memes we made along the way.