I completely agree with you but I think that the majority of Reddit users don't care and in 6 months time, this debacle will be completely forgotten by them and revenue will have completely recovered. I don't think I'm being cynical about it, I'm just going by past cases(FB, Twitter, etc.). The majority of users simply don't care.
The interesting wrinkle is not necessarily about “the majority of users” caring. It’s whether the content creators and moderators care to the point that the people bailing on reddit are drawn largely from the people who actually produce value.
If 80% of reddit users just browse or post one liners and 20% are the mods and users who generate the content and keep communities from going off the rails, that would be roughly in line with what we’d expect in an online community. If the people bailing out are mostly coming from that 20%, then post and community quality will decrease, which will eventually decrease users and other KPIs. That was the point of the blackputs and demoderation protests. I deleted all of my posts on all of my accounts before leaving for that reason.
The 80% might not care about the abstract, but when content falls off, they’ll find another site. It’s like Reddit: The Muskening
Sure, but if the 20% content creators are instead filled with repost bots, will the average redditor be able to tell the difference? How low-quality can submissions really go before people become tired of it? Judging by twitter and Facebook, the average person as a massive appetite for bullshit, so I think Reddit will continue as long as bots can keep churning out content.
For me, MySpace, Yahoo, Friendster, even AOL have shown that sites need users more than users need sites. Elon is starting to discover that too. I don’t know if these moves are going to be enough to turn reddit into the next used-to-be social media site, but the moves they’re pulling seem to show they’re circling the drain. I don’t think we’re going to get the big flushing sound like we’re hearing with twitter, but I do think spez is going to find out that he has been confused about what he’s selling.
Ads are not the product. Users are not the product. Those are byproducts. Content and moderation is the product without which a site turns into a chan board with a worse UI.
I've realized that most users actually don't care about anything. No moral values in their tech choices, no interest in which company is behind their tech. No objections if Microsoft takes over their computer.
I completely agree with you but I think that the majority of Reddit users don't care and in 6 months time, this debacle will be completely forgotten by them and revenue will have completely recovered. I don't think I'm being cynical about it, I'm just going by past cases(FB, Twitter, etc.). The majority of users simply don't care.
The interesting wrinkle is not necessarily about “the majority of users” caring. It’s whether the content creators and moderators care to the point that the people bailing on reddit are drawn largely from the people who actually produce value.
If 80% of reddit users just browse or post one liners and 20% are the mods and users who generate the content and keep communities from going off the rails, that would be roughly in line with what we’d expect in an online community. If the people bailing out are mostly coming from that 20%, then post and community quality will decrease, which will eventually decrease users and other KPIs. That was the point of the blackputs and demoderation protests. I deleted all of my posts on all of my accounts before leaving for that reason.
The 80% might not care about the abstract, but when content falls off, they’ll find another site. It’s like Reddit: The Muskening
Sure, but if the 20% content creators are instead filled with repost bots, will the average redditor be able to tell the difference? How low-quality can submissions really go before people become tired of it? Judging by twitter and Facebook, the average person as a massive appetite for bullshit, so I think Reddit will continue as long as bots can keep churning out content.
For me, MySpace, Yahoo, Friendster, even AOL have shown that sites need users more than users need sites. Elon is starting to discover that too. I don’t know if these moves are going to be enough to turn reddit into the next used-to-be social media site, but the moves they’re pulling seem to show they’re circling the drain. I don’t think we’re going to get the big flushing sound like we’re hearing with twitter, but I do think spez is going to find out that he has been confused about what he’s selling.
Ads are not the product. Users are not the product. Those are byproducts. Content and moderation is the product without which a site turns into a chan board with a worse UI.
I've realized that most users actually don't care about anything. No moral values in their tech choices, no interest in which company is behind their tech. No objections if Microsoft takes over their computer.