Reddit’s 2023 r/Place turned into a battleground for dunking on the CEO

HLMenckenFan@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 417 points –
Reddit’s 2023 r/Place dunks on the CEO in colorful terms
polygon.com
41

You are viewing a single comment

It does feel ultimately kind of meaningless though. I remember going through this with Ellen Pao. She made all the unpopular decisions the Reddit board wanted to make anyway and rode away into the sunset. Just a fall guy essentially. Feels like we’re going through the same motions with Spez.

Man, I don't know. I know this is just a personal anecdote, but around my friend circle, I haven't gotten a single share from reddit in over a month when we used to send links back and forth daily. Those same people have said they haven't visited reddit in a month, other than the rare checkin on the drama.

I'm sure the significance of the impact is relatively small, but I'd also guess many of those that left were heavy users and contributors. I'll go over there to check every few days and have noticed the content quality is significantly worse than 2 months ago.

That said, it is also very possible this whole thing blows over and the million or so of us that left are meaningless in reddits overall lifespan.

To be clear I don’t think it’ll blow over. The site is definitely worse off than it was before. But I do think it’ll continue instead of collapsing. It will just turn into something completely unrecognizable compared to what it was. Imagine Tumblr or Imgur.

It will just turn into something completely unrecognizable compared to what it was.

Completely agreed. Reddit won't die, but it also won't be the "front page of the internet" as it was from 2016-2022 or so.

I mostly only use car subreddits like r/cars, but it's mostly the same over there - things haven't changed for the most part.

I’m not so sure. I still think that Ellen Pao was pushed off the glass cliff. I’m expecting the same thing to happen to Linda Yaccarino at The Company Formerly Known as Twitter.

Spez is directing this. He’s leaning into it. He’s embraced what Musk is doing at The Company Formerly Known as Twitter. He has publicly mocked both users and mods who have signaled their concerns, it was his decision and his timeline. It’s not like he’s a recent hire brought into a failing company.

Spez isn’t the fall guy. He’s the bad guy.

Except he's accepting the 'bad guy' title in hopes of a large payout from IPO. This is why reddit should've been abandoned by all users who care when Apollo and RIF shut down. Even those remaining to protest only enforce the bluff that Huffman called by doubling and tripling down on his antics.

I think the analogy is closer to the landed gentry...

The difference is that Ellen Pao was that was talent acquisition.

And I think, with Spez, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry