Reddit enrages users again by ditching thank-you coins and awards

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 1096 points – Reddit enrages users again by ditching thank-you coins and awards
businessinsider.com

Reddit enrages users again by ditching thank-you coins and awards::Reddit, which is still dealing with the fallout from its last controversial decision, said it plans to phase out coins and awards.

200

laughs in Lemmy/Kbin

A Lemmy lemon for your good sir! 🍋

I like Lemmy Lemons 🍋

Lemons always bring to mind Cave Johnson’s rant about making life take the lemons back and burning houses down with combustible lemons😌

Give and you shall receive, one prestigious award for you sir: Lemmy lemonade.🍹

I would not mind a Lemmynade as part of the greater Lemmy award system, if that is even possible in a fediverse.

It is, I have them 100000000+, help yourself:

🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋🍹🍋...

No! Stop! Cease and desist! You're ruining the lemon economy and now my lemons aren't worth anything. :(

Lemmy should make its own awards.

Award #1 -- Blackjack

Aware #2 -- Hookers

I like to give out Lemmy Lemons 🍋

I enjoy that they're meaningless and if people find them obnoxious they can just downvote them.

What would be pretty awesome is if Lemmy implemented an optional awards feature that could accept donations into a tip jar of some sort. Many of us running smaller instances appreciate selfless donations, but this could be a decent way to make supporting hosting costs more fun.

instance based awards only though, as of would be hard to control award manipulation from private lemmy servers thay are federated

Make awards not actually do anything other than be a tip for the server hoster like Reddit gold used to be. Now which server owner it should go to is another question.

An anonymous user liked your comment so much they've gifted you Lemmy Hookers™!

Very dapper!

I was hoping we could keep the reddit posts in !reddit@lemmy.ml

While I agree that user-generated reddit topics are best left to a dedicated community, I also think that published articles discussing the platform are appropriate for any Technology community; no different than Twitter, Threads, or other social media platform news coverage.

I'm with you, but judging by the number of upvotes this post got, apparently we're in the minority on this.

i was hoping with lemmy people would stop caring about something completely arbitrary like this

did they just... k kk kill a source of... i in income?!?!??!!

I think that reddit's "going public" guru squad doesn't want redditors to be able to have any control on what content is pushed to the top of the queue. That is just a guess, though.

Then why don't they just alter the algorithm or remove any coin-related influence? The average redditor does not care/know that gilded posts reach the top.

Because it causes engineering overhead that perhaps no one there wants to do. And when reddit gets its IPO it will no longer give a hoot and an half about the "average redditor" because profit suddenly becomes the only thing that matters to shareholderds.

What I am saying is that the visibility that coins make is prolly not inline with the people that want to use reddit to push products, shows, and ideologies for profit.

It is just about control.

Upvote/downvote counts to be hidden next

They’re already manipulated and dont show a true total, Reddit stops counting if they want to.

"We will continue pursuing profit until we are profitable"

-some dumbass

Giving someone a reward gives them some Reddit premium, including coins they can spend. Wouldn't be surprised if they relaunch it, in a way where everyone loses

I got a message saying I apparently have premium and/or coins, and to use them before they expire.

But, even before the Reddit plague I had no way of even knowing that, because I used old Reddit and RiF.

Anyway, my point is that this change only affects official Reddit app users, and new Reddit users.

So Reddit found a way to take stuff away from the users who weren't directly affected by the third-party app shutdowns.

It's a genius way to make sure everyone is pissed off all at once.

Exactly, I liked getting free premium sometimes. One of the very few, possibly only things I'd see in my inbox and feel happy about.

Oh, an award? On what comment? That one! Who gave it to me? Let's thank them! Oh, free premium for a month? Awesome!

Funny they'd do away with them bc those were almost the only things in the inbox that brought joy. All of the rest was:

1: you have been permanently banned from participating in r/Everything-Ever because you made an innocuous comment on a sub that differs from our ideology. You can appeal this but we'll probably just ignore your Nazi ass.

2: Reply from u/NothingBetterToComplainAbout: "Um, okay, so you said that you "Spazzed out". Glad you've outed yourself as an ableist prick that hates people with epilepsy!"

3: Reply from u/Sensitive: "What a fatphobic fuck you are. Completely ignoring that the majority of obese people are that way due to genetic factors? It has NOTHING to do with diet or exercise and they were born this way!"

4: Reply from u/beatingAdeadHorse on AITA: Bruh, she had NO obligation to call an ambulance when her mother was having a heart attack. I don't care if she did beg for help, that doesn't magically bestow responsibility! (Clap) NO (CLAP) ONE (CLAP) HAS (CLAP) ANY OBLIGATION (CLAP!) TO HELP (CLAP!) ANYONE ELSE!! (CLAP!)

5: Reply from u/Political in r/politics: Apolitical? Ha, cought you undercover Nazi. No one is apolitical.

6: Message from r/MoreSubs: You have been permanently banned for saying the following: "Can straight men really be lesbians? That makes no sense?" - Note from moderation team: Delete yourself, anyone can be anything they say they are and you must allow your reality to be shaped by their imagination. It's not enough to call them by their preferred pronouns, you must accept it and believe it deep down in your heart, you vile piece of elephant shit we'll know if you're lying.

7: AWARD ENCLOSED: Someone has liked your comment so much that they've given it the "BEST COMMENT THROUGHOUT ETERNITY!" Award. This comment was handpicked by Jesus Christ himself as his favorite, which means, YOU are his favorite! Yes, this is literal confirmation that Jesus Loves you and you have been pre-accepted into heaven for an eternity of bliss! ALSO: You get one free month of Reddit premium, AD FREE! AND 750 coins of which you can use to pass on the blessings!

Message from award-giver: This is Jesus Christ, I love you my son. I have seen the woes in your inbox and admire your good works in spreading the message of God around Reddit. I can't wait to see you in heaven, my son, until then I will always be watching but don't worry, I've already accepted you into heaven so you won't fail and go to hell no matter what!

8: YOU PUECE YX ASSHOLE I HTE U!

Yeah, while my politics are typically fairly in line with the average Reddit user, I have little tolerance for bandwagoning or purposely misconstruing the opposition, so I always tried to emphasize that "while I totally agree with X, we shouldn't pretend that there's some huge outcry for Y or that Z is actually illegal anywhere in the US." Usually didn't matter, and I got banned anyway.

But I guess when your identity is super wrapped up in being online and a mod, you need to feel like you got a win against the evils of the world.

They're incompetent but I'm confident they're at least going to put out some dumb replacement system ready by the time they have that karma to cash system.

Introducing the Reddit Battlepass! Post 100 times for this month's golden Snoo! Skip a tier every day by clicking 50 ads! Now only $19.99!

That stuff also costs next to nothing to maintain. Thus proving that spez is even more stupid than we already thought. Now he's just getting downright hitleresque, a comic book villain lmao

Please don't dilute Hitler by referencing him for something as trivial as removing gold awards.

One sent millions to the gas chamber with the specific goal of committing actual genocide. The other? No longer lets you waste money to bro-5 a meme post. Be better.

I’ll use any references I like, it’s a free country

You want to look like an idiot, be my guest.

And if you want to continue to monitor the internet policing, looking for ways to virtue signal while looking like an idiot, please continue.

2 more...

I just dumped all my old coins onto comments encouraging people to do chargebacks for any year-long Premium subscriptions since they're in material breach.

Can you elaborate, I'm not quite sure i understand?

So when a charge is made against a credit card, you have the option to do a "chargeback" - this is meant to be used for fraud. In this case, the argument is that Reddit fraudulently changed the terms of the program after people had already paid - being in "material breach" means they made a binding promise to provide a thing and they failed to do so. Chargebacks are really, really bad for a vendor. They lose the money, and they get a penalty fee, AND if it keeps happening the credit card processor can crank up their overall fees or even drop them as a bad customer.

Are they really in material beach since the agreement you agreed to by giving them money basically says "coins have no value and we can delete them at any time we want"?

I mean, I hate Reddit as much as the next guy here but that sounds a bit like doing a charge back because you didn't win on the slot machine you just pulled.

Amazing. Really does sound like they’re trying to sabotage the site now.

I was thinking about it; Lemmy could technically implement a system of gold on its own e.g can give one award a month after hitting a certain karma level or something to siphon more Reddit users.

But a lot of people on this site seem to not want normie Reddit users flocking here and my personal expectation is that people here would not care for awards. So whether they flock here or not will likely depend on how fed up they get.

Feels like Elon bought Reddit and we just haven't heard about it yet

I prefer to think that it's all coordinated by real life Bond villain (and Musk's old business partner) Peter Thiel. He failed at setting up competing Twitter platforms, so he got Musk to buy and tank it. After seeing how effective that was they roped in reddit's owners to undermine that as well.

Let's not forget the Saudi royal family. They really hate social media.

Definitely not. Here's the breakdown of the $44 bn purchase:

  • $5 bn from other investors, including a Saudi prince
  • $26 bn from Elon, underwritten by stocks in Tesla (which significantly dropped in value after the purchase)
  • $13 bn in a loan that Twitter took out to buy itself on Musk's behalf.

Twitter could hardly pay the interest on that $13 bn, even before Musk tanked the company's revenue. Either Twitter steps into line and gets more investment from right wing control freaks, or it dies - both could be seen as a win in the eyes of Peter Thiel or the Saudis.

don't you mean billion?

I did, thought I'd edited out all the "mil"s hah. Thanks, fixed now.

2 more...

I have no problem with Redditors flocking over here, but I just don't think online discussions should be "awarded". It just distracts from actual discussion and turns everything into a popularity contest. Leave the karma and point hoarding on Reddit IMHO.

I admit I like upvotes. They provide feedback on whether a comment was helpful. And awards highlighted the most helpful comments.

Did you mean awards? I haven’t found anyone who doesn’t like upvotes so I’m not sure why the distinction

The point I tried to make was: Awards are like an upvote on steroids. I like upvotes, so I like awards.

Sorry for wording it so badly.

I dunno, I thought your wording perfectly described Reddit comment experience 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think it would be a great system to easily donate to instance hosts if it was supported as an instance opt-in feature.

That was the original premise of reddit gold. You bought it to support the server costs. It used to even show you how much server time your gold had supported. I think at one point it even had a progress bar for monthly costs.

With how Lemmy works, it might be a little complicated. Especially since the payment information would need to be federated, and there would be a lot of complications depending on the region the server was hosted in.

Yeah. Giving awards would probably be limited to comments/posts that are on the same instance as your user.

Given the work by the guys behind podcasting 2.0 it would be interesting to see the fediverae adopt boosts backed by sats / the lightning network. It seems like they solve a lot of the same problems. You need a common currency people can freely transfer in small amounts to support content they like and the infra they are hosted on.

Here is an article by one of my favorite podcasts that have gone all in on boosts.

Honestly I wouldn't want anything baked into the protocol, but I can see people donating small amounts to the instance hosting a worthy comment if there was a simple enough way to do it.

Cryptocurrencies were supposed to enable that, but I think we are still a long way away (no, lighting does not qualify).

A lot of Reddit users have become more toxic over the years. Let them sink down with the Reddit failboat, we don’t need them here.

2 more...

Honestly the whole reddit protest was really good for me. I stopped spending so much time online, I only open lemmy occasionally too. Overall goodness for the planet

What do you do for the planet instead of browsing Reddit man. :D serious question!p

I've been working on switching careers for the last six or so months. Made a lot more progress after the protests and have a final interview on Thursday. Please send prayers and/or good vibes my way. Switching from Marketing to Cybersecurity. One less talented marketing person makes the world a little less cluttered with people buying shit they don't need.

Besides that specifically since the protests started I've been researching and thinking about learning to play piano. It's amazing how much time I wasted scrolling endlessly on Reddit.

That sounds awesome. :D But how can someone moves from marketing to cyber security. I mean, it's a completely different thing.

Music instrument learning is fun! Glad that now you can utilize your time better.

Cybersecurity and Penetration Testing/Hacking is more skill based than most industries. It's just a matter of learning the tools and getting good at it.

I think its supposed to mean that since they are spending less time they are more active outside of just the reddit focus and if they are doing it others will be doing similar. Less of a “good for the environment” and more of a “good for the group of people who quit”.

Is spez trying to beat Musk’s record for number of strategic blunders made while running a tech company?

Spez idolizes Musk. So he's doing the exact same thing.

It seems so, and also seems like he's in a hurry to catch up.

They were a zero-effort money printer. Why on Earth would they ditch them?

This makes no sense at all even from their perspective.

They said they are replacing it with something else. I believe more money will be directly involved.

A subscription, perhaps?

I think they're changing how awards work. A portion of the award price will go to the awardee.

It's going to be a very cheap way for them to pay freelance writers / creators.

In other words, imagine something like TiqTock with lower quality content.

Ah, interesting. I never really got into the TikTok so don’t really have a reference point.

It was such a nice way to monetize, just a teensy little icon on posts you could easily ignore. Tells you whatever replaces it is gonna be far less acceptable.

Gonna be they're version of a blue check mark. Buy the widget and it stays at the top regardless of up votes or down votes.

they'll make blue aliens more important and always float to the top like the blue check robot armies on twitter lmao

Keep it up Reddit! Push more people away! Lemmy devs watching all the Reddit refugees (I'm one): o.O

When the API changes were announced, for the first time I started thinking I should leave reddit. This coin thing was just kicking me while I was down. Ok, they want to get rid of awards for a new system. But you also want to remove them from past posts?? And you're not going to convert coin balances into anything?

Those are the things a company that has no regard for it's users does.

They learned from the best: Google. The number of times Google had suddenly killed some YouTube feature that the community had collectively sunk millions of hours into is infuriating. Community-made subtitles are the most recent one.

Honestly I can't wait for the downfall of reddit. They seem to be constantly pushing away and annoying their users.

Reddit has gone to the crapper. It's not just banning 3rd party apps, it's not just ditching awards, all of these wildly unpopular decisions have left a permanent scar on the user base and it shows. Now, all of the top posts on r/popular are garbage nonsense like "unpopular opinion: the far left and far right are both just as bad as each other" or "im a horse girl rate me". Sad times.

For me, I don't much care. I stopped visiting Reddit when my app was shut down. I find my information and make my contributions elsewhere now.

I did the same. I used Boost (which is working on a Lemmy app currently) and it somehow lasted 7 days longer, but as soon as it stopped working I deleted reddit.

They want to force redditors to see ads. That's the whole point. Gilding someone was a way of gifting an ad-free experience to a random redditor, and Reddit doesn't like that anymore.

Of course it's also because spez doesn't like seeing too many awards on "fuck spez" comments.

I imagine having a baked-in method for users with disposable income to avoid seeing any ads isn't exactly an attractive feature for potential advertisers.

That's literally YouTube Premium's value proposition.

I'd expect there's an equilibrium to be found.

Even if you had the hypothetical "ultimate consumer" -- so stupid that they clicked every ad and bought everything they saw-- there would be a finite cap of ad revenue you could get out of them. There are only so many advertisers, and they're only willing to pay so much per ad, because their acquisition budgets are finite and they anticipate much more real world levels of conversion from view to click to sale.

Maybe an "optimal" real-world user is worth $30 per month in ad clicks. Maybe they're worth 30 cents. Either way, it's still a number where you can say "we can offer an ad-free experience for a price anywhere above that, lose no revenue, and provide a premium option."

I'm also surprised there isn't more concern from the investor world about anchoring more and more products and services to the advertising universe-- it's a brittle, finicky bubble that's based on everyone lying to everyone else and hoping nobody checks the books.

2 more...

Wasn't that one of the exclusive "features" of the official app. I guess there's no point for exclusive features now.

I haven't visited reddit since boost stopped working a few days after the API change. Filled the void mostly with twitter. Don't miss it at all.

the moment boost for lemmy launches. bye bye reddit.

You stayed on Reddit after boost stopped? I just couldn't force myself to use that shitty app. Not judging there are things I would definitely like to use it for but can't stand that app.

You can patch boost to work again with Android 10+ though there's a tutorial somewhere thinking of using that for things I can't yet find here

yeah, im just soldiering on. the official app is a shitfest though and i hate it.

Not only is it a shit fest but I've noticed that now they've taken one out of Twitter and Facebook's playbook and on mobile all search result content just directs me to download the app which is really irritating. I refuse to even download that shitty app.

Fortunately on mobile I was able to open desktop version to read an old article I needed but on computer iirc I couldn't get it to display anything even though I was already on the desktop version.

Every change they're making is pissing off the user base, spez must be wanting to clean it up and sell to advertisers ir something

Read-only (without nsfw) still works in RiF, I open that from Google searches or I'll go to the website, when I'm looking for specific things. But other than that it's been all Lemmy for me since late June.

Liftoff is a descent replacement till boost comes alive for lemmy..i won't ever give another login to re**it

Glad to see my fellow boost people around. Also haven't visited reddit since boost stopped working. The boost app can be patched to work but.. I'm just sick of Reddit and don't want to support it. Can't wait for Boost for Lemmy! Jerboa is great but miss my boost

Have you tried mastodon?

Fun fact: you can view and post lemmy posts from mastodon

Lemmy is basically an implementation of mastodon, I thought? I prefer Nostr because it is more censorship resistant but the community isn't quite there yet.

Specifically it is an implementation of something known as activitypub, which connects the entire fediverse, services from mastodon and akkoma to pixefed and peertube to lemmy and kbin

they just want to become as generic as possible lol. "Let's see how much fun we can drain from the lives of our zombies"

That's a stupid one though. Why would you get enraged at something that was only made to make profit for the reddit guys? There's no real value on reddit coins or awards, it's just a jpg or gif for somebody's comment or post.

If anything, it's funny that they removed an easy cash grab they had.

It's probably gonna turn subscription based. As in, you have to subscribe to not only send Thank-Yous but also receive them. What Reddit wants are paying customers for their IPO, not "users".

I dunno. On the one hand, it was an obvious move by the admins to distract users from the protests and exodus. On the other hand... it kinda worked? I dunno what purpose or angle this BizIn article has either.

1 more...

This reminds me of the youtube dislike button thing. When a popular majority opinion pops up against the rich, it usually brings lots of gold and platinum awards which drives engagement and visibility. It is not very advertiser/owner class friendly and gives too much power to the masses.

Any new system they create, if any, will not allow this kind of behavior.

how worse can reddit get at this point

If I still used Reddit, this would be an awesome change. People who gave awards were fucking losers lol.

Trump style dead catism?

Keep doing crazy things so people stop talking about your last crazy thing?