Reddit pulls a Twitter. Third Party Apps will cost some developers $20 MILLION/yr.

[jagdtigger]

Reddit is like a toddler throwing a tantrum at this point.....

[RejZoR]

2 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

Tbh i fully expected reddit to go through with this.

 

Reddit: Reopen the subreddit or there will be consequences.

Moderators: No.

Reddit: *bans them*

Moderators: *surprised pikachu face*

They aren't that surprised, we've been expecting Reddit to go rogue and just replace mods and reopen subs. Thing is, people aren't stupid, shit like this will come out and has come out. It just makes Reddit look even worse in the eyes of the public, not that they aren't already a dumpsterfire as is. I've not used Reddit once since this shitshow began out of principle. I mean, if Infinity or Apollo cease to exist, I may as well just not use Reddit. I've switched to those apps for a reason and going back just isn't an option anymore.

[wanderingfool2]

3 hours ago, WkdPaul said:

The people at r/blind 100% disagree, the only approved accessibility 3rd party app doesn't have the mod tools they need,, and Reddit itself isn't compatible with screen readers and other accessibility needs.

 

Accessibility is an actual issue for a huge part of that community, yet you labelled that as misinformation, I'm wondering why?

I mean aside from the without developers having to do anything, which I think in some cases isn't true, what he has responded to has also had misinformation.

While moderation tools for accessibility might be impacted, the intended moderation apps/bot tools comment he was also responding to is also misinformation.

 

 

The issue I do have with the r/blind post is the lack of listing of apps that meet their criteria but haven't been approved.  I mean one of the mods did start creating a list that users use

https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/1447ibp/what_apps_meet_your_access_needs/

 

but from what I've seen on the list, there are already a decent amount that already apply for the free API.  Ones that don't apply are ones that offer it tangentially Apollo and RIF (where they claim it has better screen reader support than the native app).

 

It then starts getting into the nitty gritty though of where does one draw the line, as apps that are catered towards moderation and catered towards accessibility it does seem would apply for the exception, but ones that mainly cater towards just the user but have what to be considered better operations by the Reddit blind community don't.

 

 

[WkdPaul]

6 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

* snip *

My point is, if you want to fight misinformation, general and broad statements aren't the way to go and in this case, swings too far and propagates misinformation in statements like this ; "accessibility will continue to work without the developers having to do anything"

 

As the the apps with accessibility, from what I understand, only one was approved for now. If that changes great, if not, it could be problematic. I don't use or need those apps, so I'll refer to what the people needing those apps are saying. The mods from r/blind have meet with Reddit a few times already and they don't seem convinced.

 

In the end, I don't think it will have the impact most are saying it will. Yes, mods and power users will leave, but they'll probably be replaced and most will learn to live with it. Thing is, Reddit is now a huge trove of information, that reason alone is why I think it'll survive, at least for a while because for now, there are absolutely no comparable alternatives.

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, WkdPaul said:

This ;

The people at r/blind 100% disagree, the only approved accessibility 3rd party app doesn't have the mod tools they need,, and Reddit itself isn't compatible with screen readers and other accessibility needs.

 

Accessibility is an actual issue for a huge part of that community, yet you labelled that as misinformation, I'm wondering why?

Where does it say that in the post?

 

They say that Reddit has seemed unaware that the programs that have been exempted so far don't have that good support for blind moderators. They responded that they would look into it. This is a very different argument and situation from what I have seen been made before. Go back and read the post I replied to.

 

"Reddit has made good with blind users but seems to have missed that blind mods feel like the tools are exempt so far aren't adequate. Reddit is looking into it now"

This is the real situation. That is not what the people I replied to were trying to portray the situation as. They try to pretend (or genuinely believe) that most or all tools will stop working when the opposite is true.

 

 

I also don't see anything in the post about "Reddit itself isn't compatible with screen readers and other accessibility needs".

What I do see is that they asked when the official mod tool would get support for it, but that's it. It seems like people are picking and choosing which facts to present and then applying that to other things. For example, Reddit, the website, works with screen readers. So do some third-party tools. What seems to not work at the time of writing is the official mod tools with screen readers. You can't just take that specific situation in a specific app, and then present it as "Reddit doesn't work with screen readers". That's a half-truth at best which will cause people to misunderstand the situation. 

 

The tools that are missing right now sound to me like an oversight that will probably be fixed. If that is the case reminds me to be seen, but judging by their previous actions I think it is likely that it will be fixed. I don't see why they would whitelist so much, and then not whitelist whatever tool they are referring to here.

 

 

 

I think what this conversation comes down to is that there are quite a few questions that haven't been answered for certain, and some people are choosing to assume the worst while I am willing to give a reasonable amount of benefit of the doubt. Even the mods on /r/blind say the Reddit representative seemed unaware of the issue until now and would look into it.

 

 

I think the biggest mistake Reddit has made in the entire thing is the very short timeframe. I am not sure why they are in such a hurry, but the whole thing would have been way smoother and easier to handle if they had given let's say a 6 months heads up rather than 2 or whatever they gave.

 

 

Something else I think is important to bring up is what is an "accessibility tool" and what is a "moderation tool"?

Reddit's definition, which is what I am going by when I make my posts, does not seem to match what some other people define it as.

Saying that Apollo is an "accessibility tool" just because it might have some accessibility features that work better is, in my opinion, disingenuous.

Saying "Reddit is banning accessibility tools" is not the same as "Reddit is allowing all tools specifically designed for accessibility, but some tools that have accessibility as a secondary function will not work". People are saying the former when the latter is the actual truth.

 

 

 

 

Here is an analogy. The EU is introducing a new law that states that people under the age of 18 are no longer allowed to play luck-based games for real money, like roulette or slot machines. Some people are posting that "the EU is banning gaming", which of course makes people believe they won't be allowed to play COD anymore. My response is basically "no they aren't banning gaming. All your PC and console games will keep working. There is no need to worry". To which you are now responding "but I play slot games on my PC". If we had to weight how true a statement is, I would argue that my statement is way more accurate than the ones I am responding to, even if they might not be 100% correct because of some semantics.

[wanderingfool2]

9 minutes ago, WkdPaul said:

My point is, if you want to fight misinformation, general and broad statements aren't the way to go and in this case, swings too far and propagates misinformation in statements like this ; "accessibility will continue to work without the developers having to do anything"

But you do see the irony of your response though, with you effectively doing that in your post as well?

 

The general statement like non commercial moderation apps and accessibility apps will not be affected is true, it's just that from the looks of things apps like Apollo and RIF which aren't really either is affected but are being considered by the community as being part of it.

 

The concerns they are also expressing seems to around the current lack of information (and lack of them building things into Reddit's official App, from what I've seen)

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, Drazil100 said:

The issue isn't that there is an API fee. The issue is that the fee they chose for the API is specifically set so high that it would be unsustainable for 3rd party app developers to pay them. There has been a LOT of evidence over the past week over the absolute disrespect Reddit has had with this issue with multiple developers stating that Reddit told them one thing in private and another thing in public.

If Reddit was honest that they didn't want people to develop 3rd party replacements for the Reddit app and just said "we are banning them" people would be pissed, but not as pissed as they are now. They have banned 3rd party apps in the most disrespectful and dishonest way possible, and they continue to lie about it and try to turn their community against itself. This could have been over as quickly as YouTube removing the dislike button, or Elon Musk doing any of the garbage he has done to twitter, but instead they keep doing whatever thing will piss their community off the most.

I agree with some of the things you said, but I am not so sure Reddit has actually lied. Some of the mods in the "resistance" or whatever you want to call it have been caught lying though as I mentioned earlier. The whole thing is a shit show and there is a lot of hearsay and potentially biased retelling and interpretations being done.

 

I think one big problem and issue with how Reddit has handled this is that they made this with such short notice.

It's one thing to say "hey, this will happen in 6 months, and here are the things we will do in the meantime". It's another thing completely go to "hey, we are doing this in 2 months and we will totally make improvements to make the transition smooth, but we will see when that happens".

[Drazil100]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

I agree with some of the things you said, but I am not so sure Reddit has actually lied. Some of the mods in the "resistance" or whatever you want to call it have been caught lying though as I mentioned earlier. The whole thing is a shit show and there is a lot of hearsay and potentially biased retelling and interpretations being done.

Didn’t the developers have recordings or something?

[dizmo]

Other issues aside I'm all for the ability to vote out moderators. 

 

I also, however, think Reddit is one of the worst communities with only a small positive. It's far too much of an echo chamber. 

[LAwLz]

32 minutes ago, Drazil100 said:

Didn’t the developers have recordings or something?

If you're talking about the Apollo dev then he made a joke that Reddit interpreted as a threat, but it was supposedly cleared up during the call. The audio was apparently very bad during the call though so it was hard to understand. As far as I know, we don't actually have the full call. I was just able to find a small clip from it that the Apollo dev decided to publish. I was only able to find a clip that was 3 minutes and 34 seconds long, and the entire call was supposedly close to 30 minutes.

So it is important to note that we at best only seem to have a small clip potentially lacking context that might not be the specific incident Reddit is referring to.

 

The Apollo developer has also been caught bending the truth so I am not entirely sure we should take everything he says as the absolute truth. For example, he says that Reddit lied when Reddit claimed that the developer of RIF didn't want to talk to them. However, the developer of RIF himself said that he replied to Reddit wanting a phone call with him with "I don't see a phone call being productive. Please let me know when there is any new information to share that hasn't been made public".

To me, that sounds like the RIF developer refusing to have a call, but there is some nuance to the situation. Reddit is referring to an offer to have a phone call when they say "RIF refused to talk to us", and the Apollo dev is referring to an email when he says "RIF did talk to Reddit".

 

 

 

It's important to not view this as black and white and understand that both sites stand to gain from manipulating onlookers like you and me into believing things that may not be entirely true. Or that there could be misunderstandings and since we are just being retold what happened, with the person retelling things might be injecting their own interpretations into the retelling.

I have many times heard someone retell a situation I witnessed and thought "hold on, that is not what happened at all". That might be happening here a lot since most of the accusations being thrown around by both Reddit and the third-party devs have been retellings of conversations they had in private.

[LAwLz]

18 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I also, however, think Reddit is one of the worst communities with only a small positive. It's far too much of an echo chamber. 

I think it depends on which subs you subscribe to, and if it actually matters that they are echo chambers or not.

If you try and stay up to date with current events then going on an echo-chamber subreddit is probably a bad idea. But if you just want to look at some funny pictures then I don't think there is any harm in for example /r/programminghumor or /r/networkingmemes being "echo chambers" and constantly saying the same things about some programming language or firewall vendors.

 

I think Reddit is great, but you have to think about how you use it. But that should go for anything really.

[AlTech]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

If you're talking about the Apollo dev then he made a joke that Reddit interpreted as a threat, but it was supposedly cleared up during the call. The audio was apparently very bad during the call though so it was hard to understand. As far as I know, we don't actually have the full call. I was just able to find a small clip from it that the Apollo dev decided to publish. I was only able to find a clip that was 3 minutes and 34 seconds long, and the entire call was supposedly close to 30 minutes.

So it is important to note that we at best only seem to have a small clip potentially lacking context that might not be the specific incident Reddit is referring to.

 

The Apollo developer has also been caught bending the truth so I am not entirely sure we should take everything he says as the absolute truth. For example, he says that Reddit lied when Reddit claimed that the developer of RIF didn't want to talk to them. However, the developer of RIF himself said that he replied to Reddit wanting a phone call with him with "I don't see a phone call being productive. Please let me know when there is any new information to share that hasn't been made public".

To me, that sounds like the RIF developer refusing to have a call, but there is some nuance to the situation. Reddit is referring to an offer to have a phone call when they say "RIF refused to talk to us", and the Apollo dev is referring to an email when he says "RIF did talk to Reddit".

RIF refused to talk after RIF saw Apollo's post about Reddit announcing silly prices.

 

RIF was willing to talk prior to Reddit's talk with Apollo.

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

It's important to not view this as black and white and understand that both sites stand to gain from manipulating onlookers like you and me into believing things that may not be entirely true. Or that there could be misunderstandings and since we are just being retold what happened, with the person retelling things might be injecting their own interpretations into the retelling.

I have many times heard someone retell a situation I witnessed and thought "hold on, that is not what happened at all". That might be happening here a lot since most of the accusations being thrown around by both Reddit and the third-party devs have been retellings of conversations they had in private.

Except there is email proof that the Verge looked at and said it confirmed RIF's story.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

3 hours ago, dizmo said:

Other issues aside I'm all for the ability to vote out moderators.

Lord have mercy I wish they would do this. There is one particular mod I REALLY want gone.

[AlTech]

14 hours ago, RejZoR said:

From what I heard they have been reinstated already.

Only the mods in one of the subreddits have been re-instated. Most of the other subreddits where this has happened the mods have not been re-instated.

[Leychee]

With the API announcement, blackmailing and now this... I think it's time to find another platform. Any ideas? 

[Arika]

2 hours ago, Leychee said:

With the API announcement, blackmailing and now this... I think it's time to find another platform. Any ideas? 

doesn't matter, redditors couldn't even stand a 48 hour black, 95% of them aren't going to move to a new platform, they will just take their lumps.
 

[Dominik W]

What I see: Reddit doing what they want with their platform. 

 

But honestly, day by day, the more I see, the more I support Reddit. Consumers are weak, this boycott won't last long. Those who are vocal are almost always in the extreme minority. 

[Arika]

2 minutes ago, Dominik W said:

this boycott won't last long

it's basically already over...

[Dominik W]

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

it's basically already over...

Well, there you go. Weak, I know it was supposed only to last 48 hours, but still.

Based on all the news, I was under the impression it was still going. 

[Mark Kaine]

19 hours ago, PDifolco said:

How can a formerly "nice" open community have turned into such a den of evil a$$holes ?

Sheesh

has always been a sjw hellhole...

[LAwLz]

10 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

RIF refused to talk after RIF saw Apollo's post about Reddit announcing silly prices.

 

RIF was willing to talk prior to Reddit's talk with Apollo.

Except there is email proof that the Verge looked at and said it confirmed RIF's story.

Did RIF and someone from Reddit ever speak to each other on a phone call? No, they didn't. 

 

What was the reason for why they didn't have a phone call? 

Because the RIF developer refused and said there wasn't any point. 

 

 

RIF seems to have been willing to talk at first, but before the call ever happened he changes his mind and started refusing. You can't pretend like RIF didn't refuse to talk just because you want to make reddit out like liars. They didn't lie, at least not then they said the RIF dev didn't want to talk to them. They invited him to talk, and he refused. 

 

 

You and the Apollo dev is claiming that something didn't happen (RIF refusing to speak to Reddit), and then continues to explain why RIF refused to speak to reddit. Explaining why something happened is not a way to prove something didn't happen. It still happened. 

[PDifolco]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

has always been a sjw hellhole...

Maybe, but now they also behave like the worst greedy corpos...

[AlTech]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Did RIF and someone from Reddit ever speak to each other on a phone call? No, they didn't. 

They talked via email.

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

What was the reason for why they didn't have a phone call? 

Because the RIF developer refused and said there wasn't any point. 

Because Apollo publishes the portion of the conversion he had indicating Reddit was unwilling to budge.

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

RIF seems to have been willing to talk at first, but before the call ever happened he changes his mind and started refusing. You can't pretend like RIF didn't refuse to talk just because you want to make reddit out like liars.

Email is a thing and RIF used that.

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

They didn't lie, at least not then they said the RIF dev didn't want to talk to them. They invited him to talk, and he refused. 

After realising how fruitless it would be because Reddit wouldn't budge on the issue.

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

You and the Apollo dev is claiming that something didn't happen (RIF refusing to speak to Reddit), and then continues to explain why RIF refused to speak to reddit. Explaining why something happened is not a way to prove something didn't happen. It still happened. 

RIF communicated with Reddit. It did happen.

[pythonmegapixel]

The lesson here is one we have seen many times in many different forms.

 

Social media companies have absolutely no duty to provide anything the vast majority of their users. You don't pay anything to use the platform, so it's not even like there's a minimum standard of service you can expect for your money. They are accountable to their shareholders, who expect a return on their investment, and by extension to those who pay to place advertising on their platform.

 

What is happening at the moment is rather unfortunate for those who've put in a lot of effort to build a community on Reddit's platform. But Reddit's platform is just that - Reddit's platform - and they are entirely within their rights to change it in any way that they see fit. So it was always on the cards that this sort of thing would happen.

 

Social media might be convenient, so by all means use it, but this debacle is yet another reminder that you should think very carefully before building something you really care about to be reliant on someone else's platform.

 

If you want to be able to put effort into a community endeavour and be certain that it will exist in the long term, then it has to be structured so that same community somehow owns and controls the platform it is built on.

[ToboRobot]

being able to vote out bad mods is actually a good change.