I’m one of those Redditors who was one for more than 12 years, but two weeks ago I stopped using Reddit completely. I haven’t deleted my accounts yet but maybe I should. I used Apollo and subscribed to it, but since this whole debacle, I’ve lost interest in Reddit entirely. And I’ve literally felt more freedom and focus in my brain. I don’t think I’ll ever go back. Steve’s AMA was horrible, the way he went about blaming Christian from Apollo, among other things he said.
I'm actually not convinced that "recreate social media, but decentralized and censorship resistant" solves any of the real problems I have with social media: its feed/temporal design and optimization for engagement instead of the old spatial structure of classic forums and bulletin boards or designs that promote longform writing, or the very fact that we're trying to socialize online rather than socializing and doing things in real life then sharing the fruits online. It also isn't necessary for decentralization: you can throw five bucks at a server, write a page in mostly plain text (styling and markup only have to be learned to the extent you want to make it fancier; and you could find or purchase a template for those too), and presto, you can post your own web page. The fediverse concept addresses some of the reasons the decentralized internet was replaced with a corporate, centralized one to begin with, but not all and only indirectly; I'd like to see a direct solution without the social media baggage.
If you want another case study to look at that's more in the Wiki/Reddit mode, check out Stack Exchange and the conversations about the site and company happening on its "meta" section the past few years. One distinction to be made there is that Stack Exchange has three moderator-like roles:
- Community managers who are sort of like the company's liaisons to the sites.
- Moderators who deal with abuse, objectionable content and so forth.
- Ordinary users are expected to curate content for quality and gain greater privileges to do so based on how well they prove themselves, which is why (for computer programming if not for other topics sometimes too) Stack Overflow shows up near the top of google results, usually with questions that are actually relevant and answers that are actually correct.
Thank you for this very interesting article. I believe it is even possible to push the comparison with the shopping center further and observe that the model of centralizing consumer goods is tending to disappear in favor of the return of small local shops. More specialized, less ambitious, but above all much more suited to the local population.
The fediverse indeed offers this return to highly localized communities, with their own cultural baggage and language. Perhaps finally a way to consume tailored content and expand the realm of possibilities to the communities in the neighboring village.
"Seriously can somebody explain to me how a business can lose money for 18 years and still exist? is silicon valley even real?"
Not profitable does't mean they're loosing money. It means that after paid wages, hosting costs, 3rd party bills, etc. they're left with either a small profit, or no profit. Basically, it means that the business can't grow, which is what investors like to see if a company goes public. They like to see that the company has a business plan for growth. In any other case, they don't invest, thus the stock plummets. This is why Reddit is still not gonna go public. Cuz they know, if their IPO takes a dive, there is nothing bringing them back in the game, so they wanna be prepared, have a sustainable business growth plan before they go public, which is what the API pricing is all about - eliminating tools that can't serve ads, which leaves only their app as a viable alternative, which does serve ads.
Bottom line, they wanna be like FB. They don't actually care about the users, they only care about the profits... as is with any social network.
Excellent! As someone who has dozens of posts demolished by Reddit moderators I'm not 100% sad to see them experience some pain. But I do realize how stupid Reddit's decision is in this case. You have a bunch of people volunteering to keep your website afloat, and your response is to wage war on them? Huh....
I can't believe this. I came across your picture of the woman under #2 today by chance lol. I looked up Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber) & his wife called him a Luddite. Under Luddite there's a picture 'Leader of the Luddites'. This is the same picture. I can't believe the coincidence.
Well I find this amusing I have to admit Reddit has never achieved anything close to commerce, social commerce or even real revenue. E.g. Ads.
The retail apocalypse led to better e-commerce but what does the Exodus from social media lead to?
Genuine nihilism and mistrust of AI. Or more nefarious and gamified ecosystems like Roblox.
Reddit is still where you go for news when you can't actually find it on X but its audience and demographics never went mainstream. The IPO looks dead in the water.
I’m one of those Redditors who was one for more than 12 years, but two weeks ago I stopped using Reddit completely. I haven’t deleted my accounts yet but maybe I should. I used Apollo and subscribed to it, but since this whole debacle, I’ve lost interest in Reddit entirely. And I’ve literally felt more freedom and focus in my brain. I don’t think I’ll ever go back. Steve’s AMA was horrible, the way he went about blaming Christian from Apollo, among other things he said.
I'm actually not convinced that "recreate social media, but decentralized and censorship resistant" solves any of the real problems I have with social media: its feed/temporal design and optimization for engagement instead of the old spatial structure of classic forums and bulletin boards or designs that promote longform writing, or the very fact that we're trying to socialize online rather than socializing and doing things in real life then sharing the fruits online. It also isn't necessary for decentralization: you can throw five bucks at a server, write a page in mostly plain text (styling and markup only have to be learned to the extent you want to make it fancier; and you could find or purchase a template for those too), and presto, you can post your own web page. The fediverse concept addresses some of the reasons the decentralized internet was replaced with a corporate, centralized one to begin with, but not all and only indirectly; I'd like to see a direct solution without the social media baggage.
If you want another case study to look at that's more in the Wiki/Reddit mode, check out Stack Exchange and the conversations about the site and company happening on its "meta" section the past few years. One distinction to be made there is that Stack Exchange has three moderator-like roles:
- Community managers who are sort of like the company's liaisons to the sites.
- Moderators who deal with abuse, objectionable content and so forth.
- Ordinary users are expected to curate content for quality and gain greater privileges to do so based on how well they prove themselves, which is why (for computer programming if not for other topics sometimes too) Stack Overflow shows up near the top of google results, usually with questions that are actually relevant and answers that are actually correct.
Thank you for this very interesting article. I believe it is even possible to push the comparison with the shopping center further and observe that the model of centralizing consumer goods is tending to disappear in favor of the return of small local shops. More specialized, less ambitious, but above all much more suited to the local population.
The fediverse indeed offers this return to highly localized communities, with their own cultural baggage and language. Perhaps finally a way to consume tailored content and expand the realm of possibilities to the communities in the neighboring village.
“A heavy redditor” made me laugh out loud.
"Seriously can somebody explain to me how a business can lose money for 18 years and still exist? is silicon valley even real?"
Not profitable does't mean they're loosing money. It means that after paid wages, hosting costs, 3rd party bills, etc. they're left with either a small profit, or no profit. Basically, it means that the business can't grow, which is what investors like to see if a company goes public. They like to see that the company has a business plan for growth. In any other case, they don't invest, thus the stock plummets. This is why Reddit is still not gonna go public. Cuz they know, if their IPO takes a dive, there is nothing bringing them back in the game, so they wanna be prepared, have a sustainable business growth plan before they go public, which is what the API pricing is all about - eliminating tools that can't serve ads, which leaves only their app as a viable alternative, which does serve ads.
Bottom line, they wanna be like FB. They don't actually care about the users, they only care about the profits... as is with any social network.
Amazon was not profitable for so many years that it was literally a Silicon Valley charity case.
Excellent! As someone who has dozens of posts demolished by Reddit moderators I'm not 100% sad to see them experience some pain. But I do realize how stupid Reddit's decision is in this case. You have a bunch of people volunteering to keep your website afloat, and your response is to wage war on them? Huh....
I can't believe this. I came across your picture of the woman under #2 today by chance lol. I looked up Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber) & his wife called him a Luddite. Under Luddite there's a picture 'Leader of the Luddites'. This is the same picture. I can't believe the coincidence.
Well I find this amusing I have to admit Reddit has never achieved anything close to commerce, social commerce or even real revenue. E.g. Ads.
The retail apocalypse led to better e-commerce but what does the Exodus from social media lead to?
Genuine nihilism and mistrust of AI. Or more nefarious and gamified ecosystems like Roblox.
Reddit is still where you go for news when you can't actually find it on X but its audience and demographics never went mainstream. The IPO looks dead in the water.
good analogy