I think that we can all agree that Reddit has become a train wreck next to a dumpster fire because of this API situation that has caused outrage across Reddit and beyond. But watching from this from the outside, I have three takeaways from this gong show:
- Reddit wants too much money way too quickly: Clearly this API change by Reddit is an attempt to not only kill third party apps, but to make money as fast as possible. Otherwise, Reddit would not have said that it wants to charge such insane fees for using said API. Now I get that Reddit might feel that third party apps are profiting off of Reddit when Reddit itself isn’t revenue positive, but this isn’t how you solve that problem.
- This situation exposes Reddit’s dirty little secret: Reddit exists because of Steve Huffman, but it has succeeded because of unpaid labour by moderators and posters. The problem is that Huffman has really managed to anger moderators and posters enough that they will go elsewhere if they are pushed hard enough. If that happens, the site will collapse and Huffman will be screwed. If Huffman were smart, which clearly he isn’t, he’d find a way to address that.
- This situation exposes Steve Huffman’s true personality: Because of this situation, it turns out that Steve Huffman is a liar and jerk. And not only that, he has deliberately induced a panic situation to try and get what he wants. Which is money. The problem is that instead of people capitulating to him, they’ve rebelled. Big time. Now he could walk this back easily if he really wanted to. But here’s his other problem, his ego is stopping him from doing this. Which means that this situation is going to get way worse and have a worse outcome because of that.
To be clear, Reddit can’t continue as is because it’s bleeding money like a gunshot victim in Compton CA. But this isn’t how you solve that problem. If Reddit’s board of directors had any backbone, they would realize this and put Huffman in the bin as quickly as possible. Then after that, walk back a lot of this stuff that he’s done and try to be partners with all the people that Huffman has angered. That doesn’t just include the Appllo’s of the world, but the user base and moderators as well.
However, that’s likely not going to happen as I suspect that if the board was going to do that, it would have done it already. That means that Reddit is pretty much doomed seeing as a lot of popular subreddits are looking for homes elsewhere, and traffic to the site has dropped during the API protests. That’s not a good place to be if you’re Reddit. And the only person to blame for that is Steve Huffman. It sucks to be you Steve.
Related
This entry was posted on June 20, 2023 at 11:15 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Reddit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Here’s What I See Are Key Takeaways In Regards To The Reddit Gong Show
I think that we can all agree that Reddit has become a train wreck next to a dumpster fire because of this API situation that has caused outrage across Reddit and beyond. But watching from this from the outside, I have three takeaways from this gong show:
To be clear, Reddit can’t continue as is because it’s bleeding money like a gunshot victim in Compton CA. But this isn’t how you solve that problem. If Reddit’s board of directors had any backbone, they would realize this and put Huffman in the bin as quickly as possible. Then after that, walk back a lot of this stuff that he’s done and try to be partners with all the people that Huffman has angered. That doesn’t just include the Appllo’s of the world, but the user base and moderators as well.
However, that’s likely not going to happen as I suspect that if the board was going to do that, it would have done it already. That means that Reddit is pretty much doomed seeing as a lot of popular subreddits are looking for homes elsewhere, and traffic to the site has dropped during the API protests. That’s not a good place to be if you’re Reddit. And the only person to blame for that is Steve Huffman. It sucks to be you Steve.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
This entry was posted on June 20, 2023 at 11:15 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Reddit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.