Bye Bye Reddit

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Many people say a critical mass exodus is unlikely but look at what happened to Tumbler after they made their changes - that largely resulted in the birth of Reddit as we know it today.

I thought it was Digg selling out that kickstarted Reddit.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I thought it was Digg selling out that kickstarted Reddit.

Sorry you are right, it was Digg. Mixing up my old sites.

[Fuzz]

Ya, Tumbler shows what happens when you ban porn.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Yamer

I read that as them saying that not only are they not improving, but also - in fact - they are getting worse and worse to the point of zero usability.

This

[FanIn80]

I read something (actually it might have been posted in this thread, as I think about it) from developer who posted a conversation they had with reddit, where reddit mentioned the guy's app was inefficient with their api calls. The dev's response... actually, instead of trying to remember, I'll just post it:

Another common claim by Reddit is that Apollo is inherently inefficient, using on average 345 requests per day per user, while some other apps use 100. I'd like to use some numbers to illustrate why I think this is very unfairly framing it.

Up until a week ago, the stated Reddit API rate limits that apps were asked to operate within was 60 requests per minute per user. That works out to a total of 86,400 per day. Reddit stated that Apollo uses 345 requests per user per day on average, which is also in line with my findings. Thats 0.4% of the limit Reddit was previously imposing, which I would say is quite efficient.

So the guy's app uses (on average) 345 requests per day per user, compared to other apps that only use 100 per day per user... and the his response was essentially "who cares, we're allowed to use up to 86,400."

I mean, that mentality isn't exactly help anyone. If I was in Reddit's shoes, I would set realistically acceptable efficiency targets and then give the dev community 3 (6, maybe?) months to get their calls within those targets. After that, I would install fair/competitive rates for apps that complied (maybe even reward the most efficient apps with lower charges). Then I would subject any apps that don't come come under those targets to ridiculously higher rates on all their calls (not just the overage) until they complied or shut down.

Edit: Also, the dev I quoted above used this analogy:

As an analogy (can you tell I love analogies?), to scale the numbers, if I was to borrow my friend’s car and he said “Please don’t drive it more than 864 miles” and I returned the car with 3.4 miles driven, I think he’d be pretty happy with my low use. The fact that a different friend one week only used 1 mile is really cool, but I don't think either person is "inefficient".

But what they need to think about is that api calls are fairly predictable (on a per call basis, using reasonably similar parameters). Like, everyone is making the same calls. So, using his analogy, it would be like the car he's talking about can only go to the same store from the same house, no matter who drives it. So are the two people using this car the same number of times each? If so, his 3.4 miles is not nearly as efficient as the other person's 1 mile.

The one thing missing from this guy's post is a way to differentiate the two useage totals. Since they're only providing per day numbers, it's hard to really understand the full picture without #of unique visits or even calls per view or... I don't know... anything tangible, really.

[Flames0910]

"The dev" is the maker of Apollo, the most full featured reddit application for mobile users.

His users are some of the most engaged users on reddit. Without controlling for engagement, you can't know whether the app is efficient or not -- good chance many of those additional calls are because they spend more time on reddit than the average user (that's why they went to the effort of finding and downloading a better app than the default).

If anything, reddit should be thanking him for driving engagement which helps boost their stock price.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

If anything, reddit should be thanking him for driving engagement which helps boost their stock price.

Reddit is public? That seems like it would be a horrible place to park money.

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Reddit is public? That seems like it would be a horrible place to park money.

They aren't currently but are gearing up for an IPO. The speculation is that this move is being done to boost ad revenue before that happens.

[GGG]

Bunch of stuff came back today, still lots on strike. Is there anywhere that tracks active users?

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

"The dev" is the maker of Apollo, the most full featured reddit application for mobile users.

His users are some of the most engaged users on reddit. Without controlling for engagement, you can't know whether the app is efficient or not -- good chance many of those additional calls are because they spend more time on reddit than the average user (that's why they went to the effort of finding and downloading a better app than the default).

If anything, reddit should be thanking him for driving engagement which helps boost their stock price.

I agree completely about the necessity of knowing some engagement metrics in order to fully understand usage efficiency. I alluded to that in the edit portion of my post.

However, the dev never really challenged the validity of Reddit's claim towards them. They just said their usage volume is well within the usage volume cap, so it should be a non-issue.

I don't really know the reputations of either parties involved in the conversation that was posted, but I'm assuming Reddit wouldn't challenge their efficiency (and the developer wouldn't "not-contend" that challenge) unless there was some truth to it.

Again though, you're 100% right that we can't know for sure in the absence of any kind of engagement data.

[PsYcNeT]

Everyone knows that telling your boss how long you will be on strike for is the most effective strike tactic.

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I read something (actually it might have been posted in this thread, as I think about it) from developer who posted a conversation they had with reddit, where reddit mentioned the guy's app was inefficient with their api calls. The dev's response... actually, instead of trying to remember, I'll just post it:



So the guy's app uses (on average) 345 requests per day per user, compared to other apps that only use 100 per day per user... and the his response was essentially "who cares, we're allowed to use up to 86,400."

I mean, that mentality isn't exactly help anyone. If I was in Reddit's shoes, I would set realistically acceptable efficiency targets and then give the dev community 3 (6, maybe?) months to get their calls within those targets. After that, I would install fair/competitive rates for apps that complied (maybe even reward the most efficient apps with lower charges). Then I would subject any apps that don't come come under those targets to ridiculously higher rates on all their calls (not just the overage) until they complied or shut down.

Edit: Also, the dev I quoted above used this analogy:



But what they need to think about is that api calls are fairly predictable (on a per call basis, using reasonably similar parameters). Like, everyone is making the same calls. So, using his analogy, it would be like the car he's talking about can only go to the same store from the same house, no matter who drives it. So are the two people using this car the same number of times each? If so, his 3.4 miles is not nearly as efficient as the other person's 1 mile.

The one thing missing from this guy's post is a way to differentiate the two useage totals. Since they're only providing per day numbers, it's hard to really understand the full picture without #of unique visits or even calls per view or... I don't know... anything tangible, really.

This seems like a really odd takeaway from all of this. The very next paragraph that you conveniently left out states:

That being said, if Reddit would like to see Apollo make further optimizations to get its existing number lower, I’m genuinely more than happy to do so! However the 30 day limit they’ve given me after announcing the pricing to when I will start getting charged significant amounts of money is not enough time to deal with rewriting large parts of my app to lower total requests, while also changing the payment model, transitioning users, and ensuring this is all properly tested and gets through app review.

So he acknowledges he can make improvements, but notes that he was not given much time to do so. And this is why I think his analogies are actually valid. He had an app that was using only a fraction of what was defined as an acceptable amount of resources. So while more efficient is always better, why would he expect that his app would be a 'problem'? He also talked about how he had been given assurances that the pricing model would be more amenable. So again, it seems pretty unreasonable to think that the problem here is his apps efficiency.

[Hemi-Cuda]

/r/pics, 7th most popular subreddit with over 30m subs and a main page default, is now only accepting postings that feature John Oliver looking sexy. This is the sort of malicious compliance I can get behind, it just sucks his show is off the air until the writers strike finishes

[DownInFlames]

The mods of /r/steam have said that they had to reopen or the sub would be deleted. That's not surprising and I'm sure other subreddits will be given the same threat.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Steam/comme..._new_policies/

[Hemi-Cuda]

John Oliver has now seen the /r/pics crusade, and has responded by giving them a mountain of material to work with

https://twitter.com/iamjohnoliver/st...WASEo7C_w&s=19

[woob]

I haven’t been missing Reddit much EXCEPT for /r/formula1. Kudos to them for staying the course, though.

[FireGilbert]

It's been hilarious logging back into reddit lately and seeing all the John Oliver references.

Also enjoying /r/memes only allowing medieval content and /r/interestingas**** becoming a full on porn site.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

So after the blackout, some communities came back with limited posts, like r/f1. Some had other ways of keeping up the protest while allowing posts, like the John Oliver thing.

But now multiple subs have changed over to NSFW. Not because they’ll allow actual adult content, but because Reddit doesn’t have ads on the nsfw subs. I assume this is a move to allow posts but cut ad revenue.

Seemed like the original blackout was toothless. Wonder if his works. I could see reddit eventually just deleting the offending subs or kicking out the mods. Or just start mew subs with new mods that allow content.

I’m good no matter what happens, although I’m naturally inclined to say damn the man, fight the power but it’s all interesting to watch.

[Mazrim]

I've only been really missing /r/ffxiv so far, because it's the only place I can really read more in depth discussions about the game. There are supposed replacements on Discord but it's literally impossible to read a discussion there. Discord is a chat room, not a forum for information.

Other than that it's been surprisingly easy to stop using reddit, and I say that as a long time paying user of Sync, a reddit android app that will cease to exist soon.

[KelVarnsen]

It’s the loss of a good app like Apollo that is going drive me nuts