A ton of moderators have been making changes to their subreddits’ rules (e.g., only allowing certain posts, going NSFW, loosening rules a ton) to protest without getting kicked out. Do you think this strategy of turning a subreddit into shitposts is effective or not?
I’m curious to see what the people in this community think, so please share your thoughts.
My opinion is that these forms of protest, while fun, don’t actually help. Most bring more attention and activity to the sub if anything, giving Reddit more ad revenue (which is really all they care about). And the few that are actually harmful (e.g., allowing NSFW content) are being shut down by Reddit.
It’s been made clear that Reddit doesn’t care about what its users want and is willing to reorder, remove, and shadowban moderators to protect profits, so I’d like to see more people moving away from the platform. Even if the alternatives still need development and are missing important features, mods should start making plans to establish communities outside of Reddit.
Do you have a proposal that has a better chance of reddit to change or alter their decisions without angering this many users?
No, but I think after the “AMA” (more like “ask the exact questions we want quotes for in articles”), it’s been fairly clear that they’re not changing course come Hell or high water. It’s about profit by any means necessary now, or Reddit absolutely will get shut down. Either they make the IPO or the switch flips and it’s gone. Ad conversions on Reddit are ridiculously low - even impressions are low due to a common culture of adblock use on Reddit. Any branded content gets ignored, even in communities like buyitforlife. They’re pulling out all stops and monetizing literally anything they can.
This ad-unfriendly shitposting isn’t going to make them reverse anything but the position of the power switch on the servers from ‘on’ to ‘off’. I think people need to recognize that.