It is so frustrating seeing how people received the protest.
“it’s not working” “Reddit doesn’t care” “they can do whatever they want”.
Well yeah, if that’s the attitude!
How do people not see that the protest disrupted the entirity of Reddit? Just about every weekly active user felt it.
How do they not understand the impact on revenue (especially ads), and how Reddit cannot feasibly sustain it, and were banking on the idea that it’ll eventually die down?
The fact of the matter is, if Reddit became worried that the protest will continue in strength indefinitely, they would be forced to roll back. The loss impact would greatly outweigh whatever measly profits they make from this API change that no one will buy.
Yes, this was a lot more for Reddit than just profits. If Reddit had backed down, it would have impact much greater than just third party apps. It remind people once again that users hold the power when they’re United. They can decide how to run their communities. But Reddit just could not afford this to happen, which is why they fought to convince you that the protest isn’t working and you should back down. And unfortunately many of us did…
The problem was the bullshit half-measures enforced by the mods. Announcing a 2-day shutdown was the first mistake. If it had been a shutdown “until our concerns are addressed” from the get-go, then people wouldn’t have expected things to open back up as quickly. Reddit would have been forced to use their power to open things back up sooner, and then we as a collective would have been able to have the high ground. Pics of John Oliver are funny, but it doesn’t work as a protest when hundreds of people are doing it for the larfs.
Mods who weren’t willing to protest to the point of being removed by Reddit were just play acting.