I’d been a redditor for about 14 years, if not longer (I was a sophomore in high school, I believe, and I’m 30 now). I’ve been using 3rd party apps for about as long as they’ve been around. I tried the official app once a few years ago and really disliked it compared to the experience from things like Baconreader and AlienBlue.
The fact that the apps are dead is obviously shitty, but I decided to quit Reddit because of what the API changes represent - the inevitable descent of a capitalist enterprise into full-bore profit extraction. In my view, that’s not going to work for Reddit, which seems like an inherently unprofitable enterprise. Any changes that will drive revenue will also substantially hurt the things that makes Reddit useful and fun in the first place.
More ads? That actively degrades the experience. More monetization of little digital badges? That’s not going to be enough to generate the revenue they want, and it’s incredibly stupid anyway. Paywalling subreddits? That will kill the entire site in a heartbeat.
Ultimately I just don’t think Reddit even can be profitable to the degree that corporate overlords want it to be. Either it’s going to die quickly, or it’s going to gradually get even worse, dying slowly.
I’d been a redditor for about 14 years, if not longer (I was a sophomore in high school, I believe, and I’m 30 now). I’ve been using 3rd party apps for about as long as they’ve been around. I tried the official app once a few years ago and really disliked it compared to the experience from things like Baconreader and AlienBlue.
The fact that the apps are dead is obviously shitty, but I decided to quit Reddit because of what the API changes represent - the inevitable descent of a capitalist enterprise into full-bore profit extraction. In my view, that’s not going to work for Reddit, which seems like an inherently unprofitable enterprise. Any changes that will drive revenue will also substantially hurt the things that makes Reddit useful and fun in the first place.
More ads? That actively degrades the experience. More monetization of little digital badges? That’s not going to be enough to generate the revenue they want, and it’s incredibly stupid anyway. Paywalling subreddits? That will kill the entire site in a heartbeat.
Ultimately I just don’t think Reddit even can be profitable to the degree that corporate overlords want it to be. Either it’s going to die quickly, or it’s going to gradually get even worse, dying slowly.
Pretty much the same for me too. It’s been a slow burn for probably 5 years imo and the api issue and mod abuse just pushed me over the edge.