I think the majority of people here understand the new issues with Reddit, but today it struck me that there must be a bigger plan. Almost everyone has a “not sure why I was banned” story. Then there’s the severely limited new user journey that needs to be followed in order to eventually become able to “freely” use Reddit. Eg. You can only post in these groups or can’t comment on this etc. All in the name of spam prevention, apparently.
But what if it was more about something else, eg. At some point they l announce that paying for a Reddit premium account allows you to be unbanned and free to do whatever you want.
What other reasons or ideas can you think of, that mass banning users, (some with years of age and contributions, some of them mods.) could be the first step in a plan to capitalize. It might be very obvious to some , I’d like to hear what you think.
It just seems like actively killing your brand is too stupid of an idea for the Reddit creators.
Also… think of how many new users are sent to post on a selected list of sub Reddits , because they have no restrictions. Why would anyone looking to grow their sub Reddit not want to be on that list, yet it’s so limited. Who decided the list? Why?
There is always a bigger plan.
Who cares…this isn’t Reddit.
I care… I care enough to write a long winded post and even find a picture of an evil looking Reddit icon, because I didn’t realize I selected media post instead of text post and it wouldn’t let me post until I selected a picture.
My theory is that Reddit is being run incompetently, without good strategy. The problem is it’s too big to fail so whatever it does seems mysterious only
I’m pretty sure they’re just going after advertising on the front and data sales/AI on the back end. It’s inherently difficult to monetize an old-school internet forum, especially one like Reddit where the incumbent user base is vehemently opposed to adverts and in strong favor of privacy. I don’t think they’re too big to fail (cough Digg), they’re just popular and people dislike change. But I do think they’re barking up the wrong tree with their userbase.
The current account I have dates to 2015 before they required email, and they’ll get a throwaway before I give them one of my real ones. But even then, whatever, I’ve really only gone back there maybe once a week for the past few years.
That is pretty much what I believe is going on, but today I got a bit suspicious, especially around the karma concept and them leading users to certain subs. That seems more intentional.
Yea, they might be incompetent while still fully implementing bad ideas
Spez has been laser focused on trying to make reddit profitable
His actions speak like he hired some kind of machiavellian ham fisted axe wielding corporate consultants to make that happen
…but at the same time, Spez also want to fully control the main political narrative on Reddit as another revenue stream
In /r/privacy they started implementing the new social credit system where not only do you need karma, you need fresh karma, called a “Contributor Quantity Score.” So my usual aged, pop in every few months account with decent karma is effectively banned for being (actual term) “lowest value” because I’m not on Reddit commenting every day.
As for their plans, seems like a probability where they just want us to pay $5.99 a month to make the problem (they created) go away.
Ahaa this makes sense. But they are not advertising that a premium account offers anything in that regard just yet. Unless I haven’t seen it. So they’re overpopulated and looking to improve engagement, if one looked at it in a positive light.
The plan? Enshittification.
That is an official term right?
Define official.
I could definitely google it , but what fun is there in that. I’m, can you find it in the dictionary?
Thank you kindly
Same as Facebook and Google. Sell all the data they collect on you to whoever will buy it. It’s advertising start to finish, top to bottom.
And, whatever isn’t advertising is part of the surveillance state. Palantir and Peter Theil get to look over your colonoscopy results while they decide whether or not your social credit score has fallen low enough to revoke your citizenship.
I’m so screwed. But they will be pleased to know my colonoscopy showed a very clear ileum.
It’s the same phenomenon as every company that is publicly owned (or aspiring to be)–their only concern is the apparent value of the company. Not the value or quality of the actual product or service, just the stock market value.
Stock market values are based on profitability. There are two ways to increase profitability: increase revenue, and decrease costs. Increasing revenue is hard, especially with social media companies (they cost a lot for how much ad revenue brings in, which is partly why they all sell your data–to increase revenue).
Decreasing costs in the short term is much easier. Fire 25% of the staff, you’ve just increased profitability by a huge margin, and you get a raise. But wouldn’t that lower the quality of the product? Naw, we’ll just replace people with AI, who will do a perfectly adequate job. Besides, who the hell cares? It’s not like the product matters, it’s the numbers!
It’s called enshittification.
There’s that word again Enshittification, what a fine addition to the English language. Yeah it’s amazing how the lure of big money changes one’s principles, like that hipster coffee roaster that threw you out for asking for a sugar. Now worth a few billy in the instant coffee trade.
The unfortunate point of a business is to get people hooked, kill competition, increase profits through enshitification, declare bankrupcy, sell/close company. The goal is that people up top make tons of money. Reddit is in the enshitification stage. They don’t care that people are leaving because the suits are making money.
Is Enshitification a real word? You’re not the only one to use it. Haha. Yeah very few get into business to not make money.
Webster’s dictionary has really been enshittified lately
My best guess, is that whatever plan they had, failed. They will have a backup plan, which will also fail, and maybe they will try to cash in by being bought by another social media. Would not surprise me if they sold to X, since that’s the direction reddit is going.
Hearing ideas like this is exactly why I posted this. Thanks for the contribution, Elon plus Reddit could be interesting…
If we’re truing to look into some sort of conspiracy here, I would propose another one.
Reddit is at the forefront of “dead Internet”. Now being a paid data provider for AI scrapers, it’s in Reddit’s interest to generate as much data as possible at as little expense (i.e. servicing actual users) as possible.
At the same time, they need to show that data is user-generated, so they keep registering users - they just ban them later under any made up reason to not spend resources on them.
As a result - data flows, users think being banned is their fault, and no one can prove for sure Reddit is a dead trove of AI data, providing them with plausible deniability to keep on going and racking profits for minimal expense.
I would love it if reddit management is so selfish that they dont care even about AI, but only their revenue.
AI is merely a tool to make more money. First - as a lure to investors, as any hype is. But then through adoption and transformation.
This is the stuff I was craving. Have you thought about this before?
For a while, yeah
Do you know how use of AI changes how you think? They want to train people on AIs.
I’ve been working to delete all my stuff on a banned Reddit account before I delete it. Most of my accounts are done except for two. One I can’t get into for some reason. The other is my main and it keeps lying about or hiding my posts so I can’t get to all of them and delete them. I have tampermonkey scripts that have been running for days and there’s STILL shit that keeps reappearing after reddit pretends to delete it.
You don’t get to keep my content AND ban me from using your platform. I’ll just keep whacking away at it until it’s dead but fuck it’s this a needlessly complicated pain in the ass.
The content retention is another very thought provoking point. I’ve also deleted stuff and it reappears. I thought it was my dodgy internet connection lol. Tampermonkey is such a great name, not sure what it does but they named it well.
Tampermonkey is a Firefox extension that can run scripts to interact with web pages. It’s great for bulk operations like mass deletes.
Reddit is intentionally holding onto my data. The are intentionally trying to keep it even though accounts go away. Since I’m an American in a red state there’s only so much I can do about this. But Reddit’s intentionally preventing my data from being deleted. This is intended behavior by their site.
you know bain capital and toys r us?
basically that
I only know toys r us. But I get the picture. So, did Reddit gain a new investor? Officially? I’m not clued up on the inner workings
no i just meant they’re destroying it
Good question. Reddit PERMANENTLY BANNED me for these two words: Punch her.
Context? A woman was frustrated with her landlady for fining her $50 for trash that wasn’t trash but was an Amazon package at her apartment door. The advice I gave? Punch her.
Reddit is pure AI slop now, it has to be.
Yes that has to be proof that it’s automated( not sure if that’s official knowledge?) but that’s pretty ridiculous. I wonder if you said Punch him, would the result have been any different?
Nah. Powertripping mods explain bans.
Even here on Lemmy you heard about unjustified bans all the time.
But so many at the same time? Because seems to be a definite spike, and mods have been power tripping forever. That concept is pretty funny on its own, oh the power one must feel 🤣
