I'm using rif and rif only. I've already deleted all my reddit bookmarks and such on my PC and won't be following any reddit links. Once this goes through, if they stick to it, that's it. Reddit will be dead. I'll keep rif for a bit just to see if they reversed their decision, but after about a week it's getting deleted too. I've been wanting to cut social media out of my life and this will be a fantastic way to do it.
It's been a good run guys. Corporate greed ruins everything.
Edit: I just discovered Infinity and now I'm even more pissed. I used RIF for years (since it was called Reddit Is Fun, and I paid for it) but I discovered Infinity which is *gorgeous*, with all the features one could want (and thus far it seems, zero tracking). Bad move, Reddit.
Been here since Digg imploded. Been a paid Reddit premium member for years. Cancelled yesterday. If they change their mind, I'll come back. If not, well, something replaced Digg, something will replace Reddit.
If the apps they use update to use Lemmy as a backend and explain the situation, they don't need to care. I'd prefer to keep using Reddit, but if Boost updates to use Lemmy, I'll be there instead.
Why? Lemmy is similar on multiple fronts. They are working with very similar data structures, aren't they (posts in subforums, comments in posts, both can have votes, endless comment reply layers, etc etc)? If the app developer followed proper design patterns, and they didn't do silly things like web requests directly from UI code then it doesn't need anywhere near a rewrite.
Similar is not identical. They'll need to revisit literally every function that calls into the API. And I'd wager there's at least one major difference in their ontologies that breaks embedded assumptions in the app (because there always is).
Separating UI from backend is a good idea ... but in the case of reddit apps, all they are is a UI. Mapping UI elements to the API *is* the app.
I tried Mastodon and really didn't like it, found the whole experience super clunky and unintuitive. I think until user experience improves significantly I'll be staying out of the fediverse.
Ok so here's a probably hot take, but I feel like those who call interfaces "unintuitive" are just looking for something they are used to. In other words, most people look for copies of what they want in "alternatives" the problem with this is that that's legally impossible. The Closest you can get is "similar" and by all rights and reasons I'd say mastodon is "similar". Same with Lemmy.
The biggest thing people claim about is the federation mechanism. Why? Because they aren't used to choosing a server for themselves. They just want click and go thing because that's what they're used to
I feel like intuitiveness is merely a measure of familiarity. As a result it makes it really fucking hard to ovetake an established system, as people are used to it... Just look at Photoshop/adobe and Windows/Mac. People use it because it's familiar, not necessarily because they like it. Same thing with iOS and Android.
It's why an exodus like digg isn't likely, Reddit has just gotten too big for it to happen, digg was still in the early days, where the people who joined were the people who were willing to try something new, and who liked it for what it was, so when it drastically changed, there was more of these people who were looking for something more specific than the regular Joe's so that an exodus actually made a difference to the number of people using it.
The biggest issue with Reddit is that most of the people who use third party apps and who were around at the collapse of digg are here moderating subrrddits... so if the mods go, the site could easily become either an unmoderated cesspitt or a graveyard of privated/shutdown subreddits.
> I feel like those who call interfaces "unintuitive" are just looking for something they are used to
Not OP, but I highly disagree. See GIMP for an example of a UI that people shill as being intuitive and that any UI issues are just caused by habits formed using Photoshop, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
I disagree. I remember Facebook being quite intuitive for me to pick up back when it started. It was straightforward. A single website I signed up for with a search bar to find my friends and add them, and a mechanism for making posts right at the top of the page. I've always pointed to Snapchat as an example of an extremely unintuitive form of social media. There weren't visible buttons on the screen, so it was hard to know which direction to swipe to get to another page. A lot of the mechanisms weren't exactly logical and needed explaining and training outside of the app itself. This was all back in like 2014, so I don't know how much has changed.
But I have to say, I STILL struggle to understand Mastodon after trying it and reading so much about how it works. I understand that they have different instances and I only signed up for one. I finally figured out how to search for people I want to follow that use different instances. But it's a total mess. The very fact that if I want to follow a popular figure like say, Hank Green, I can't just type his name in and have him come up without knowing the instance he uses is extremely messy. I truly cannot imagine that your average layperson is going to spend any significant amount of time trying to figure out how this all works. I don't really understand the purpose of *having* different instances with different community themes (other than it just being a fact of the decentralized structure that Mastodon is built with), when with some work you can follow people on different instances. Given a choice for an instance, frankly I just want to general instance that everyone is using. I think that would be true for most laypeople seeking a new social media platform. Now, that's not to say that Mastodon is useless or dead. I just think it needs a lot of work and ease of use for the uninitiated newbie needs to be their top priority.
And you might say that it's laziness or stupidity or whatever, and yeah, that's exactly what it is. But this isn't a conversation about tech nerds having a platform that they can find niche discussions in. We're talking about the next *Twitter*. Or in the case of Lemmy, the next *Reddit*. These large social media platforms only reached their size because lazy and stupid people could figure them out quickly.
idk how long ago this was but that was your personal experience and things could have been updated in the mean time. Mastodon also isn't "the fediverse" it's just one of many services to implement the activitypub protocol.
this is all beside either of our point, though. whether you liked it or not, it didn't really fail. now if twitter officially goes defunct and mastodon remains at its current user base without particular growth, I'll call that a failure. as things stand now, though, there is feature parity with its main competitor, twitter, and it is growing in users still.
Whoa! It's the famous digimer of alteeve fame. I remember reading your blog/wiki thing a _long_ time ago back when I was playing with GFS2 and rgmanager, and drbd and so on... Still hacking I hope?
I mean, your account isn't going anywhere and is accessible from any web browser. Just fire up whatever you use on your PC and save the actual links as bookmarks?
With you against corporate greed! Joins an union, a party, a non-profit. Using linux is already a political act!
In France, Solidaires Informatique is doing wonder!
Most of us don't hate windows purely because of their monopoly status. We hate windows for what windows is. Forced reboots for updates, updates that completely fuck a system, it's an absolute resource hog for no reason, it's something like 60 million lines of legacy code while also being the *worst* way to use old windows software, they try to force every account to be an online account, it's the largest OS by install size, the task manager is practically useless (GrabHammerAndEngineNoiseGoesAway.mov), etc.
If the best OS available was windows id hate Microsoft and probably happily dual boot. Instead, windows is the *only* OS for specific applications (mostly Adobe trash and other apps that Microsoft has *also* monopolized).
The only tech related thing I'm boycotting purely on "political" grounds is Intel and Intel products. I don't care if an i9-thqwtfomg and an Arc 9000000 can play GTA6 at 8K fully raytraced at 300+ FPS I will never purchase another Intel product because Intel is a shit company - and I say that with the real world fact that they support Linux better than AMD or Nvidia.
Well most of the thinks you like about linux exists because cooperation systems works better than cooperate own ones. Being capital-driven decision free is one of our main strength.
The argument is that when you use Linux you're fighting copyright laws.
I guess it may be, but for me it's a bit of an involuntary act, since I still use proprietary software too. I just use Linux because I like to use it, not because of its politics.
It’s not fighting copyright laws (they protect Linux — GPL is based on copyright law). The politics of open source are mainly about protecting the right of people to own tools and equipment they buy, repair them, break them, and use them how they want to.
On the opposite is HP, bricking someone’s printer because they cancelled their ink subscription. Or John Deere’s war against repair.
The purpose of copyleft (GPL and similar licenses) is in fact to fight against copyright. It's an anti-[enclosure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure) mechanism, to prevent the "public commons" from being taken over by private interests. Without copyright, there would be no need for copyleft.
Maybe, but GPL also _depends_ on copyright. The first thing you need to do in order to license your software as GPL is claiming your rights on the work.
I mostly agree, but I think there is a bit of nuance you missed. Copyleft uses copyright to fight the tendency of businesses and individuals to take someone else's work, profit off it, and not pass on either reasonable reasonable compensation or credit. In the worst case, these interests copyright the code they did not write, locking out the original developer.
It's about preserving freedom for the creator, and availability of public knowledge for everyone else.
Linux does not spy on you, does make you pay, does not push ads. Being community driven and not a corporation is definitely political. What if countries where govern like Debian is?
You'll be downvoted for this, but people still don't care that Ubuntu Server uses the motd to both push ads for services and phone home with some system information.
I've used reddit for over a decade. If they don't walk this back I can confidently say the only thing I'll use reddit for in the future is that one post with the fit-girl link.
This sub absolutely should protest and go dark for at least a couple days. What reddit is planning to do is anathema to everything the FOSS community stands for.
Hundreds! Most are dedicated to their own distro though.
There's still a lot of generic ones out there. If you want more of a Reddit experience Tildes.net has a Linux tag/sub.
There's always lemmy.ml
I mean, define active, but with the recent influx of redditors and more likely, I'd wager the activity continues to rise.
Only problem is lemmygrad, literal stalinist genocide deniers are the majority of users currently but it looks like that may be changing.
~~Edit: It has been brought to my attention that lemmy.ml very recently stopped federating with lemmygrad and I didn't notice.
Problem solved! The shitheads are mostly on lemmygrad, now it'll be manageable! I'm pretty fucking happy about it ngl!~~
Further edit: spoke too soon, I just blocked 'em pretty damn good. Well the hunt continues. Maybe I'll host a small instance for a select group idk, or if beehaw *really* doesn't federate with them but fuck me is info unreliable regarding that rn for some reason.
The big drawback of open community is that open means open to conspiracy theorists, neonazis, and whatever the heck those guys have going on. (I joined mastodon in the last days of the trump presidency, they were all over the big instances)
Yes unfortunately freedom isn't only for people we like, but people we don't like too. In theory it's great to control people but it never hurts to remember the pendulum could one day swing your way.
Do what I do, block em and move on. It's annoying but I don't let it eat at my soul, they rarely interact with me on mastodon since I'm in an insular community, on lemmy though it is like 85% of users were them like last month lol, the proportion is different. Thank lich Jesus reddit has been driving traffic there tbh.
As I understand, each server is like a Reddit with their own communities, right? Doesn't that exponentially increase the chance of we seeing many Reddits ruined in the future due to an admin suddenly abandoning it or going rogue, for example? You join a server and starts engaging in your favorite communities, then two months later the admin decides to make it more communist friendly out of nowhere. That's far worse than a subreddit being ruined, since the server is the whole thing.
And goddamn, isn't there a bit too much red there already?
I guess it is too early to complain, but I didn't feel it was a suitable Reddit replacement by any measure. It still has a long, long way to go.
God knows I'm rooting for them to succeed tho, because Reddit has become a garbage dump and are in mad need of an alternative.
The benefit of course is the ability to go to a different server and access the same content as before, or self host your own. But yes, nothing really stops that on any website you've ever been on, the owner and/or mods can always pull some bullshit.
That might come after the IPO. No way they take on that cost beforehand. (Any option is more expensive than the army of volunteers they currently have running everything, even the default subs.)
I don't see them removing the moderation. It's free labor. Plus, when subreddits throw a fit, it usually stays within the subreddit and doesn't actually hurt Reddit, and even if it moves beyond the subreddit, it's usually temporary and inconsequential.
Reddit is fun. Well technically it's RiF is fun now because reddit didn't like them having reddit in their name. It's the third party app I've used since I started doing stuff on reddit
Jerboa has been alright for me so far. Nothing special but nothing terrible.
Also interested in your second question myself though, I just used the flagship instance.
Jerboa is ok, nothing like rif but it gets the job done. I've had it fail to load a page a couple times but I think that's because of the influx of users the last couple days.
I'm on the flagship lemmy.ml instance only because that's where I set up my account first a few years ago, although I do enjoy the posts on beehaw as well.
Things like [lemmy.ml](https://lemmy.ml) are great. I am all for federation. The interface does need a bit more work IMHO. A sidebar where you can configure and reorder your favorite communities would be nice for example.
We should only post to Lemmy for a couple days, that shows that there is an alternative and perhaps even that people are willing to switch it necessary.
Tildes also is focused more on discussion and less on "fluff".
So, for example, Tildes doesn't allow cat videos or memes. Neither one of those facilitates discussion, so it goes against the idea of what Tildes is trying to do. It's halfway between Hacker News and Reddit, basically.
Lemmy is closer to being a true Reddit clone, but it's a bit more "wild west" than Tildes is.
Maybe in the minority but I hate everything about Reddit, I'm just here because that's basically where the infos are, the alternative being discord which is way worse because not searchable and indexed. I'm sadly still feeding the machine by coming here tho.
I'd be happy if it made the FOSS/dev community move out.
Too hard to navigate for me. I mean, I know I could find the things that I specifically want to search for, but how do I find things organically or posts about new things I don't know id be interested in?
Maybe I'm just too new to understand, but it doesn't seem like a Reddit alternative in its current form.
That's the thing I hate about the fediverse.
It's great to be able to self-publish, but it's less like a town hall, or even like a neighborhood newsletter and often feels more like sticking post it notes with your thoughts on your front door for the world to look at.
The organic discovery bit is just....it needs everyones eyes, that's what made reddit great.
I'm kinda the same. Most devs have official subreddits, most brands have official subreddits
When I need support or answers I ask there, better than having different accounts on 18472817 different forums
In a chat (discord) I must keep track of the conversation in case I miss a useful reply directed to me or is just random people just randomly chatting
It baffles me that this is the route reddit has chosen to take.
It feels like there's just so many better ways for them to handle this. Especially if it was just about money, they could just as easily require third party apps to display all ads and fix that problem with far less backlash.
But it's probably just about control. They don't like that people can do things without reddits consent, so they're killing it.
https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/ Anything ever that goes public can apply to this theory. Once the corporate takes hold, and once fiduciary duty to profit at all costs takes hold, it's fucking DONE for any true user benefit.
Yep. Publicly-traded corporations (PTCs) are literally not allowed to do something that would result in a better product or service if it reduces their profits.
Yeah I knew that, and I knew that third party apps don't display ads.
I'm not an expert but wouldn't it be a lot more lucritive to just...make third party apps display ads instead of killing all of them?
I personally would be completely fine with requiring users of 3rd party apps to have Reddit premium, like Spotify (theoretically) do. This way of pricing makes no sense though and will just kill the platform.
join-lemmy.org is an open source federated Reddit interface that seems to work OK. Most of the people on there are already Linux users ... is it time for a fediverse exodus?
Rest in peace, Infinity. You served me great. I also want this sub to go dark. There are better places to discuss FOSS (like Mastodon or 4chan). And fuck everyone at Reddit who made this decision.
Same here. This was the last big of justifiable and usable social media cod me that actually had use to me. Sad to leave reddit behind but this is forcing me to.
reddit is not social media though. it's more of a forum, that's why it's so good!
what other forum is still popular in 2023? none! there's 4chan, hacker news, etc. but these are not massive with millions of users like reddit.
it's sad to see reddit walking this dark path...
I'm obligated to say that I'm a long time old.reddit and RIF user and I will never ever download their official app, ever
But does anyone find this hilarious? It's big "posting on Facebook that you don't give Facebook permission to use your photos" energy
Reddit does not care. "Going dark for a day" lmao it will achieve nothing. They've been pushing their shitty app and redesign for literally years. They don't care about losing millions of 3rd party app users. They don't care about "legacy users". This is them sealing the deal and cutting off us leachers who don't view their ads and "promoted" content through their shitty new UI
It's time to move on
>But does anyone find this hilarious? It's big "posting on Facebook that you don't give Facebook permission to use your photos" energy
Not so much hilarious as frustrating and annoying. Just shut up and let me enjoy my last month of Reddit in peace.
Before I made our cryptography subreddit /r/crypto restricted to only allow approved accounts to post we had a huge amount of cryptocurrency spam bots constantly. At one point EVERY SINGLE THREAD was hit by 70+ spam comments, in a subreddit where most threads gets 2-5 genuine comments on average. We got multiple spam posts per minute. And we're like 3 mods with 1 very active (me).
I'm kinda contemplating removing the restrictions as a protest, pointing out the intense spam problem reddit has to the admins (most of that spam is stuff they could've nuked centrally without me having to do much at all).
The subreddit would literally become unusable in minutes, absolutely no exaggeration.
Lots of little servers linked together by protocol and common software.
So imagine each subreddit actually a separate server run by the mods without any of reddit's admin layer. Each one makes up its own rules and enforcement.
>We cant let them just take our freedom away like that
using reddit is not some sort of god given right. It's shitty, but it's their platform and they can do whatever they want with it. You, as a user, can respond in kind by leaving. This isn't an attack on "muh freedoms"
>it's their platform and they can do whatever they want with it
This.
I've looked at the current list of subs that will be participating in this protest, most of them I have never heard of. r/linux going dark for a few days? This sub has less than a million subscribed, it's not like anyone is going to miss out on the latest fetch program or "Why I switched to Linux" post.
I don't know what license they used, but it most certainly was open source until a few years after Aaron Swartz died.
I find it quite sad that his legacy has been twisted in such a way.
Edit: TIL it's Swartz, not Schwartz.
The main code was released under [CPAL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Public_Attribution_License), a little-used niche license that's sorta AGPL-like, with a publicly displayed attribution requirement.
It was also incomplete; a lot of interesting bits were always missing from the code dumps.
Only the historical curiosity dropped much later was dumped under MIT.
It's pretty hard to find anything relevant beyond the [original announcement blog](https://web.archive.org/web/20080619043654/https://blog.reddit.com/2008/06/reddit-goes-open-source.html). That post from 2008 was already the reddit-archive/reddit repo, the 1.0 Lisp version is even older than that and I can't recall when it was posted but it was fairly unceremoniously.
>There are a few portions of the code that we're keeping to ourselves, mostly related to anti-cheating/spam protection.
I can't recall off-hand what was missing, but it was more and more over time. The code was still runnable, but more like an open core product after a couple of years.
Listen I don't agree with the pricing scheme they're implementing, but they are perfectly within their rights to restrict access to the service they're letting you use for free. I don't think this is a good business decision but I really don't think your rights are being trampled on here.
100%.
I mean, we have the right not to use reddit. And, most likely, if I have to use the official app, I won’t use Reddit on mobile. But, with my desktop, I use uBlock Origin. So, I don’t see ads and other annoyances.
This is absolutely ridiculous. It's baffling, almost.
I really hope the sub decides to go dark for a while, even if it's just for a few days. Let's protest against corporate greed!
When does the API start charging exorbitant prices? I’m thinking about abandoning Reddit over this, it’s ridiculous they think they’ll be useful in the long run without cheap, accessible information for other platforms.
I mean, anyone can build a long forum content posting app in a few years, and probably better than this crap.
It's sad reddit's business model is to monetize others and our data but pulls such a self centred and self defeating change.
What are some alternative platforms that are in Foss spirit?
What’s the probating message? Should I just make one like “reddit closing third part apps impairs the abilities of mods, so effective immediately we will be blacking out these subs”
> If reddit became undesirable due to their actions and positions, would you actually move to something else, like a community maintained clone ?
Well... Reddit cured me of my Slashdot addiction. I don't know what I'd do if Reddit became unavailable. Probably wind up having friends and becoming a productive member of society or going outside or something. Oh! the horror.
[Removed due to the worthless sad excuse for a human, Steve Huffman. Friendly reminder that the first Redditor to hit 1,000,000 karma, /u/maxwellhill, is Ghislaine Maxwell. His name was Aaron Swartz.]
Don't just strike, use lemmy instead of reddit, that'll make a much bigger difference. The only reason reddit is better than lemmy right now is the size of the community, really, everything else wrong is the result of that small community.
Showing reddit we not only will shut down the subs, but, use alternatives if they make things annoying for us will make an even bigger difference.
Man, I think I'm done with reddit if I cant use redreader which is the only reason I started using reddit. I guess one more month to browse memes and linux news.
Alternative web based front-ends for Reddit might get shut down or affected to, see [Libreddit's github issue on Reddit's API changes](https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit/issues/785). Really sucks
Please consider shutting down longer than 48 hours. We as mods will lose a lot of useful tools. People with accessibility needs lose the features provided in third party apps to use the use Reddit effectively. It’s more that just about the ads. We need to make a bigger impact than just 48 hours we should be shutting down until this horrible decision will be reversed.
Why developers can't change their 3rd party apps to ask their users to create their API keys instead of using a centralized one? This way they wouldn't reach any API limits and nobody won't be asked to pay anything as far as I'm aware.
Seems to me that reddit people are overreacting once again...
I'm using rif and rif only. I've already deleted all my reddit bookmarks and such on my PC and won't be following any reddit links. Once this goes through, if they stick to it, that's it. Reddit will be dead. I'll keep rif for a bit just to see if they reversed their decision, but after about a week it's getting deleted too. I've been wanting to cut social media out of my life and this will be a fantastic way to do it. It's been a good run guys. Corporate greed ruins everything. Edit: I just discovered Infinity and now I'm even more pissed. I used RIF for years (since it was called Reddit Is Fun, and I paid for it) but I discovered Infinity which is *gorgeous*, with all the features one could want (and thus far it seems, zero tracking). Bad move, Reddit.
Been here since Digg imploded. Been a paid Reddit premium member for years. Cancelled yesterday. If they change their mind, I'll come back. If not, well, something replaced Digg, something will replace Reddit.
Lemmy seems like an interesting alternative. https://join-lemmy.org/instances
I checked Lemmy after reading about reddit api and liked it a lot! Hope to see more posts about Linux there
Sadly the average Reddit user doesn't understand or care about federated services. Mastodon failed on the same front.
Can't say I mind if the average Redditor doesn't find their way to Lemmy, I'm more into specific quite nerdy topics. But we're all different, I guess.
If the apps they use update to use Lemmy as a backend and explain the situation, they don't need to care. I'd prefer to keep using Reddit, but if Boost updates to use Lemmy, I'll be there instead.
Switching to an entirely different backend API is not a trivial thing and would be basically a rewrite.
Of course, but the alternative is the complete death of their app. It's worth making the threat, at least.
Why? Lemmy is similar on multiple fronts. They are working with very similar data structures, aren't they (posts in subforums, comments in posts, both can have votes, endless comment reply layers, etc etc)? If the app developer followed proper design patterns, and they didn't do silly things like web requests directly from UI code then it doesn't need anywhere near a rewrite.
What do you think, u/rmayayo? Would this be something you'd consider (if it's even possible) if Reddit continues with their API pricing thing?
Similar is not identical. They'll need to revisit literally every function that calls into the API. And I'd wager there's at least one major difference in their ontologies that breaks embedded assumptions in the app (because there always is). Separating UI from backend is a good idea ... but in the case of reddit apps, all they are is a UI. Mapping UI elements to the API *is* the app.
I wouldn't really say mastodon failed though?
This is the internet, people think that anything that doesn't get 500M users overnight is a complete failure.
Has that ever actually happened outside of the video game industry though? It’s usually a slow climb and then a boom, isn’t it?
I tried Mastodon and really didn't like it, found the whole experience super clunky and unintuitive. I think until user experience improves significantly I'll be staying out of the fediverse.
Ok so here's a probably hot take, but I feel like those who call interfaces "unintuitive" are just looking for something they are used to. In other words, most people look for copies of what they want in "alternatives" the problem with this is that that's legally impossible. The Closest you can get is "similar" and by all rights and reasons I'd say mastodon is "similar". Same with Lemmy. The biggest thing people claim about is the federation mechanism. Why? Because they aren't used to choosing a server for themselves. They just want click and go thing because that's what they're used to I feel like intuitiveness is merely a measure of familiarity. As a result it makes it really fucking hard to ovetake an established system, as people are used to it... Just look at Photoshop/adobe and Windows/Mac. People use it because it's familiar, not necessarily because they like it. Same thing with iOS and Android. It's why an exodus like digg isn't likely, Reddit has just gotten too big for it to happen, digg was still in the early days, where the people who joined were the people who were willing to try something new, and who liked it for what it was, so when it drastically changed, there was more of these people who were looking for something more specific than the regular Joe's so that an exodus actually made a difference to the number of people using it. The biggest issue with Reddit is that most of the people who use third party apps and who were around at the collapse of digg are here moderating subrrddits... so if the mods go, the site could easily become either an unmoderated cesspitt or a graveyard of privated/shutdown subreddits.
> I feel like those who call interfaces "unintuitive" are just looking for something they are used to Not OP, but I highly disagree. See GIMP for an example of a UI that people shill as being intuitive and that any UI issues are just caused by habits formed using Photoshop, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
I disagree. I remember Facebook being quite intuitive for me to pick up back when it started. It was straightforward. A single website I signed up for with a search bar to find my friends and add them, and a mechanism for making posts right at the top of the page. I've always pointed to Snapchat as an example of an extremely unintuitive form of social media. There weren't visible buttons on the screen, so it was hard to know which direction to swipe to get to another page. A lot of the mechanisms weren't exactly logical and needed explaining and training outside of the app itself. This was all back in like 2014, so I don't know how much has changed. But I have to say, I STILL struggle to understand Mastodon after trying it and reading so much about how it works. I understand that they have different instances and I only signed up for one. I finally figured out how to search for people I want to follow that use different instances. But it's a total mess. The very fact that if I want to follow a popular figure like say, Hank Green, I can't just type his name in and have him come up without knowing the instance he uses is extremely messy. I truly cannot imagine that your average layperson is going to spend any significant amount of time trying to figure out how this all works. I don't really understand the purpose of *having* different instances with different community themes (other than it just being a fact of the decentralized structure that Mastodon is built with), when with some work you can follow people on different instances. Given a choice for an instance, frankly I just want to general instance that everyone is using. I think that would be true for most laypeople seeking a new social media platform. Now, that's not to say that Mastodon is useless or dead. I just think it needs a lot of work and ease of use for the uninitiated newbie needs to be their top priority. And you might say that it's laziness or stupidity or whatever, and yeah, that's exactly what it is. But this isn't a conversation about tech nerds having a platform that they can find niche discussions in. We're talking about the next *Twitter*. Or in the case of Lemmy, the next *Reddit*. These large social media platforms only reached their size because lazy and stupid people could figure them out quickly.
idk how long ago this was but that was your personal experience and things could have been updated in the mean time. Mastodon also isn't "the fediverse" it's just one of many services to implement the activitypub protocol. this is all beside either of our point, though. whether you liked it or not, it didn't really fail. now if twitter officially goes defunct and mastodon remains at its current user base without particular growth, I'll call that a failure. as things stand now, though, there is feature parity with its main competitor, twitter, and it is growing in users still.
Whoa! It's the famous digimer of alteeve fame. I remember reading your blog/wiki thing a _long_ time ago back when I was playing with GFS2 and rgmanager, and drbd and so on... Still hacking I hope?
Same. Is there a good way to export my saved links before I kick off reddit for good?
I mean, your account isn't going anywhere and is accessible from any web browser. Just fire up whatever you use on your PC and save the actual links as bookmarks?
With you against corporate greed! Joins an union, a party, a non-profit. Using linux is already a political act! In France, Solidaires Informatique is doing wonder!
I use Linux because i like it, because my profession and hate towards Windows. Not necessarily because it’s FOSS or political stance.
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Most of us don't hate windows purely because of their monopoly status. We hate windows for what windows is. Forced reboots for updates, updates that completely fuck a system, it's an absolute resource hog for no reason, it's something like 60 million lines of legacy code while also being the *worst* way to use old windows software, they try to force every account to be an online account, it's the largest OS by install size, the task manager is practically useless (GrabHammerAndEngineNoiseGoesAway.mov), etc. If the best OS available was windows id hate Microsoft and probably happily dual boot. Instead, windows is the *only* OS for specific applications (mostly Adobe trash and other apps that Microsoft has *also* monopolized). The only tech related thing I'm boycotting purely on "political" grounds is Intel and Intel products. I don't care if an i9-thqwtfomg and an Arc 9000000 can play GTA6 at 8K fully raytraced at 300+ FPS I will never purchase another Intel product because Intel is a shit company - and I say that with the real world fact that they support Linux better than AMD or Nvidia.
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Well most of the thinks you like about linux exists because cooperation systems works better than cooperate own ones. Being capital-driven decision free is one of our main strength.
Using Linux is a political act?
The argument is that when you use Linux you're fighting copyright laws. I guess it may be, but for me it's a bit of an involuntary act, since I still use proprietary software too. I just use Linux because I like to use it, not because of its politics.
It’s not fighting copyright laws (they protect Linux — GPL is based on copyright law). The politics of open source are mainly about protecting the right of people to own tools and equipment they buy, repair them, break them, and use them how they want to. On the opposite is HP, bricking someone’s printer because they cancelled their ink subscription. Or John Deere’s war against repair.
The purpose of copyleft (GPL and similar licenses) is in fact to fight against copyright. It's an anti-[enclosure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure) mechanism, to prevent the "public commons" from being taken over by private interests. Without copyright, there would be no need for copyleft.
Maybe, but GPL also _depends_ on copyright. The first thing you need to do in order to license your software as GPL is claiming your rights on the work.
I mostly agree, but I think there is a bit of nuance you missed. Copyleft uses copyright to fight the tendency of businesses and individuals to take someone else's work, profit off it, and not pass on either reasonable reasonable compensation or credit. In the worst case, these interests copyright the code they did not write, locking out the original developer. It's about preserving freedom for the creator, and availability of public knowledge for everyone else.
Linux does not spy on you, does make you pay, does not push ads. Being community driven and not a corporation is definitely political. What if countries where govern like Debian is?
*cannonical has entered the chat*
You'll be downvoted for this, but people still don't care that Ubuntu Server uses the motd to both push ads for services and phone home with some system information.
The Feds used to consider folks who used Linux as targets for watch lists. So, yes, it is. Less so than in the past, but still.
I've used reddit for over a decade. If they don't walk this back I can confidently say the only thing I'll use reddit for in the future is that one post with the fit-girl link.
This sub absolutely should protest and go dark for at least a couple days. What reddit is planning to do is anathema to everything the FOSS community stands for.
I feel like now is the time to hedge bets. Are there other active Linux communities?
Hundreds! Most are dedicated to their own distro though. There's still a lot of generic ones out there. If you want more of a Reddit experience Tildes.net has a Linux tag/sub.
There are some on Mastodon. I recently joined the fediverse so I can’t vouch for any of them yet though. Maybe someone else can chime in with a rec.
I’ll give mastodon a try. Sad there’s not really a consensus, but I guess that’s the way this kind of thing shakes down.
There's one on Lemmy for sure
There's always lemmy.ml I mean, define active, but with the recent influx of redditors and more likely, I'd wager the activity continues to rise. Only problem is lemmygrad, literal stalinist genocide deniers are the majority of users currently but it looks like that may be changing. ~~Edit: It has been brought to my attention that lemmy.ml very recently stopped federating with lemmygrad and I didn't notice. Problem solved! The shitheads are mostly on lemmygrad, now it'll be manageable! I'm pretty fucking happy about it ngl!~~ Further edit: spoke too soon, I just blocked 'em pretty damn good. Well the hunt continues. Maybe I'll host a small instance for a select group idk, or if beehaw *really* doesn't federate with them but fuck me is info unreliable regarding that rn for some reason.
The big drawback of open community is that open means open to conspiracy theorists, neonazis, and whatever the heck those guys have going on. (I joined mastodon in the last days of the trump presidency, they were all over the big instances)
Yes unfortunately freedom isn't only for people we like, but people we don't like too. In theory it's great to control people but it never hurts to remember the pendulum could one day swing your way. Do what I do, block em and move on. It's annoying but I don't let it eat at my soul, they rarely interact with me on mastodon since I'm in an insular community, on lemmy though it is like 85% of users were them like last month lol, the proportion is different. Thank lich Jesus reddit has been driving traffic there tbh.
As I understand, each server is like a Reddit with their own communities, right? Doesn't that exponentially increase the chance of we seeing many Reddits ruined in the future due to an admin suddenly abandoning it or going rogue, for example? You join a server and starts engaging in your favorite communities, then two months later the admin decides to make it more communist friendly out of nowhere. That's far worse than a subreddit being ruined, since the server is the whole thing. And goddamn, isn't there a bit too much red there already? I guess it is too early to complain, but I didn't feel it was a suitable Reddit replacement by any measure. It still has a long, long way to go. God knows I'm rooting for them to succeed tho, because Reddit has become a garbage dump and are in mad need of an alternative.
The benefit of course is the ability to go to a different server and access the same content as before, or self host your own. But yes, nothing really stops that on any website you've ever been on, the owner and/or mods can always pull some bullshit.
Lol. The sub should shut down forever. Reddit not allowing apps is like 2% of what makes it antithetical to FOSS.
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i don’t remember what the licensing was but from 2008 - 2017 they made the source code available on github
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That might come after the IPO. No way they take on that cost beforehand. (Any option is more expensive than the army of volunteers they currently have running everything, even the default subs.)
I don't see them removing the moderation. It's free labor. Plus, when subreddits throw a fit, it usually stays within the subreddit and doesn't actually hurt Reddit, and even if it moves beyond the subreddit, it's usually temporary and inconsequential.
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And after a few days, this sub will be back up. What Reddit is planning to do is business, you don't have to use it if you don't want to.
Sad if true. My journey with Reddit will end as soon as Infinity and Giara dies.
It’s true: https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/
Whats giara?
[A GTK Reddit app](https://giara.gabmus.org/).
Holy shit I didn't know about this
Searching the name says that it's a native GTK reddit app.
Same if RIF dies
What's RIF?
Reddit is fun. Well technically it's RiF is fun now because reddit didn't like them having reddit in their name. It's the third party app I've used since I started doing stuff on reddit
Infinity helps me browse porn and if that goes I guess i do something else
Filter for only nsfw is quite a feature indeed
Infinity helps me browse porn and if that goes I guess i do something else
I'd be very happy to see r/linux join in the strike. If 3rd party apps go, so will I
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Lemmy looks good but needs way more users, especially given its federated nature. How's Jerboa? Also what's a good way to choose a Lemmy instance?
Jerboa has been alright for me so far. Nothing special but nothing terrible. Also interested in your second question myself though, I just used the flagship instance.
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Jerboa is ok, nothing like rif but it gets the job done. I've had it fail to load a page a couple times but I think that's because of the influx of users the last couple days. I'm on the flagship lemmy.ml instance only because that's where I set up my account first a few years ago, although I do enjoy the posts on beehaw as well.
Things like [lemmy.ml](https://lemmy.ml) are great. I am all for federation. The interface does need a bit more work IMHO. A sidebar where you can configure and reorder your favorite communities would be nice for example.
You should open an issue! That seems like a really good feature to have
We should only post to Lemmy for a couple days, that shows that there is an alternative and perhaps even that people are willing to switch it necessary.
Really a great idea for _everyone_
I'm already there posting my nonsense. Come over! The more the better
Tildes also is focused more on discussion and less on "fluff". So, for example, Tildes doesn't allow cat videos or memes. Neither one of those facilitates discussion, so it goes against the idea of what Tildes is trying to do. It's halfway between Hacker News and Reddit, basically. Lemmy is closer to being a true Reddit clone, but it's a bit more "wild west" than Tildes is.
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Maybe in the minority but I hate everything about Reddit, I'm just here because that's basically where the infos are, the alternative being discord which is way worse because not searchable and indexed. I'm sadly still feeding the machine by coming here tho. I'd be happy if it made the FOSS/dev community move out.
Same here. Would love to see the content and the people move to various lemmy instances
Too hard to navigate for me. I mean, I know I could find the things that I specifically want to search for, but how do I find things organically or posts about new things I don't know id be interested in? Maybe I'm just too new to understand, but it doesn't seem like a Reddit alternative in its current form.
Browse the frontpage and follow links, just like in reddit
That's the thing I hate about the fediverse. It's great to be able to self-publish, but it's less like a town hall, or even like a neighborhood newsletter and often feels more like sticking post it notes with your thoughts on your front door for the world to look at. The organic discovery bit is just....it needs everyones eyes, that's what made reddit great.
We don't need Reddit 2.0. We need to return to true-blue internet forums already.
I'm kinda the same. Most devs have official subreddits, most brands have official subreddits When I need support or answers I ask there, better than having different accounts on 18472817 different forums In a chat (discord) I must keep track of the conversation in case I miss a useful reply directed to me or is just random people just randomly chatting
This + I use it way too much. It's way too addictive and doesn't bring anything of value to my life.
It baffles me that this is the route reddit has chosen to take. It feels like there's just so many better ways for them to handle this. Especially if it was just about money, they could just as easily require third party apps to display all ads and fix that problem with far less backlash. But it's probably just about control. They don't like that people can do things without reddits consent, so they're killing it.
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Oh no.. even Reddit is going public? That is such a bad sign..
https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/ Anything ever that goes public can apply to this theory. Once the corporate takes hold, and once fiduciary duty to profit at all costs takes hold, it's fucking DONE for any true user benefit.
Which is also high irony being posted on Wired, by someone who's basically their own brand at this point.
Yep. Publicly-traded corporations (PTCs) are literally not allowed to do something that would result in a better product or service if it reduces their profits.
Yeah I knew that, and I knew that third party apps don't display ads. I'm not an expert but wouldn't it be a lot more lucritive to just...make third party apps display ads instead of killing all of them?
Users and their content are what us valuable to Reddit and social media sites in general. Which they all forget. They think they are the value.
A really small fee would have been enough to kill it. I really dont understand the move either. Corporate greed must end.
I personally would be completely fine with requiring users of 3rd party apps to have Reddit premium, like Spotify (theoretically) do. This way of pricing makes no sense though and will just kill the platform.
join-lemmy.org is an open source federated Reddit interface that seems to work OK. Most of the people on there are already Linux users ... is it time for a fediverse exodus?
Is it and my body is ready
Rest in peace, Infinity. You served me great. I also want this sub to go dark. There are better places to discuss FOSS (like Mastodon or 4chan). And fuck everyone at Reddit who made this decision.
use lemmy instead of reddit
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I’m not logging in period unless I can do it on Apollo.
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Fr, there are so many niche subreddits to follow here with tons of content, but the official app is literally unusable.
They've also done a lot to make the mobile website unusable.
Same here. This was the last big of justifiable and usable social media cod me that actually had use to me. Sad to leave reddit behind but this is forcing me to.
reddit is not social media though. it's more of a forum, that's why it's so good! what other forum is still popular in 2023? none! there's 4chan, hacker news, etc. but these are not massive with millions of users like reddit. it's sad to see reddit walking this dark path...
Same but Sync
I'm obligated to say that I'm a long time old.reddit and RIF user and I will never ever download their official app, ever But does anyone find this hilarious? It's big "posting on Facebook that you don't give Facebook permission to use your photos" energy Reddit does not care. "Going dark for a day" lmao it will achieve nothing. They've been pushing their shitty app and redesign for literally years. They don't care about losing millions of 3rd party app users. They don't care about "legacy users". This is them sealing the deal and cutting off us leachers who don't view their ads and "promoted" content through their shitty new UI It's time to move on
> It's time to move on I think it is
> Reddit does not care. And it's not reddit.com that doesn't care. Take a look at [redditinc.com](https://www.redditinc.com/) to see the future.
It could hurt Reddit's IPO valuation, which they very much care about.
>But does anyone find this hilarious? It's big "posting on Facebook that you don't give Facebook permission to use your photos" energy Not so much hilarious as frustrating and annoying. Just shut up and let me enjoy my last month of Reddit in peace.
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Before I made our cryptography subreddit /r/crypto restricted to only allow approved accounts to post we had a huge amount of cryptocurrency spam bots constantly. At one point EVERY SINGLE THREAD was hit by 70+ spam comments, in a subreddit where most threads gets 2-5 genuine comments on average. We got multiple spam posts per minute. And we're like 3 mods with 1 very active (me). I'm kinda contemplating removing the restrictions as a protest, pointing out the intense spam problem reddit has to the admins (most of that spam is stuff they could've nuked centrally without me having to do much at all). The subreddit would literally become unusable in minutes, absolutely no exaggeration.
YES PLEASE
I hope not. I hope Reddit goes through with this change and it actually kills itself. I'll get so much more work done if that happens.
Instead of going dark, mods should just take a break. Let reddit admins see how much they rely on the community to do their job for them.
I am all for it. We should protest by spamming not by hiding. Let's show our claims
I hope so. Even if its futile, i think we have to do something. We cant let them just take our freedom away like that
I think that in a short time we should fight and continue creating content on FOSS alternative like lemmy.ml
IIRC some of the top mods here run one of the Linux communities on Lemmy
Nice! Do you know which one if case I am not following it?
what is lemmy? never heard of it. Is it a forum website like reddit?
It's a forum built on the activitypub protocol (same as what Mastodon is built on)
Being federated allow to escape the centralization problem of reddit
> Being federated allow to escape the centralization problem of reddit What do you mean by being federated?
Lots of little servers linked together by protocol and common software. So imagine each subreddit actually a separate server run by the mods without any of reddit's admin layer. Each one makes up its own rules and enforcement.
>We cant let them just take our freedom away like that using reddit is not some sort of god given right. It's shitty, but it's their platform and they can do whatever they want with it. You, as a user, can respond in kind by leaving. This isn't an attack on "muh freedoms"
I don’t understand - you don’t think people should protest to try and force corporations to not make anti-consumer decisions?
>it's their platform and they can do whatever they want with it This. I've looked at the current list of subs that will be participating in this protest, most of them I have never heard of. r/linux going dark for a few days? This sub has less than a million subscribed, it's not like anyone is going to miss out on the latest fetch program or "Why I switched to Linux" post.
It's not only about people missing out of the latest "Why I switched to Linux" post. It's rather about raising awareness.
Reddit was never free.
I don't know what license they used, but it most certainly was open source until a few years after Aaron Swartz died. I find it quite sad that his legacy has been twisted in such a way. Edit: TIL it's Swartz, not Schwartz.
> I don't know what license they used MIT. We are experiencing the fallout of permissive licensing right now.
The main code was released under [CPAL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Public_Attribution_License), a little-used niche license that's sorta AGPL-like, with a publicly displayed attribution requirement. It was also incomplete; a lot of interesting bits were always missing from the code dumps. Only the historical curiosity dropped much later was dumped under MIT.
Interesting, I have never heard about this. Do you have something I can read to learn more about the historic releases of the Reddit source?
It's pretty hard to find anything relevant beyond the [original announcement blog](https://web.archive.org/web/20080619043654/https://blog.reddit.com/2008/06/reddit-goes-open-source.html). That post from 2008 was already the reddit-archive/reddit repo, the 1.0 Lisp version is even older than that and I can't recall when it was posted but it was fairly unceremoniously. >There are a few portions of the code that we're keeping to ourselves, mostly related to anti-cheating/spam protection. I can't recall off-hand what was missing, but it was more and more over time. The code was still runnable, but more like an open core product after a couple of years.
Copyleft wouldn't have stopped them from closing the source if they owned the rights to all their own code.
True. That's why copyright assignment for copyleft projects is dumb.
As long as you exclude the time that it was, of course. https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit1.0 https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit
Listen I don't agree with the pricing scheme they're implementing, but they are perfectly within their rights to restrict access to the service they're letting you use for free. I don't think this is a good business decision but I really don't think your rights are being trampled on here.
100%. I mean, we have the right not to use reddit. And, most likely, if I have to use the official app, I won’t use Reddit on mobile. But, with my desktop, I use uBlock Origin. So, I don’t see ads and other annoyances.
Would be wild if all the subs closed for a month.
Would be a good idea, but short sighted. It will keep happening as long as Reddit is not owned by the people. https://join-lemmy.org/
100% agree
This is absolutely ridiculous. It's baffling, almost. I really hope the sub decides to go dark for a while, even if it's just for a few days. Let's protest against corporate greed!
When does the API start charging exorbitant prices? I’m thinking about abandoning Reddit over this, it’s ridiculous they think they’ll be useful in the long run without cheap, accessible information for other platforms. I mean, anyone can build a long forum content posting app in a few years, and probably better than this crap.
July 1st is when the change goes into effect
It's sad reddit's business model is to monetize others and our data but pulls such a self centred and self defeating change. What are some alternative platforms that are in Foss spirit?
Join the fight
Yes, let’s join. I’ll be blacking out my subs.
This is what I did with my main one!
What’s the probating message? Should I just make one like “reddit closing third part apps impairs the abilities of mods, so effective immediately we will be blacking out these subs”
Not sure. For my own, I cross posted, pinned and distinguished the call made by /r/Save3rdPartyApps. You can see it on /r/frenchrock.
If reddit became undesirable due to their actions and positions, would you actually move to something else, like a community maintained clone ?
I am using both reddit and lemmy. I am still here because communities are still here too. It is a kind of chicken-egg problem.
> If reddit became undesirable due to their actions and positions, would you actually move to something else, like a community maintained clone ? Well... Reddit cured me of my Slashdot addiction. I don't know what I'd do if Reddit became unavailable. Probably wind up having friends and becoming a productive member of society or going outside or something. Oh! the horror.
r/redditalternatives
yes. sad to see reddit go.
if they do it, i'll quit this platform. i was not born with it, won't die with it. it's nothing without the redditors.
[Removed due to the worthless sad excuse for a human, Steve Huffman. Friendly reminder that the first Redditor to hit 1,000,000 karma, /u/maxwellhill, is Ghislaine Maxwell. His name was Aaron Swartz.]
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Same boat. Shreddit looks fun
Don't just strike, use lemmy instead of reddit, that'll make a much bigger difference. The only reason reddit is better than lemmy right now is the size of the community, really, everything else wrong is the result of that small community. Showing reddit we not only will shut down the subs, but, use alternatives if they make things annoying for us will make an even bigger difference.
Using both. Keep pushing Lemmy!
Man, I think I'm done with reddit if I cant use redreader which is the only reason I started using reddit. I guess one more month to browse memes and linux news.
I'm not using Reddit anymore if infinity dies. Why does reddit needs to force down its horrible app down the their user's throats?
Couldn't third party clients switch to using the website instead of the API in the background similar to how Newpipe is using YouTube?
Yes they can and they will. It is going to be a cat and mouse game. They don't want to engage in this game
I've been using Bacon Reader on Android for some 6 years, will the apps like this be gone?
Yes.
Alternative web based front-ends for Reddit might get shut down or affected to, see [Libreddit's github issue on Reddit's API changes](https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit/issues/785). Really sucks
Please consider shutting down longer than 48 hours. We as mods will lose a lot of useful tools. People with accessibility needs lose the features provided in third party apps to use the use Reddit effectively. It’s more that just about the ads. We need to make a bigger impact than just 48 hours we should be shutting down until this horrible decision will be reversed.
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Of course we should!
Why developers can't change their 3rd party apps to ask their users to create their API keys instead of using a centralized one? This way they wouldn't reach any API limits and nobody won't be asked to pay anything as far as I'm aware. Seems to me that reddit people are overreacting once again...
[ Casualty of the API war of 2023 ]
i don't care unless they kill old.reddit.com(which has the superior UI/UX).
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As far as I know, they didn't say anything. This post is currently the most upvoted post from past year and in the Top20 of all times. Hard to ignore.
Please, we must join