I'm sure many will go back to Reddit but some wont. I for one will be staying on Lemmy as I've found it a breath of fresh air.

My notes:

• As expected, a blackout with a set end date is seen as toothless by Reddit leadership
• I hate when companies refer to their employees with some "cute" nickname, like "Snoos"
• He expects some Reddit users to actually resort to physical violence, painting them as the irrational bad guys in this whole situation?

Yeah this is why I think the 48 hour time limit is unfortunate. I don't think it's going to have much long term effect, and the only real difference is going dark indefinitely until demands are met or just migrating elsewhere.

That little quip at the end implying that they could be targeted in public over this, with the intention to have journalists write as if we are flying off the handle.

This isn't Rick & Morty's szechuan sauce crowd, these are the moderators and content creators of the website. We are peacefully protesting his poor conduct.

The worst that's happened is that he's had some memes made about him and himself alone.

"be mindful of wearing Reddit gear"??? this doesn't feel like this was said in good faith at ALL.

I suspect that the fact that he had to call out that they are not seeing any significant revenue impact probably means that they actually are seeing an impact.

When I moved to Mastodon, I stopped caring about the Twitter dumpster fire. It was great.

I am trying to do the same with Lemmy, to forget about Reddit. It's gone. We are here now.

No matter what this guy says or does, millions have switched to Lemmy not only is it like reddit, its better, its what reddit used to be.

Now, all will calm down for reddit but the boat started to leak and many will not go back. Just like many didn't go back to twitter. We will see a slow and steady increase of fediverse activity.

This is truly the web3 we all deserved.

Am I the only one bothered by him referring to people as "Snoos"? It's so cringy.

Looking at this thread in r/technology, it sure looks like most of the newer Redditors were just pissed by the blackout and don’t care about Reddit’s changes. That suggests to me that Reddit is beyond saving.

A lot of this just feels like CEO talk. Obviously they do not want to back down but if enough big subs stay off then they might have to change course. I'm worried about the people who are addicted to reddit.

We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far

As long as this is true zero fucks will be given.

This pains me as someone who worked in a customer-facing role at a software company. You're at work getting your ass kicked and leadership just shrugs and says it's ok because we're still making money.

I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public. Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations.

meaning: the users are our enemy and they hate us....

No Steve, we just hate management, that's who better not wear reddit gear in public... Not the rank and file who don't make the braindead decisions that kill platforms.

Saddens me that while the community could muster a great effort, the short 2 day time limit of the blackout wasn't enough.

this too shall pass

I believe there's going to be a moderator exodus. The flippancy with which Steve has handled this, and how he responded here, is going to stick in the craws of their enormous unpaid workforce. These are the people who have been there a decade plus, have seen the ebbs and flows, and are probably no longer willing to be unpaid servants to their clearly demonstrated monetary interests (at the expense of its users [product]). This was a turning point. They have way bigger problems to address than a 48 hour boycott.

"be mindful of wearing reddit gear in public."

Things I would never do regardless for 500, Alex.

I'm glad the statement is quite arrogant. They will feel it and it will hurt. This is the first wave of the great Rexxodus.

Why is this motherfucker acting like a victim?

Well they say that:

"As of Wednesday morning, more than 6,000 subreddits remained inaccessible and in private mode after what began as a two-day voluntary shutdown. The blackout includes popular forums such as r/aww, r/videos and r/music, each of which claims more than 25 million subscribers on the platform. "

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/14/tech/reddit-blackout/index.html

Between this and the fact that r/AdviceAnimals is apparently back with Reddit moderators, I think Reddit will go on. They own everything and can re-open every subreddit whenever they want. Many of the more technical/informed Reddit users will remain absent from the site but the bulk of casual users will likely remain. Whether the content that's left will satisfy them remains to be seen.

A lot of sudreddits are vowing to go dark indefinitely in response to this it looks like. Many were already, but the official position on /r/ModCoord is an indefinite blackout for all but critically important subs.

I would love to watch reddit crash and burn, and for smeg-spez to get fired. But I'm mentally prepared for them to linger on for years and maybe even be profitable as they hang on to the countless dumb-dumbs who just don't know anything more than mindlessly scrolling through endless ads.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can still move on and enjoy what we're building to replace reddit in our daily routine, even if we can't make reddit itself go away like it should.

There's reads really passive aggressive. It clearly wasn't intended to actually say anything meaningful to staff but rather something for 1. media that pickup on (won't anyone think of the poor people attacked for wearing Reddit gear in public!), 2. appeasement of potential investors ahead of the IPO (our bottom line is rock solid folks, thousands of subs gone and no impact on profits!) and 3. an unsubtle dig at and gaslighting of people participating in the blackout (fools! This won't last, you'll all come crawling back and this doesn't affect many subs anyway!).

Spez just keeps doubling down on the Streisand Effect. Challenge accepted arsehole.

I notice he says about a thousand when the article cites closer to 8,000 subs going dark. This is probably the closest they’ll get to admitting the protest did anything at all to Reddit.

This makes me irrationally angry... especially the "snoos" part. WTF...

Wherever Aaron is, I hope he can't see this.

"We absolutely must ship what we said we would."

Oh wow he's actually scared

I hope this response further pisses off the subs who decided to do a fixed time blackout. The user base cannot be taken for granted. Reddit is only good as the content and the creators along with the mods.

I sure hope some subreddits to go private indefinitely this 30th, just to shut up this imbecile.

Here's the source article from The Verge

"In an internal memo sent Monday afternoon to Reddit staff, CEO Steve Huffman addressed the recent blowback directed at the company, telling employees to block out the “noise” and that the ongoing blackout of thousands of subreddits will eventually pass.

The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Verge, is in response to popular subreddits going dark this week in protest of the company’s increased API pricing for third-party apps. Some of the most popular Reddit clients say the bill for keeping their apps up and running could cost them millions of dollars a year. More than 8,000 Reddit communities have gone dark in protest, and while many plan to open up again on Wednesday, some have said they’ll stay private indefinitely until Reddit makes changes..."

Seems like putting out a public statement downplaying the situation like this is just going to encourage further protest.

Edit: just realized it was addressed to employees, but he had to know it would become public.

Lol, what an asshole.