I hope this whole ordeal, no matter how it goes down, ends up being a landmark for "social media as a monopoly". I think there's been a lot of talk about this in past years, with little real interest, because people are more interested in their next dopamine fix no matter how much they say they care about their data being sold. I hope this is the push we need to start considering these things for real. Most of us are uncomfortable with personal information being sold to 3rd parties, or knowing that users of these sites are technically the product being sold. It's more weird and uncomfortable knowing the CEO and other execs are throwing a tantrum because user data and user submissions AREN'T being generated for them to sell to earn money to buy some yachts and golf courses.

Should social media be a public commodity, same way a community center or library is? Something paid for by taxes and regulated by government. I think it's interesting in concept but odd to consider once you get into government censorship and surveillance aspects. Not a good idea either.

For me its just the third party apps that I care about

Its a better analogy that Reddit pissed off the roadies, ushers, ticket takers, and other crew because they wanted 300% of the concession stand's gross take.

Additionally, it's not even that good of a venue.

I was talking to my friend about this and asked if he could point out a single improvement that reddit has made in the last decade that hadn't been about monetization, since I exclusively use old.reddit.com and third party apps, I certainly couldn't. We couldn't come up with anything...

It's more that they just treat every artist with a lot of disrespect, but they know they're the only big venue and there's a basically endless supply of artists that wants to play there.

However, there's smaller venues that will host these artists and treat them with respect. If it gets too bad, these small venues will grow and gain fame. Ultimately becoming a viable competitor to the original venue.

The comparison doesn't hold exactly, because the nature of social media makes it so that the advantages of scale are exponential (the more users your platform has, the more attractive it becomes). However, federation breaks this. Which is why I believe this is the way to go. It's probably not a coincidence that the reddit-style Lemmy has seemingly the most potential. The appeal of joining is not really dependent on famous accounts (e.g. twitter) or having friends that already joined (e.g. Facebook or Instagram). People move regardless, build communities and grow the platform.

I certainly never viewed it as a social media site. I joined it as a link aggregator and a way to find information on topics I thought were interesting, not make friends. It always seems odd to me when people refer to it as a social media site.

Hmmm. Maybe it's intentional. A purge. Flush out the old crowd with their adblockers and their nonsense ideas about "free speech," and whoever stays -- out of ignorance or compliance -- is left with the ad-ridden hellscape that is the new interface and the official app.

FTA:

(Disclosure: WIRED is a publication of Conde Nast, whose parent company, Advance Publications, has an ownership stake in Reddit.)

conde naste was reddit and wired's parent company and I believe still a major shareholder so probably why

They mentioned "federated alternatives"

If reddit backpedals, even just for damage control, it will cement just how much power the users and mods have over that site. As it should.

I think that's precisely why spez is going to do everything he can not to backpedal.

I really don’t understand why reddit doesn’t just charge end uses for API access. Heck chuck it in with premium or something. They can generate an API that you use in whatever client you wanted.

I’d happily pay Reddit for a key to then use in Apollo, but bizarrely this isn’t an option. It’s not like Reddit lacks the ability to charge end users, they already have premium after all.

The more this drags on, the less people think this is about money, and more about controlling the platform.

A real business person finds a common ground, sets terms everyone can at least pay forward. Because, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if I have $100 lemonade, if no one is able to buy it.

The rich control the narrative.