Well fuck me... I'm back. I never thought I'd come back to Tumblr, but thanks to reddit's idiotic new changes, god knows what's going to happen to the site I joined via recommendation from my university's FB page, and actively participated in since 2011.
11 years on reddit and now they're destroying the site the same way Tumblr got fucked in 2013. Is it still like that? I miss old Tumblr, even if I didn't spend as much time here as I did on reddit.
Good riddance to the site that disgraced Aaron Swartz's spirit by removing him from the list of co-founders (Why though? Just to be assholes? Spez strikes again).
I privated my sub & received an automated mod mail telling me to open it or else. Take it from me then. It's all meaningless now.
Worst part is, the APIs they're charging money for are the same APIs that allow people with disabilities to use reddit in the first place. Because reddit's accessibility tools are allegedly so ass that blind folks have to rely on third-party APIs to make it usable. Apparently reddit doesn't even comply with ADA guidelines completely? Please let me be wrong.
Where is everyone going now? I heard it's Lemmy.world, while others are on Discord or kbin or other such platforms. This sucks. I wish there was one centralized site everyone could migrate to. I'm sure reddit will eventually rebuild itself with shitty new rules once it goes public.
I suppose this rule change is a purge for them to get rid of their old userbase to welcome in a new base of people who are easier to control? The kind of people that don't care about tweaking their reddit experience, and are happy to roll with the changes reddit decides are best for the site and/or advertisers.
Speaking of changes, I've never had the need to use reddit mobile apps or Apollo and such, just the old reddit basic ass vanilla theme from when I first joined the site. Once they get rid of that and force the redesign on everyone, I'll probably end up finding the site frustrating and unenjoyable to use and use it less, hopefully.
Anyway, remember spez faked a lot of posts early in reddit's history to make the site look active? Yeah. Expect the same thing to return. The botfarm issue will only intensify. Expect low-effort ChatGPT-generated comments across reddit.
reddit's death will be a slow one, like Digg's. There will be no mass exodus of users. I don't know when a true competitor to reddit will arrive, but it eventually will.