Here’s the list of highlights from the article, as it’s a good TL;DR:
- The Reddit app-pocalyse is here: Apollo, Sync, and BaconReader go dark
- How Reddit crushed the biggest protest in its history
- Reddit will remove mods of private communities unless they reopen
- Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview
- Why disabled users joined the Reddit blackout
- Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit — and why users revolted
- A developer says Reddit could charge him $20 million a year to keep his app working
Sorry for the late reply, it’s just that I’d rather take my time reading and answering accordingly.
Those people in Reddit might believe that crushing the protests was right, but I don’t think that their beliefs matter in the long run - what matters is the subjective value that they get from browsing the platform, versus doing something else. It’s kind of funny because, in their lack of insight and rationality, they behave in groups a lot more like perfectly rational and selfish agents than we (the ones who migrated) do.
Another point is that people should never have trusted Reddit to begin with.
Amen to that. Going from Digg to Reddit was running away from the fire and falling right into the frying pan. The Fediverse makes me a bit optimistic on that, though; it doesn’t expect you to trust anyone - instead, it assumes that at least some people will fuck it up, and gives you relatively painless escape routes. (e.g. admin goes rogue? there’s another instance right there!)
[off-topic] your mention of Time Machine reminded me two other books:
- Dougal Dixon’s Man After Man - humans diverging due to genetic engineering, and ending on different parts of the food chain. It’s like the Elois vs. Mordocks, on steroids.
- Aldous Huxley’s Ape and Essence - if we’re going to create analogies between the human race itself and its social media output, that’s gotta be like this book. It’s like we’re discussing how to handle the social media equivalent of people with 3+ pairs of nipples, or 7+ toes per foot.
I recommend both, although there’s a good chance that you’ve read the first one already (given that you like HG Wells).[/off-topic]
[the food analogy]
There are two things here that make me think that the analogy isn’t that flawed, and actually valuable. Although… well, it’s an analogy. Analogies always become mushy if we push them too far, I’m aware.
One of the things is that our food tastes are mostly the result of our brain, just like the digital content that we consume. Not just our stomach. Our food tastes depend mostly on social class and raising conditions, culture and region, our former experiences with one or another dish, so goes on. It’s the reason for example that, if you ask “polenta or rice?” to someone, you’ll get one answer in the Po’ Valley and another in Japan. The major caveat is that you won’t die if you avoid digital content altogether, so there’s a lower pressure to fulfil this need than the one to eat. (Or as people say here, “a hungry cat eats even soap” - but a bored person might not eat “digital soap” for entertainment.)
The second thing is that this analogy yields some useful results. Alongside your comment on the screeching Reddit moron, it made me realise that we got two types of bad content, not one; and they should be handled separately. They are:
- poorly made content, time-sentitive content that lost relevance, gibberish, spam. The equivalent of stale bread, or burned food.
- memes, shallow content, things that don’t generally contribute with your intellectual well-being and improvement, but crafted in a way that loads your senses for a small dopamine rush.
They might oppose the sandwich in comparison with the junk food; some people actively prefer junk food over good meals, and some consume both in different situations. But I don’t think that they’d oppose a good sammich over one made with stale bread and a burned piece of is-this-even-steak.
I predict that the amount of “junk food” in Reddit won’t meaningfully increase; it’ll be a bit more evident, but only because the ones preparing “good sandwiches” aren’t there any more. However the amount of “burned food” will increase by a lot, and that is the sort of bad content that’ll eventually make people leave.
(Some morons there will screech at you for replying to a comment after twelve hours. TWELVE HOURS! I got this once. I simply answered “I’m not spending 24/7 in Reddit, unlike you basement dwellers I got a life.”)
that just woke me up to what has been going on for YEARS over there, as it turned from “discussion forum” to “social media” site.)
Yup - the focus of the site has been slowly shifting from “Reddit is about the content” (forum) to “Reddit is about the people whom you connect to” (FB/Twitter style social media). It never completely flipped though; maybe because Reddit Inc. couldn’t compete well with the big ones out there.
Fwiw I do not consider this “late” - perhaps we can reassess our standards over here, for quality >> quantity / speed:-D. Fwiw I never got that particular reply, though I did get screeched at for offering things like a URL to answer questions like “does anyone know how to…”, despite how the website perfectly answered said question. Choosing beggars and so on. And just to push this further: I have not logged onto kbin to even so much as look for your reply for the last 18 hours, so even if you had replied sooner, I would not have seen it:-).
It does seem rather odd to associate the word “rational” with that line of thinking but…yes, “robotic” even, very formulaic as in “does this benefit me in the short-term? if so then I will do it”. The odd part is that it seems to presume that people not wanting to leave then are considering those who did as “irrational” actors, when in reality both are rational, just looking at different time-scales: short vs. long-term.
Yes sci-fi really does break down all conventions, as we transition away from our mammalian past and morph into biotech, robotech, or othertech beings, like 2001 A Space Odyssey demonstrated. Although films like The Matrix and the Stargate series showcase an entirely different mode of leaving: jumping up to the next level of reality itself!:-P I love books that show even odder futures for us, like we all send our consciousnesses into the sun and then spread out to the galaxy as stellar beings, who then run “humanity” as a simulation, so that you can be all of the people all at once. If it can be done, it will, although it may be good to think about what is lost at each stage even as also move forward into what is gained - e.g. in Star Trek they tried genetic engineering, but later abandoned it in order to ~~make a more stable premise for the TV show~~ something something remain “human”? :-P
I suppose, remaining entirely inside your food analogy, what I was getting at (as you also said) is how people CHOOSE to value different things - e.g. for some of us, bacon on a cheeseburger with a coke/soda/pop/cola for dinner/supper/late meal is the most heavenly & delightful food available on earth, while for others it is outright forbidden/haram (but not always for the same reasons, e.g. for a Mormon the pork is fine, in moderation, while the coke is the bad part iirc) and for still others it is permissible but merely disgusting, e.g. if you are already overweight and realize how long you would have to exercise to burn it off, or think ahead to how you will toss and turn that night instead of sleep peacefully.
Which reminds me of the STEM adage that a simple concept behind the word “good” does not exist, but rather something is always either “good” or “bad” or whatever FOR a given purpose. But even ignoring that, for someone who has never had such a burger in their entire life, I am not entirely certain that they would find it even so much as “tasty” (the concept of sinfully delicious perhaps? :-P), and many Asians for instance do not enjoy the taste of chocolate for whatever reason.
But yes, the two bads I can get behind: spam vs. candy, both in opposition to real food - the former objectively bad (whether someone is edumacashiated enough to realize that or not) while the latter is addictive, and can be used to “good” effect if treated with proper caution but long-term usage may lead to problems.
I think Reddit was always content-based though? That was its beauty - like if you have an issue, you do not care so much who solves it, so much as that you can find your answer. But yes, very rarely you meet someone worth talking to over and over, and those are excellent days indeed:-).
The economic “rational agent” that I’m referring to is, in large part, robotic. It (yup, “it” - it’s an abstraction, not a real person) is devoid of emotion and motivated by self-interest alone. It would gladly burn a circus full of people to make some popcorn. It does take long term into account, but only for itself, never for the others.
I just find it funny that, even if it’s called “rational”, its behaviour describes rather well how irrational masses behave.
Bacon on a cheeseburger: isn’t that basically porn? Some outright enjoy it, some avoid it, and some try to avoid it but still consume it in small amounts. Or even politics, for some, who apparently see apolitical content as disgusting.
Which reminds me of the STEM adage that a simple concept behind the word “good” does not exist,
Yes. Yes and it goes further - “good” and “bad” don’t have intrinsic value, they depend on a point of reference and a specific attribute. And there’s often implicit but never stated moral statements, when people using it. Those aren’t taboo words for me, mind you, but we need to be a bit careful about how and why we use them, and make sure that the others are on the same page on what should be called “good” / “bad”.
For example. When I talk about “good content”, that “good” can be two things:
- content depth - or, how it informs you, makes you think, makes you more knowledgeable
- content desirability - by itself relative to a certain audience, but we can approximate it to an abstract “average user”.
I think Reddit was always content-based though?
Yes but it’s clear that the admins were making it more social media-based. Posting to profile, livestream, chat, those things are practically useless in a content-centric site, but they’re essential for a social interactions-based one.
It does take long term into account, but only for itself, never for the others.
Rational agents can take long-term into account, so if people on Reddit watching it all burn & fall apart before their eyes are choosing to ignore that, are they “fully” rational agents then?
In any case, they might be correct in staying, IF we only only allow looking ahead like a month or so in time - b/c inertia is a real thing. Even then, for some of us it is no longer worth it, while for others it is.
Also, why would upvoting a comment such as “^THIS 1000%” constitute a long-term style of rational acting? It adds nothing to the discussion, so when all “discussion” becomes replaced by such, which float to the top b/c of the large number of upvotes (& maybe awards, etc.), then “real” content such that people might actually come to Reddit - like via a Google search for a specific query - get buried below them? If that is “rational”, then it seems short-sighted to me.
Or in opposition to rational, there is maybe “emotional”, so that you have a feeling and want to express it, and you see something that expresses that, so you “like” it further, in addition to liking / upvoting the original comment - without considering the long-term ramifications.
Yes but it’s clear that the admins were making it more social media-based.
True - many were resisting that, but it was happening, truth.