Passing semi-obvious thought: it’s not really Reddit leadership the Reddit community needs to scare; it’s investors.
It seems to me that has tactical implications.
1/4
In particular, browbeating the CEO isn’t going to accomplish that much. He doesn’t have to care if people on the Internet are mad at him.
He •does• have to care if his precious IPO goes down the toilet.
2/4
It would be marvelous if one result of the Twitter and Reddit fiascos were online communities acquiring both willingness and organizing capacity to burn online spaces to the ground when they go bad.
Today, if tech execs worry about users, it's losing market share, competitive edge, lock-in. But I don’t think they worry about their users organizing to actively destroy their product in response to their decisions. Imagine if they did.
3/4
We online communities have the power to tell tech companies, “You exist at our pleasure.”
It’s time we figured out how to use it.
4/4
Addendum to the above:
Reddit executives are reading this action as grumpy people chucking little pebbles at their windows.
And if the blackout ends after 2 days with no concessions from Reddit and no further action from the community…that’s all it is.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-memo-api-pricing-changes-steve-huffman
Redditors need to ask themselves: How far are they willing to go? Because none of this means a damn thing to Reddit execs until they believe it impacts their IPO valuation.
Just re-re-repeating this, lest it get buried:
The question for Reddit communities is,
That’s it. That’s the game right there. The IPO valuation.
Not “how do we shame them.” Not even “how do we take a bite of their revenue.” Threaten the IPO. That’s the whole impetus behind the API pricing fiasco. Reddit will listen only when they believe they’re in danger of ending up a damaged property.
I’m fairly sure @davealvarado is being sarcastic, but what he’s getting at is in fact correct:
•Mutually assured destruction• is the strategic structure here. That’s the threat the Reddit community needs to be prepared to make against the Reddit corporation.
Are they? That’s the question.
Because in a mutually assured destruction scenario, •reaching• the point of destruction is failure — but the •credible threat• to follow through on it is a requirement of success.
@inthehands Some of the bigger subs have already committed to an indefinite blackout. I completely agree that putting the IPO at risk is the whole ballgame.
I'm pretty sure some damage has already been done — Fidelity is the lead underwriter on the planned IPO and they have got to be paying attention to this fiasco
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/148ks6u/indefinite_blackout_next_steps_polling_your/
@karenmcgrane
Indefinite: good!
I’m not sure the damage is done yet, but surely the potential is there. It’s all about the follow-through now.
@inthehands @karenmcgrane woo hoo, we put Reddit out of business! WE WIN!!!
@davealvarado @inthehands @karenmcgrane What else would you suggest
@mav @davealvarado @inthehands Have you considered LinkedIn
@karenmcgrane @davealvarado @inthehands Hank Green tried to get shitposting to take off on LI a while back with marginal success, and if he can't pull it off, I certainly can't
@mav @davealvarado @inthehands Everyone there is so… sincere. It's creepy
@karenmcgrane @mav @inthehands they're all trying to get jobs. It's like trying to make friends in the waiting room at a casting call.
@inthehands Huffman said in his email that 1000 subs had gone dark, Reddark says that 8370 of 8829 subreddits went dark. I also do not believe him when he says there's been no revenue impact.
@karenmcgrane
Oh, agreed, I 100% do not believe there’s been no revenue impact.
To be clear, “not sure the damage is done yet,” I meant only to a future IPO. Pretty sure if this all blew over by Friday, the IPO wouldn’t suffer a bit. I also don’t think it will just blow over — but that’s the question, isn’t it?
@inthehands Also here is an anecdotal report of Reddit forcing a sub back online:
@inthehands @davealvarado That is the lever that online communities have, but it's unlikely to work here.
Reddit is shifting models from chasing users (dubious) to extracting value from users. If they fail, the IPO dies. So MAD here is not an option.
Reddit's already looking at their own destruction. Their only way out is to bowl through their users' objections.
@inthehands indeed. And importantly, the difference between "the Reddit community wants..." and "the Reddit moderator community wants..." gets highlighted when you start talking MAD.
@inthehands @davealvarado I think that is right. You win a game of chicken by ripping off your own steering wheel.
@suldrew @davealvarado
Now there’s an image!
@inthehands @davealvarado and given the existence of Fediverse alternative, there's no mutuality actually. The communities can by and large move over.
@inthehands I thought this comment on the verge presented an interesting/funny possibility
@inthehands The best thing is to just leave now and rebuild somewhere else. Changing their minds or ability to IPO is not going to bring back the level of trust required to stay or develop apps for reddit. We need to build out the fediverse. This siloing of data and users will be seen as an aberration in the history of the internet.
@inthehands @skinnylatte gotta fight business logic with business logic