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Reddit protest plunges user engagement, site activity and ad portal visits (techcrunch.com)
submitted 2 years ago by ruffsl@programming.dev to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[-] Boozilla@beehaw.org 5 points 2 years ago

I think reddit will linger for a very long time even as the quality goes down the toilet. There are millions of casuals on there just doomscrolling that don't seem to mind the ads and the horrible official app/new website. It's still interesting to follow the story as it unfolds, but I'm also slowly losing that interest as I continue to explore lemmy. We'll all mostly forget about it at some point, and that will be a good day for us, regardless of what happens to reddit and it's disengaged remnants of a user base.

[-] Dee_Imaginarium@beehaw.org 3 points 2 years ago

Of course it will, Digg is still around and so is Myspace. These sites rarely "die" in the sense of shutting down but just become a husk of its former self.

[-] JDPoZ@beehaw.org 0 points 2 years ago

Those of us who've been on the internet since the mid-90s remember how Digg fucked up. Apparently none of those people who remember what happened last time are around at the top of Reddit anymore.

[-] ArtZuron@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

History repeats, they say.

[-] Orvanis@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

"plunges" by a whole 10%, and primarily only during the initial 2 days. Has since mostly rebounded. That is disappointing.

Will see what happens July 1st of course when apps finally stop working.

[-] SomeGuyNamedPaul@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah, July 1st will be interesting. The important thing is that the various alternatives have gotten seeded with users who are contributing enough content to make them viable. That means that when the 1st hits users will have viable places to go.

Honestly, when I first got to Beehaw a couple weeks ago it was pretty sparse and 10 comments in a thread was a lot. Now 10 comments is thin and the low hundreds are becoming the norm. It's growing and snowballing.

[-] cakeistheanswer@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

I think this is just the leading edge unless folks are lining up to replace moderators in most communities.

Systems tend to fail slowly, and then all at once.

Most fediverse denizens have noticed how sane and measured the dialogue is, which is entirely a product of the audience who is here right now. But everyone's got a threshold, whether Reddit loses everyone or not isn't relevant if they couldn't be profitable with all of us. There's a death spiral coming, and if there's anything left Reddit will have to functionally change.

Easiest to think of Reddit as a party grinding on too long and starting to get rowdier, and the bouncers just quit.

[-] Master@beehaw.org 0 points 2 years ago

but 10% is 60+% of actual human engagement. The rest are just bots talking to themselves and clicking ad links.

[-] SomeGuyNamedPaul@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

And the front page is filled with trash from fringe subs.

[-] rysiek@szmer.info 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Meanwhile, Threadiverse is on the verge of reaching 100k active monthly accounts.

Of course, the numbers are incomparable. But this whole thing made Threadiverse into a viable space for a lot of people. Reddit app developers are starting to develop apps for Lemmy/Kbin. Dozens of new instances got set up. The whole space is bigger, more resilient, and leaps and bounds more vibrant than it was in May and before (I've been here for years).

A lot of people will come back to Reddit. But a lot of people will also remain here. And this space will be there the next time Reddit craps the bed, better prepared to take the influx.

[-] ExoMonk@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

The small drop in users isn't super surprising. I'm more interested in the drop of mods and tools. If more garbage slips through on the regular than I can imagine users start to drop off from their favorite subs turning to shit. Either way I'm done with reddit

[-] TimTheEnchanter@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

I’ll be interested to see how much the usage drops after third-party apps go offline in the next few days.

[-] Geekmonster_@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

Hm. I looked around while I was blanking my posts and comments and I feel there's a lot more "activity" in some subreddits, but it feels bot driven. Many of the accounts I looked at were relatively new, like less than a year old. Maybe they were real users, but it certainly didn't feel like it to me.

Anyone else taken a peek?

[-] Master@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago

I feel the same way. A ton of the top front page posts are just repeated slightly changed comments by less than a year old accounts with almost no posts or karma. It's a very weird vibe over there right now and I'm pretty sure even though activity is up... human activity is dramatically down except for smaller subs (which seem to have unique content with not a lot of bot activity).

[-] stu@lemmy.pit.ninja 0 points 2 years ago

I'm a little surprised the drop in activity was that low. What the fuck were people browsing when most of Reddit was blacked out?

[-] DiachronicShear@beehaw.org 0 points 2 years ago

yeah looks like only 3.6 mil people stopped using the site (out of 52 mil) but I have no clue what was even left during the blackout. Did people just not notice?

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

Stopped using it is one thing, using it less another. 3.6m out of 52 is what? 8% of the entire user base suddenly stopped, including a lot of important mods, which are hard to replace in that quality? And the rest of the user base I can imagine have less activity in Reddit, meaning less content creation, replies and therefore less advertisement seen. And some people may just trolling more than before, trying to destroy Reddit, some use Bots.

The overall quality is less than before, not better I assume. And a little bit less user than before. The site has a bad image now, so I can imagine some are waiting until alternatives are build and grow on Lemmy or Kbin in example and will switch later. So hard numbers of how many people stopped using the site is not telling the entire story. One has to open the book and read the lines, not just judge the cover story.

[-] Dee_Imaginarium@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

I think a lot of people scoffing at the numbers don't realize that 8% is not insignificant for a site as robust and long lived as Reddit. That's a pretty huge change in a short period of time. It will be interesting to see what happens when the third party apps shut down.

[-] AttackBunny@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

There are a lot of people who are/were totally ok with Reddit after the blackout starting, only commenting that people are fucking stupid, and they need to shut up about it already. I know a couple people like this.

Honestly, Meta, TikTok, twitter, etc have already shown us people honestly don’t give a shit, as long as they get their serotonin/dopamine fix.

Personally, I haven’t intentionally been back since the 11th, and the only times I’ve accidentally gone there, it was for the 3 seconds it took me to close it down. And I don’t intend to go back.

[-] alba70r@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 years ago

Reddit Is Already on the Rebound

Interesting article from Wired, with some decent sources.

[-] rooster_butt@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Did Reddit pay for that article? No mention whatsoever of Spez forcing subs open and ejecting mods. Just back to "business as usual".

[-] pli5k3n@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Both Wired and Reddit are owned by Condé Nast. (Technically sister corps in Advance Publications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications)

this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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