Breaking strikes also works, unfortunately. Look at Air Traffic Controllers with Reagan, or the Pinkertons back in the late 19th century. If there's a way to force compliance, they will. And there is.

This gif has always bothered me somehow. I think the transition is too 'good' and it makes it feel uncanny... Something like that. I'm sure the quality doesn't help.

Anyway, what's happening in 3 days?

rif's UI was near perfect for me. I called it an app version of old.reddit, which was exactly what I wanted.

(Before old.reddit I just considered it a perfect app version of Reddit.)

Anyone saying that they wouldn't was lying. Spez has a history of lying.

Here's what they said on June 7:

###Blackout

• We respect your right to protest – that’s part of democracy.
• This situation is a bit different, with some leading the charge, some users pressuring . We’re trying to work through all of the unique situations.
• Big picture: We are tolerant, but also a duty to keep Reddit online.
• If people want to do this out of anger, we want to make sure they’re mad for accurate reasons, not over things that are untrue. That’s a loss for everyone.

https://old.reddit.com/...

There are tools to help. The best recommended ones I know of:

A Rust CLI app: https://github.com/andrewbanchich/shreddit/

A JavaScript bookmarklet (that feels a bit like a full browser extension): https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite

Yes when all the apps had to change their names (January 2020), it came out that they had previously been working under a Trademark licensing arrangement.

(When "reddit is fun" became "rif" and then "rif is fun for Reddit".)

A lot of people thought it was Reddit suddenly cracking down to protect their trademark, but in reality it was something more petty.

https://old.reddit.com/...

I should mention I'm grateful to the "old" Reddit Inc. and its former employees for being willing to let me use the "reddit is fun" name for the past decade, working with me on mutually beneficial agreements like revenue share, in exchange for licensing the Reddit trademark. Not sure if you would be reading this, but thank you.

You know how there are posts all over Reddit (and even all over here) saying "what's with the porn on r/interestingasfuck?" or "I don't know what's going on with John Oliver"?

It's because of them that the "protests" must continue. Raising awareness is the point. Only a small percentage even know what's going on.

Reddit would love for everyone to quietly go away, they'll pretend nothing happened and move on with a small chunk of users missing but still growing.

FWIW, Reddit had a revenue sharing deal with rif, at the very least. Apparently when spez returned as CEO he shut it down.

Having 0 or negative karma is a barrier to posting. Some subs completely disallow posting if you don't meet a threshold, but even outside of those subs you still run into things like having your comments held up in the spam queue until they are manually reviewed.

So having a bit of karma allows them to post their scam and/or spam links and have a chance of being visible.

It might push more power users away. It won't push away the teeming masses.

Quality will suffer, but they'll keep their traffic.

From my understanding, they already aren't using the API.

If the spam bots were using the API, then Reddit would have been able to shut them down trivially. Part of logging in via API requires a "client ID" that uniquely identifies the creator of the app/bot being used.

They could theoretically have each bot account create its own client ID, but even that would be a pretty obvious thing to look for.

It sounds like this will become a problem if/when content providers start requiring it.

Like how Netflix requires certain hardware to enable 4K. (At least I think they do? I remember that was a thing a few years ago.)

https://learn.microsoft.com/...

Microsoft Pluton security processor is a chip-to-cloud security technology built with Zero Trust principles at the core. Microsoft Pluton provides hardware-based root of trust, secure identity, secure attestation, and cryptographic services. Pluton technology is a combination of a secure subsystem which is part of the System on Chip (SoC) and Microsoft authored software that runs on this integrated secure subsystem.

Microsoft Pluton is currently available on devices with Ryzen 6000 and Qualcomm Snapdragon® 8cx Gen 3 series processors. Microsoft Pluton can be enabled on devices with Pluton capable processors running Windows 11, version 22H2.

What is Microsoft Pluton?

Designed by Microsoft and built by silicon partners, Microsoft Pluton is a secure crypto-processor built into the CPU for security at the core to ensure code integrity and the latest protection with updates delivered by Microsoft through Windows Update. Pluton protects credentials, identities, personal data and encryption keys. Information is significantly harder to be removed even if an attacker has installed malware or has complete physical possession of the PC.

Microsoft Pluton is designed to provide the functionality of the Trusted Platform Module as well as deliver other security functionality beyond what is possible with the TPM 2.0 specification, and allows for additional Pluton firmware and OS features to be delivered over time via Windows Update. For more information, see Microsoft Pluton as TPM.

Pluton is built on proven technology used in Xbox and Azure Sphere, and provides hardened integrated security capabilities to Windows 11 devices in collaboration with leading silicon partners. For more information, see Meet the Microsoft Pluton processor – The security chip designed for the future of Windows PCs.

Here's another contemporaneous article with a good amount of info: https://searchengineland.com/...

Personally I like this summary from a Harvard student assignment:

In August 2010, Digg attempted to wrest control back from its power users by migrating to a new system (Digg v4) that deemphasized user-contributed content in favor of publisher-contributed content. The change incited an uproar among power users and regular visitors alike, who felt the company was selling out to the mainstream media it had originally sought to replace. Digg experienced a mass exodus of users, many of whom turned to rival site Reddit. While Digg’s traffic fell by a quarter in the following month, Reddit’s traffic grew by 230% in 2010. Digg never recovered from its transition to Digg v4, and the site continued to bleed users and traffic over the next two years. By July 2012, the time of its sale to Betaworks, Digg’s monthly unique visitor count had fallen 90% from its peak.

Know Your Meme also has a surprisingly good write-up.

Is this really the content that we want for @news ?

Yes, overwhelmingly so, it seems:

imgur

Here's a contemporaneous article with a good amount of info on Digg's decline.

Know Your Meme has a surprisingly good write-up after the fact.

IMO one of the main factors that even allowed Digg to die as fast as it did was the fact that Reddit was already on the way up.

At the time I was primarily on Slashdot over either, but there were frequently articles about how Reddit was growing, and how people didn't like Digg. Then v4 launched and Digg's traffic dropped 25% in a month.

Unfortunately I don't think Reddit can or will lose that much, that fast. And one of the reasons is that there isn't already a "drop-in replacement". Reddit could do everything Digg could do, and more. But crucially it was also mature enough that there was a community and very low barrier to entry.

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Reddit has put rate-limiting in place to prevent mass actions like that.

Normally I wouldn't give their engineers enough credit to figure something like that out, but in this case rate-limiting already exists for posts, comments, chat, etc.

Plus, people are still over estimating how much impact has been made. If everyone participating in the 'protests' instead deleted their accounts and moved on, Reddit would not be hurt all that much.

I assumed OP would be willing to say it it was "just" that. This being the Internet and all, people admit to way weirder stuff all the time.

When I was a Boy Scout, we often had kids who would refuse to go. It was a whole thing that we had to check on. (Along with asking everyone how yellow their pee was.)

I remember one guy was in tears on the hike out, and it turned out that he had faked out the scoutmaster by taking a walk with the TP and shovel, but not actually gone. Poor kid was barely able to walk, but kept insisting he couldn't void either.

I only learned later how serious it can get if prolonged.

NSFW subreddits don't appear on r/All or r/Popular. (NSFW posts can appear, but only from subs that aren't flagged as NSFW themselves).

So the current protest method is somewhat counterproductive. People who never took the step of subscribing to these subs likely won't see them at all.

That's not really the point, though. A strike works because the strikers are willing to lose their pay to force action. If the strikers can be replaced, then the strikers lose.

What you're saying is true: the strikers in this case have nothing to lose.... except their partial control of Reddit. And Reddit will gladly take that from them.

Once the subs are reopened, any ongoing strike will amount to angry people with no power shouting into the void.