The future of /r/videos.
old.reddit.com
Hello everyone, I’ll try to keep this short as I know there’s been a lot going on over the last few days. [When we made our announcement last...

Quote from the post:

Hello everyone, I’ll try to keep this short as I know there’s been a lot going on over the last few days. When we made our announcement last week, we intended to get Reddit’s attention on a subject that our team found extremely concerning. /r/Videos is joining a larger coordinated protest and signing an open letter to the admins found here.

The announcement was of exceedingly high API prices which we all know was to intentionally kill 3rd party applications on reddit (Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Boost, Relay, etc.) Since that post several things have become clear; Reddit is not willing to listen to its users or the mod teams from many of its largest communities on this matter. Yesterday all major third-party Reddit apps announced that they would be shutting down on the 30th of June due to these changes. There were no negotiations and Reddit refused to extend the deadlines. The rug was pulled out from under them and by extension all of the users who rely on those tools to use reddit.

In addition to this, the AMA hosted by Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, which was intended to alleviate concerns held by many users about these issues, was nothing short of a collage of inappropriate responses. There are many things to take away from this AMA but here are the key points. Most disappointingly it appears that Reddit outright misconstrued the actions of Apollo’s creator /u/iamthatis by saying that he threatened Reddit and leaked private phone calls, something done only to clear his name of another accusation.

So what’s happening? The TL;DR? Effective tomorrow (6/11/2023), /r/Videos will be restricting posting capabilities. Anything posted before the cut off date will likely be the final front page of our community before we go private indefinitely. In the unlikely scenario that Reddit ownership has a sudden change of heart and capitulates on their decisions we will reopen, but until that happens /r/Videos will stay closed. Many other communities have come to similar decisions and we support those who have decided to take a stand.

  • bdonvr@lemmy.rogers-net.com
    58·
    2 years ago

    I still think the admin team will forcefully takeover and reopen the big subs, but I think that’ll be like pouring gasoline on that dumpster fire.

    • Satouru@beehaw.org
      37·
      2 years ago

      I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going to happen too.

      They’ll kick dissident mods out, install their own, and just reopen the subs like nothing happened. There’s precedent of that happening I believe (although for much more reasonable reasons, like mods going rogue for stupid or anti-free speech stuff).

      And it’s going to be an absolute shitshow. I feel sad, but I also kind of love it. You reap what you sow, I guess.

      • aaronbieber@kbin.social
        29·
        2 years ago

        If they force a reopen, we should all get ready to post Never Gonna Give You Up music videos all day long.

        • Satouru@beehaw.org
          12·
          2 years ago

          Or a certain four-letter word starting with F followed by a famous Reddit administrator’s handle…

          But yeah. My Reddit account is pretty much worthless now, so might as well express my discontent, right?

          • reka@beehaw.org
            11·
            2 years ago

            I’d love to see “fuck spez” become to reddit what the HD-DVD encryption code was to digg

        • GraceGH@beehaw.orgEnglish
          28·
          2 years ago

          Someone on the fediverse (might be here?) asked “Do you want Lemmy to succeed or do you just want reddit to burn?”

          I’ve landed on “both, for independant reasons.” Its been high time reddit’s corporate greed gets checked, and what a better way to go than an icarus flight?

          • Satouru@beehaw.orgEnglish
            18·
            2 years ago

            I agree!

            I want Reddit to fail because they overestimate their value and think that their software is why Reddit is popular (even though, let’s face it, the software was absolute garbage during the time where Reddit became popular, and is still is, albeit for different reasons).

            I want the Fediverse (and not specifically Lemmy or Beehaw, although I’m in love with both at the moment) to succeed because I think that the idea behind it gives the communities that it hosts total control about what they want to do, regardless on the people that hosts them.

            So it’s not really that different, as it all boils down to the same point: the importance of communities is paramount, and the tools that are given for that are important but also mere accessories. Well, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that, but I think that it gets the general idea.

          • bdonvr@lemmy.rogers-net.comEnglish
            5·
            2 years ago

            Pretty much!

            I can confidently say both, as I’ve started my own instance of lemmy and have allowed a small amount of users to join.

      • Skelectus@suppo.fi
        10·
        2 years ago

        The last paragraph, I feel exactly the same. I miss reddit, but I don’t think there’s going back after this. It has to go.

        • Satouru@beehaw.org
          15·
          2 years ago

          But here’s the thing: are you going to miss Reddit or the communities that they allowed you to partake in?

          Because there’s no reason to miss the former - and you’ll miss the latter either way because a lot of people are going to just stop using Reddit after the changes come into effect anyway, so the community will certainly change.

          I think that this move made most of us lose something. Which is certainly sad, but we’ll lose it either way, so might as well get rid of the platform they hurt us, right?

            • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml
              1·
              2 years ago

              Well, there’s hope for doom scrolling on the fediverse yet my friend! I did it quite successfully last night between reading bits of the AMA dumpster fire!

                • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml
                  0·
                  2 years ago

                  With the APIocolypse refugees coming in daily, things are looking good for a half hour sat on the toilet, even though you finished right away, and nearly falling over when you get up because your legs are asleep…scrolling.

      • shanghaibebop@beehaw.orgEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        Call me paranoid, but imo, Reddit might just install ML based mods. I’ve seen quite some progress from these tools recently and they might pull it off.

        What that will do to the emergent culture of each sub will be a big unknown.

    • Kaldo@beehaw.org
      6·
      2 years ago

      I’d kinda love to see that, it’d be huge. Could even get some of the larger sub mods to maybe open kbin or lemmy instances instead? I’d be great to have their motivation and talent in a community not dependent on reddit’s good will.