Most everyone who left will return. Some thousands of users will actually leave Reddit permanently—but they will be replaced by users who have never used a third-party app, don’t care about privacy or accessibility or anything but memes and boobs and endless scrolling.
I wish them no ill will, but I no longer wish to be in their company.
If it turns out like that, I’ll be permanently leaving Reddit behind. But for now, there is still just so much good content and good community there, so for me it all depends on the quality subreddits thriving or not. I have 14 years of history there, it’s much harder for me to burn my bridges with Reddit than it was with Twitter or Facebook. I’m kind of hoping Reddit switches tack and finds a way to run a sustainable business without becoming an ad-driven hellhole, but for now it seems like they don’t really care about their most valuable users, the moderators. I fear we’ll be seeing a steady decline in quality subreddits in favor of whatever brings in the most ad money. Pretty sure that won’t be /r/askHistorians or its ilk. The IPO is a bad omen, imho. It means revenue and profit will never be enough, and they will be chasing money forever.
Most everyone who left will return. Some thousands of users will actually leave Reddit permanently—but they will be replaced by users who have never used a third-party app, don’t care about privacy or accessibility or anything but memes and boobs and endless scrolling.
I wish them no ill will, but I no longer wish to be in their company.
If it turns out like that, I’ll be permanently leaving Reddit behind. But for now, there is still just so much good content and good community there, so for me it all depends on the quality subreddits thriving or not. I have 14 years of history there, it’s much harder for me to burn my bridges with Reddit than it was with Twitter or Facebook. I’m kind of hoping Reddit switches tack and finds a way to run a sustainable business without becoming an ad-driven hellhole, but for now it seems like they don’t really care about their most valuable users, the moderators. I fear we’ll be seeing a steady decline in quality subreddits in favor of whatever brings in the most ad money. Pretty sure that won’t be /r/askHistorians or its ilk. The IPO is a bad omen, imho. It means revenue and profit will never be enough, and they will be chasing money forever.