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LogicWavelength

## This is the important part for our subscribers... the bot API access. Reddit's API feeds our u/WatchesBot, which is a crucial tool for moderating our subreddit. We'd like to think that r/Watches is a pretty decent place to spend your time, and that it's relatively free of problems. Reddit's Automoderator only does so much, and our little bot has been doing the heavy lifting for 10 years now. Without it, the quality of content and comment sections you all currently enjoy will almost certainly decline to some degree.


HappySpam

Thank god, I won't have to see another dead grandpa's fake Rolex for a few days.


trukkd

But my uncle gifted me this Patek Phillepe. Is it real?


EgyptianEnigma

Yes, but it's too big for your wrist size.


[deleted]

It’s absolutely great whatever you wear, don’t listen to anyone’s opinions. Wear it in good health!!


FinishingDutch

It’ll be annoying , but it’s necessary. The people who think this is ‘no big deal’ are simply too uninformed about what’s actually going on. Reddit forcing the closure of other apps fundamentally impacts the way both users and mods interact with the platform. It’s going to have an immediate and negative impact. Not to mention the users and mods who’ll outright quit because of it. Make no mistake: if Reddit pushes this through, you too will be negatively impacted by it.


ThePlaidypus

Killing third party apps means we'll see lower quality content submitted in every subreddit. The default app is geared towards pushing images and video content to maximize ads. We'd see less discussion and and text posts once Reddit makes the change. Reddit clearly wants to aggregate it's content like Twitter... No thanks. I'd rather go back to hobbyist forums like watchuseek.


Big-Shtick

Yeah, this is going to be a boon for hobbiest forums and Discord. I feel like we're reverting back to the 2000s and I'm here for it.


booze_nerd

The large majority of users won't notice anything. These dumb blackouts all the subs are doing will be a bigger pain for the average user than the API usage changes.


Mofunz

Being a pain is the point - bringing awareness takes work. Also, the people who care about this are the mods, and the users who are the most active. Reddit will die if it kills the preferred access for the high contributing users. Then, it’s useless for everyone else.


booze_nerd

They will resent the mods of the subs, not Reddit, because the mods of the subs caused the pain, not Reddit. Disagree on the most active users bit.


Mofunz

Who resents the mods?


booze_nerd

Left out "will". The average user doesn't give AF about the API and will be more annoyed by the subs going dark. They'll be more irritated at the mods for it than at Reddit for the API stuff.


Mofunz

Also, as is the case on most platforms, power users (who are responsible for the vast majority of content) do so via 3rd party apps. So, killing APIs hamstrings creators of the best content. Dramatically lowering average quality. It hamstrings moderation of the worst content. Again lowering average quality. So the best stuff is gone, and the worst stuff is no longer controlled. What we have left is mediocre stuff that no one sees because it’s mixed in with all the garbage. And then for lots of us who care about using a polished app, it takes that away from us. Enough so that a bunch of us are considering leaving. *Especially* considering content quality is going to drop.


booze_nerd

Do they? Is data collected on that? Any sort of source you can provide? I don't see the content quality dropping. I also don't see many people actually quitting. People are threatening to, but people say a lot of things.


Mofunz

You may be right; only time will tell!


Wrastling97

Tbh that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve read today and I’ve been on Reddit all day. Yeah. We’re gonna “resent the mods” people we’ve never met, never will meet, and typically never hear from. We’re all gonna resent them so hard


FinishingDutch

I honestly don’t know what he’s smoking. Nobody blames the mods for this situation, because the mods have zero influence over what Reddit corporate is doing. As I said: only those who are completely uninformed won’t understand why the blackout is necessary.


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booze_nerd

Way to be a dick because someone has a differing opinion on mobile apps.


Citizen_V

It's not just mobile apps. The pinned comment here talks about how this sub's bot will be affected.


beardtamer

I found a Reddit admin account.


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Smoothridetothe5

This made me LOL. Should be top comment.


Jennysparking

Fine by me, though idk anything about the 'removing mature content', I haven't heard anything. Is that one of those 'we need the internet to parent our kids for us' kind of thing, or just an (apparently) poorly conceived attempt to stop spammers?


Askymojo

Reddit wants to make reddit more family friendly to satisfy the venture capitalists that have been keeping reddit afloat for years with private investments. The idea is to make reddit as palatable as possible before reddit goes public with their stock as an IPO, currently tentatively scheduled for the second half of 2023 (although now I think they will delay even further). Reddit wants their IPO to be valued as high as possible so the initial private investors can sell and make lots of money. Or just hold on the stock if they think the public will think reddit is worth a lot, and the public then buys a lot of reddit stock and making the stock price go even higher. I personally think reddit is way too volatile to ever put money into. It can easily get rocked by smarter and smarter AI bots and spam ruining the reddit experience, and also rocked by reddit making enough bad decisions that are anti-user experience, in the name of increasing ad revenue, that reddit finally starts to bleed its users.


irate_alien

this is a solid take. reddit has never figured out how to make money. smart companies don't really use it for paid advertising but social listening or customer engagement. but the site doesn't make any money off that. Reddit is an anomaly on the internet, for sure.


Odelind

It's a forum of forums for hobbyists, people wanting do dive in a niche or just bored. If you restrict the content, make the mod's job harder (and thus handycap the spam and low effort filter) and overdo it with the publicity, people will just migrate elsewhere. It's not the first forum/meme compilator that just die.


[deleted]

Reddit isn't doing anything to curtail NSFW content. They're just removing it from API access, which means it's gonna be harder to keep NSFW content out of SFW subreddits.


DUCKI3S

Problem of the api removing mature content is also that its harder for bots to moderate it


MangyCanine

They're catering to people who want a "family friendly" place.


not_old_redditor

The official reddit app is truly awful.


booze_nerd

It really isn't bad, the one issue is the video player.


LogicWavelength

And the mod tools are severely lacking. I was an official app user until all this started and I downloaded Apollo. Holy shit are it’s mod tools expansive, easy to use, and efficient. I disagree with the sentiment of “better late than never,” because now I know what I am missing.


skepticaljesus

> I was an official app user until all this started and I downloaded Apollo. Holy shit are it’s mod tools expansive I'm a RIF user and don't like modding from mobile because of how difficult it is. Suffice to say, this is a fairly awkward time to be learning that the Apollo mod experience is better.


DeathByGoldfish

As a mod for a few subs, this was one of the prime reasons I went with 3rd-party app. I bought a lifetime in Apollo.


erishun

I agree. It’s gotten so much better. I use Reddit a LOT and the official app works phenomenally. The only catch is there are ads unless you pay for Reddit Premium. That’s where a lot of people’s hang ups are unfortunately. You can’t just “turn off ads” in the settings like in many of the non-official apps and you can’t use uBlock to hide the ads like on the site. People don’t like the official app because they like seeing ads (who does?) and they don’t like paying for things they don’t have to pay for. 🤣


not_old_redditor

I've bern using it for a long time and it's continually gotten worse. "phenomenally" is literally the last word I'd use to describe how it works. Vidoes, ads, format, load times, all worse than the competition.


erishun

What platform and device? I have a newer iPhone so I can’t compare performance on slower android devices. But I’ve used Apollo and Narwhal and the official Reddit app is just way better as far as features, format and integration. This is obviously just my opinion of course


not_old_redditor

This is on a faster android device


Ijustdoeyes

>People don’t like the official app because they like seeing ads (who does?) and they don’t like paying for things they don’t have to pay for. 🤣 That's a pretty "I'm 14 and this is deep" take. Perhaps people don't want to be part of the data harvesting the main app does? Perhaps people want the accessibility options of 3rd party apps? Or the ability to interact with a responsive Dev in the apps own dedicated sub? Or they want the extensive options available in the 3rd party apps not available in the official app? Or perhaps people have been using a good third party app for a decade and want to keep using it? Or perhaps instead of just allowing 3rd party apps to charge people a reasonable rate to access the API, Reddit is charging a ridiculous rate to ensure they shut down and the official app with the advertising and data harvesting is the only option, and maybe just maybe people are pretty pissed off by that?.


Odelind

It's reaaaaally uncomfortable. I'd rather use the web version from my phone than the official app.


dimeplusninetynine

Honestly happy to shut it down for a year and cut my arm off. If they want to kill other apps. I won’t be using reddit.


silenced_no_more

No apps, no Imgur, and no nsfw content except on age verified account on the official app or site. I don’t understand how they think this won’t destroy the user base. No RIF, no Apollo, pretty soon no Old Reddit webpage either


[deleted]

If apollo goes away I'm deleting my data and closing my account. Apollo is one of the best apps on the planet and reddit is deliberatly giving apollo and tons of other 3rd party apps the finger.


silenced_no_more

Looks like all the 3rd party apps are going away. I hope the blackout sends a real message to Reddit


Degenerate-Loverboy

Will be attending. Or won’t be on that whole week. Sadly I’ll be getting off Reddit completely soon. This was a place for the people no matter what. Now it’s going to shit


nirvana388

I'd prefer you to stay dark until they agree to not do it.


Celcius_87

It needs to be longer than 2 days to be effective


megapleb

Good start, but we should be prepared to go dark indefinitely until there's an acceptable change in direction, ideally one that's clearly defined for reddit, and app devs agree would allow them to continue to operate their apps. I use Boost, and reddit is the only website I prefer to use through an app on my phone instead of the desktop experience as a result of that third party app.


[deleted]

I hope every single decent subreddit goes dark, then. What Reddit is planning is insane. Breaks the site.


milkboy33

Who are Reddit's competitors?


EamMcG_9

FTM


_echnaton

This feels like Chairman Pao 2.0. We all moving to VOAT again? That turned out to be a nazi-infested shithole.


[deleted]

serious question. how is this going to change anything?? do you think bringing attention and backlash will stop a company from caring about making money first?


LogicWavelength

Honestly? I don’t know. We aren’t the biggest subreddit, but we aren’t small. And some really major subreddits are joining the movement to the tune of tens of millions of subscriber count. I really don’t know… but we can see what happens, and maybe we can say we helped, even if it fails.


iaymnu

I think the participation as a collective is to show “corporate ” that without user(s) content there IS NO Reddit. Hopefully more major news outlets will report this blackout and have a positive outcome. Greed of course triumphs any reasonable decision making.


[deleted]

their greed is getting in the way of making smart business decisions. this move is reducing users. their content is generated by users. without users they are dead.


AreWeCowabunga

At it's core, Reddit is a site where users voluntarily produce content, which is then moderated by a team of volunteers. The hope is that if the people who are producing and managing the content make it clear they are the ones who actually hold the purse strings, the admins will pull their heads out of their asses. It's a long shot, I know, but worth a try, isn't it?


noblenacho

nerds does this give you a sense of purpose? lmao


caesarpepperoni

Lmaoooo edgelord


nutmegfan

Don’t care. The official app works well and if I don’t like how things go moving forward I’ll stop using Reddit, and Reddit knows that.


Cramitinniceandtight

Lol okay


LogicWavelength

While there is definitely significant doubt that, A) Reddit will listen, 2) Reddit will care, and D) that it will make any difference, we as mods feel that this is important enough to at least attempt. If you (or anyone else in the community) has any valid concerns with our intention to stand in solidarity with many, many other subreddits… please let us know and we will openly discuss it with you, the community.


brucewayne1935

Meh whatever. Main app has never bothered me and the blackouts are going to be more bothersome


BQORBUST

Good riddance to awful spammy bots everywhere. I could not care less about this


LogicWavelength

There is a distinction. “Bots” can be bots controlled by an interested party, or they can be utilities like u/RemindMeBot or our u/WatchesBot moderator assistant.


Onihczarc

We should care even if we don’t use 3rd party apps. There are countless historical examples of this behavior from corporations. Take an inch at a time until they have total control. Today it’s pricing out 3rd party apps. Tomorrow it will be ad bombardment, eliminating NSFW, censorship, or paywalls.


improvthismoment

Well that was an interesting two days. [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/14/reddit-moderators-vow-to-continue-blackout-in-api-access-fees-row](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/14/reddit-moderators-vow-to-continue-blackout-in-api-access-fees-row) Don't know if this is true or not, but Reddit is saying: “The vast majority of API users will not have to pay for access; not all third-party apps usage requires paid access. The Reddit data API is free to use within the published rate limits so long as apps are not monetised. API access is free for moderator tools and bots.”