If I’m being honest 1st of July will most likely be the last big splash and the last big grow for the alternative platforms. Afterwards I don’t think the growth of Lemmy or similar platforms will be as big. Most of the mods will be silenced, subs opened and in 1-2 weeks it will be forgotten.
Reddit is way bigger than Digg was back then, has an impressive number of users so it’s pretty hard to bring it to its knees. I hope I am wrong and that I am just pessimistic.
However I think the bad part for Reddit is that knowledgeable people and people you can hold a discussion with or to ask for help in different areas, are leaving/have left Reddit so the quality of posts will dilute.
It will definitely be a slow death. The sound of a few engaged users uniting in protest isn’t what will scare Reddit. The sound that will scare them is the sound of many casual users going “Meh” when minimally-moderated subs plagued with spammers and repost bots finally bore the doom-scrolling zombies looking for a momentary dopamine rush from Tik-Tok videos and easily digestible memes.
Reddit has no fucking backup plan if the mods decide to bail. What happens? Communities go unmoderated, or randos take over which is even WORSE since randos bring about the possibility of the sub being shat up on purpose.
Keep in mind that Digg is around to this day. These actions won’t sink Reddit overnight. And Reddit isn’t done cleaning up for the IPO. As they do more and more of these prep actions, more users will bleed out. Hopefully the Fediverse gets more and more traffic to be a place other users look towards.
If I’m being honest 1st of July will most likely be the last big splash and the last big grow for the alternative platforms. Afterwards I don’t think the growth of Lemmy or similar platforms will be as big. Most of the mods will be silenced, subs opened and in 1-2 weeks it will be forgotten.
Reddit is way bigger than Digg was back then, has an impressive number of users so it’s pretty hard to bring it to its knees. I hope I am wrong and that I am just pessimistic.
However I think the bad part for Reddit is that knowledgeable people and people you can hold a discussion with or to ask for help in different areas, are leaving/have left Reddit so the quality of posts will dilute.
It will definitely be a slow death. The sound of a few engaged users uniting in protest isn’t what will scare Reddit. The sound that will scare them is the sound of many casual users going “Meh” when minimally-moderated subs plagued with spammers and repost bots finally bore the doom-scrolling zombies looking for a momentary dopamine rush from Tik-Tok videos and easily digestible memes.
If the more engaged posters have moved over, do we really need the lurkers and mediocre posters to prop up the new discussion locations?
It was nice having everything in one place, but if everyone came over then it would just be the same thing on a new platform.
Subs opened… with who moderating?
Reddit has no fucking backup plan if the mods decide to bail. What happens? Communities go unmoderated, or randos take over which is even WORSE since randos bring about the possibility of the sub being shat up on purpose.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I haven’t been back to reddit since the blackouts started. No desire to.
Keep in mind that Digg is around to this day. These actions won’t sink Reddit overnight. And Reddit isn’t done cleaning up for the IPO. As they do more and more of these prep actions, more users will bleed out. Hopefully the Fediverse gets more and more traffic to be a place other users look towards.