I remember when Reddit announced it would begin charging commercial developers for access to its API, and in response, thousands of subreddits went dark in protest. I think it lasted for a couple of weeks. The CEO threatened the Reddit mods that he would replace them if they didn’t reopen the subs, so nearly every mod reopened and everything went back to normal. The CEO won easily without offering anything, and he was right when he said that ‘this too shall pass.’ Those third-party apps offered accessibility features for disabled people that Reddit still hasn’t implemented today. Now Reddit is getting even worse. How come there wasn’t a protest like that when they made even worse decisions?
I never gave in, FWIW. The two tiny subs I created, I locked them. When every other sub started reopening or being forced open by admins, I just left Reddit altogether and never went back.
One of the best things I’ve done for my mental health
It’s not the first community I’ve abandoned in protest, GameFAQs back in 200? And Imgur in 201? I had long term accounts on both of those and just permanently walked away from them when the community went to shit. Before then, there were a bunch of forums I used to frequent that also went to shit with infighting and draconian moderation.
It’s the circle of life in the internet. It happens in every community.
Abe Simpson voice “And it’ll happen to you!”
You did the God’s work there, that’s how these companies and community should be treated.
Leave them and you’ll be better as side bonus