But the way the direction is going, and some experiences in some subs have made me take a decision, and my 12+ year account is no more.

It won't matter, and probably reddit will survive, be it as strong as it is now or in a diminished state. But I'm tired of this kind of directives in these kinds of companies.

I hope that leaving that, and not having Instagram or Facebook on the phone, might give me a little push on being more productive. Wish me luck.

Reddit becomes harder and harder to actually post on. Subs are now ruled by mods and strict automods with ridiculous rules and posting requirements. You post something and it gets automatically removed and then you have to post a dozen more times changing this word or that word to try and figure out how to actually get something through.

In reality there are a few DOZEN mods that basically control all of reddit. Yes, dozens. It's the same mods over and over again.

The real problem is Reddit mostly sucks at design and UX. https://new.Reddit.com shows it’s not getting better besides search.

The users don’t really give a shit about API pricing or understand/care about Reddits steep financial demands. IRL Reddit probably have bankers down their throats for the IPO and Sam Altman/PG/Steve’s VC friends are pushing the AI data goldmine angle. Only the execs know what is really happening behind the scenes but there’s some very clear motivations here they aren’t doing a good job of communicating (possibly out of fear of the super niche r/antiwork type audiences who in reality will whine regardless).

Reddit could do plenty to fix the mobile (and web) issues and buy good will by openly confronting them. Plenty of product and transparency failures here well beyond spez’s Apollo dev conflict taking up the bulk of discourse that mostly only powerusers care about.

Otherwise Reddit is known for having powerusers, mods, and a general anti-authority “we’re making a difference by shitposting on the internet” culture. Especially after their net neutrality protests. It’s only natural for such a thing to turn into a big deal when the poweruser minority gets upset and for the rest there’s a prime opportunity for outrage against [faceless big corporation]. Reddit’s favourite target.

Reddit could much, much more easily placate the regular non-hardcore users by simply being transparent about their very real business demands to make money (esp with LLM) and by very publicly doubling down on making a better mobile app - since clearly they view 3rd party apps as not feasible for their current business plans. So why not fix why people love the 3rd party ones?

But as always big business PR is awful, transparency is downplayed and intentions are obscure as if users are idiots. Etc. Typical big co mediocrity.

I'm not crossing the picket line, but I think that's a likely outcome, too. That's why I'm preparing to archive what little content I'm personally interested in and am leaving the platform permanently.

Your strawman is just that.

You can't comprehend that not everyone is as casual like you and will happily take whatever they get like a good boy because, "you don't really care".

Some people do contribute and care and are a significant part, on aggregate, of what makes reddit special.

Your expectations about "reddit will win because it holds all the cards" are pretty obvious to make. You're not some Nostradamus, when there's no clear reddit alternative like last time around but it's still too early to tell if the users who are intended to be driven to the main app will actually go there instead of empowering other places and causing a slow but eventual migration.

Internet is, many times, about power users and "what's cool" driving others there. Reddit is not Google or fb in that they can simply buy the competition when it appears.

But hey, there's always someone with an "the authorities are always right and will win" mindset.