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?
Everyone is saying people folded, but what I recall happening was Reddit gave an ultimatum. “Open your subreddit back up or we will replace the mods”. And that’s exactly what they did. Then after killing third party apps they enshittified everything in the web/mobile web version too to try and force people to the app. They’ve even removed r/all recently.
To me, it was a stark period in the decline of reddit quality. What little remained of the community at large died then. Reddit has been a ghost of its former self since.
Yeah it’s full of bots now, and without r/all you have to seek out specific subreddits or use their curated feed. Both of which kind of just sucks.