I’m sharing this old article because it’s useful to contrast the situation back then (protests against hate speech) and now (protests due to the APIcalypse).
Here are a few highlights:
- Back then, the admins were already eager to shift their discourse back and forth, depending on the convenience. Reddit was always about free speech, then it never was.
- Former CEO Yishan Wong’s “[shutting down subreddits] won’t become a regular occurrence”
- If you try to follow the link sourcing the quote above, you’ll notice that most Reddit blog official communications towards users are gone. Instead you’ll find a blog clearly geared towards investors, vulture capital, and corporate.
Any other old piece of news that you guys feel like sharing, that can be contextualised to show Reddit going downhill?
How about we call that leech capital instead? They’re trying to profit at the cost of a good user experience.
“Leech capital” sounds good. They’d gladly suck the blood out of society for their own profit.
I usually call them “vulture capital” for the wordplay (vulture vs. venture). And because they’re a lot like vultures: they fly on circles around anything moribund, in groups, almost as if asking each other “is it dead yet? can we rip off its flesh?”
I like vultures so I don’t like the association with one of my favorite animals. Leeches are 100% known for being parasites though.