this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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This is why scheduling it ahead of time to last for 48 hours was a monumentally stupid idea.
If workers form a union and they go on a strike, and they told the boss they're striking for 2 days, The boss can just wait it out and get back to whatever they were doing before after the strike.
This is essentially a content creators strike from Reddit, telling the admins that everything will be back to normal in 2 days gives them the opportunity to wait it out without having to cave to any of the demands.
I really enjoyed this community so far and watching it grow immensely over the past 24 hours or so, and it kind of feels depressing that most of the people are just going to leave and go back to Reddit tomorrow.
They’ll be back here again in 2-ish weeks when Apollo and RIF are done.
And when mlem and other apps start rolling out for Lemmy, we’ll start seeing shifts. Apps that have proper accessibility, a clean UI, lack advertising and don’t eat data. And they give you the same Reddit experience without Reddit’s predatory business strategy.
When the blackouts stop, a lot of users will be able to search for Reddit alternatives and will find Lemmy… through Reddit.
I mod a sub with 65K users or so, I plan to go dark indefinitely. Also considering Read-Only with a sticky redirecting here. I know I’m not the only mod.
The Digg > Reddit migration wasn’t overnight. It was fast, though.
I'm using "jerboa for Lemmy". Is that the best option? Feels very beta.
I was using Jerboa before, but honestly I think just using the browser page for Lemmy is better. Load up your preferred instance in your phone's web browser and then in your browser options hit "add as app" or "add to home screen"
Huh never saw that "install app" on Chrome before, just "add to home screen". Is this just like a shell that hides the address bar?
Basically yes. Some websites are more designed for it than others and behave as what's called a "progressive web app". If you ever hear PWA, basically what that means is that it's a browser app pretending to be a desktop app.
Ah I'm familiar with PWA, really they should be the future. Google has a love hate relationship with Android, so they push PWA.
Please keep in mind that Reddit was around for almost 10 years before an App was created.
I'm sure the developers of Jerboa are working hard for a full & stable release, especially before Reddit's 3rd Party Kill Date of 6/30/23
The best option for Android will likely be Tildes App by the 'Reddit is Fun' developer. Source. While Tildes is not Lemmy, it does Federate with it and you'll be able to access Lemmy.ml communities.
Swipe to Vote app applied for TestFlight approval today for a beta test. I'm not sure if this will be iOS only or have an Android counterpart.
I'm using the beta for mlem on iOS - but there is no Android version.
That's because it's actually still alpha ;)
Definitely plenty of kinks to work out. Give it time, it's still very new.
This is it for Android. And it's basically all betas right now, this is all very new and development takes time.
Yea, I keep thinking this. Once there’s an app on Android and iOS, one that can explain the fediverse simply and is well designed, many of the Apollo, RIF, and Sync users will jump over.
The average user has poor tech literacy. I mean, the pandemic began over 3 years ago and still people have trouble managing Zoom. "How do I share a screen? Where is the calendar invite? Oh woops, I didn't realize I was unmuted!". These are otherwise smart people. That's why the best apps are super simple and idiot-proof.
I strongly believe that a good Lemmy does not need to explain the federation.
It should not use the word 'instance', 'server' or any of that jargon outside of advanced settings. All that'll do is scare away new users.
All the app needs to do is say, "Hey, you want to connect with communities sharing memes, news and fun stories? Well - download this app!". Let the app point them to a list of communities they might like and keep it at that.
The user doesn't need to know they're commenting on Beehaw or lemmy.world. All they need to know is they're chatting about a cute kitten or whatever.
While I don't think this was anyone's plan, I think setting it for two days was brilliant by accident. It was short enough (and long enough) that spez dismissed it and pissed people off even more.
It would have been much harder to rally subs to turn off permanently immediately. By doing this, you ease everyone into the idea that this is an indefinite blackout.
The next step will be Reddit admins forcibly taking control of subs that stay blacked out too long for their liking, which will drive even more momentum to stand up to them.
I think this was actually just about the only way for them to completely fuck Reddit over. At this point, spez will need to be fired and the changes rolled back or Reddit has zero chance of a meaningful recovery.
Not to mention this will likely damage their attempt at an IPO later this year. Advertisers and potential stock owners won't want to deal with a company who can't "control" its users. It's too volatile. Stockholders want their revenue to always increase, but even potential for something like this after Reddit potentially goes public would cause Reddit's stock to go down.
I think another major miscalculation is there was no alternatives agreed on by consensus. For example, if they had said to everyone "go to Lemmy", "go to discord" etc. Now there's no alternative to a lot of subreddits, people will just wait it out and go back to the subreddits when they go back, or if they're indefinitely suspended they'll just make new subreddits.
I second this, and it has been bugging me since people started talking about the blackout. I think the big issue is that the people organizing the 48hr blackout are the mods. These are the people that have invested the most into reddit, and they dont want to give up that investment into their subreddits. They don't want to leave reddit, and giving people an agreed upon alternative would be permanently fracturing their little fiefdom. They want to make a statement, and then for things to go back to the way they were, hoping that their tiny act of defiance makes a difference. The migration has to be led by users, but the issue of fractured lemmy communities is going to be hard to navigate unless lemmy introduces a way for communities to link together.
It's only a bad idea if you think you could win concessions with an indefinite strike.
Reddit might get a bunch of subs back tomorrow, but the admin were always going to reopen the good names via reddit request anyway.
And the mods and users aren't likely to go back to happily posting and working for free on a platform that's turned. Communities will be planning organized migrations, and a lot of people here who came because of the strike will discover they like it better here actually.
The 2 day window might at least show that there's a definite interest to join a protest from a wide array of the community. I see it as a warning, meaning if the changes aren't being reversed, there's going to be a lot more communities going dark forever then there is now.
Yeah, that was a really dumb idea. The subreddits closing indefinitely like r/videos are probably not gonna be enough to make Reddit cave. I wonder if they can even cave though. Maybe believing spez is a dumb idea but if Reddit really isn’t profitable they might need the money from ads and selling data since they are going public
Maybe I am being pessimistic, but asking volunteer reddit mods to drop tools for more than 48h during such an interesting time for the platform is feeling about as realistic as asking your alcoholic uncle to stay sober at a wedding reception with an open bar. Can they really stay away?