Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Jun-2023 02:10:55 JST Paul Cantrell

   Passing semi-obvious thought: it’s not really Reddit leadership the Reddit community needs to scare; it’s investors.

   It seems to me that has tactical implications.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Jun-2023 02:18:20 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     In particular, browbeating the CEO isn’t going to accomplish that much. He doesn’t have to care if people on the Internet are mad at him.

     He •does• have to care if his precious IPO goes down the toilet.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Jun-2023 02:25:47 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     It would be marvelous if one result of the Twitter and Reddit fiascos were online communities acquiring both willingness and organizing capacity to burn online spaces to the ground when they go bad.

     Today, if tech execs worry about users, it's losing market share, competitive edge, lock-in. But I don’t think they worry about their users organizing to actively destroy their product in response to their decisions. Imagine if they did.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Jun-2023 02:34:56 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     We online communities have the power to tell tech companies, “You exist at our pleasure.”

     It’s time we figured out how to use it.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Jun-2023 22:11:56 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • LAUREN

     @noondlyt
     Pledge fealty to human decency, and you’ll find me standing beside you.

   • Embed this notice
     LAUREN (noondlyt@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Jun-2023 22:11:58 JST LAUREN

     in reply to

     @inthehands
     This is so good I might have to pledge fealty to you.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Jun-2023 05:44:21 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Addendum to the above:

     Reddit executives are reading this action as grumpy people chucking little pebbles at their windows.

     And if the blackout ends after 2 days with no concessions from Reddit and no further action from the community…that’s all it is.

     Redditors need to ask themselves: How far are they willing to go? Because none of this means a damn thing to Reddit until they believe it impacts their IPO valuation.

     https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-memo-api-pricing-changes-steve-huffman

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Jun-2023 05:52:02 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Coach Pāṇini ®

     @paninid
     Yeah, I’ve heard him say this (including in person). I don’t really agree with his total ban on the actual term — it’s the best one we have to distinguish the people who use the software from its owners and stakeholders — but I agree with the underlying sentiment.

   • Embed this notice
     Coach Pāṇini ® (paninid@mastodon.world)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Jun-2023 05:52:03 JST Coach Pāṇini ®

     in reply to

     @inthehands “There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software.”

     - Edward Tufte

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Jun-2023 06:09:03 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Just re-re-repeating this, lest it get buried:

     The question for Reddit communities is, ⚡️“What power do we have to damage the Reddit IPO?”⚡️

     That’s it. That’s the game right there. The IPO valuation.

     Not “how do we shame them.” Not even “how do we take a bite of their revenue.” Threaten the IPO. That’s the whole impetus behind the API pricing fiasco. Reddit will listen only when they believe they’re in danger of ending up a damaged property.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Jun-2023 06:59:41 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Dave Alvarado

     I’m fairly sure @davealvarado is being sarcastic, but what he’s getting at is in fact correct:

     •Mutually assured destruction• is the strategic structure here. That’s the threat the Reddit community needs to be prepared to make against the Reddit corporation.

     Are they? That’s the question.

     Because in a mutually assured destruction scenario, •reaching• the point of destruction is failure — but the •credible threat• to follow through on it is a requirement of success.

     https://hachyderm.io/@davealvarado/110539121202888158

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Jun-2023 07:37:39 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • shrimp eating mammal 🦐

     @walruslifestyle
     Yeah, targeting the metric or targeting confidence (brand trust etc) or both is the kind of thing I’m talking about.

     To be clear: it’s not strictly necessary to make the key metrics go down; it’s necessary to make leadership •believe• that users can and will choose to make them go down. In practice, that probably does mean actually tanking it — but it’s the belief that matters.

   • Embed this notice
     shrimp eating mammal 🦐 (walruslifestyle@octodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Jun-2023 07:37:40 JST shrimp eating mammal 🦐

     in reply to

     @inthehands I don't know what reddit's CEO is actually on the hook for, so take this with a grain of salt. a lot of tech CEOs are on the line for DAU/MAU or some newfangled variation of that metric going up. Up=valuable company. Flat or down, not so much.

     So the tactic here is to figure out what that metrics are, and organize to make as many of them go in the bad direction as fast as possible for as long as possible. and importantly, to maintain this longer than the investors have patience to wait it out, which could end up being a significant amount of time (many months? a year or more? they're waiting for an exit, which traditionally takes years)

   • Embed this notice
     Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm: (tob@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Jun-2023 08:20:29 JST Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:

     in reply to

     • Dave Alvarado

     @inthehands @davealvarado That is the lever that online communities have, but it's unlikely to work here.

     Reddit is shifting models from chasing users (dubious) to extracting value from users. If they fail, the IPO dies. So MAD here is not an option.

     Reddit's already looking at their own destruction. Their only way out is to bowl through their users' objections.

   • Embed this notice
     Dave Alvarado (davealvarado@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Jun-2023 23:58:19 JST Dave Alvarado

     in reply to

     @inthehands indeed. And importantly, the difference between "the Reddit community wants..." and "the Reddit moderator community wants..." gets highlighted when you start talking MAD.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 15-Jun-2023 10:12:28 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • suldrew 🚲🏳️‍🌈
     • Dave Alvarado

     @suldrew @davealvarado
     Now there’s an image!

   • Embed this notice
     suldrew 🚲🏳️‍🌈 (suldrew@xoxo.zone)'s status on Thursday, 15-Jun-2023 10:12:29 JST suldrew 🚲🏳️‍🌈

     in reply to

     • Dave Alvarado

     @inthehands @davealvarado I think that is right. You win a game of chicken by ripping off your own steering wheel.

   • Embed this notice
     kierkegaank (kierkegaank@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 16-Jun-2023 02:43:56 JST kierkegaank

     in reply to

     @inthehands A web forum without users that is stylistically stuck in 1990s must be worth billions