A search lead me to this page, which didn’t answer my question at all.
The Reddit blackout was only supposed to last two days, but some subreddits had vowed to stay offline until Reddit made changes to their API pricing, which gave developers no time to make changes and was far too expensive for any third party apps to actually use. Reddit also pissed off vision impaired users by refusing to announce requirements for accessibility apps that could bypass this pricing, or how that would be managed. This is important because, infuriatingly, Reddit’s website and apps are not accessible.
The real slap in the face came from, once again, Reddit CEO’s Steve Huffman. Huffman has frequently caught the ire of Reddit users, from editing users’ posts to say things contrary to their original statement without showing the post had been edited, to allowing virulent hate on the platform. Then he announced API pricing that made Twitter’s app-killing practices seem tame. Now he’s stating Reddit will wait for the current drama to blow over.
Reddit users were not amused.
Now, thousands more subreddits have joined the few others in an “indefinite blackout,” keeping their subreddits locked and “private” so no one can access them. Over 8,000 subreddits blacked out for two days. Now, over 5,000 are promising to continue the blackout indefinitely. Among those are Reddit’s most popular subreddits, like r/funny, r/aww, r/music, and r/videos. These subreddits have tens of millions of subscribers, representing at least 40 million subscribed users.
It’s not just the users Reddit should be worried about. Advertisers are pulling back from ads on Reddit as the site sees less traffic. However, other potential business partners are also seeing problems. Google search results have become considerably less useful. That’s because when asking for highly specific advice before, you’d often get a series of Reddit links. Now, all of those are dark. Google won’t be happy.
In This Article:
Information Blackout
Yesterday, I found out that there would be no Canon EOS M7. No EOS M50 III either. Canon is discontinuing their EOS M lineup, a series of compact mirrorless cameras with interchangeable lenses. The lenses will never work on a new camera now. Disappointing for me, who shoots the photos for this blog with a Canon EOS M3. Very disappointing. Canon just abandoning one of their lens mounts? Now, like Sony, all of Canon’s mirrorless cameras will use the same mount. All my lenses will die with my M3, which is literally falling apart.
So, I said, forget Canon, let’s look at Sony cameras! But, if you’re new to Sony cameras, or camera naming in general, I have some bad news: they’re named ridiculously. Sony Alpha a7R IV, Sony Alpha 7c II, Sony Alpha 6400aRIII… you get the point. I can’t even complain about Sony, trying to find the right Canon camera by model name is equally difficult. So, I went to my trusty search engine, Ecosia, to find some comparisons, reviews, and information on these cameras.
Nearly all the links answering my questions went to blacked out Reddit pages. r/photography is indefinitely down, r/askphotography too.
I tried Google too, and the same issue came forth. Every truly useful result was a link to a blacked-out Reddit community.
Reddit didn’t just black out, they took a huge portion of knowledge off the web.
Now I’ll never find the right camera! Look at those things! It’s like a clone army!
Not Just Cameras…
Obviously I’m not the only one having problems now. The Washington Post pointed out that one of the best go-to sources for crowdsourced tech problem-solving, r/techsupport, is down. I’m going to tell you a little secret about the “techy” people in your life. We have many answers, but not all of them. We’re often without an answer, whether it’s a programming problem or a technical question. We’re really good at search engines, and can find a result quickly. One trick? In most search engines, you can just append “reddit” to your search to get detailed results from Reddit. That’s gone now.
Listen, I’m not saying recent AWS outages were because IT people had an issue and couldn’t go to Reddit to fix it, but I’m not saying that’s unlikely either.
With the “-reddit” part at the end, I remove websites that mention Reddit, and therefore get more useful results.
With every subreddit that has gone down, not only are regular Reddit users hurting, but search engines, advertisers, and regular web users are as well. Trying to get an answer from a search engine just got twice as hard. Now, users are specifically excluding Reddit results from their searches, because most are useless.
Advertisers Pulling Out
Even your average web user may know to exclude Reddit sites from their search results. On top of that, Reddit users are joining the blackout with a boycott. Eventually, search engines like Google will realize they have to de-prioritize Reddit results, because they don’t contain the information they have indexed. The first search engine to drop Reddit results will instantly become a more useful search engine than the competition. It’s a great time for Bing to play catch-up!
It’s also a great time for advertisers to reduce their ad buys on Reddit.
Reddit’s API costs are too high for any third party developers to sign up for. That’s likely hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly revenue Reddit has thrown away. So, they’re relying on advertisers now. However, with subreddits going dark, advertisers are leaving too. Why pay for ads on a website that isn’t showing relevant ads to actual users anymore?
Context Matters
The issue isn’t just a lack of users though. After all, interest in the blackout has driven up page loads of Reddit, but activity numbers are likely down due to popular portions of the site being inaccessible. Now advertisers have a lack of detail about those users. For example, someone looking on a photography subreddit would be more interested in clicking ads for camera gear. The iPhone subreddit’s users are more likely to engage in accessories and cases for iPhones. But those pages just forward users to the home page, driving traffic to general areas and, most likely, reducing engagement. Advertisers aren’t just getting fewer impressions, they’re getting less detail about what those users want to see.
“By directing ads that would have gone to the blacked-out [moderated] pages to the homepage is kind of defeating the point. … The ads would then just be shown to the masses and outside of any of the contextually relevant locations that advertisers are trying to achieve with Reddit.”
– Liam Johnson, senior account director at Brainlabs, a digital marketing agency, speaking to Adweek.
Brand Image
Other companies have stopped advertising because they simply don’t want to cross the picket line. According to Adweek, two Wpromote clients have pulled campaigns until next week, as they don’t want to appear “tone-deaf” on the platform. Adweek reports that an anonymous media buyer stated, “[Advertisers] didn’t want to become the subject of users’ opinions about Reddit’s decisions.” Redditors are notoriously contentious. Crossing their picket line could damage some brands that rely on the tech-obsessed and chronically online customers that Reddit often represents.
Blackout Continues
The blackout is still ongoing, and will be until Reddit is willing to talk to developers and make some compromises with their API. Obviously it would benefit everyone involved if Reddit and third party developers could strike a deal. It would be another large source of revenue for the unprofitable company, and would bring more users to the platform for advertising. The question is, can Reddit CEO Steve Huffman admit he was wrong? Can his ego take a hit? This is from the man who edited other people’s comments in the Reddit database because he didn’t like what they had to say. Asking for maturity in this situation may be a bigger ask than we thought, but there’s always hope.
Sources:
- Catherine Perloff, Adweek
- Jon Porter, The Verge
- Chris Velanzco, The Washington Post