There's a whole lot of inertia opposing people either replacing or discontinuing using reddit. Alternate subreddits gaining prominence is much more likely. Your average redditor has no clue what an API is or why some users and mods care about them. Generally, people need to have significant positive or negative incentives to change a years-long daily habit, and using r/radXYZ instead of r/XYZ will be a negligible change for most. I think reddit has a greater likelihood of strangling themselves by hobbling the overall UX with monetization efforts but their user base is entrenched enough that they could take it pretty far with the "boiling a frog" approach. Who knows, maybe what they've done so far combined with the blackouts will be enough to push people away, but I doubt it.
I feel for them. Figuring out how to make a giant free service profitable isn't easy. It's too bad the tactics they've used seem to be so off-putting.
> I feel for them. Figuring out how to make a giant free service profitable isn't easy. It's too bad the tactics they've used seem to be so off-putting.
I don't. Reddit could be profitable of they wanted to. They make a ton of money through Reddit Gold and ads. The reason they are not is because they have hired way too many devs and other staff, presumably because they plan to do an IPO so founders.and execs can become rich and investors make a profit.
I feel for them. Figuring out how to make a giant free service profitable isn't easy. It's too bad the tactics they've used seem to be so off-putting.