I honestly don’t know if this is allowed here but I thought this is malicious compliance at its finest.

If you don’t want to drive traffic there I’ll repost what the mods posted below:

POLL: Decide on the future of /r/Pics!

Hello, /r/Pics subscribers!

Boy, what a whacky time we’ve all had lately, huh? Reddit decided to kill off third-party applications, a protest got planned (and possibly exploited by bad actors), the site showed up in the news, various communities started opening back up, others decided to stay inaccessible, and then the CEO of Reddit implied that a bunch of moderators would be removed from their positions!

Crazy, right?

Anyway, we – the so-called “landed gentry” – definitely want to comply with the wishes of the “royal court,” and they’ve told us that we need to run the subreddit in the way that its members want. To that end, we figured that the only reasonable thing to do was directly ask how you’d like things to progress from here.

Which of the following should we do?

  1. Return to normal operations

  2. Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy To be clear, if people choose the second option, screen-grabs from videos will be allowed (provided that there aren’t any visible logos, inserted graphics, or other digital elements present). You could – if you wanted to – look through episodes of Last Week Tonight on YouTube, find moments featuring John Oliver at his sexiest, then post images of those moments here.

It’s entirely up to you! Whatever the /r/Pics community decides is best, we’ll respect!

Vote, friends! Vote now!

(You can vote by upvoting either of the comments in the thread below.)

Voting has now closed.

Our final tally is as follows:

Return to normal operations: -2,329 votes

Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy: 37,331 votes

It would seem that the community has spoken!

Henceforth, /r/Pics will only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy.

(Said images must adhere to all of the community’s other rules, including those mandated by Reddit.)

Happy posting!

  • plazman30@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Both are bad choices. When reddit says open /r/pics or else, you just delete /r/pics.

    Reddit has NEVER been profitable. It’s the classic:

    1. Takes a bunch of venture capital funding
    2. Builds a huge user base
    3. Get bought
    4. Parent company tries to figure out a way to make money off of you.
    5. When they can’t, they try to spin you off and IPO you.
    6. You have your “oh shit” moment and realize you actually have to be profitable now.

    This is the crap that caused the dot-com bubble in the late 90s.

    Their current business model is unsustainable.

    They’re doing the API war out of sheer survival.

    The sad part is, we all went along for the ride, using the service and filling it with useful information, never wondering if it was still going to be there a decade or two later.

    Reddit wants to IPO. Having gone through the IPO process twice now with a company, I can tell you, the only thing that matters is money in the bank. The more money you have in the bank, the more you can charge for your IPO. When I worked at CompUSA back in the 90s, we didn’t pay any of our creditors for something like 6 months before the IPO to swell the bank accounts. I remember the week before the IPO, we had almost nothing in the store, because we owed everyone money. 30 days after IPO, trucks came rolling in again with product.

    • heliumlake@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Wow, I totally forgot about CompUSA. I used to love going there as a kid, back when Apple had that underdog appeal. Now I’m a FOSS maxi (just don’t look at my iPhone…).

    • takeda@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They’re doing the API war out of sheer survival.

      That would be true if they made i fees reasonable or at least gave more time. This change caused mobile apps to shut down. The revenue from that is $0.

      • plazman30@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This change sucks. But, from what I read, Reddit have NEVER been profitable. If they were smart, they would modified the API so it included ads. I don’t think Reddit is long for this world. Even if these protests were effective, reddit is eventually going away. They’re too big to make a profit now.

        • takeda@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          When you say “NEVER been profitable” is there a reliable source for that or is it spez?

          Hosting a link agregator is cheap, it is purely just text. Yes they now host images and videos, and I think they shouldn’t do that if the cost is a problem, also they could always discontinue it.

          Going back to the API. If they really need cash they could work with developers. They could reduce the fees and give 3 months heads up like they have been asked.

          The whole spectacle didn’t sound “we need money to survive”, it sounded like “we could make more money from users by forcing them to switch to our crappy app, by shutting down 3rd party apps”

            • takeda@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              What I’m saying is that their core service doesn’t cost much to run. They could have small team to run everything and would make a lot of money, but their goal is to make it a billion dollar business, when it is not.

              BTW: I also find the article funny, on one bad it says they are seeking $15 billion valuation, then it says it doesn’t generate money. So that creates a question, how come a company that doesn’t generate a profit costs $15 billion?

    • JoeKrogan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Now videos should do the same but with rick astly…“you know the rules and so do I”

      • dystop@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I personally think the best “maliciouscompliance” act mods can do in the long term is to switch up all the subs.

        So technology will be used for gardening, gardening will be used for android, android will be used for coffee, coffee used for pcgaming, etc. It’ll make everything really confusing for new users and help slow their growth.

        • setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          No this all seems too clever by half and is just putting more eyes on Reddit. People are drawn to drama. If mods were serious, they’d delete or pull all of their custom plug ins and delete their accounts. Let Reddit have the subs. Unfortunately a huge number of mods won’t actually endanger their positions, which means Reddit corporate has the ultimate leverage in the end. Just go. I respect the mods who have left. If more of them did it would leave a true void.

          Image being Reddit corporate and waking up tomorrow and 5000 subreddits were open but all the mods and their mods tools were gone. No big dramatic pranks or drama from the mods, just a classy exit.

          • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            i agree. this is kind of a temper tantrum coming from the mods that will result in more eyes on reddit… the only way to win, is to not play.

  • cfx_4188@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    You have confirmed my words. Moderators consider themselves “nobility” who have the right to make decisions for the rest of the cattle. That was the point of the "protest.

    • seeCseas@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      didn’t spez want democracy? He said he was going to allow people to vote out mods lol. You want democracy, you get it!