Protests on the social platform have entered a new phase, with users shirking the platform’s NSFW content rules en masse. The development has some media buyers on high alert, experts say.
Protests on the social platform have entered a new phase, with users shirking the platform’s NSFW content rules en masse. The development has some media buyers on high alert, experts say.
“My number one concern right now as an advertiser would be that Reddit seems to be losing rapport with and control over their users. Reddit needs to talk to their community members now and work to regain their trust and support or risk losing brand advertisers long term.”
Lmao
I can see why she focused on the risk to advertisers, but it sucks she glossed over the shittier parts from Reddit, e.g. that the change isn't just inconvenient, it makes reddit nigh unusable for mods and the visually impaired with nothing that even sounds like a credible plan in the works.
That, and the more inventive responses. Porn is typical. Demanding every post in r/DebateReligion be held in Latin was funny. Giving every one of r/Political Humor's 1.5M+ users mod powers was beyond hilarious and genuinely original. No mention, though, I guess. Just someone posted a boob.
The story seems to be from a marketing-focused website, so it makes sense that the author is addressing advertisers, and how the events with Reddit will affect them.
Also, surely this story proves that the protests absolutely have had an effect. It's causing advertisers to think twice about spending money with Reddit. And as stated in this TechCrunch article, fewer advertisers are visiting the ad-buying part of Reddit's site.
So, the people who complained that these protests are pointless, that they won't change anything, have been proven wrong. The protests are effective. So if people want change in this situation then they should continue with MORE protests. My protest is that I'm not using Reddit.
Also, they make it sound like the problem is the 3rd party app users will have to pay. That's not the issue. Probably most of those users would be happy to pay some monthly fee to keep their app running. It's how much they are charging for the API that is the problem, and the lack of time to actually implement it.
That and the abhorrent behavior of the reddit team, the last weeks.
The craziest part of that to me is that they could have just charged the users directly without putting the onus for payment on the app developers.
You want your account to be able to use the data API? You have to subscribe to Reddit+. One you do that account can use any Oauth App it wants to access the site.
The fact that they put something as complicated as payment flow on third party developers is just obscene.
I think they have some sort of long-term goal that we're not considering, and that's why they're so desperate to kill competition and channel users into an ecosystem controlled by reddit.
In 3rd party apps they can't control things like ads and "experience".
Perhaps reddit+ IS coming and the main draw they're setting up will be "ad free browsing" and "premium UI elements".
Still a brainless way of doing things, but it's reddit we're talking about...
The author appears to have a poor understanding of the full scope of what the protests are about, let alone the variety of creative actions being taken. This seems to be a marketing media publication, so that's their focus. I guess what's most important is that advertisers and others in the industry are noticing that Reddit has lost control of it's user-base and has become a risky investment. That's a pretty good result for the protests. The finer details don't matter so much.
Advertisers actually thought that Reddit had rapport with and control over their users? Only someone who spends company money on advertising could be that misguided.
