<story><title>Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely</title><url>https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/149zmar/reddits_blackout_protest_is_set_to_continue/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cmiles74</author><text>IMHO, Reddit&amp;#x27;s charging such a high price for API access that it&amp;#x27;s as good as unattainable is more of a last straw then anything else. Reddit has been clear that they view the data as their sole property, when you think it through, why be a moderator for a for-profit company if you aren&amp;#x27;t being paid?&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know why it took this long for moderators to quit.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>LordKeren</author><text>I’ll add my personal experience as a long-term lead mod of a subreddit for a specific video game. Broadly, I view subreddits are two camps:&lt;p&gt;1. Popcorn subreddits — r&amp;#x2F;pics, r&amp;#x2F;funny , r&amp;#x2F;twitterScreenshots&lt;p&gt;2. hobby &amp;amp; employment related&lt;p&gt;During my time modding, I viewed the subreddit I ran as being very thoroughly in the second group. All the users shared an interest in a particular game. Myself and all the other mods were people that enjoyed the game first and foremost. We did not accept any moderator applications from users that were the prototypical Reddit mods and no one ever went on to join other mod teams.&lt;p&gt;And I will say, it was honestly extremely fun. I got to build moderator tooling through the API that was interesting and had immediate real world use. Reddit moderation was the catalyst for becoming a developer myself and directly lead to my current career.&lt;p&gt;I met a diverse group of people from across the globe and formed many lasting friendships with people I would have never met otherwise. Beyond that, it also gave me opportunities to learn more about video game production, go on studio tours, meet game developers, and have experiences that few others ever will.&lt;p&gt;The mods on the team were not naive. We understood we were providing an extremely valuable service to both Reddit and the game developer for free— but for us, it was a mostly straight forward hobby that presented interesting logistical challenges.  For years now, the status quo has been that Reddit may be making some obnoxious UX choices, but none of them had any actual affect on the moderator experience. Most mods were insulated from the changes because we used third party apps and old.Reddit.&lt;p&gt;I think it is deeply unfortunate that Reddit moderation does attract some of the worst internet users and many people have very negative experiences and opinions when it comes to mods —but for some corners of the site, Reddit moderation was a genuinely enjoyable hobby shared with like minded friends.</text></comment>
<story><title>Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely</title><url>https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/149zmar/reddits_blackout_protest_is_set_to_continue/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cmiles74</author><text>IMHO, Reddit&amp;#x27;s charging such a high price for API access that it&amp;#x27;s as good as unattainable is more of a last straw then anything else. Reddit has been clear that they view the data as their sole property, when you think it through, why be a moderator for a for-profit company if you aren&amp;#x27;t being paid?&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know why it took this long for moderators to quit.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>idiotsecant</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think many moderators will actually quit as long as the users are there, especially since reddit gave back some moderator API call access. Moderating is already a terrible, thankless job. The people who do it enjoy moderating because (I assume) they&amp;#x27;re &amp;#x27;in charge&amp;#x27; of something big and important. I don&amp;#x27;t think reddit closing off third party access will be enough to convince most of these people to stop giving labor for free.</text></comment>