It’s honestly really sad what’s been happening recently. Reddit with the API pricing on 3rd party apps, Discord with the new username change, Twitter with the rate limits, and Twitch with their new advertising rules (although that has been reverted because of backlash). Why does it seem like every company is collectively on a common mission of destroying themselves in the past few months?
I know the common answer is something around the lines of “because companies only care about making money”, but I still don’t get why it seems like all these social media companies have suddenly agreed to screw themselves during pretty much the period of March-June. One that sticks out to me especially is Reddit CEO, Huffman’s comment (u/spez), “We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive”. Like reading this literally pisses me off on so many levels. I wouldn’t even have to understand the context behind his comment to say, “I am DONE with you, and I am leaving your site”.
Why is it like this? Does everyone feel the same way? I’m not sure if it’s just me but everything seems to be going downhill these days. I really do hope there is a solution out of this mess.
I agree that investors requiring demonstrable returns has played a role in this cycle. Steve Huffman is desperate to show profits ahead of Reddit’s IPO, and Musk is desperate to recoup his $44B investment in the blue bird.
However, I believe that there’s also another consideration. Many of today’s platforms started out with a somewhat idealistic intent. Jack Dorsey wanted Twitter to be an open protocol, though never quite achieved his vision. Aaron Swartz contributed to the open design of early-days Reddit. Facebook was meant as a non-profit university community builder. Google had (and abandoned) a “do no evil” motto. Etc.
The original user-first approach of these platforms created organic growth and encouraged ambassadorship by motivated users who became frequent contributors, unpaid moderators, etc.
Over time, however, people moved on (Dorsey, or very sadly Swartz) or got greedy from success (Huffman, Zuckerberg). The focus shifted from user-first to advertiser-first. Platforms like Reddit still used a loss-leader approach of losing investor money on frills such as API because it helped sustain growth for a while longer.
But once critical mass was reached, there was no longer a need to coddle the most enthusiastic and long-time users. They had exhausted their usefulness. The platforms could finally embrace the advertiser-first model in which the user, not the content, becomes the product.
So here we are with the worst of both worlds. Reddit could have offered a reasonable paid API plan that would have allowed the thriving third-party ecosystem to retain the power users and contributors. Instead, it went all-in with a walled-garden approach buoyed only by advertising money, even if it means that the content quality dwindles. Twitter also went “private” in the sense that an account is now required to even view the content, and aggressively promotes its paid plan to users –who are still subject to interstitial ads and promoted content– even for basic hygiene features such as 2FA.
As for why Reddit, Twitter, and Discord shit the bed at almost the same time, part of it has to do with VC pressure (as mentioned by the parent), and part of it is they are the same generation (more or less) of social networks and are reaching an equivalent stage where buyout (Twitter) or IPO (Reddit) is the next logical step.
The writing is on the wall that a paradigm shift is in order. The pendulum has considerable momentum, though, and will allow the centralized, walled-garden web to thrive for a while longer, just like Facebook survives catering to mostly an audience of unsavvy boomers. But the swing back will gradually enable alternative models to grow that are based on open platforms and federated content. We’re just very, very early in this cycle.
Oh, and sorry for the long-ass essay, I got a bit carried away.