[HN Gopher] Reddit's Recently Announced API Changes, and the fut...
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       Reddit's Recently Announced API Changes, and the future of /r/blind
        
       Author : nickcotter
       Score  : 308 points
       Date   : 2023-06-07 18:19 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
        
       | whyenot wrote:
       | Reddit is shooting itself in the foot by effectively banning the
       | tools that moderators use to do their free labor. I'm surprised
       | Reddit didn't take a slower and more gradual approach instead of
       | a drastic change like this. I guess Steve Huffman has IPO fever.
        
         | jerglingu wrote:
         | And it's not like they don't understand the importance of mods'
         | free labor to keep subreddits clean of filth and users
         | visiting/contributing. I know somebody who worked there years
         | ago, and it was understood that they had to preserve the good
         | will and trust from mods of subreddits to keep Reddit in a
         | functional and orderly state.
        
       | thih9 wrote:
       | The community seems to overwhelmingly support the protest.
       | Perhaps this is an opportunity for a coordinated move elsewhere?
        
         | wvenable wrote:
         | Need somewhere to go. There is no second-tier reddit
         | alternative that's good enough for everyone to migrate to.
         | 
         | Seems like there's a good opportunity for a single service that
         | is a Facebook/Twitter/Reddit alternative.
        
       | EdSchouten wrote:
       | Interesting! TIL there is a Windows desktop application called
       | "Reddit for Blind" that can be used to access Reddit with a
       | screen reader:
       | 
       | https://www.redditforblind.org
       | 
       | My instinctive reaction was: "No screenshots on the page!" A
       | couple of seconds later I realised how silly that was, but now as
       | a non-blind person I am interested in knowing what the overall
       | user experience is. Respect for the person maintaining this app!
        
       | benced wrote:
       | It's a real bummer that computers should be strictly superior to
       | non-digital technology for accessibility (a book is a book and
       | doesn't change after it's printed) but for economic reasons, it
       | won't be. I can't even super blame Reddit - they're just
       | capitalists trying to make money. It just feels like an own-goal
       | by humanity.
        
         | SilasX wrote:
         | Yep. Every time someone suggests a special blind-friendly API,
         | I remind them that HTML _was_ that API, and it just got
         | bastardized over time, so you need to figure out how you'd keep
         | it from going through that same process with whatever new thing
         | you propose.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30727672
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224961
        
           | pierat wrote:
           | As an example of how this has beeen completely perverted....
           | 
           | Here's a snippet of HTML from Facebook advert
           | https://imgur.com/Wx8rIOm.png
           | 
           | Just for "Hydrow <blue_checkmark> Sponsored" is the following
           | HTML
           | 
           | <div class="xb57i2i x1q594ok x5lxg6s x78zum5 xdt5ytf x6ikm8r
           | x1ja2u2z x1pq812k x1rohswg xfk6m8 x1yqm8si xjx87ck x1l7klhg
           | x1iyjqo2 xs83m0k x2lwn1j xx8ngbg xwo3gff x1oyok0e x1odjw0f
           | x1e4zzel x1n2onr6 xq1qtft"><div class="x78zum5 xdt5ytf
           | x1iyjqo2 x1n2onr6"><div class="xjm9jq1 xg01cxk x47corl
           | x10l6tqk x1i1rx1s x13vifvy"></div><div
           | class="x1xmf6yo"><div><div><div data-
           | visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="padding-left: 8px;
           | padding-right: 8px;">
           | 
           | Also, attempting to highlight "sponsored" also jumps back and
           | forth because their scripts basically jigsaw the letters
           | together from bits. And, almost all of their content on pages
           | look like this. My guess is to jam up adblockers. But it also
           | screws over anybody with visual difficulties (reduction of
           | visibility to blindness).
        
             | pixl97 wrote:
             | Yea, randomized to avoid adblockers catching the div.
        
         | EamonnMR wrote:
         | On the contrary, I think you can blame people who make
         | antisocial choices. In fact, you have to.
        
           | wahnfrieden wrote:
           | hate the player not the game eh
        
             | JohnFen wrote:
             | It's fine to hate both. The players allow the game to
             | continue as it is, after all.
        
             | kadoban wrote:
             | In what sense is this white knighting? If anything it's
             | approximately the opposite.
        
       | jmclnx wrote:
       | This is interesting, I did not realize (but should have) APIs
       | were used to help blind people.
       | 
       | In this case, I think reddit could face legal issues, at least in
       | the US. So now to me, looks like this change was not fully
       | analyzed.
        
         | tiedieconderoga wrote:
         | There might be precedent, if their site and app don't make
         | reasonable accomodations.
         | 
         | https://casetext.com/analysis/national-association-of-the-de...
        
           | azemetre wrote:
           | There's a difference between accommodations and full blown
           | not designing an accessible website. I'm honestly shocked to
           | find out much of reddit is inaccessible and not following
           | WCAG AA spec.
           | 
           | Seems like a slam dunk for a law firm looking for an easy
           | payout.
        
         | SLJ7 wrote:
         | > but should have
         | 
         | Not really, as the entire reason the API helps us is because
         | Reddit has done such an appallingly bad job at accessibility.
         | There were great third-party Twitter apps and I used them, but
         | when they all shut down, I wasn't left with nothing; the
         | Twitter app (and even the website) are usable. (Although
         | Twitter fired their entire accessibility team so time will tell
         | if it stays that way.)
        
         | BeetleB wrote:
         | I doubt it: What laws are they violating? If you get federal
         | grants, your site needs to be accessible. There are other
         | categories (e.g. OTA broadcasts). Not sure there is anything
         | that would apply to a site like Reddit.
        
           | EMIRELADERO wrote:
           | > I doubt it: What laws are they violating?
           | 
           | The ADA?
        
             | BeetleB wrote:
             | Specifically which clause?
        
               | EMIRELADERO wrote:
               | Courts have found websites to constitute "public
               | accomodations".
        
               | ncr100 wrote:
               | for websites?
               | 
               | https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/
               | 
               | HOLY HELL: https://archive.ada.gov/peapod_sa.htm
               | 
               | You can sue Reddit ! ! !
               | 
               | DO IT!
        
       | endisneigh wrote:
       | Unpopular opinion but I bet Reddit survives this just fine. Those
       | complaining probably aren't clicking the ads and there are enough
       | people who are addicted to Reddit to replace any mods who leave.
       | 
       | The energy is better spent getting Reddit to improve their
       | official app imho
        
         | netfortius wrote:
         | If the survival is of the Twitter type, then good luck with the
         | IPO
        
         | deckard1 wrote:
         | Digg is still around. So is Slashdot. For some definition of
         | "still around."
         | 
         | > The energy is better spent getting Reddit to improve their
         | official app imho
         | 
         | The market forces of a site like Reddit (or most web sites,
         | frankly) are fundamentally against accessibility. The mobile
         | web site nags me _constantly_ with a banner popup to install
         | their native app. How does one even talk about accessibility in
         | the presence of dark patterns that make a site inaccessible to
         | even those without the need for a11y?
         | 
         | If I'm being blunt, a11y is nothing more than a sledge hammer
         | that devs use to bash other devs over the head with. A lot of
         | "thou shall nots" with not a whole lot of actual user testing.
         | Sprinkling aria attributes and "semantic" tags all over your
         | DOM doesn't make your site accessible. Not when you're _also_
         | putting in ads, carousels, and various other things that go
         | completely against it.
        
         | ShakataGaNai wrote:
         | It will survive, but in what manner?
         | 
         | Reddit is currently deeply integrated into the cultural
         | zeitgeist. Much in the way that Digg used to be _the_ discovery
         | mechanism for the forefront of internet culture. Then v4 hit
         | and everyone fled to reddit. Yes, Digg is still there but it 's
         | not the Digg of pre-2010.
         | 
         | Twitter is still around post-Elon, but with a lot less
         | relevance and lot fewer legitimate users.
         | 
         | Reddit will still be here in a year, no matter what. But it may
         | look _very different_ than how it looks today.
        
           | onionisafruit wrote:
           | Is Twitter less relevant? I'm not an active user, but I
           | haven't seen a decrease in links to tweets over the past few
           | months.
        
             | motogpjimbo wrote:
             | I think the phrase "legitimate users" is worthy of scrutiny
             | in the comment you replied to.
        
             | mustacheemperor wrote:
             | I've only ever really consumed twitter secondhand like you,
             | but I have observed that since the acquisition the quality
             | of discussion in replies to tweets I am linked seems to
             | have significantly dropped, and as objectively as one can
             | opine about that kind of thing. Just angry graffiti and
             | dumpster fire arguments about at-best-tangentially related
             | culture war topics in reply to _everything._ I 've made
             | this comparison once already in this thread, but it reminds
             | me of comments on youtube in the mid 00s.
             | 
             | But hey, youtube comments never improved much and that site
             | is still highly relevant today, so hard to make a
             | prediction based off my observed anecdote. And I've never
             | used twitter much at all, so maybe I just hadn't noticed
             | before.
        
               | petersellers wrote:
               | I wonder if the observed decline in discussion quality
               | has any correlation with the "boost" that is given to
               | comments from accounts with blue check marks.
        
             | TylerE wrote:
             | Yes. A large number of the people I followed who actually
             | posted interesting content (as opposed to bots retweeting
             | press releases) either greatly curtailed posting, or quit
             | all together. I followed them out the door.
        
               | onionisafruit wrote:
               | I keep seeing people say this, and I expect to see a
               | decrease in the number of tweets I see linked from the
               | subreddits I follow. But the tweets keep coming. Maybe
               | it's subject matter. I primarily see tweets in sports-
               | related subreddits, so for all I know athletes and sports
               | writers could be the only people still using twitter.
        
               | TylerE wrote:
               | Most of the sports accounts would fall under "Retweeting
               | press releases". I'm talking about people I followed,
               | many of whom were historians so would often publish
               | original analysis, pictures they'd personally combed the
               | archives for and digitized, that sort of thing.
               | 
               | Very much NOT pop culture/politics/etc.
        
               | phpisthebest wrote:
               | So because your circle left Twitter is dead...
               | 
               | The massive arrogance it takes to believe that is very
               | amusing...
               | 
               | So allow me to add mine... I refused twitter until after
               | Elon bought it, Lots of people I know did the same, now
               | we are all on their daily, and enjoy the shit out of post
               | elon Twitter, so Twitter is clearly the best site ever.
        
               | onionisafruit wrote:
               | That's not cool to call a fellow hackernews massively
               | arrogant.
        
               | TylerE wrote:
               | What's even weirder is someone obviously worshiping Elon,
               | probably the single most arrogant person to ever exist,
               | accusing someone else of being arrogant. I'm not going to
               | waste mental cycles on one who's post history clearly
               | reveals them as a Qultist.
        
         | raverbashing wrote:
         | But the power users are the ones who feed the community (and do
         | moderation, etc)
         | 
         | On a second thought, maybe that's Reddit's idea, just turn it
         | into a GPT generated and Astroturfing maelstrom and see what
         | happens
        
         | zouhair wrote:
         | How can Reddit survive without mods? Reddit will start hiring
         | mods? Most of the content on Reddit is made by a minority of
         | hardcore users, most of them are angry now.
         | 
         | You could argue Digg is still alive right now, I won't call it
         | that though.
        
         | jacurtis wrote:
         | Reddit will survive just fine.
         | 
         | But potentially consider this comment from the linked reddit
         | post. It is heartbreaking.
         | 
         | > I'm just so tired! That is all! I'm so tired of feeling left
         | behind by people who aren't aware, and who don't care. The
         | choices we have for social media really aren't much, and if
         | they don't care about third party apps, what else are they
         | going to throw away? Will we lose this place too?
         | 
         | The decision has many side effects that Reddit is not
         | acknowledging and it is important to recognize the importance
         | that an API can have, particuarly on accessibility.
         | 
         | Will reddit survive. Oh yeah, they will be absolutely fine. But
         | their decision does negatively impact the world and that is the
         | important story here.
        
           | endisneigh wrote:
           | You don't need an api to be accessible, hence why pressure
           | should be put on Reddit to make their app and site accessible
           | to begin with.
           | 
           | I do feel for the poster, though.
        
         | websap wrote:
         | Yup, this is the Silicon Valley model. Burn and churn people.
        
         | yakkityyak wrote:
         | I'm not so sure. Non ad-clicking/viewing users still generate a
         | lot of content.
         | 
         | Official apps always struggle to balance shoving ads in your
         | face and being an actually nice to use app.
        
         | parasti wrote:
         | It seems a safe assumption that nobody is clicking the ads.
        
         | Beached wrote:
         | I think Reddit will continue, but I see it getting worse.
         | moderation with bots already sucks enough, I can't imagine how
         | horrible reddit without bots will be.
        
         | gnulinux wrote:
         | On a second thought, I completely agree with this. I think
         | people have a lot of hope because reddit sucks but the reality
         | is way too many people are addicted to reddit. I know because I
         | struggle not to check reddit all the time. People will likely
         | need a good replacement for reddit to go down.
        
           | rightbyte wrote:
           | Install the Leechblock browser extension. Begin with
           | timeslotting Reddit and then just make it permanent. It is
           | just muscle memory to go there. I did not miss it.
        
         | johnnyanmac wrote:
         | History serves you as correct. Though, I think the energy is
         | more properly spent weaning off of Reddit and fostering a new
         | community. I've seen feature requests from almost a decade ago
         | being promised and there's not even a shred of progress on
         | them. At that point, why not make it yourself?
         | 
         | 100k people leaving reddit won't kill reddit, but 100k people
         | can definitely form it's own active community. That many more
         | people than most reddit alternatives as of now.
        
         | shmatt wrote:
         | No way these apps actually shut down
         | 
         | An app like Apollo - which is so important Apple is featuring
         | front and center at their biggest announcement of the decade,
         | won't attempt to add some caching, poll less for push
         | notifications, and/or charge $5/month, before shutting things
         | down for good?
         | 
         | All of these app developers are fear mongering, and hiding
         | their true plans, im 100% sure of this
         | 
         | At the minimum they could sell to someone else for many
         | millions of dollars, and they'll do the things I described
        
           | alpaca128 wrote:
           | _> An app like Apollo - which is so important Apple is
           | featuring front and center_
           | 
           | Being featured by Apple doesn't pay the bills and Reddit
           | obviously doesn't listen.
           | 
           |  _> won 't attempt to add some caching, poll less for push
           | notifications_
           | 
           | The Apollo developer has repeatedly asked Reddit to offer a
           | more efficient method of getting notifications that doesn't
           | require polling. The app backend already uses caching and
           | only a small fraction of the allowed request budget. Reddit
           | doesn't care.
           | 
           |  _> and /or charge $5/month_
           | 
           | $5/month are not enough, in case you didn't notice Reddit's
           | new pricing is insane. Also according to the developer about
           | 10% of users pay the monthly premium subscription. Make it
           | mandatory and most users will be gone.
           | 
           |  _> At the minimum they could sell to someone else for many
           | millions of dollars, and they 'll do the things I described_
           | 
           | Even if the things you described weren't already long
           | implemented, they don't change the prices which are simply
           | too high for third-party apps to survive.
        
         | occz wrote:
         | Time will tell. I'd bet that a sizable amount of people posting
         | the content that actually drives engagement with the website
         | cares about this change, and I think that there's not as many
         | people excited to do unpaid labour in the form of modding as
         | you may think.
        
         | digging wrote:
         | It will survive, but the quality of conversation will continue
         | to degrade. It will gain users, but they will be less
         | productive and less engaged. But they will also see more ads.
        
         | iLoveOncall wrote:
         | > Those complaining probably aren't clicking the ads
         | 
         | The ONLY real reason people are complaining is because using
         | the official app means seing ads.
         | 
         | All the arguments thrown around there are whataboutisms to try
         | to justify the fact that they want to keep profiteering off of
         | Reddit, that's it.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | dbg31415 wrote:
       | How is Reddit not required to be WCAG compliant?
        
         | tarboreus wrote:
         | They are, but lawsuits take years, and management is often
         | ignorant about their responsibilities.
        
           | twh270 wrote:
           | Are they? Link I pasted above
           | (https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/) tells me they
           | aren't.
           | 
           | Happy to correct if I'm wrong.
        
             | paddw wrote:
             | The definition for public accommodation is purposely
             | ambiguous, but so far, it seems no one has tried to make
             | the case that a site like Reddit would count as one.
        
         | twh270 wrote:
         | They aren't a "public accommodation"
         | (https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/).
        
           | themerone wrote:
           | From that page:
           | 
           | Title III prohibits discrimination against people with
           | disabilities by businesses open to the public (also referred
           | to as "public accommodations" under the ADA)
           | 
           | Reddit is definitely a business open to the public.
        
           | tiedieconderoga wrote:
           | According to that link, it sounds like they are:
           | 
           | >Title III prohibits discrimination against people with
           | disabilities by businesses open to the public (also referred
           | to as "public accommodations" under the ADA). The ADA
           | requires that businesses open to the public provide full and
           | equal enjoyment of their goods, services, facilities,
           | privileges, advantages, or accommodations to people with
           | disabilities. [...]
           | 
           | >A website with inaccessible features can limit the ability
           | of people with disabilities to access a public
           | accommodation's goods, services, and privileges available
           | through that website--for example, a veterans' service
           | organization event registration form.
           | 
           | >For these reasons, the Department has consistently taken the
           | position that the ADA's requirements apply to all the goods,
           | services, privileges, or activities offered by public
           | accommodations, including those offered on the web.
           | 
           | The courts also found that Netflix was a public accomodation
           | in 2015 as part of a lawsuit, and Netflix was forced to
           | provide subtitles on 100% of their programming.
        
             | TylerE wrote:
             | I'm not convinced. Reddit is a platform, not a store.
             | 
             | Stores are expected to follow the ADA for things like wheel
             | chair accessibility.
             | 
             | If they put up a community bulletin board, no reasonable
             | person would expect them to rip down anything that doesn't
             | include Braille.
        
               | Marsymars wrote:
               | > If they put up a community bulletin board, no
               | reasonable person would expect them to rip down anything
               | that doesn't include Braille.
               | 
               | If there was a readily-available bulletin board that cost
               | somewhat more, but that automatically displayed in
               | Braille to the side any posted items, a reasonable person
               | might expect that they go with the expensive Auto-
               | Braille-Board.
               | 
               | And a reasonable person would very likely expect them
               | _not_ to go with the bulletin board that actively
               | obfuscates the ability of people to use their own photo-
               | to-speech devices on posted items.
        
               | TylerE wrote:
               | If horses had horns they'd be unicorns.
        
       | yieldcrv wrote:
       | disruptive, but you _can_ pay for it.........
       | 
       | like the costs are absurd... for existing communities... but if
       | there is utility then......
       | 
       | I dont know I can tell I'm stepping on eggshells here for
       | something thats clearly going to happen the way I describe, and
       | not how the protest describes
        
       | paulcole wrote:
       | > On May 31, 2023, Reddit announced they were raising the price
       | to make calls to their API from being free to a level that will
       | kill every third party app on Reddit, from Apollo, to Dystopia,
       | to Reddit for Blind, to Luna for Reddit, to BaconReader
       | 
       | This is what I don't get. Nothing's been killed. They can keep
       | existing, they just have to pay. Why is nobody talking about just
       | passing the cost along to the consumer and seeing how
       | objectionable the cost really is?
        
         | alephaleph wrote:
         | We know the costs and they're ridiculous. Under the new pricing
         | the _average_ user of one third party app (Apollo) uses $2.50
         | worth of requests per month.
        
           | paulcole wrote:
           | OK so charge people $9 a month to use Apollo?
        
             | petersellers wrote:
             | Doing that is going to kill a huge percentage of Apollo's
             | user base. It's not a foregone conclusion that the app will
             | die, but the chances of that happening are much much
             | greater now than they were before. If you were the
             | developer of Apollo I think you'd have every reason to be
             | worried about that, and any opposition to this change would
             | be justified.
        
               | paulcole wrote:
               | > Doing that is going to kill a huge percentage of
               | Apollo's user base
               | 
               | Wait until you find out what happens to Apollo's user
               | base if they pay less than the API costs.
        
               | petersellers wrote:
               | Not sure what your point is here?
               | 
               | We're talking about the fact that Reddit's API prices are
               | going to be extremely high going forward. Your response
               | was a dismissive "just charge 9 dollars". Obviously that
               | is going to cause a lot of pain for all third party
               | developers, which is the whole reason why everyone is
               | complaining about this.
        
       | flangola7 wrote:
       | I know the popular sentiment is that Reddit is doing this to look
       | good for IPO but won't investors _google the business they 're
       | about to invest a lot of money in?_
       | 
       | 10 minutes of research makes it completely obvious they're
       | endangering their core business.
       | 
       | Reddit doesn't work without functional moderation. Despite years
       | of asking, the native mod tools are no where close to parity with
       | 3rd party tools. This alienates good mods who are not generic
       | gears you can just swap out, building a strong subreddit culture
       | and rapport takes years of good faith effort. Then they're
       | alienating a sizeable block of the most engaged users, and on top
       | of everything they're shameless discriminating against the
       | disabled.
       | 
       | Who looks at all that and thinks "yes this is definitely a stable
       | venture ran by competent management and a reliable place to
       | expect RoI."
       | 
       | Investors are soulless but they are not stupid.
        
         | throwaway202351 wrote:
         | I would guess that they'll sell it as "we were able to monetize
         | our api and all it cost us were a small subset of users, which
         | are more likely to use ad blockers anyway" and then try to hand
         | it off to the public before the long term effects of those
         | changes happens.
        
         | JohnFen wrote:
         | > Investors are soulless but they are not stupid.
         | 
         | To be honest, tons of investors are stupid, don't research
         | anything, and/or just go with whatever sounds cool to them.
         | 
         | The idea that "investors" as a group are any more rational than
         | other group is a myth dearly held by investors.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | lelanthran wrote:
         | > 10 minutes of research makes it completely obvious they're
         | endangering their core business.
         | 
         | It's not that obvious.
         | 
         | To me, at any rate, it's not at all obvious that reddit is in
         | any danger of losing a significant number of their members.
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | Yup. It's just as "obvious" that this shows that management
           | is willing to make the big necessary decisions to preserve
           | revenue and take back full control of the user experience.
           | 
           | I'm not defending Reddit at all, but very often what annoys
           | users is what's good for business (e.g. ads), and so users
           | complaining isn't necessarily a bad sign to investors at all.
           | 
           | I would actually say _nothing_ here is obvious yet. Reddit
           | doesn 't seem to be in any danger _yet_ , but it really
           | depends on whether user dissatisfaction snowballs or fizzles
           | out, and that's one of those chaos-theory things that nobody
           | knows, and different potential investors will have wildly
           | different opinions on.
        
       | jareds wrote:
       | As someone who's blind I never looked at Reddit because it was
       | not particularly easy to use with a screen reader. Now's a heck
       | of a time to discover there are accessible ways of accessing it
       | for the next two months.
        
         | nerpderp82 wrote:
         | You can at least for now, download any page in json format by
         | appending .json to the url.
         | 
         | For instance https://old.reddit.com/r/hackernews/.json
         | wget https://old.reddit.com/r/hackernews/.json -O hn.json
         | jq -c '.data.children[] | {title: .data.title, domain:
         | .data.domain, url: .data.url, upvotes: .data.ups }' hn.json
         | 
         | Results in                 {"title":"Service Rents Email
         | Addresses for Account Signups","domain":"krebsonsecurity.com","
         | url":"https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/06/service-rents-email-
         | addresses-for-account-signups/","upvotes":8}
         | {"title":"Dell in hot water for making shoppers think
         | overpriced monitors were discounted","domain":"arstechnica.com"
         | ,"url":"https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/dell-in-hot-
         | water-for-making-shoppers-think-overpriced-monitors-were-
         | discounted/","upvotes":12}
        
         | baggachipz wrote:
         | Correction, the next 3 weeks. :)
        
         | squokko wrote:
         | If it's any consolation, virtually every subreddit with more
         | than 10,000 members is completely worthless
        
         | jahsome wrote:
         | Outside of some niche communities, it's been a real crap shoot
         | for many years though. I think you may have been spared a lot
         | of garbage. I can't really put a finger on when or what changed
         | but feel it definitely lost the sheen.
        
           | pawelduda wrote:
           | What are better alternatives to Reddit? Yeah, a lot of subs
           | are echo chambers, circlejerks and struggle with quality in
           | general but if I counted how many times I found it useful
           | compared to the rest of Internet on average, I'd be pretty
           | rich. I often default my searches to site:old.reddit.com
           | <query>, the new UI and app are garbage though.
        
             | asdff wrote:
             | What worries me is that this isn't a sustainable position.
             | Already the googling for reddit posts sometimes backfires,
             | says hey here's a recent comment from two weeks ago but
             | then you open it and its the same 5 year old post you've
             | already read somehow. Then you have a general decline of
             | the quality of the community, more people posting in a
             | biased manner than an unbiased one, among other issues. Not
             | to mention, advertisers know about reddit too, and are
             | probably shilling the crap out of their products to
             | respective subreddits who link their offerings in the
             | sidebar or the subreddit faq or wiki page. Eventually it's
             | going to be no different than any other enshittified corner
             | of the internet, which is scary because where do you go
             | then? I'd be hunting for actual books again for
             | information. Pretty sad that the world wide web is reaching
             | a point where the old brick and mortar library is the
             | better source of information again, given all the promise
             | it had at the start as being a step forward from that.
        
             | ok_dad wrote:
             | There is nothing better in terms of information and all-in-
             | one knowledge, probably, but I have been using forums and
             | some Discords (not much better than Reddit though) for my
             | hobby recently and though it's annoying to check several
             | places rather than one "front page", I still find I can
             | engage with my hobby community perfectly fine. I lost a lot
             | of top knowledge that's locked away on Reddit, but I
             | honestly just spend a bit more time to research things now
             | rather than having an answer at my fingertips with the
             | search "{insert search topic} reddit". It's harder, but as
             | I get older I find I have a lot more free time than I
             | thought I had if I just ignore social media for most of my
             | day. Hacker News and my hobby communities are my social
             | outlet, because they aren't as bad for my mental health,
             | though I have to avoid the more-political topics on HN.
        
           | asdff wrote:
           | Eternal september happened. The original crop of users was
           | generally pretty good about following reddiquete and not
           | downvoting. Today, the average user seems a lot more hostile
           | in their replies, more willing to downvote your post in
           | disagreement even if it is relevant to the topic, less able
           | to see sarcasm or nuance, more willing to die on ideological
           | hills.
        
             | yarg wrote:
             | The down-voters are the good faith players - people are
             | getting permabanned for political disagreements.
        
             | mustacheemperor wrote:
             | The community zeitgeist across the board just seems so much
             | more argumentative, contrarian, and angry than it was years
             | ago. Even on the niche subs. On /r/academicbiblical people
             | get banned for spitting nasty stuff at each other in
             | comments. The AnalogCommunity subreddit has a frequent
             | drumbeat of negativity about new film stocks and is enraged
             | about "shilling" if anyone who as much as includes a logo
             | on their gear in a post - as if we, the analog film
             | community, don't want new companies to succeed in analog
             | film? The outrage isn't logical, it's strictly emotional,
             | and it seems like people are drawn literally to the
             | _emotion of rage,_ not an emotional reaction to anything
             | specific and tangible.
             | 
             | It reminds me of trying to find value in YouTube comments
             | around 2008 and realizing there's some kind of community-
             | wide attitude problem completely destroying any chance of
             | it. It's not a discussion forum, it's one of those rooms
             | where people pay $20 to smash stuff up with a sledgehammer
             | and yell.
        
             | arjonagelhout wrote:
             | I tried to find the meaning of eternal summer, but it
             | appears to be a movie. I think you mean Eternal September
             | [0]
             | 
             | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
        
               | asdff wrote:
               | Very true good catch
        
           | tarboreus wrote:
           | r/blind is a great community, however.
        
         | akiselev wrote:
         | I feel like we need a new XKCD for this situation like the
         | "today's lucky 10,000" [1] one.
         | 
         | Congratulations! You're one of today's lucky million! You
         | discovered a feature that's useful instead of anti-user just in
         | time for a tech company to shut it down in the name of ~~user~~
         | shareholder experience!
         | 
         | [1] https://xkcd.com/1053/
        
           | onionisafruit wrote:
           | I think this has happened to me a few dozen times on Hacker
           | News when I've seen "X is shutting down" where this is the
           | first I've heard of X and it seems useful to me.
        
             | Marsymars wrote:
             | For me this week, it was Blaseball:
             | https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/3/23744507/blaseball-
             | shutdow...
        
               | onionisafruit wrote:
               | That's one more for me. IDK if I would have actually
               | played Blaseball, but it looks pretty fun.
        
           | ulrikrasmussen wrote:
           | Since the GP stated they were blind, here's a textual
           | description of the comic: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/in
           | dex.php/1053:_Ten_Thousan...
        
       | ok123456 wrote:
       | Since this change makes a service less accessible to the
       | disabled, is there way to bring injunctive relief under the ADA?
        
         | ncr100 wrote:
         | Maybe the Mods could claim they are denied service.
         | 
         | Some references https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36234827
        
       | lxe wrote:
       | Reddit is having a Digg v4 moment
        
       | RobotToaster wrote:
       | It's infuriating how these massive companies refuse to make their
       | apps accessible.
        
       | nonethewiser wrote:
       | These subreddit blackouts are so dumb. All it does is reinforce
       | that Reddit can do what they want and communities won't go
       | anywhere. It's like a teenager running away then showing up for
       | dinner. If you want Reddit to get the message migrate your
       | community and nuke the subreddit.
        
         | ink_13 wrote:
         | The goal here is to negotiate. You don't open a negotiation by
         | going scorched earth.
        
         | alephaleph wrote:
         | /r/me_irl is doing that, they're going to permanently go
         | private if the changes aren't reversed.
        
           | vultour wrote:
           | That's one of the most pointless subreddits out there. They
           | need to nuke the default ones to have any meaningful effect.
        
         | 58x14 wrote:
         | I pretty strongly disagree with this take. I've used Reddit for
         | over a decade almost entirely as a "lurker" meaning without an
         | account. The majority of what I watched and read has depended
         | on that reaching the "front page of the internet."
         | 
         | While I've followed these recent changes since the Pushshift
         | shutoff, it's really only been in the past week that I've seen
         | this gain "mainstream" attention. The more of these subreddit-
         | going-dark announcements reach the page, the more people
         | realize this is a widespread issue - even if they don't click,
         | read, or even think about what's going on or why, they're
         | _aware_ of it.
         | 
         | I've seen several dozen of these posts reach the front page,
         | plus a litany of media outlet publications. That legitimately
         | matters as an input to financial projections in the context of
         | their upcoming IPO, and it matters even more as a signal to
         | prospective investors, retail or institutional.
         | 
         | Our modern reality is often served to us via algorithms that
         | are trained to optimize for things; the most common thing for
         | content platforms to optimize for is engagement, and the most
         | common signal for these platforms is the upvote. In over a
         | decade I've never seen _any topic_ reach front page across such
         | a variety of posts and subreddits, and that is a direct result
         | of individuals upvoting these posts.
         | 
         | I think this demonstrates, already, the collective ability to
         | mobilize action across communities, even if the action is
         | reduced to the simplest Boolean upvote. And that's an
         | indication that widespread collective action _can_ be
         | coordinated.
        
       | prmoustache wrote:
       | The funny and ironic part is seeing people kind of contesting
       | decision of a proprietary service, then flee to another
       | proprietary service like discord.
       | 
       | Like, will they ever learn?
        
         | pachorizons wrote:
         | Ok, what should they do?
        
         | asdff wrote:
         | Its really sad more than anything. The modern march of
         | technology has been to take what used to be open standard
         | technologies used by the average computer user at the time,
         | privatise them, wall up the gardens, and lock people in. Now
         | you have people beholden to reddit and discord instead of irc
         | and a self hosted web forum. It reminds me of those quick
         | change oil places: an entire industry with serious real estate
         | holdings exists solely because most people have no clue how to
         | unscrew three things and pour in oil themselves. Its an example
         | of yet another industry with a financial incentive towards
         | widespread ignorance.
        
         | deely3 wrote:
         | You are currently made a comment using a proprietary service.
         | 
         | Your pc and phone also partly proprietary service.
         | 
         | You make calls, send and receive money by using proprietary
         | service.
        
           | fsflover wrote:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy
           | 
           | Sent from my Librem 5, which runs an FSF-endorsed OS.
        
             | johnnyanmac wrote:
             | I would indeed say that hoping for a perfect open source
             | free (as in freedom) scalable web solution with a bustling
             | community is an unrealistic, idealistic alternative. At
             | least, as of now.
        
               | fsflover wrote:
               | I disagree: Mastodon works quite well and has an amazing
               | community:
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36185731
        
           | iLoveOncall wrote:
           | But he's not contesting the decision made by Reddit as far as
           | I can tell?
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | Shout out to reddit execs for spectacular job tanking your rep
       | ahead of IPO.
        
       | dom96 wrote:
       | I still hope that Reddit will reverse its plans to charge money
       | for its API, but with every passing piece of news like this it
       | just feels less and less likely.
       | 
       | In the interest of preparing for the worst and offering an
       | alternative. I have created https://api.reddiw.com. If you're an
       | app developer that is affected by this price increase please
       | consider adopting it, feel to reach out to me if you have any
       | questions and we can work together.
        
       | rektide wrote:
       | Reddit is doing so much injury to the free labor mods. They are
       | so massively disproportionately injured by these changes, as
       | people who direly need advanced changes. Absolutely wild own
       | goal.
        
         | not_a_shill wrote:
         | It's not an own goal if the mods will continue to keep doing it
         | because that's all they have.
        
           | georgeburdell wrote:
           | A lot of mods try to diversify their communities across
           | platforms (Discord, Mastodon)
        
           | Clent wrote:
           | Keep it in what form?
           | 
           | How little will it take for the communities to spiral?
           | 
           | How would a developer's performance be if you removed their
           | tooling? Could they still develop, sure. Will they want to?
           | Is there some where for them to move.
           | 
           | If not, how long until the pain forces a thousand clones?
           | 
           | I've been around long enough to see the decline of Reddit.
           | Predicted many times but eventually, the bottom will fall out
           | and with the sentiment of the world towards big business and
           | reddit wanting to IPO. I see this as a place people may make
           | a stand. Because what better place than the place itself.
        
           | ruined wrote:
           | there is a class of power moderators who are monetizing their
           | position, who are dependent on the population of reddit. but
           | most topic-focused communities on reddit are only there
           | because reddit is the most convenient platform. as soon as
           | that is no longer the case, the community will move on, and
           | ultimately that is the same population that supplies the
           | larger monetizeable subreddits.
        
             | zem wrote:
             | as a mod of a few topic focused subreddits, yeah, if they
             | ever get rid of old.reddit I'm probably gone. I'll miss the
             | communities but not enough to put up with the interface.
        
         | gaoshan wrote:
         | I'm a mod (of an insignificant subreddit), have been active for
         | 15+ years, 6 figure karma, even had the single most upvoted
         | comment on all of reddit one day...they notify you and give you
         | an award when that happens in case you wonder.
         | 
         | My feelings about the site have evolved so much over the years
         | but in the past couple of years the vibe has been turning
         | consistently negative. I'm getting fed up and I imagine a lot
         | of others are as well and I can't imagine this will end up
         | benefiting Reddit in general.
        
           | pierat wrote:
           | Congratulations for working for free for a for-profit
           | company?
           | 
           | Might I recommend you to turn towards places like Lemmy or
           | other less-commercial and less exploitive websites?
           | 
           | Reddit relies on free work, but doesn't value or help the
           | mods. And now, they're doubling down on screwing everyone and
           | manufacturing fake content for what appears their IPO.
           | 
           | I think it's time to skedaddle.
        
             | autoexec wrote:
             | I think I'm out of the loop... what is this about
             | manufacturing fake content?
        
               | EamonnMR wrote:
               | Probably referring to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Subr
               | edditDrama/comments/13p889x/red...
        
               | morkalork wrote:
               | Can't fault them for following a tried and true strategy
               | from the same platform:
               | https://arstechnica.com/information-
               | technology/2012/06/reddi...
        
             | tester457 wrote:
             | Lemmy is too slow to take off. And federation is too
             | inconvenient for the average user.
        
               | digitallyfree wrote:
               | It's not easy to move a group to a new platform, and
               | there's very little people using Lemmy currently. The
               | thing about Reddit despite its flaws is that it allows
               | access to many large communities with a single account.
        
             | unethical_ban wrote:
             | You mean "volunteering to keep a community forum polite and
             | productive".
             | 
             | I wish people would quit shitting on mods like they're
             | idiots for taking out the trash.
             | 
             | Yes, though, the larger subreddits are political and repost
             | astroturf. Anti-american garbage. But not every sub is like
             | that. I'll look into Lemmy though.
        
               | surgical_fire wrote:
               | I was a moderator for a fairly large subreddit (6 figures
               | subscribers).
               | 
               | I was a moron doing free work for a for-profit company.
               | 
               | I _deserved_ to be shat on.
        
               | unethical_ban wrote:
               | That's fair, but that isn't how I felt.
               | 
               | I was the mod for a city subreddit for a while and while
               | it was tiring, it was easy to do (especially with a
               | medium sized group, each pitching in a little bit). Keep
               | the spam and trolling down, and community engagement up.
               | (Then I got banned for calling a spammer on a large
               | message board a spammer).
               | 
               | Name an online community space that isn't a for-profit
               | company, that more than a few hundred people could name.
               | 
               | Facebook Instagram Nextdoor Meetup Reddit
               | 
               | Whoops.
        
               | surgical_fire wrote:
               | > Name an online community space that isn't a for-profit
               | company, that more than a few hundred people could name.
               | 
               | I have nothing against for profit companies.
               | 
               | I am vehemently against of donating labor to for-profit
               | companies. Especially when they will betray those that
               | provided free labor when it becomes convenient.
               | 
               | Reddit proved me right.
        
               | BaseballPhysics wrote:
               | > You mean "volunteering to keep a community forum polite
               | and productive".
               | 
               | Both of those things can be true.
               | 
               | The reality is those communities--which only thrive on
               | Reddit because of effective moderation--are built on a
               | private platform whose primary method of generating
               | profits is to monetize the attention of those community
               | members.
               | 
               | So, yes, those mods are absolutely contributing free
               | labour that Reddit is turning into private profits, and
               | that labour comes in the form of volunteering to keep
               | those forums polite and productive. Whether or not that's
               | a reasonable tradeoff is up to each individual, though I
               | have to confess I don't personally understand it
               | (despite, in the past, benefiting from it). At least my
               | day job pays me for the labour that they monetize.
               | 
               | And now Reddit is taking a dump all over those free
               | labourers by taking away critical tools that they use to
               | make those forums polite and productive in the first
               | place.
        
               | pierat wrote:
               | Thank you.
               | 
               | That's why I recommended putting "volunteering time" with
               | actual non-profit orgs and groups, so that 100% of the
               | labor goes to all. I didn't advocate "quit volunteering
               | for a community", cause that's the wrong thing to
               | advocate.
               | 
               | There's mastodon, Lemmy for 2. Discord isn't great, given
               | earlier in the curve of monetization. Same for other for-
               | profit areas. But again, I'd recommend finding
               | communities in a not-profit-driven area and work there.
               | 
               | The for-profit side of things has the same death spirals.
               | I'm just sick of this "web2" crap profiteering and
               | killing useful community stuff.
        
             | bmacho wrote:
             | > Congratulations for working for free for a for-profit
             | company?
             | 
             | They work for themselves, and use reddit resources free. If
             | anything, this relationship is beneficial for the
             | community, but reddit.
        
           | JohnFen wrote:
           | > in the past couple of years the vibe has been turning
           | consistently negative
           | 
           | As a regular user, I gave up on reddit a couple of years ago
           | because of exactly this problem.
        
           | postalrat wrote:
           | I deleted my 15 year old account this week and don't miss it.
           | My hn account is next but isn't that old. Why make it easy
           | for the world to track you?
        
         | treis wrote:
         | Mods are as much of a problem as they are a help. They rule
         | subreddits like gods and (lots) abuse the shadow ban/delete
         | system to silence opinions they don't like. Lots of others sell
         | out to various influencers/advertisers and help promote
         | whatever they want.
        
           | Seattle3503 wrote:
           | Mods cannot shadowban users. Only admins can do that.
        
             | ink_13 wrote:
             | Enh, sort of. You can write an Automod rule to always
             | remove content from one or more specific users.
        
         | surgical_fire wrote:
         | As someone who moderated a couple of communities in the past...
         | Good.
        
       | timf wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _Reddit is creating an exemption to its unpopular new API
       | pricing terms for makers of accessibility apps, which could come
       | as a big relief for some developers worried about how to afford
       | the potentially expensive fees and the users that rely on the
       | apps to browse Reddit. As long as those apps are noncommercial
       | and "address accessibility needs," they won't have to pay to
       | access Reddit's data._
       | 
       |  _"We've connected with select developers of non-commercial apps
       | that address accessibility needs and offered them exemptions from
       | our large-scale pricing terms," Reddit spokesperson Tim
       | Rathschmidt says in a statement to The Verge._
       | 
       | From https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/7/23752804/reddit-exempt-
       | acc...
        
         | digging wrote:
         | So if reddit's official app is difficult to use, at what point
         | can regular 3rd party apps claim to be accessibility tools?
        
           | cwkoss wrote:
           | Society needs 'allergic to UX dark patterns' to be included
           | in the next DSM
        
             | nerpderp82 wrote:
             | There needs to be a preferences setting sent in the HTTP
             | header to activate high contrast and low motion modes. Just
             | having "dark mode" is not enough.
        
               | chaosharmonic wrote:
               | Would high contrast not be a CSS thing? I know `prefers-
               | reduced-motion` is...
        
               | notatoad wrote:
               | yes, high-contrast is a CSS media query just like
               | prefers-reduced-motion is
        
               | digging wrote:
               | I agree, but I think you misread the comment you're
               | replying to. They were referring to "dark patterns," a
               | design feature used to trick users into taking actions
               | they otherwise wouldn't. Much harder to flag :P
        
               | nerpderp82 wrote:
               | Sorry, I want all dark patterns to be surrounded by a
               | high contrast "dark pattern border".
        
               | digging wrote:
               | this is what the internet was meant to be
        
             | MrStonedOne wrote:
             | Some of those UX dark patterns would qualify as making the
             | site inaccessible to people with add and adhd, others make
             | it inaccessible to people with autism.
             | 
             | engagement driving bullshit could very easy become banned
             | under ADA if the right public servant gave it enough
             | thought.
        
           | hoherd wrote:
           | It sounds like being accessibility tools wouldn't be enough
           | because they would also need to be non-commercial, which
           | excludes most of (all of?) the popular third party apps.
        
             | goda90 wrote:
             | RedReader is entirely open source and has accessibility
             | features.
        
         | thorum wrote:
         | Separate "accessibility" apps for people with disabilities
         | always lag behind in features compared to apps that target a
         | wider audience while still being accessible. Basically
         | relegating people with disabilities to a second class
         | experience.
        
         | jacobsenscott wrote:
         | Translation - if we can exploit your free labor we'll allow it.
         | Otherwise get bent.
        
         | kmeisthax wrote:
         | >noncommercial
         | 
         | This is a water sandwich.
         | 
         | There is no unambiguous single definition of commercial
         | activity in the law: some parts of the law define it one way,
         | some jurisdictions differ as to what is and isn't commercial,
         | and some parts of the law explicitly deny the existence of
         | noncommercial activity (e.g. copyright law). So Reddit has
         | promised _literally nothing_ here.
         | 
         | Furthermore, their explicit goal is to prevent scraping by ML
         | training companies. This is inherently opposed to
         | accessibility. If you add accessibility to copy protection, you
         | weaken the copy protection[0]. So Reddit can either tell blind
         | people to go fuck themselves, or they can accept that there's
         | always going to be at least some backdoor for AI to scrape
         | Reddit.
         | 
         | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd.
        
           | ncr100 wrote:
           | .. And how can a developer not charge for their specialty-
           | app?
           | 
           | Reddit is requiring Disabled to use an app developed at the
           | LOWEST COST - this is clear discrimination, in the legal
           | sense.
           | 
           | It may not be illegal, but legally they are "discriminating",
           | based upon the legal usage of that word.
        
           | no_butterscotch wrote:
           | Yup.
           | 
           | Whatever blind dev is making a living providing an app (or
           | other software) as an accessibility layer for the blind over
           | reddit will now have to potentially do so for free.
        
         | mustacheemperor wrote:
         | On the other hand, quoth the OP thread
         | 
         | >One of our moderators, u/itsthejoker, has had multiple hour-
         | long calls with various Reddit employees. However, as of the
         | current time, our concerns have gone unheard, and Reddit
         | remains firm.
         | 
         | Doublespeak from reddit's management is not exactly uncommon,
         | and it seems like something is mismatched between what they
         | communicated in that article and what's related in the thread.
        
           | tedivm wrote:
           | The AskHistorian's mods put together a small list of reddit
           | admin promises to moderators that were broken:
           | 
           | Admins have promised minimal disruption; however, over the
           | years they've made a number of promises to support moderators
           | that they did not, or could not follow up on, and at times
           | even reneged on:                   In 2015, in response to
           | widespread protests on the sub, the admins promised they
           | would build tools and improve communication with mods.
           | In 2019 the admins promised that chat would always be an opt-
           | in feature. However, a year later an unmoderated chat feature
           | was made a default feature on most subs                 In
           | 2020, in response to moderators protesting racism on Reddit,
           | admin promised to support mods in combating hate
           | In 2021, again, in response to protests, Reddit's admin
           | promised a feature to report malicious interference by
           | subreddits promoting Covid denial.
        
       | dopa42365 wrote:
       | /r/blind going dark?
        
       | DoreenMichele wrote:
       | One of the comments:
       | 
       |  _Yes, modding is where the biggest problems are. When
       | moderating, most of the buttons are unlabeled. It would be quite
       | easy to delete a comment when I meant to lock a thread or
       | whatever, if I forget the exact order I 've memorized for the
       | buttons. And adding stuff to sidebars or changing the layout of
       | the sub isn't really possible at all. There are also a lot of
       | dialogues, alerts, etc, that pop up without getting focus.
       | There's also a lack of headings, landmarks, or other mark-up in
       | modmail, making it slow and difficult to use. This stuff really
       | matters when you're helping mod a sub with thousands of users. If
       | all you're doing is reading, and leaving the occasional comment,
       | it's...fine. Not good, but fine._
       | 
       | ----
       | 
       | It's important for a sub for disabled individuals to have mods
       | with that disability.
       | 
       | I didn't care about this protest and haven't much followed
       | articles and such about it, but this feels like a kick in the
       | gut. People with disabilities can have their lives substantially
       | enhanced by the internet, _if_ accessibility isn 't a bar to them
       | connecting with people, finding info they need, taking actions
       | online (like bill paying), etc.
       | 
       | I hope this gets satisfactorily resolved for blind users of
       | Reddit. Ugh.
        
         | axegon_ wrote:
         | It is worth pointing out that even with a 10/10 sight,
         | moderating reddit is a nightmare. If it wasn't for the mod
         | toolbox plugin, I would have probably resorted to making CLI
         | tools instead(many of which I have since reddit offers an
         | extremely limited options for moderating, nuking comments,
         | threads and so on). That said, this is absolutely nothing
         | compared to the unholy mess that is moderating from
         | android/ios. Most moderators plainly refuse to do it. I
         | moderate a big sub and what we do is we have a discord chat and
         | whenever something needs to be taken care of fast and someone
         | notices it on mobile, they simply alert everyone on discord so
         | someone near a computer can handle it.
        
           | DoreenMichele wrote:
           | I agree that their mod access on mobile leaves a lot to be
           | desired and will add that for some people, use of a mobile
           | device _is_ for accessibility reasons.
        
         | mrj wrote:
         | It's especially shameful that a large company like Reddit can't
         | manage to.. do HTML right? It really doesn't take that much
         | extra time to do the basics. They need buttons with _labels_.
         | 
         | How did they not get sued already? Was it just because users
         | had access to 3rd party apps?
        
           | miki123211 wrote:
           | Because (to oversimplify things by a lot) you don't have to
           | care in most cases. You have legal requirements as a public
           | institution, when selling to governments / educational
           | institutions or as an employer (depending on country), but
           | requiring all privately-run, commercial websites to be
           | accessible is usually not a thing. This is not legal advice
           | by any means, and the actual situation is way more
           | complicated than that.
        
           | jjoonathan wrote:
           | Modern design philosophy is that buttons with labels are
           | messy and complicated so they should be replaced everywhere
           | by hamburgers and hieroglyphs.
           | 
           | What started as spatial triage on mobile is now the universal
           | design language everywhere, and it sucks.
        
             | edflsafoiewq wrote:
             | Regardless, there's still aria-label.
        
             | alephaleph wrote:
             | I think they're referring to aria-labels, not visible text.
        
           | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
           | As a non-web-dev who sometimes builds my own toys, when you
           | say someone building buttons without labels is lawsuit-
           | worthy, it makes me think you're all saying something other
           | than what I'm interpreting. I'm guessing you mean more than
           | <button type="button">My Label</button>
           | 
           | or something like that?
        
           | denimnerd42 wrote:
           | sounds like they will be sued now! ADA trolling is a thing
           | and it does catch big fish.
        
           | barkingcat wrote:
           | if you look at the regular reddit "new" interface you'll
           | totally understand how this occurs.
           | 
           | the interface is a mess, accessibility concerns or not. It's
           | truly an equal opportunity offender in all the worst case.
        
           | phpisthebest wrote:
           | Having a site good for accessibility means it is also easily
           | scraped, if it is easily scraped no need to pay for API
           | access, and there goes the money grab
           | 
           | It is not they cant do it right, they do want to do it right
           | because they need to monetize the site to appease the VC's,
           | 
           | Anything that can prevent that, including accessibility, goes
        
             | nitwit005 wrote:
             | A custom program can find the buttons by label. It's just
             | not labeled in a way the screenreader is looking for.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | geraldwhen wrote:
           | Product owners don't care about accessibility. They care
           | about time to market for 99.999% of your users, or for many
           | products 100% of the users. The products I build are not
           | accessible. Designers work hard to ensure they're not or
           | quite hard to make accessible at best. Modals on modals on
           | modals with important content changing all over the place!
        
             | User23 wrote:
             | Fortunately the ADA[1] means that you can easily reach
             | their real customer support AKA legal department.
             | 
             | [1] https://www.boia.org/blog/the-robles-v.-dominos-
             | settlement-a...
        
             | m4rtink wrote:
             | Wasnt there some push in the US to make websites acessible
             | or face some very hight fines ? I do remember something
             | like that.
        
               | lesuorac wrote:
               | It matters a lot when you have a Gov. contract of some
               | sort.
               | 
               | Reddit doesn't sell to the USG or any US schools or etc.
        
             | kshahkshah wrote:
             | Is it on a "product owner" to care about accessibility? Or
             | engineers to build things properly? If this was any other
             | engineering field - civil, mechanical, electrical, there
             | would be standards which we seem to lack / fail to enforce
        
               | hiatus wrote:
               | > there would be standards which we seem to lack / fail
               | to enforce
               | 
               | This is by design. Software developers are hardly
               | "engineers". They build what the business wants, quickly,
               | and worry about the "properly" after product-market fit
               | is found (or so they're told). This dynamic would be
               | upended if software engineering were licensed.
        
               | geraldwhen wrote:
               | I can't even convince design not to make the text grey on
               | grey. It's not just "disabled" users who are suffering
               | this nonsense.
               | 
               | I get paid the same not to fight. More even, because I'm
               | a team player.
        
               | willcipriano wrote:
               | If the product owner directs work at a ticket level and
               | never assigns it to anyone, it's their fault it isn't
               | there. If the engineers have more autonomy than I've seen
               | at a company are were able to decide what to work on,
               | then sure blame the engineers.
        
         | OfSanguineFire wrote:
         | "It's important for a sub for disabled individuals to have mods
         | with that disability."
         | 
         | Reddit is notorious for having mods on various special-
         | demographic subreddits where members of that demographic would
         | not necessarily recognize the mod as a fellow member. The cloak
         | of anonymity means, however, that few get any inkling unless
         | they bother to investigate (unlikely on a website and an app
         | that invite passivity) or it eventually erupts into scandal.
        
           | dingledork69 wrote:
           | For example the /r/Netherlands subreddit is ran by trolls who
           | are not from the Netherlands, and does not allow the usage of
           | the Dutch language in the subreddit at all. Instead
           | /r/theNetherlands is the proper subreddit.
           | 
           | The fact that reddit allows moderators to hide the modlist
           | nowadays only makes things worse. You have absolutely no idea
           | who is running things anymore.
        
       | jhatemyjob wrote:
       | These protests are pointless. Let reddit kill itself. It had its
       | time.
        
         | bagels wrote:
         | They directly cut into ad revenue. It won't change Reddit's
         | mind, but is noticed.
        
         | asdff wrote:
         | I think they might actually help kill reddit faster. A lot of
         | people have joked already that these protests will finally be
         | the kick to get them to quit wasting time on the site. I'd bet
         | that numbers do drop a lot after the protests and at least a
         | few users end up leaving for good.
        
         | Dudester230602 wrote:
         | Going freemium did not kill mobile app stores and going woke
         | did not kill Hollywood/streaming. So don't raise your hopes.
         | Sometimes bad side just wins.
        
           | [deleted]
        
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