Stepping Down From Moderating On Reddit

I have joined Reddit 5 years ago and I've been able to talk to so many great people as well as taking advantage of opportunities that have opened up to me. Sadly, It was nice while it lasted. Due to the recent conduct by Reddit I've made the difficult decision to step down from many subreddits. I want to thank everyone who has given me the opportunity to mod with you all and hope things improve!

What's Happening?

To kick things off I'll be going into detail on what caused all the protesting. On May 31st Reddit announced their enterprise level API pricing.

With this pricing this, essentially kills 3rd party apps like Apollo and RIF. This is a pretty big deal because Reddit's Official app is lacking in the features and accessibility department. Many people depends on 3rd party apps to keep Reddit's communities clean and able to actually use the site with 3rd paty apps having accessibility stuff built in. It's honestly unclear why Reddit hasn't taken the time to improve their app before making this massive change.

To give Reddit some credit they hosted a few calls with a few mods and app developers to do damage control. In one of these calls a few selected people we're able to talk to Reddit's CEO about their recent decisions being terrible. Sadly, Those calls didn't work and Reddit decided not to budge.

The API pricing immediately sparked backlash from 3rd party app developers, moderators, and users alike. This Promoted action from the community which some of those details are described in my other post about this. But the main action that was taken that did damage was subreddit's indefinitely blacking out which means no one can view that specific subreddit. Doing this ended up being a PR nightmare for Reddit as multiple news orgs caught wind of the protest and have started reporting on it. This is where the movement is at right now.

You Resigned?

As much as I like moderating communities for the experience I think it's best to move away from moderating on Reddit. Being a mod on Reddit has opened up some opportunities for me and i'm very greatful!! I will go into detail on why I left down below.

Reddits Conduct

Reddit's conduct after the two days of blackouts have been abysmal. Reddit has forced many subreddits to open after deciding to go indefinitely after Reddit's CEO has insulted mods in an interview with the press.

Reddit's CEO has also been caught in a few lies. For example he claims that The Apollo dev blackmailed Reddit which has been debuncked by the dev himself as he posted audio recording of his call with Reddit as well as transcript of the call.

Conclusion

In all honesty I think it's messed up how Reddit is treating it's mods and 3rd party app developers  who actually keeps their site clean and as well as making tools to make Reddit more useable. I think Reddit should definitely take time sit down with 3rd party app devs and come up with a reasonable pricing. They definitely need to get their app more updated instead of depending on 3rd party apps like they have been for the past 7 or 8 years. Oh yeah and fuck SPEZ!!!!

Are you press and have questions? reach out to me at [email protected]