Depending on volunteers is not sustainable, given the regulatory scrutiny that the company will now face, said Julian Klymochko, CEO of alternative investment solutions firm Accelerate Financial Technologies.

“It’s like relying on unpaid labor when the company has nearly a billion dollars in revenue,” he added. Reddit reported revenue of $804 million in 2023, according to an earlier filing.

  • retrieval4558@mander.xyz
    111·
    9 months ago

    “It’s like relying on unpaid labor when the company has nearly a billion dollars in revenue,” he added. Reddit reported revenue of $804 million in 2023, according to an earlier filing.

    It’s not like that, it is that.

    • spider@lemmy.nzOP
      5·
      9 months ago

      It’s not like that, it is that.

      He might not have meant that in the literal sense:

      The overuse of the word “like” is a pet peeve of many people, and it’s more often associated with ditzy teenagers than effective communicators.

      Daily Muse writer Sara McCord said she was called out on her use of the word, and claimed it “detracts from your message and overall professionalism.”

  • LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org
    73·
    9 months ago

    The newly listed company warned in its initial public offering (IPO) paperwork that its unique approach to content moderation can sometimes subject it to disruptions like in 2023, when several moderators protested against its decision to charge third-party app developers

    I seem to recall over 8000 subs going dark but sure, just a handful of people protested.

    • spider@lemmy.nzOP
      5·
      9 months ago

      eu·phe·mism

      noun

      a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.

      • LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org
        7·
        9 months ago

        Inappropriate for a wire service/po•tah•to. Reuters has little value to me if non factual statements are not attributed as quotes.

        • spider@lemmy.nzOP
          3·
          9 months ago

          when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.

          I probably should’ve put this part in bold.

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
    49·
    9 months ago

    That won’t go well.

    If you’re investing in paid moderation, you don’t want different mod teams moderating different subreddits - that would be a waste of money, and a pain to coordinate. Instead you want to gather the whole “Reddit mod team” as a single unit, and give them a single set of rules to enforce over the whole site, across multiple subreddits.

    In other words, it makes no difference if you’re in a small and specialised subreddit or a large and generic one. Say hello to people posting memes in discussion subreddits, rhetorical questions in “ask” subs, so goes on.

    And since now subreddits are more similar to each other, there’s less of a point to stay in the smaller subreddits. People will congregate even harder into the larger ones, that are way harder to moderate than the smaller ones (more users = more activity, conflict, and trolls per user). This might create a paradox, where more moderation will cause lower enforcement of the rules, since users are breaking them more often.

    The same applies if they’re investing in automatic moderation. With an additional issue - it’s easier to exploit it.

    • sean@infosec.pubEnglish
      9·
      9 months ago

      I think they would still allow community moderators for individual subreddit rules, just hire more people to enforce the site-wide rules and let the community mods focus on fostering their own communities. This is the ideal of course and Reddit is, well, Reddit so you might be correct.

      • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
        2·
        9 months ago

        This is the ideal of course and Reddit is, well, Reddit so you might be correct.

        Yup. Couple it with Reddit taunting the moderators to leave; [shitty] replacement mods (the free ones) for large subs are a dime a dozen, since it comes with bragging rights, but the smaller subs got specially harmed. (I wouldn’t be surprised if some are still private.) The paid mods will be the only ones enforcing rules in these subs.

  • eleitl@lemmy.ml
    49·
    9 months ago

    Why? Did something happen to all the volunteer mods? I wonder what it could have been.

  • Pandantic [they/them]@midwest.socialEnglish
    43·
    9 months ago

    “Well believe our approach is the most sustainable and scalable moderation model that exists online today. We are continually investing in and iterating on new tools and policies to improve our internal capabilities,” the Reddit spokesperson said.

    That’s not what mods say.

  • bstix@feddit.dkEnglish
    28·
    9 months ago

    It’s amazing that it has existed for so long and investors still don’t understand why the users go there in the first place.

  • spider@lemmy.nzOP
    28·
    9 months ago

    So moderators can’t possibly be “landed gentry” if they’re not paid.

    • progandy@feddit.de
      5·
      9 months ago

      The take is more like “landed gentry” has too little oversight, they are too independent. They are too far removed from their “king” and dont want to follow his every whim. (If you equate the subreddits to valuable land they were bequeathed)

  • Skua@kbin.social
    27·
    9 months ago

    “It’s like It is relying on unpaid labor when the company has nearly a billion dollars in revenue,”

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
    19·
    9 months ago

    Remember when reddit was a free speech platform where pretty much everything legal was ok except doxing?

    What went wrong that we can’t have places like that on the Internet anymore?

    • eleitl@lemmy.ml
      21·
      9 months ago

      We’re kinda using it right now. Strange how all the good things that persist are community efforts, huh? Makes you really think.

      • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
        1·
        9 months ago

        Are we though? Every other day you have someone asking to defederate or block instances. In a way everyone is free to talk, but there’s still people controlling who listens to what.

        • Urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          4·
          9 months ago

          You are always free to host your own lemmy instance. Then you can choose to federate with whoever you want.

          If I hosted an instance, I wouldn’t want to host hate speech or weird porn, and it would also be my right to not do so.

          I also wouldn’t want to bother moderating a lemmy instance for people I didn’t know, and having to hear their demands for what they want to see/not see. That’s just me, personally and I’m glad there are people out there doing the work for me.

          What I’m saying is, if you’re going to interact with a platform with possibly millions of users there’s going to be ground rules, and those take time to agree on. Lemmy is unique in that you can move to an instance that fits you better. I don’t think social media should be monetized, but we can’t ignore they take time and money to run. You have to compromise on somethings sometimes.

          Or you can just run your own.

          • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
            1·
            9 months ago

            I agree with you. That was my point, there are always compromises if a group of people is involved. In opposition to the comment implying that Lemmy is absolutely free of control. It’s just a different form of control.

            • Urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              1·
              9 months ago

              Hmm, I’m not sure how your opinion differs from /u/[email protected] then, that’s more or less what they were saying, no? They never stated they thought lemmy was completely free from control, the contrary in fact: community effort

    • Mastengwe@lemm.ee
      16·
      9 months ago

      Places like r/jailbait and r/fatpeoplehate existed under the guise of free speech.

      • Alice@beehaw.org
        5·
        9 months ago

        Man, sometimes I forget how awful that site could actually be. I just miss the crafting subreddits.

        • Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org
          2·
          9 months ago

          Those kinds of subs were the best. I liked when they weren’t too big, but just big enough to have a steady feed of topics. It felt like a tight knit club

    • bluGill@kbin.social
      10·
      9 months ago

      Abuse. I don’t agreewithfree speach in all things. I doupt anyone does. I don’t want to see constant (to the point of only) ads for vbucks. I don’t want threats to my person. There are a few other things like that, that I think we all agree on., I then have a personal list of things like porn or swearing that iidon’t want to see but some of you do. Where to draw theelineethus isn’t clear but there is one.

  • Destide@feddit.ukEnglish
    15·
    9 months ago

    There’s going to be a lot of “unforeseen” challenged to the site now. I get the impression Spez thought it would just be gravy train and hasn’t really taken into account how much it’s going to change the site

    • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
      29·
      9 months ago

      He already had his payday. The suckers will be left holding the bag when it all inevitably goes south.

      • Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org
        3·
        9 months ago

        The writing was on the wall. The announcement posts were always sad to see. In the comments you would have people begging for better mod tools or asking various questions only to be completely ignored or brushed off. Or they would get false promises that never actually were acted on. Classic spez

  • yarr@feddit.nlEnglish
    13·
    9 months ago

    Sweet, I can’t wait to see ModAI implementing moderation to further Reddit’s boring echo chamber.

  • helenslunch@feddit.nl
    11·
    9 months ago

    Yeah, let me tell ya what’s NOT going to happen…

    Much like Meta and Xitter, it ain’t worth the money to these companies. People will continue to lick their boots, and they will keep stepping. They don’t care.