As I write this, Reddit might be imploding. Reddit has been planning changes to the availability of their API for the last few months: namely, they will be charging fees of heavy users of the API in order to use it. Reddit’s API has traditionally be very open, to the extent that there has been little to no company-driven regulations with regard to who can use it, what it can be used for, or how many API calls can be made. This has been a boon for researchers (like me), but also for developers who have made (and make money off of) third party Reddit apps using the API, people who have made tools so that moderators can more efficiently moderate their subreddits, tools that allow people with visual and other disabilities to access content, and more. Reddit’s large amount of public user data has also been used to train AI and various other text-based algorithms. As Steve Huffman, Reddit’s cofounder and CEO noted in the New York Times in April, “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable. But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.” Like many other social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, Reddit has noted that the value in their company lies in data generated by its users. There are rumors that Reddit is planning an IPO later this year, and speculation is that Reddit is attempting to take control of its API as a means of having greater control over both revenue (third party apps are largely ad free, and ad revenue accounts for the bulk of Reddit’s total revenue) and greater control over its user-generated data.
Subreddits, the diverse forum-like communities that populate Reddit, are run by volunteer moderators. Most platforms, like the aforementioned Twitter and Facebook, enforce moderation from the top down, employing numerous people and utilizing algorithms of various sorts to assist in the process. Subreddits, on the other hand, are created by users, who form and enforce their own rules within the subreddit. Anyone with an active account can create a subreddit or be a moderator of an existing subreddit. Not only does this user-focused structure contribute to making subreddits, particularly subreddits focused on more niche topics or niche communities, into interesting, vibrant, and supportive communities, it also gives the volunteer moderators of subreddits a disproportionate amount of power on the platform relative to other online spaces.
Right now, moderators across Reddit are using that power to protest. Moderators also have the ability to switch subreddits into private mode, meaning no one who isn’t a moderator can see the contents of the subreddit. When done at a large scale, this can vastly reduce the amount of content on Reddit that is publicly available, which reduces traffic to Reddit’s website and subsequent ad revenue. This technique has been used to good effect in the past to protest the repeal of a law protecting net neutrality in the U.S. in 2017 and the sudden dismissal of an instrumental Reddit employee in 2015, among other examples. At its peak on Tuesday, June 13th, nearly 8500 subreddits, many having millions of subscribers, were set to private, according to the reddark.untone.uk tracker. Some of my favorite subreddits, including r/GirlGamers and r/WitchesVsPatriarchy, are still participating in the protest as I write. For more information and nuance about the protest, I found this article from The Verge to be helpful.
How I use Reddit
All of this hubbub with Reddit has got me thinking about my own relationship to the platform, and where it fits more broadly into my online life. I’ve had a Reddit account for over 10 years, but I’ve only been a regular user for the past 5 years or so – dating back to when my brother (also a long-time Reddit user) recommended Relay for Reddit to me, a third-party mobile app for Android. Prior to that, I flirted with Reddit, finding and engaging in smaller communities for a month or two and then floating off again. Relay has a much more streamlined design than Reddit’s website and made Reddit much easier for me to navigate and interact on. Aside from Relay, the other key tip I got from my brother that really shaped and sharpened my Reddit use was to avoid r/all (the feed that collates “top” posts from all other subreddits) and focus on finding subreddits that really clicked with me. Being able to pull up Reddit anytime on my phone using an interface that didn’t suck and seeing content that I genuinely enjoyed was a gamechanger for me.
Since I discovered how to curate Reddit to suit my own needs, Reddit has been a solid source of funny, entertaining, uplifting content for me. Reddit has been a more reliable source for this need than any other social media platform I’ve ever been part of it in large part because the platform lends itself so well to curation. On Reddit, I’m not following individuals like on Twitter or Instagram, or real-life social connections, like on Facebook. I’m following interests, because that’s what subreddits tend to revolve around. If I want to see fiber-based craft projects based on Nintendo characters and properties, there’s r/NintendoStitch. If I want to be inspired by what women and queer folk are doing to positively affirm their existence in a patriarchal society, r/WitchesVPatriarchy is my go-to. My partner and I have spent many a cozy night sitting on the couch, browsing our phones, and sharing fun things we see on Reddit with one another.
I’ve also discovered, as many others have, how useful Reddit can be when searching for answers to esoteric questions, or when searching for recommendation for things to buy, books to read, places to visit, and more from people who have actually done the buying/reading/visiting/etc. Append the word “Reddit” to any Google search and Google returns a treasure trove of useful information from Reddit’s archives about what people have done or experienced that might be helpful for what I want to know. I’ve also found Reddit to be a useful resource for troubleshooting tech and programming-related issues, up there with StackOverflow.
Reddit isn’t only a space where I go to see funny, uplifting content or to find information about miscellaneous things. I’ve found subreddits that have proven to be excellent learning communities. I learned to cross stitch a couple years ago thanks to r/crossstitch. The subreddit hosts a number of resources on how to get started and where to find good patterns (or make your own). It’s also actively moderated to make it a safe space for people who are learning and people who have been stitching for years alike. Members are warned not to shame other users for using unconventional techniques, or for not understanding basic aspects of the craft. Moderators and users alike work to enforce these rules, making the subreddit an excellent and supportive space to learn and grow with the craft. Posts asking questions and seeking help are welcome and encouraged. It’s also a wonderful place to get new ideas for future projects, as members routinely post projects they’re working on or have recently finished.
I’ve also found Reddit communities which have been extremely helpful in terms of providing emotional and social support for members. Last October, I was told a hysterectomy would be the best way to address ongoing health concerns I’d had for years; I ended up having the surgery in mid-March this year. In the few weeks after the initial talk with my doctor, I found r/hysterectomy, which has proven to be an invaluable resources. Through what users had posted and linked to on the subreddit, I was able to find resources on what the procedure was like, what kinds of questions to ask my doctor, what to expect when recovering, what kinds of foods to eat and things to have around the house to help me recover more smoothly, and more. It also proved to be a helpful place to post when I had questions or worries that wouldn’t go away – there would always be someone (usually many someones) giving advice or simply wishing me well and reminding me that I’d be feeling better soon. The help and support I’ve received through the subreddit motivated me to provide support for others in return.
Communities on Reddit have also had a direct and impactful affect on my own research interests. I entered my current PhD program in 2019 with the goal of studying gender and toxicity in video game communities, a topic that had caught my interest in large part due to reading posts and comments on r/GirlGamers. In the years since, my focus has shifted away from toxicity and towards how women and queer folk make space for themselves in gaming communities. Posts and comments on r/GirlGamers have shown me so many examples of how gender impacts people’s experiences in video games and gaming communities, and also given me many examples for how women and queer folk are fighting back in those spaces and supporting one another in the process. Being a part of r/GirlGamers has also informed how I approach playing games with others and being in online spaces in ways that actively and positively support other players.
The Impact of a Changing Reddit on Me
Many third party mobile apps, including Apollo and RIF (Reddit Is Fun), have already already announced they will be shutting down at the end of June before Reddit’s new API pricing structure kicks in. As one of the smaller third party apps, the developer of Relay is somewhat optimistic that he can continue offering the app, though only if he charges users monthly for the privilege of using what is currently a free app. If Relay goes, or if the cost-to-value ratio is too high for me, I’ll be stuck with the mobile website (which is abjectly terrible, from a usability standpoint) or the first party mobile app, which I haven’t tried but am not expecting to be any better. Or I could constrict my Reddit usage to the desktop, where old.reddit.com is still somewhat usable, though I understand Reddit plans to eventually phase it out in favor of their redesigned – and ad-heavy – primary website.
Part of what makes Reddit’s first party mobile and web offerings so awful from a usability standpoint are the ever present ads. The worst of these for me are Reddit’s own “recommended posts” which show posts from other subreddits I’m not subscribed to in the hope that I’ll deepen my engagement with the platform. I’ve spent years curating the subreddits I belong to so that I won’t be faced with content I don’t want to see – I avoid many of the bigger subs, for example, because of how bro-y and toxic they tend to be. This aspect of Reddit’s website actively works to erode the boundaries I’ve put up for myself that make Reddit a pleasant place for me to be.
In my heart, I’m already saying goodbye to Reddit. Despite the protest, I don’t expect Reddit to change its new policies in any substantial way. I expect many of the communities I love to change, and not for the better, as moderators lose access to tools or lose their faith in Reddit as a system and leave (or get kicked out). Where will the people who have shaped these communities end up, I wonder? Interest-focused Discord servers, perhaps, which would be an option for some community-focused subreddits. I joined a cross stitch-focused Discord server which I found through Reddit that provides much of the same value to me as the subreddit and has allowed me to foster more personal connections with other cross stitchers around the world. The mods of r/GirlGamers also run a Discord server, though I find it much less valuable than the subreddit because my interest in that community is geared more towards following and joining deeper conversations about gender and gaming. Conversations on Discord are much more ephemeral and harder to follow.
Discord also doesn’t provide the same value in terms of searchability or providing valuable resources for members. Some Redditors have spoken of decamping to Lemmy, an open source and federated forum-like system similar to Reddit – Lemmy is to Reddit as Mastodon is to Twitter. Unlike Twitter and Reddit, Mastodon and Lemmy are decentralized, consisting of software and servers run entirely by volunteers. On the one hand, changes will be less likely to be motivated by greed. On the other hand, as Reddit is discovering, running a platform on the backs of volunteers is a shaky proposition at best when it comes to maintaining the stability of the platform. I was not particularly sorry to delete my Twitter account, and so was unwilling to try out Mastodon in an attempt to replace it. However, I’m seriously considering trying out Lemmy, for the sole reason that belonging on Reddit has meant enough to me that I actively want to find similar spaces elsewhere.
What I want – what I think all social media users want – is to find spaces where like-minded people congregate. Spaces where I can learn from others, where I can share my knowledge with others, where I can have conversations (or debates) with others about topics that are important to me. Over the past few years, I’ve found some of these spaces on Reddit. Because I have an attachment to these spaces, I also have an attachment to Reddit, the platform that, through its structure and design, enabled these spaces to exist. Reddit, to me, is like a city I’ve loved living in. I don’t particularly want to move to a new place right now, but the cost of living is becoming too high to bear.