Now Reddit are coming for the individual personal subreddits

"We are aware that you have chosen to close your community at this time. Mods have a right to take a break from moderating, or decide that you don't want to be a mod anymore. But active communities are relied upon by thousands or even millions of users, and we have a duty to keep these spaces active.

Subreddits belong to the community of users who come to them for support and conversation. Moderators are stewards of these spaces and in a position of trust. Redditors rely on these spaces for information, support, entertainment, and connection.

Our goal here is to ensure that existing mod teams establish a path forward to make sure your subreddit is available for the community that has made its home here. If you are willing to reopen and maintain the community, please take steps to begin that process. Many communities have chosen to go restricted for a period of time before becoming fully open, to avoid a flood of traffic.

If this community remains private, we will reach out soon with information on what next steps will take place."

I am happy this API drama has run the gamut and is now tackling what has always been the true issue head-on: anonymous, first-come first-serve moderators of user communities. I have been on reddit for 15 years. These users have the loudest voice, have historically placed more importance on themselves than there actually is, and have an unhealthy amount of power over the content.

If you've ever been on the wrong side of a power-trip by a moderator, you know what I mean. It's super frustrating to be banned or silenced from a sub because one of the mods didn't like what you said. Here I am, one of thousands of like-minded users wanting to participate in a sub about some topic, but my ability to do so is totally at the whim of this anonymous person who is just another user like me but doesn't have to answer to anyone.

We see time and time again that this power gets into the head of many moderators and they begin to exert personal control over the community. Mod drama on reddit is a taint. "But not all mods are like that." Yes they are, on long timescales. Generalization is useful. Many commenters, here included, miss the big picture. APIs/tools/UI will come and go. Reddit has a large cultural moat and that is a fact. Nitpicking details is petty.

In the context of an upcoming potential IPO, it makes sense for reddit to do the following:

Standardize the subreddits, the rules and terms of use, and consolidate control. Make the reddit experience predictable, not wildly variant at the whims of a handful of mods who control a vastly disproportionate amount of subreddits and content. Replacing mods with AI filters is a prime use case.

I will also look forward to a clampdown on nsfw subreddits. Sexuality is kryptonite to the stock market. And good riddance. Every time I start typing a word on the subreddit search, like 5 different variations of a nsfw sub for that word come up. It's frankly gross. An idea floating around is to jettison the nsfw subs into a separate business that can compete with OF. This is a fine idea.

spez gets a lot of shit for what he says, but at least he's putting his face and name next to his words and taking ownership of them. I don't see any mods or supporters of this 'protest' posting with their name and face. Tells you all you need to know.