It’s not like they couldn’t put a stop to blackouts before, as seen with the third-party app fiasco, but Reddit has now made that tactic entirely impossible. Mods will now need to get permission from Reddit admins before they can make a sub private. Makes me wonder if they’re about to do something controversial again soon.
Reddit’s decline through enshittification has been fascinating to watch.
This new stage appears to be utterly remarkable — an aggressive and hostile approach to its userbase and volunteer mod community on which the company is entirely reliant.
I think the harm reddit did in consolidating web discussion into a single platform that fostered a horrible, reductive culture online is immeasurable but deeply regrettable.