Reddit CEO warns employees not to wear Reddit swag in public as users revolt (www.businessinsider.com)

submitted 2 years ago by Chainweasel@lemmy.world to c/news@beehaw.org

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[-] dear_faye@halubilo.social 17 points 2 years ago

High-ranking corporate individuals really are so very out of touch with the situation on the ground, aren't they? It's insane they're wording things as if it's the people's fault for simply not understanding they want more money or that they literally LIED about being blackmailed. It makes me sick.

[-] Banzai51@midwest.social 17 points 2 years ago

"We're being persecuted!!! Violence!!! Give me sympathy!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not the bad buy here!!!!" -Spez.

[-] Kuroneko@beehaw.org 7 points 2 years ago

Very appropriate typo. He is indeed a bad buy as well as a bad guy.

[-] Banzai51@midwest.social 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah, I saw the typo and laughed. What the heck, let it ride!

[-] noelnh@feddit.de 14 points 2 years ago

„The only long-term solution is improving our product“ What I don’t get is in what way these changes are supposed to improve Reddit. Especially considering that how pissed off many volunteers that Reddit absolutely needs are. Such an unlikeable twat…

[-] Rinox@feddit.it 12 points 2 years ago

You don't understand, what users really crave are live-streams, chats, trending topics and avatars. That's what reddit is all about /s

[-] GeekFTW@beehaw.org 9 points 2 years ago

Not just avatars, NFT avatars!

[-] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

"what, you guys don't have phones?"

[-] office_account@feddit.de 7 points 2 years ago

„The only long-term solution is improving our product“ What I don’t get is in what way these changes are supposed to improve Reddit

That's just normal corpo-babble.
Companies always claim to put the customer first and the turn around and increase prices or monetize previously free features.

[-] heyztb@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

Are people really that angry? I mean I know we live in a crazy world, but this seems a bit much.

[-] speedycat2014@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago

No, this loser has a persecution fetish, nothing more.

It feeds his narcissism to think people care that much offline.

[-] LimitedBrain@beehaw.org 10 points 2 years ago

Okay let's not kid ourselves. I know reddit is quiet right now but the entire website is angry at them. Their inbox is likely full of death threats. People are searching for their employee information.

I get that it's fun to hate on spez and all but people have hunted employees down for less before. So yeah, while this is a justified protest and I dislike spez, we should all want to keep reddit employees safe right now. Most of them aren't the problem.

[-] boobas@beehaw.org 3 points 2 years ago

It's hard to wrap my head around the idea of sending death threats, people walking around with so much hate filled up that they lash out at the most detrimental things.

It's a corporate decision, protests (subreddits going dark) and constructive critiscm from the userbase is the only way to make the voice heard.

I'm happy that another platform (Lemmy) existed which is more suitable and designed like the old.reddit.com layout to migrate to. Otherwise this ordeal would really suck.

[-] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

No, I don't think so. This is coming from the same guy who claimed that the Apollo dev tried to extort him for $10 million and threatened him, when the Apollo Dev had the phone call recorded and proved that he only offered to sell the company.
He's feeling threatened and trying to make the users participating in the blackout look bad.

[-] heyztb@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Anything for that IPO, I guess..

[-] NewEnglandRedshirt@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Has there ever been an IPO of zero? Because it wouldn't surprise me at this point...

[-] KilgoreTrout@beehaw.org 5 points 2 years ago

Pets.com went bankrupt within 12 months of its IPO. It was ahead of its time.

[-] heyztb@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

After the 30th, we might see it. They haven't exactly handled this situation well, so I don't have high hopes for the transition when they do finally enact their pricing changes.

[-] lindgrenj6@fosstodon.org 2 points 2 years ago

also of all the people to literally attack employees...redditors are probably the least likely.

[-] borlax@lemmy.borlax.com 2 points 2 years ago

No, this is just how an out of touch rich dude thinks whenever anyone has criticisms of him or the platform he thinks he owns.

[-] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

No, but like saying the appolo dev is blackmailing them, spez is trying to twist the narrative

[-] PrinceHabib72@vlemmy.net 3 points 2 years ago

He even claims that around a thousand subreddits went dark. It was 8,000. Hundreds are already pledging to stay dark indefinitely, including huge ones like r/aww and r/videos.

[-] haelusnovak@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

I think he's just making it clear that only those with many, many users matter to him, because individuals generate little value for him. He probably only counted the most popular subreddits as worth noticing.

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[-] possiblylinux127@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

All it takes is one crazy guy. If you think about the size of reddit it makes sense that there is at least one who is willing to harm others

[-] blindsight@beehaw.org 3 points 2 years ago

The incel terrorists in Canada were both on Reddit, iirc. There are some incredibly fringe communities on Reddit. And Lemmy, for that matter.

So, yeah. Agreed. If 1 in a million is violent, that's enough people for someone to get hurt.

[-] GhostMagician@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

No it's just the common tactic from companies when there isn't a good reception to one of their decisions. Then they just cherry pick some comments from Twitter or whatever and set the stage.

[-] CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago

I can't say I'd assault someone wearing reddit swag, but I'd probably cross the street...

[-] howdy@thesimplecorner.org 1 points 2 years ago

Well, considering people are doing bomb threats over bud light right now...

Sad. Sad. Reality.

[-] borlax@lemmy.borlax.com 1 points 2 years ago

The people pissed about bud light are on Facebook.

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[-] sotolf@beehaw.org 8 points 2 years ago

"We absolutely must ship what we said we would" Yeah right, everything else they have promised never led to anything, but this, this we have to push through :p

[-] Djokkum@rammy.site 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The attitude he seems to have bothers me so much.

"[this blowup] will pass"

He doesn't even seem to take this whole thing seriously. "Give it two weeks, those suckers will have forgotten all about this". It's insulting.

[-] Infinifox@pawb.social 1 points 2 years ago

I feel like he might be right though, a blackout is no big deal if it's only 48 hours. Anything short of leaving and moving to another platform is not something to be taken seriously.

[-] pfannkuchen_gesicht@feddit.de 1 points 2 years ago

I'm afraid he might be right though. Lot's of people don't really care and seem to be fine with the official app...

[-] chaos@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago

The key thing will be what the moderators do, they're the ones with actual leverage. Reddit depends on them doing unpaid labor for the site to function, and while the average user probably just uses the official app and site, the moderators are much more like the third-party app users and often depend on the same or similar tools to do their job. If they take mass action, they could really disrupt things much more than just a temporary blackout. Mass replacement of them would be a lot of hassle, and either lots of money to hire staff to do it or lots of time for fresh new mods to make people angry as they learn the ropes.

But, then again, mods do tend to like the control they get over their little fiefdoms, so I'm not all that optimistic that enough will choose to throw their rings into Mount Doom. We'll see though.

[-] david@feddit.uk 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah, you can't have it both ways:

It's nothing, it'll all blow over, they'll get over it
They're so angry our employees are in physical danger

I suspect that the truth is he's feeling a lot of hate just now from the reddit community and he wants the employees to identify with him rather than with the users.

[-] Aninjanameddaryll@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 years ago

He's the one that has to worry about a project mayhem castration, not the employees lol.

[-] emstuff@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 years ago

pr strategy, it’s the user’s fault, make investors and employees fear and hate the user mob and not the poor defenseless company

[-] Kushan@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

But as defences go, it's a pretty braindead one - the very people Spez is trying to demonise is his userbase. Why would you invest in a company that has such dangerous users?

[-] emstuff@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago

same reason this all started in the first place, unlike you and me spez sees reddit as entirely independent of its community

to this guy, community is a tool that can be balanced and leveraged rather than central to his brand’s identity

[-] _anarchism_@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

oh my god his unbearable arrogance knows no bounds

[-] Djokkum@rammy.site 2 points 2 years ago

"~~hanz~~ spez, are we the baddies?"

[-] SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

He's worried that his employees might get poached now. If I worked there I'd be thinking about leaving and if I was trying to hire at another company I'd be trying to steal whatever talent they have over there.

[-] sotolf@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

Well if you look at their app talent would be stretching it...

[-] Knusper@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Why would anyone want to be seen wearing Reddit swag after that whole shitshow? I would be embarassed to be working for them.

[-] bermuda@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

i couldn't imagine being seen in public wearing reddit swag in general, much less after the API announcement

[-] bermuda@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

nothing says "swag" like the reddit logo

[-] handhookcardoor@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

God, he’s so fucking stupid.

[-] BlinkerFluid@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago

"Sick retro swag! I remember Reddit!"

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this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023

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