Quick note on the terrible, terrible reddit api pricing and how it affects apps like Apollo.

I’ll admit that my reddit usage has been barely existent in the last few years, but the last time I used reddit, I used it through the excellent app Apollo.

Apart from being upset by the sheer audacity and the way in which this was communicated, I always hope in moments like this, that we would move on collectively to more federated, less monopolistic ways of organizing ourselves online.

It would need large-scale adoption of paying by users - surely not 100%, but more than the 5% you hear often - for such a thing to occur, I think. People who are less technically inclined and maybe have less of an interest - ideological, anthropological or otherwise - would need to be part of this. I’m not very hopeful that they ever will.

There is a certain kind of perverse satisfaction to observe how some of these giants of social media are failing right now. But I’m not optimistic enough that all or even a significant portion of the people will make the jump because of this. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok seem to continue to thrive.

But for me, right now, there is a lot to see and do in places like micro.blog and mastodon. I hope it stays that way and maybe, just maybe, there are enough interesting people on these platforms that the “normies” will come over (and stay), too. It seems like this would lead to a healthier, more democratic future.