That’s all it is. “I don’t like your new rules but won’t leave!”
Just go to another social media site or start your own.
I’m all for protest, but this too much like people who don’t like tipping “protesting” by refusing to tip waiters/waitresses but continue going to the places they know tips are customary.
I think there are mods who love their community, who are concerned about what will happen to the Reddit they love. Considering they are volunteers, I am sympathetic to them. And I share their concern about what Reddit could become.
Then I think there are power users, who use 3rd party apps to improve their experience, and I really don't have sympathy. None of these people that are upset (mods excluded) are financially supporting Reddit, or offering great solutions to the board on how to make themselves more profitable. The guy from Reddit might need some time in charm school, but if you invested in Reddit, you would maybe like to stop burning money.
Like
@FreeBaGeL said, history says this will probably go badly for users, but I am not seeing them offer solutions.
I guess I just don’t see how just using the Reddit app is bad for users.
As a long-time Reddit user and a long-time user of Apollo (one of the biggest 3rd party apps that's getting shut down), the Reddit app works but it is
terrible compared to Apollo. Sure it works, but you can compare it to using a horrible internet browser vs. to your favorite one that has a bunch of awesome extensions installed. Or comparing a steak at Ponderosa to one at the nicest steakhouse in town. It's just a night and day difference and it's not even close. If Reddit wants to kill 3rd party apps, they should just purchase Apollo and others outright like Google, Microsoft, etc. have done again and again over the years.
I also use another 3rd party app called Pics HD for Reddit that is also now severely crippled and will probably disappear as well. It's kind of like a never-ending "Fred and Greg's thread" with all of the best pics and gifs scraped from the most popular subreddits and it's completely customizable as well. I don't think Reddit offers anything like that at all.
I think Google Chrome is the biggest browser by market share these days. Imagine if Google suddenly came out and said they would no longer support extensions and they were just all going to disappear. How many of you would still want to use Chrome? I suppose I will continue to access Reddit after the 3rd party apps are gone for the content that I can't find elsewhere, but nowhere near as often as I do now.