Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, desperate to show Wall St. that his company can make money, decided to lock away the information on Reddit behind a paywall by turning Reddit’s free API to paid, creating quite a mess. In response, thousands of subreddits went dark on Monday, with a plan for most (though not all) to come back today.
But, on Tuesday, Huffman’s internal email to Reddit staff leaked to the Verge, in which Huffman continued with the same dismissive attitude towards Reddit’s users that he showed in last week’s AMA.
There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well. The most important things we can do right now are stay focused, adapt to challenges, and keep moving forward. We absolutely must ship what we said we would.
Elsewhere he notes, again somewhat dismissively, that the subreddits will come back on Wednesday. He also claims only around 1,000 subreddits went dark, but multiple reports show the number was actually closer to 8,000, and that includes many of the most trafficked subreddits like r/funny, r/gaming, r/music, r/science, and r/todayilearned.
One page visualizing the blackouts noted that, of the 500 top subreddits on the site, over 70% either went private or restricted (black is private, brown is restricted).
Perhaps because of Huffman’s dismissive attitude, a bunch of subreddits are saying that they’re no longer planning to reopen today, but will follow r/Music’s lead and stay dark indefinitely:
“Reddit has budged microscopically,” u/SpicyThunder335, a moderator for r/ModCoord, wrote in the post. They say that despite an announcement that access to a popular data-archiving tool for moderators would be restored, “our core concerns still aren’t satisfied, and these concessions came prior to the blackout start date; Reddit has been silent since it began.” SpicyThunder335 also bolded a line from a Monday memo from CEO Steve Huffman obtained by The Verge — “like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well” — and said that “more is needed for Reddit to act.”
Ahead of the Tuesday post, more than 300 subreddits had committed to staying dark indefinitely, SpicyThunder335 said. The list included some hugely popular subreddits, like r/aww (more than 34 million subscribers), r/music (more than 32 million subscribers), and r/videos (more than 26 million subscribers). Even r/nba committed to an indefinite timeframe at arguably the most important time of the NBA season. But SpicyThunder335 invited moderators to share pledges to keep the protests going, and the commitments are rolling in.
Now, plenty of subreddits have decided to come back, and I don’t think anyone is begrudging those who did so. But it’s incredible how every time Huffman opens his mouth, he seems to make the situation worse, rather than better.
That’s not leadership. It’s desperation.