A long time ago, I played an MMORPG that was scheduled to shut down the beta world. That feeling, in the last moments, of everything around you seeming just as before, but knowing that this could be the last time ever you’re seeing that world. That community.
I’m getting the same feeling looking at reddit right now.
Sure, the blackout might fizzle. The admins might be forced to recant, most subreddits might return. Even if they don’t, reddit could survive in some form.
… or a digg apocalypse is repeated, and we’re all presently witnessing the last moments before the bombs fall and nothing will ever be as it used to be.
A strange feeling, standing on the precipice of Internet history.
It would be hard to do so.
Even if we predict that some moderators there are like well trained dogs, and loyal to their master Reddit Inc., and willing to take up those older subs, those dogs will be overburdened with so much shit that they’ll eventually give up. Even a loyal dog bites back or runs away if abused enough, and the same applies to people. And even if the moderator plays along, the mod is just a human being, not a superman.
They could also invest on paid moderation, but that makes the site less profitable in 3.4 million dollars per year.
@[email protected] mentioned the possibility of them doing it for the bigger subs. It’s possible but Reddit always had some weird dynamics between larger and smaller subs - people would be attracted to the site by the larger ones, but they’d stay for the smaller ones. The small subs give you a sense of community, they’re usually deeper in discussion, and they’re about every freaking thing out there.
There’s also millions of people pissed off at Reddit now so I would expect some percentage of them will actively fuck with whatever the new normal is on Reddit. Being a mod isn’t going to get easier.