Probably because it’s historically generated a ton of traffic and they’re trying to fluff up their numbers to hide the aftermath of their mistakes.
Hilarious that Huffman openly admitted that Reddit “isn’t profitable” (somehow) and they have to squeeze 3PAs out to try to make up for that, but apparently they found spare funds in the budget to pay spambots to keep reposting content to keep things from going barren.
Shit like this is why I switched to a third party app a while ago. I used to have the official app on my phone because iOS and everything I remembered seeing as far as 3PAs went was all for Android before I heard of Apollo. But the fact that I was seeing “posts” like this every three-or-so posts, and the fact that they were all over the comments as well was just way too much.
It’s exactly why I will not go back. I have like three niche subreddits saved that have no real equivalent in the Fediverse and I’ll only check in on occasion. Through Old.Reddit. With a browser that has an ad blocker built in.
Reddit gets to hold these up as examples of reasonable developers who were willing to work with Reddit, unlike those crying babies that are closing their apps.
This deserves to be repeated. Like… I get why one would want to not let their project die, but we all know this is exactly what’s going to happen. These few who remain will funnel a ton of money into Reddit’s pocket for a worse experience all so that they can be used to further slander the devs of the 3PAs who were forced out from the API changes. In a couple months when the last few 3PAs inevitably go under, I don’t know if a single tear will be shed because the writing on the wall is so obvious.
I imagine it does. You’re still signing in and interacting with the platform, so it still likely counts.
I feel like “traffic” is also easy to fake. People can drum up an army of new bots and suddenly the “traffic” is back, even if actual people aren’t.
MerylasFalguard
joined 1 year ago
Well yea, they don’t mention the fediverse because none of the oligarchs that fund their employer own it, so they have no reason to promote it at all.