His “joke” is the least of our issues. His behavior and communications with us has been all over the place—saying one thing to us while saying something completely different externally; recording and leaking a private phone call—to the point where I don’t know how we could do business with him.
I loved the commentary on that exchange from hackernews.
"""
fwlr 8 minutes ago | prev | next [–]
The rule that you shouldn’t build your business on someone else’s API obviously applies here and in the end Reddit is of course justified in choosing to shut out third party apps. But I must say it is simply hilarious that their exorbitant new price was so absurd that when devs quoted it back to them as a buyout rate, Reddit felt like they were being blackmailed. I mean that’s literally getting offended at your own number.
"""
He's right. If you think the golden goose lays $x/yr and the guy offers it at $.5x and it offends you, you've got a problem with yourself.
For fuck's sake dude, sorry that you wanted to only quietly out that you're an asshole and he made sure we all know what a giant, gaping asshole you are.
WHEN I AM AN ASSHOLE I HAVE THE EXPECTATION THAT OTHER PEOPLE KEEP IT PRIVATE
spez is a straight up narcissist that uses the same playbook as the rest. it's so evident with the gaslighting, blame-shifting, and smear campaign. at this point, anything he says should be understood to be a tactical play in gaining control by seeming powerful, "on your side," or requiring pity as a victim. his mind is deranged, so he has no other capacity.
Positive is the overwhelming number of people not falling for it and calling him out on it. It's amazing, doesn't matter politics, religion, sexual identity, everyone is fully united in saying "fuck spez"
Spez comes off as a narcissistic little pissbaby. Blaming the apps/devs that made Reddit what it is, rather than actually looking at ways to make the site better for everyone.
He then answered a question on the Apollo dev situation and my god, he just dug the hole deeper. He has no idea the public perception of him and reddit at the moment, and then he continues to slander the Apollo dev with no facts or anything to back up that Apollo dev did anything wrong.
For NBA fans, he's got some real Steve Kerr energy there too, more concerned about the recording of the call than anything else, like when the video of Draymond punching Poole came out.
Just like most high profile AMA's on reddit. But yeah it's pretty obvious theres a lot of money to be made here and as a mouthpiece for this company they arent going to give a lot of straight answers. Honestly I'm not sure why theyre even bothering with an AMA instead of just an announcement addressing concerns but they want to keep the reddit image I guess.
That image is dead and buried and has been since the site became one of the biggest on the web but what are you gunna do.
This is making our switch to Lemmy feel quite justified, isn't it? Although even if Reddit was still in good shape I think the potential of a decentralized platform is much better. I probably would have migrated here whether this shitstorm happened or not.
I want the fediverse to succeed. I love the idea of a less centrally-controlled approach to social media, because we've all seen the problems that can create. But I'm worried that the influence of authoritarian-leaning developers could be a serious problem.
Why would that be a serious problem? The code is open and it can be hosted by anyone. The moderators of a single instance are nearly meaningless to a federated system. That's the whole point.
To put it another way, what problems do you think the devs being tankies might cause?
On the main instance they've banned a few accounts for comments about human rights abuses in authoritarian-left governments. But it's true, that's instance specific. I know that on Mastodon the original instance, mastodon.social, has kind of set the tone for the other instances, so there could be an effect of that sort. Other than that? I'll just be honest and tell you that I'm not sure. It's hard to predict these kinds of things. But I agree with feditips that it could be a cause for concern.
I think that's the cool thing about it though is if we don't like the host of an instance, we move on to a better one. That will especially apply if they implement importing/exporting accounts like you can in Mastodon. Then you're REALLY not locked into any one server. I understand what you're saying, it's no small deal, but we can let them sit in their own echo chamber, and we go where we feel more comfortable.
Can just make an account in another instance (like you´ve done in Beehaw) or kbin I suppose. So far I haven´t seen anything that makes me uncorfortable with lemmy.ml, but given all these smaller platforms are on a trial period for me I have no qualms moving if needed be
Yeah. That's one of the things I like most about fediverse. You can always move around if you feel like you need to, and you'll still be able to interact with the communities you were interacting with earlier (in most cases). We'll see what happens. I think the instance I joined seems genuinely well-meaning (although like most users, I'm still mostly just dipping my feet in here). I just wanted to put out there that the lead developers could have some problematic views.
I disagree with the feditips account. I think he's pushing people away from lemmy rather than the specific instance. I've had no issues on lemmy.ml and the mods here have been great. I'm pretty sure he's just referring to lemmygrad. And like the other user who replied to you said, you could always make a new instance or join another. The political opinions of the devs means nothing if the platform is decentralized. Unlike Reddit, they don't have power over the entire platform, just whatever instance they host, just like if I made an instance, which I can, I have complete power over it.
You can look at the modlog and see that lemmy.ml has also banned people for criticism of authoritarian governments. The reddit post I linked to in regards to Tiananmen Square was posted by one of the moderators of lemmy.ml.
Well, everything else I said stands. You're on Beehaw, so none of that affects you. I could migrate my account there if it became an issue. Lemmy as an overall platform should still be recommended imo, because there are so many instances to join instead.
Mad, mad props to Apollo's dev for being so transparent about it. Guaranteed they thought they could bully him into staying quiet about it and then closing up shop. He told them to pound sand and controlled the narrative. That man needs to do documentaries or reporting. Meticulous, knew how to talk to a crowd, and not afraid of corporations bullying him.
I think the real answer has to be that he gave them real numbers he expected them to pay. They all said wtf no but he promised similar numbers to his investors from the official channels.
People who are doing better then him (profit wise) at his own game bailed when asked for things he promised to deliver.
pretty shocking really. I feel like a bit of prep to have some answers written up by someone who knows how to spin things would have fooled at least some readers. especially those who weren't following the whole drama up til now. but it was a comprehensive loss for them.
He just answered a question about their accessibility issues with basically "oh we're working on it". Come the fuck on dude that shit needed to be in place before you did all this and to be frank reddit's got a history of lying about that stuff too.
I'm shocked spez gave redreader a shout out as still trying to work with them.
That's an other dev (quantumbadger) I would expect to be honest with his community. He'd been pretty vocal in earlier updates that he wasn't going to be able to pay them at any price since his app is FOSS and distributed as source.
Quantumbadger already put out his update. Summary is that he's exempt from the new costs but we're losing distribution channels which need source (ie fdroid repo) so he doesn't publish his keys.
Kinda wish the peanut gallery would stop posting a little bit. Like a little engagement is one thing but this literally already has more than 2,000 posts in 20 minutes of people piling on and going "uhuh!" "yeah!" "HE WONT DO IT!" "He hasnt answered to this complicated post yet".
Like it's so much noise that when and if he does inevitably reply to things it will be buried.
Also why are people celebrating the big questions by giving them reddit gold and awards? Doesnt that cost real money? I dont see the sense in going
"Yeah screw reddit! You tell this lying dirtbag!" and then giving reddit a few bucks so a little icon appears next to their name
I'll admit to a little shitposting in the AMA thread to be fair, but mostly to promote Fediverse alternatives where people are asking where they can go.
I mean, you can just look at spez's profile to see what he's repsonded to. That's where I've been looking.
As for the awards thing, for some reason reddit has always done that. I'd bet 99% of the gold spez has gotten over the years was given in anger, which makes no sense to me, but it's something they always do
@lemillionsocks@Two9A There's not really any substantive conversation to be had. It's very obvious that they just did this to kill all 3rd party apps. Spez just continues to dig his grave with obvious lies that users can see right through.
Spez on Christian (Apollo dev)
Spez is a fucking joke
I loved the commentary on that exchange from hackernews.
""" fwlr 8 minutes ago | prev | next [–]
The rule that you shouldn’t build your business on someone else’s API obviously applies here and in the end Reddit is of course justified in choosing to shut out third party apps. But I must say it is simply hilarious that their exorbitant new price was so absurd that when devs quoted it back to them as a buyout rate, Reddit felt like they were being blackmailed. I mean that’s literally getting offended at your own number. """
He's right. If you think the golden goose lays $x/yr and the guy offers it at $.5x and it offends you, you've got a problem with yourself.
What an asshole. Still trying to ruin iamthatis.
For fuck's sake dude, sorry that you wanted to only quietly out that you're an asshole and he made sure we all know what a giant, gaping asshole you are.
WHEN I AM AN ASSHOLE I HAVE THE EXPECTATION THAT OTHER PEOPLE KEEP IT PRIVATE
spez is a straight up narcissist that uses the same playbook as the rest. it's so evident with the gaslighting, blame-shifting, and smear campaign. at this point, anything he says should be understood to be a tactical play in gaining control by seeming powerful, "on your side," or requiring pity as a victim. his mind is deranged, so he has no other capacity.
Positive is the overwhelming number of people not falling for it and calling him out on it. It's amazing, doesn't matter politics, religion, sexual identity, everyone is fully united in saying "fuck spez"
Check the response from /u/iamthatis. Absolutely savage.
https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/comment/jnk5inf/?context=3
I'm really hoping this is the comment to break the downvoted record
What is the record?
Pretty sure it was EA's "feeling of accomplishment" comment.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/
Good god, thatll take time to beat
At the time of my comment, it has been deleted...
What was it?
Spez comes off as a narcissistic little pissbaby. Blaming the apps/devs that made Reddit what it is, rather than actually looking at ways to make the site better for everyone.
Blame-shifting is a tenet of narcissism. They can't be grandiose and entitled without it.
https://youtu.be/1fluM1nVxh4
I think anyone surprised by Spez's behavior now have not actually read anything about him before
Power corrupts, this should probably be expected on every centralised service
You can pretty much feel the anger from each of his replies, he's getting shit on and can't handle it. What an absolute clown
All what, 13 of them? And still going after the Apollo developer, who seems to have laid himself bare. Weird.
He then answered a question on the Apollo dev situation and my god, he just dug the hole deeper. He has no idea the public perception of him and reddit at the moment, and then he continues to slander the Apollo dev with no facts or anything to back up that Apollo dev did anything wrong.
For NBA fans, he's got some real Steve Kerr energy there too, more concerned about the recording of the call than anything else, like when the video of Draymond punching Poole came out.
It's an AMABIWAA (Ask Me Anything, But I Won't Answer Anything)
Just like most high profile AMA's on reddit. But yeah it's pretty obvious theres a lot of money to be made here and as a mouthpiece for this company they arent going to give a lot of straight answers. Honestly I'm not sure why theyre even bothering with an AMA instead of just an announcement addressing concerns but they want to keep the reddit image I guess.
That image is dead and buried and has been since the site became one of the biggest on the web but what are you gunna do.
This is making our switch to Lemmy feel quite justified, isn't it? Although even if Reddit was still in good shape I think the potential of a decentralized platform is much better. I probably would have migrated here whether this shitstorm happened or not.
Unfortunately we may just be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. The developers (and moderators of this instance) are unapologetic authoritarians, and on their own instance they ban people for criticizing authoritarian governments. Take a look at this post from their own reddit account in regards to Tiananmen Square.
I want the fediverse to succeed. I love the idea of a less centrally-controlled approach to social media, because we've all seen the problems that can create. But I'm worried that the influence of authoritarian-leaning developers could be a serious problem.
Why would that be a serious problem? The code is open and it can be hosted by anyone. The moderators of a single instance are nearly meaningless to a federated system. That's the whole point.
To put it another way, what problems do you think the devs being tankies might cause?
On the main instance they've banned a few accounts for comments about human rights abuses in authoritarian-left governments. But it's true, that's instance specific. I know that on Mastodon the original instance, mastodon.social, has kind of set the tone for the other instances, so there could be an effect of that sort. Other than that? I'll just be honest and tell you that I'm not sure. It's hard to predict these kinds of things. But I agree with feditips that it could be a cause for concern.
I think that's the cool thing about it though is if we don't like the host of an instance, we move on to a better one. That will especially apply if they implement importing/exporting accounts like you can in Mastodon. Then you're REALLY not locked into any one server. I understand what you're saying, it's no small deal, but we can let them sit in their own echo chamber, and we go where we feel more comfortable.
Can just make an account in another instance (like you´ve done in Beehaw) or kbin I suppose. So far I haven´t seen anything that makes me uncorfortable with lemmy.ml, but given all these smaller platforms are on a trial period for me I have no qualms moving if needed be
Yeah. That's one of the things I like most about fediverse. You can always move around if you feel like you need to, and you'll still be able to interact with the communities you were interacting with earlier (in most cases). We'll see what happens. I think the instance I joined seems genuinely well-meaning (although like most users, I'm still mostly just dipping my feet in here). I just wanted to put out there that the lead developers could have some problematic views.
I disagree with the feditips account. I think he's pushing people away from lemmy rather than the specific instance. I've had no issues on lemmy.ml and the mods here have been great. I'm pretty sure he's just referring to lemmygrad. And like the other user who replied to you said, you could always make a new instance or join another. The political opinions of the devs means nothing if the platform is decentralized. Unlike Reddit, they don't have power over the entire platform, just whatever instance they host, just like if I made an instance, which I can, I have complete power over it.
You can look at the modlog and see that lemmy.ml has also banned people for criticism of authoritarian governments. The reddit post I linked to in regards to Tiananmen Square was posted by one of the moderators of lemmy.ml.
Well, everything else I said stands. You're on Beehaw, so none of that affects you. I could migrate my account there if it became an issue. Lemmy as an overall platform should still be recommended imo, because there are so many instances to join instead.
If he has any lawyers or a wife or anyone who has any investment in reddit getting an IPO they should tackle him and take the keyboard away.
Good lord, he's got a steam shovel and is gonna break into the mantle from the hole he's digging.
DIGGing you say?
Digg v5
That guy is a menace!
LOL.
At what point will the Apollo dev /u/iamthis have enough evidence to sue Spez for Defamation?
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/personal-injury/defamation-lawsuit-guide/
Man, I'm gonna miss reddit, but Lemmy seems pretty awesome so far.
You can tell that he is absolutely furious at the attention that Apollo has gotten.
Mad, mad props to Apollo's dev for being so transparent about it. Guaranteed they thought they could bully him into staying quiet about it and then closing up shop. He told them to pound sand and controlled the narrative. That man needs to do documentaries or reporting. Meticulous, knew how to talk to a crowd, and not afraid of corporations bullying him.
Dude is super bitter.
I think the real answer has to be that he gave them real numbers he expected them to pay. They all said wtf no but he promised similar numbers to his investors from the official channels.
People who are doing better then him (profit wise) at his own game bailed when asked for things he promised to deliver.
I mentioned lemmy and got shadowbanned
Haha pathetic. Let's see if that also works for me.
You can tell that he is absolutely furious at the attention that Apollo has gotten.
Yeah he seems incredibly bitter.
Almost understandable but did they really think this was the way to put it?
"I am bad at my job"
oooohhkkkkay
Sounds like a skill issue, Mr. CEO
He really sounds like 'fuck it I'll just improvise and get this shit over with' from his answers.
So glad I deleted my account yesterday.
Considering doing the same after 14 years of using reddit. End of an era I suppose. I think Lemmy has a ton of potential though.
I'm right there with you. 9+ years of reddit.
10 mins in, one answer which has -119 score...
WOW, where is it? I cent even find it
The irony is that the website is so borked right now that I can only access his profile and comments via the Apollo app…
undefined> nswered one question. I imagine that might be all he does. What a shit show - what does he even expect to do
here: https://www.reddit.com/user/spez
Might be easiest to find any comments on his user page: https://teddit.net/u/spez
The thread is going to be a shitshow.
wow, there are >13000 comments and /u/spez has made 12, all very brief. He didn't even have any canned answers ready.
And to be fair the other admins linked in the top post have about 6 comments between them.
I can't say I am surprised, it is probably in their best interests to not tell people too much
What a terrible AMA lol. I'm not surprised but it's still somehow worse than I imagined it would be.
pretty shocking really. I feel like a bit of prep to have some answers written up by someone who knows how to spin things would have fooled at least some readers. especially those who weren't following the whole drama up til now. but it was a comprehensive loss for them.
it looks like he copy/pasted an answer from his team, he even included the A: https://archive.ph/X6EJq
This guy is such a weasel, holy shit. He comes off as incredibly bitter.
You just know every comment is being vetted by legal, marketing, and PR. Coward. Can't say anything without corporate double speak
I'm shocked that any lawyer would say "yeah, go ahead, this AMA is a great idea"
He just answered a question about their accessibility issues with basically "oh we're working on it". Come the fuck on dude that shit needed to be in place before you did all this and to be frank reddit's got a history of lying about that stuff too.
I'm shocked spez gave redreader a shout out as still trying to work with them.
That's an other dev (quantumbadger) I would expect to be honest with his community. He'd been pretty vocal in earlier updates that he wasn't going to be able to pay them at any price since his app is FOSS and distributed as source.
Curious what his next update will say.
Quantumbadger already put out his update. Summary is that he's exempt from the new costs but we're losing distribution channels which need source (ie fdroid repo) so he doesn't publish his keys.
https://old.reddit.com/r/RedReader/comments/145du4j/update_4_redreader_granted_noncommercial/
even worse than I expected, somehow
popcornmeme.gif
I love it when idiots stab themselves in the face and set themselves on fire!
Almost 20 minutes in, and he's written 3 responses, each about a paragraph.
I'm guessing it's not going well.
He's trying to justify acting like a lying asshole but his ego can't allow him to admit fault.
He may actually implode.
Answers must be vetted by lawyers.
Kinda wish the peanut gallery would stop posting a little bit. Like a little engagement is one thing but this literally already has more than 2,000 posts in 20 minutes of people piling on and going "uhuh!" "yeah!" "HE WONT DO IT!" "He hasnt answered to this complicated post yet".
Like it's so much noise that when and if he does inevitably reply to things it will be buried.
Also why are people celebrating the big questions by giving them reddit gold and awards? Doesnt that cost real money? I dont see the sense in going
"Yeah screw reddit! You tell this lying dirtbag!" and then giving reddit a few bucks so a little icon appears next to their name
I'll admit to a little shitposting in the AMA thread to be fair, but mostly to promote Fediverse alternatives where people are asking where they can go.
Youre going god's work. That said I imagine that kind of content will be buried under the thousands of people posting "fuck spez"
I'm actually seeing a fair number of people linking or mentioning Lemmy, there may be traction...
One thought is that awards etc for certain comments push in to the top when sorting by hot, I believe. Just a guess though.
I mean, you can just look at spez's profile to see what he's repsonded to. That's where I've been looking.
As for the awards thing, for some reason reddit has always done that. I'd bet 99% of the gold spez has gotten over the years was given in anger, which makes no sense to me, but it's something they always do
@lemillionsocks @Two9A There's not really any substantive conversation to be had. It's very obvious that they just did this to kill all 3rd party apps. Spez just continues to dig his grave with obvious lies that users can see right through.
Anyone noticing slowdowns and timeouts? Overloaded? Or slowing access?
Probably just thousands of angry Redditors accessing the thread at once.
Im definitely getting something of the sort
This is definitely one of the AMA's of all time lmao
7.7k comments already, this is mad
51 minutes later 13143 comments
wow.
You would think given the community, they would want to toss at least a dozen staff on this, and have prepared answers to most of the questions.
Spez looks incredibly out of touch with this ama.
Fuck @[email protected]
CEO spez AMA Overview : Save3rdPartyApps
Did anyone catch that he accidentally started one of his comments with "A:" ? Almost like he was copy pasting answers to pre-written questions.
Proof: https://archive.ph/X6EJq
He's answered one question. I imagine that might be all he does. What a shit show - what does he even expect to do
He answered by doubling down on his lies slander and threats to blackmail a guy who literally has tapes of every interaction.
What a fucking tool.
what a shitshow. I just saw his post
Lol it's just a written statement, still no answers from spez
Edit: 2 answers regarding accessibility and NSFW content
Spez is a lying POS