It’s honestly really sad what’s been happening recently. Reddit with the API pricing on 3rd party apps, Discord with the new username change, Twitter with the rate limits, and Twitch with their new advertising rules (although that has been reverted because of backlash). Why does it seem like every company is collectively on a common mission of destroying themselves in the past few months?
I know the common answer is something around the lines of “because companies only care about making money”, but I still don’t get why it seems like all these social media companies have suddenly agreed to screw themselves during pretty much the period of March-June. One that sticks out to me especially is Reddit CEO, Huffman’s comment (u/spez), “We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive”. Like reading this literally pisses me off on so many levels. I wouldn’t even have to understand the context behind his comment to say, “I am DONE with you, and I am leaving your site”.
Why is it like this? Does everyone feel the same way? I’m not sure if it’s just me but everything seems to be going downhill these days. I really do hope there is a solution out of this mess.
I think it’s more of an ego thing. The people with healthy egos probably never end up as execs in companies as big as Reddit, and the people that do are likely driven by something else other than the desire to actually build a platform that respects its users and works well in cooperation with them - “I’m smart, I’m sexy, I know better than these plebs making us money”.
Yeah, there seems to be an inflection point in the lifecycle of businesses nowadays where the leadership loses any interest in what the company actually does. The products it makes or services it provides are considered almost irrelevant.