It can go one of a few ways.
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Apart from the few subs that remain offline, it’ll basically be back to normal. Those that do remain offline indefinitely just get forcibly reopened or recreated by admins, especially huge subreddits like /r/videos. Smaller ones just get redicted to /r/topicnew or some other creative name.
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A lot of subreddits and more importantly moderators and users leave the site permanently. In order for this to happen however, there’d have to be a consensus alternative, which there isn’t ATM. Otherwise, these communities are pretty much lost forever unless the mods put a message to go to X alternative service in the “subreddit is private” banner. Tbh, I don’t think people are gonna stomach losing years of their lives in an instant so they’ll just re create subreddits unless the mods provide an alternative.
No matter what though, they’re not backing down on the effective removal of the API (still leaving the sneaky clause “you can pay us if you want but it’ll be a king’s ransom” for AI, even though they can just trawl the web manually lol). They’ll probably announce some crappy customization features to hoodwink those who don’t know what an API is and lie to them and say it’s “API v2” or whatever.
I just honestly don’t know how it’s going to shake out and I’m scared im going to lose these communities. I don’t give a single solitary fuck about Reddit the company anymore, and I never did really. I just hope all of the subreddits find a new home and don’t just shrug their shoulders and say “welp, guess that’s it guys”.
I was also a mod over there (recreated the same community here, but it’ll take time to fill in if it ever does). In that sub, despite well over a million subscribers, less than 200 people wrote the valuable comments. If a sizable chunk of those 200 leave, then the sub dies. And several wrote to modmail about the fact that the sub did not participate in the blackout and that they were done with the sub (and frankly, I don’t blame them, I’m also out).
A million members doesn’t matter if the couple hundred experts pack up and leave.
Yeah this is what I keep thinking. Most people don’t contribute at all, and there’s “power submitters” who do most of the posts and top comments. With them gone, who’s actually gonna make content for people to view?