All this hate towards u/spez only gives reddit engagement. The only way to real success is by making users move to Lemmy.
I agree with you in principle, but speaking from strictly a strategic perspective, /r/place presents a vulnerability that can be exploited without contributing what Reddit really needs to regain its status - content.
In the context of a social media war, this means we can use the space to peel off users who wouldn’t have been introduced to the Fediverse otherwise, with no risk of harming ourselves or providing Reddit more than a temporary moment of attention. There’s been a concerted effort to remove links to Fediverse resources in many subs, and for a great deal of redditors, they’re in the dark about what the Fediverse represents and how much better it is than Reddit.
Plus it’s just cool to fuck with Spez, and the Fediverse is so cool in general that I’d love to see what the effect would be if we united against a common enemy.
Place gives Reddit exactly what it needs most - user engagement. By going, you’re feeding Reddit stats they can show prospective investors and advertisers on unique users, time on site, and clicks even after the protests.
Reddit was very crafty in relaunching Place right now. They can show a material post-API uptick exactly as Spez promised.
You really think 1000 (being very very generous here) people from lemmy going to r/Place to advertise is going to give a boost to Reddit’s user engagement? On the other hand 1000 people coming from Reddit to lemmy will be like a 1% boost to Lemmy.
No, I’m not saying Lemmy users checking in represent any material change to Reddit numbers. I’m saying Place gets Reddit a short term boost to demonstrate the site still has pull. And that is what Reddit cares about far more than good content - eyeballs to sell ads to, and comments to sell to LLM companies.
