I just saw this post over on r/modcoord which is basically a massive list of subreddits participating in the blackout protest. If I’m being honest I haven’t seen this much anger and coordinated frustration since the era right before the digg exodus.
Assuming more and more subreddits join in, it’s going to send a pretty massive message to the users who interact with a blacked out subreddit. Then I’m trying to imagine what happens if after a massive coordinated blackout, Reddit continue on the current trajectory. Is Lemmy even prepared to handle the amount of potential incoming traffic that API closure could lead to? It’s absolutely bonkers to me that the Reddit team might just stay the course…
Reddit knows they have sudo access, and that ultimately the upset users are not that large, just fairly vocal, and won’t miss them. They’re probably planning to let this play out and know they can force the subs open again with new moderators if it comes to it. I think they’re banking on most users merely being annoyed that their favorite subs are closed for a day and then forgetting all about it.
if they are it’s a good approach: look no further than climate protests for how people get when they are even mildly inconvenienced even though it’s the literal existence of the planet we’re talking about there. a lot of ordinary people love protest–as long as it literally never affects them in any way, and they never have to see it or hear about it. they’re probably not going to like it when it’s something this… banal.