In related news, Imgur seems to be a/b testing a website that just pushes you to the mobile app and doesn't allow you do anything in browser beyond viewing the one picture you clicked the link for.
They can tell abusive scrapers from regular users, they choose not to distinguish. I might give in and create an account eventually but damn. Had deleted my reddit about a decade ago.
By “abusive” they probably mean “doesn’t let us track them”. I’m surprised they’ve kept old.reddit.com going this long, it’s actually an un-enshittified version of the product, which is basically unheard of.
I ~~can't~~ won't use the new ( decade+ old? )reddit.
From the Reddit Post announcing this, :
"In case you are wondering . . .
Q: Is Reddit shutting down Old Reddit?
A: Not right now! We can’t promise it will be around forever, but u/spez himself has said we’ll keep supporting it while folks are still using it. That said, it doesn’t have the same modern security tech stack reddit.com has so we need to tighten security on old reddit to keep it viable."[0]
That's unfortunate. Rather than using rate limiting or access control over a singular user which would have significant different usage to say scrappers ... I'm not making an account ... I guess I won't be visiting old.reddit threads ... the new makeover reddit moved to, never played well with my browser but died almost entirely some time ago one when I added one of the many PII scrapping trackers to my deny list -- maybe they'll give up on their usage of including a PII tracker ...
> Rather than using rate limiting or access control over a singular user
Rate limiting by user is much easier said than done for anonymous (not logged in) users. How do you define a user? The same person (or bot) can hop from IP to IP using a number of methodologies on a scale of sohpistication. They can take or leave any cookie you send their way. They can avoid browser fingerprinting and spoof their user agent.
And they literally are using access control. The first step in access control (also known as authorization) is authentication. You can't perform access control on anonymous users, you need to know who you're speaking with.
> I'm not making an account ... I guess I won't be visiting old.reddit threads
That's your choice, of course, but you have to understand you are the least valuable user on Reddit's platform (other than abusers) right? A user who steadfastly refuses to ever log in or give a single concession - what makes you think they care if you never open reddit again? You are indistinguishable from a bot.
Reddit IMHO, is well known for how crafty they are for ensuring once someone is banned, it's quite difficult to get around it. Thus I'm fairly confident they can pick the difference between requests from one IP landing on a particular thread by way of search engine or some other area and going on to explore comments from a couple of the users and other subsequent threads over a few minutes ... to that of a process to scrape a great number of threads at a great rate.
Yes I've experienced some very cunning web operators that make mirroring their site really really hard ... it then usually takes some hard determination to work out what is needed to accomplish a successful mirror attempt.
Authorisation just means reddit account details will be added to various sites that, often for free, provide account / password that work atm for those who only want to look at one little old thing without having to make their own account ... so the next thing would be then profiling ... which then takes the whole point of why bother unless the account making process is just a means to deploy scripts that are tracking or some other process ;)
> but you have to understand you are the least valuable user on Reddit's platform ...
Yes along with the other few hundred news sites that all think they are so important they demand yearly subscription from me for access to their site to view at most a couple of articles a year.
As for how important to reddit I personally am - lol. It is though the absence of a number of read only users that will change things ... if at all for the moment. Lurkers though often share interesting threads which could result in other people taking an interest and subsequently engaging. Many people have navigated to old.reddit as it works, unlike the current www.reddit format, doubly so for myself as I cut trackers and various APIS that were not doing the right thing, and reddit's script to display comments displays ... none, nothing, nada, though I do see the OP question / comment.
People saying they'll never use Reddit again is just noise.
I'm sure you've seen the "protests" and sub closures because of {$change}. Two weeks later the same mods and users realise they can't get their power trip or dopamine hit from anything else and are back on Reddit - with the mods proudly back working as unpaid janitors for a company with a billion dollars valuation.
I stopped using Reddit daily when they killed Apollo. Now it looks like I’ll stop using it entirely. Good riddance, thanks for killing my doomscrolling addiction for me.
That reasoning is complete nonsense. If someone scrapes the data, that’s not a big deal, and Reddit has no more claim to the data than anyone else. The data is public and created by users, not by the platform itself. If the traffic is too much for them, they could use rate limiting or simply offer an archive of the data as a torrent once a month. That way, a company training an LLM could access a complete dataset without generating a lot of traffic.
if you don't give every iota of your physical makeup to our benevolent leaders, this is labelled as abusive behaviour. for example, talking over communication channels that aren't completely monitorable is clearly terrorist activity. using your brain is directly harmful to corporations, therefore unauthorized intelligence is harmful.
I'm starting to see a pattern here and it starts with reverse demonization, like a begging succubus. you wouldn't want to get hurt now would you. that's not in your best interests. now while you're in a fearful state, please give your responsibility to me. it'll be easier this way, I promise I have your best interests at heart.
Bye Reddit! It was nice while it lasted, I guess. Small funeral for all the genuinely useful communities and knowledge on there.
I had already deleted my account, and using the site has gotten far more hostile especially without willingness to use the app.
On mobile you now have to use incognito in order to not get cut off and told to download the app.
I guess I can’t complain too much. Old Reddit lost money for, what, a decade? Longer?. Public company Reddit runs a pretty good business.
In related news, Imgur seems to be a/b testing a website that just pushes you to the mobile app and doesn't allow you do anything in browser beyond viewing the one picture you clicked the link for.
They can tell abusive scrapers from regular users, they choose not to distinguish. I might give in and create an account eventually but damn. Had deleted my reddit about a decade ago.
By “abusive” they probably mean “doesn’t let us track them”. I’m surprised they’ve kept old.reddit.com going this long, it’s actually an un-enshittified version of the product, which is basically unheard of.
when they kill it, I will prol leave reddit. the new version SUCKS
> They can tell abusive scrapers from regular users, they choose not to distinguish.
Really? How? Be specific.
I ~~can't~~ won't use the new ( decade+ old? )reddit.
From the Reddit Post announcing this, :
"In case you are wondering . . .
Q: Is Reddit shutting down Old Reddit? A: Not right now! We can’t promise it will be around forever, but u/spez himself has said we’ll keep supporting it while folks are still using it. That said, it doesn’t have the same modern security tech stack reddit.com has so we need to tighten security on old reddit to keep it viable."[0]
[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1ujtebf/logging_in...
That's unfortunate. Rather than using rate limiting or access control over a singular user which would have significant different usage to say scrappers ... I'm not making an account ... I guess I won't be visiting old.reddit threads ... the new makeover reddit moved to, never played well with my browser but died almost entirely some time ago one when I added one of the many PII scrapping trackers to my deny list -- maybe they'll give up on their usage of including a PII tracker ...
> Rather than using rate limiting or access control over a singular user
Rate limiting by user is much easier said than done for anonymous (not logged in) users. How do you define a user? The same person (or bot) can hop from IP to IP using a number of methodologies on a scale of sohpistication. They can take or leave any cookie you send their way. They can avoid browser fingerprinting and spoof their user agent.
And they literally are using access control. The first step in access control (also known as authorization) is authentication. You can't perform access control on anonymous users, you need to know who you're speaking with.
> I'm not making an account ... I guess I won't be visiting old.reddit threads
That's your choice, of course, but you have to understand you are the least valuable user on Reddit's platform (other than abusers) right? A user who steadfastly refuses to ever log in or give a single concession - what makes you think they care if you never open reddit again? You are indistinguishable from a bot.
Reddit IMHO, is well known for how crafty they are for ensuring once someone is banned, it's quite difficult to get around it. Thus I'm fairly confident they can pick the difference between requests from one IP landing on a particular thread by way of search engine or some other area and going on to explore comments from a couple of the users and other subsequent threads over a few minutes ... to that of a process to scrape a great number of threads at a great rate.
Yes I've experienced some very cunning web operators that make mirroring their site really really hard ... it then usually takes some hard determination to work out what is needed to accomplish a successful mirror attempt.
Authorisation just means reddit account details will be added to various sites that, often for free, provide account / password that work atm for those who only want to look at one little old thing without having to make their own account ... so the next thing would be then profiling ... which then takes the whole point of why bother unless the account making process is just a means to deploy scripts that are tracking or some other process ;)
> but you have to understand you are the least valuable user on Reddit's platform ...
Yes along with the other few hundred news sites that all think they are so important they demand yearly subscription from me for access to their site to view at most a couple of articles a year.
As for how important to reddit I personally am - lol. It is though the absence of a number of read only users that will change things ... if at all for the moment. Lurkers though often share interesting threads which could result in other people taking an interest and subsequently engaging. Many people have navigated to old.reddit as it works, unlike the current www.reddit format, doubly so for myself as I cut trackers and various APIS that were not doing the right thing, and reddit's script to display comments displays ... none, nothing, nada, though I do see the OP question / comment.
I added lemmy.world to my news cycle a few years ago just in case. It's growing fast now it seems, as others make the same decision.
People saying they'll never use Reddit again is just noise.
I'm sure you've seen the "protests" and sub closures because of {$change}. Two weeks later the same mods and users realise they can't get their power trip or dopamine hit from anything else and are back on Reddit - with the mods proudly back working as unpaid janitors for a company with a billion dollars valuation.
Nah, I stopped using Reddit years ago. Others can too.
I stopped using Reddit daily when they killed Apollo. Now it looks like I’ll stop using it entirely. Good riddance, thanks for killing my doomscrolling addiction for me.
That reasoning is complete nonsense. If someone scrapes the data, that’s not a big deal, and Reddit has no more claim to the data than anyone else. The data is public and created by users, not by the platform itself. If the traffic is too much for them, they could use rate limiting or simply offer an archive of the data as a torrent once a month. That way, a company training an LLM could access a complete dataset without generating a lot of traffic.
Bummer, thats like a funeral for one of the greatest public forums.
There is probably a point where all these platforms just get to big and can't hang.
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1ujtebf/logging_in... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48738835)
if you don't give every iota of your physical makeup to our benevolent leaders, this is labelled as abusive behaviour. for example, talking over communication channels that aren't completely monitorable is clearly terrorist activity. using your brain is directly harmful to corporations, therefore unauthorized intelligence is harmful.
I'm starting to see a pattern here and it starts with reverse demonization, like a begging succubus. you wouldn't want to get hurt now would you. that's not in your best interests. now while you're in a fearful state, please give your responsibility to me. it'll be easier this way, I promise I have your best interests at heart.
going full bot mode then.