I will preface this by saying that I don't care much about the change itself. I did at first. I was quite frustrated about it. It's been a few days, and now I don't care about the change anymore. That's not to say the change was a good one, I still like the old style more. Why I'm not upset about the actual change is because it's become overshadowed by a much bigger issue.

The admins are telling us that they've changed reddit because the vote-fuzzing provided falsified information. Fair enough. I've read into this quite a bit now, and I understand what vote-fuzzing does and how it works. Given the old algorithm and the way reddit works, it seems justified to change over to a new system. Is it really though?

Perhaps I'm reading into this too much, but please allow me to remind you of the following fragments from the original announcement:

"The "false negativity" effect ... which gives the false impression of reddit being an extremely negative site."

Negativity, negative. There seems to be quite a large focus on negativity. When did this become an issue? I've never heard of reddit being negative. I'm fairly new to reddit compared to many users. I joined when the old system was still going (about 2 years ago). I didn't find reddit to be negative at all. Alas, I digress.

The fact is, last month, reddit had 113,479,741 unique visitors. Out of those, 2,930,574 are members. Reddit is prospering. This is fact. At this point, it's been pointed out several times that reddit users have purchased enough gold to power reddit for the next good number of years. Once again, I digress.

Let me get to the point: My opinion is something happened at the reddit HQ. What exactly I don't know, but I can make guesses.

Someone pointed out how much the member base of reddit could be increased. Whether this was pointed out by an advertising company, a company looking to purchase reddit, the umbrella corporation that owns reddit or simply someone within the reddit HQ. So of course, like everything else in this world, this goes back to money. Someone has discovered the real potential of reddit.

So what?

Well, as you'll all recall, a few months ago, reddit implemented the gold goal of the day. They said they implemented this because reddit doesn't advertise enough, and thus, it relies on its users to support the company. Once again, this statement, if looked at as a unique occurance is fair enough. And the statement made 2 days ago about reddit changing its algorithm is fair enough if looked at as a unique occurance.

What if, instead of putting the gold bar in a few months before changing the upvote/downvote system, they put it in 2 days ago when they changed the upvote/downvote? It would paint a clear picture: Give us more money!

If you're still reading this, you're probably wondering why I have an issue with a company wanting to make more money. That's the nature of business after all. Money rules all. This is true.

My issue doesn't lie in reddit's desire for increased income. No, my issue lies in the way this is being handled. I joined reddit because I was under the impression that this is a website that truly cares about its members. This seemed to be a thought that most reddit members shared. Now, a major change was done to the website. The change is irrelevant. However, this change changed a number of things. It changed the way people browse the website. The users were then told to just "learn to like it". We're told that this change is actually a positive one, and that, if we don't like it, to give it a few days to see if it "feels" any better. "Please give it a chance for a few days and see if things "feel" better without being able to see the specific up/down counts."

Well, it's been 2 days now. People are still complaining about it. Personally, I feel as though I've just gone through a bad break-up. And instead of trying to right their wrong, reddit is telling people to just deal with it.

I know this is getting long, and may feel drawn out, but please stick with me. If you were to visit /u/Deimorz account, you would see he's made a number of statements about the change. These statements weren't made in the announcements thread. He said this was due to his efforts being futile.He said there's no point in yelling into the storm because his post would be downvoted and no one would see it. This could have easily been avoided with an edit to his original post. Judge this as you will. I once again digress.

All the admins seem to be saying the same thing: "We're going to let the system stand for a few days, and if issues arise, we may make some changes." May make some changes. Remember when you were a child and you asked your parents if you could do something they didn't want you to be doing? Remember when they couldn't justify to you why you couldn't do it right then and there? They likely told you "We'll think about it and talk later, okay?" "We'll see how things go, and talk later, okay?".

Okay, my point: reddit has made this change to increase revenue. This is a change that is here to stay. We're told to see how it goes for now, and any issues will be ironed out in the long run. The reality is, it won't. Look: It was said explicitly "This wasn't a change that we made lightly, and it's not going to be reverted due to the (completely expected) knee-jerk reaction to it.".

Alright, so what can we do about it? A few things. Those of us who feel strongly enough about this issue can stop buying gold. We can stop voting on content. We can send messages to the admins asking them to change it back. We can stop visiting the website all together.

Here's the reality. We can do any of these things, and our point will be clear. Reddit, in return can do one of two things. They can either ignore us, or they can make the approriate changes to keep everyone happy. My guess is, they will do the former. The fact of the matter is reddit has become a huge site. So big, in fact, that it doesn't matter what they do anymore. Reddit is the new facebook. Look at all the changes facebook has made. Seemingly no one was happy about them, but they were told to give it a shot and were told that they didn't know it, but the changes were actually positive ones, and they'll see.

So then, if all this is true, and reddit has become a money-hungry monster that doesn't care about its users because it knows it wont make a difference, what can we do? Right now, nothing. There really isn't a substitute to reddit yet, and they know this. They're using it to their advantage. I'm not sure about the rest of the community, but personally, I've given up hope in reddit. I will stick it out here until something better comes along, and I will move over to that website. The reality is, I never liked reddit because of the website itself. I didn't like it because of the way it was run. I liked it because of the community. That community is inevitably going to change within the next few months as reddit will continue trying to improve their image to appear more positive. It will be diluted.

Eventually, someone will create a new website, and we will move over there. We will stay there until it too becomes money-hungry and expands its client-base. It's the nature of things. We, as consumers have very little power. We will never be coagulated enough to make a difference. We'll just have to deal with it.

Unfortunately, this is what I will do. I have turned my ad-block back on for reddit. I will continue browsing this website, but I will do it in a different matter. I will treat the website the same way it treats me: With disregard. Eventually, I won't need a website to retreat to at the end of the day, and that's just fine. A new generation will come in and take our place. We're reaching the end of our reigning, and that's fine.

So, reddit, I am reaching out to you: What is your opinion? Is reddit changing? Am I (and thousands (Maybe tens of thousands) of users) being over-dramatic? What are you going to do about this?

Since this is copy-pasted from Reddit, I will say what I'm going to do about this: Move here. I like this place.