OpenStars

Real answer: b/c then it would not have been as horrifying, and thus you would not be talking about it here, all these years later:-).

In-universe answer: various mysterious sciency-whiency BS mumbo jumbo thoughts that are fun to conjecture about:-P.

Mumble mumble "balance" something mumble? :-P

I mean, only like 3 comments out of ~116 total, but yeah, they were solid mentions I agree.

Very rarely there may be something that you need. Even so, it is becoming increasingly rare to find that knowledge. Spez decided that he owns it now, though some of us here happen to disagree:-).

Nor do you need a mobile app to use Reddit in any case:-). Anyway I think I am with you - we almost hear more about how Reddit is doing here in the Fediverse than we did back when we were on Reddit:-).

It is possible that both are true.

Some subs did not protest at all. Some users even went into subs dedicated to discussing the topic like Reddit Alternatives and anti-protested, and still others went so far as to brigade many small, entirely unrelated niche subs, taking over polls asking the actual MEMBERS of those subs what they wanted to do, making any discussion of the situation held hostage by a toxic barrage of venomous filth, often by accounts that seemed to have been created for just that purpose in mind due to their highly suspicious age. In my own sub, we had to record comments by hand b/c we felt that we could not trust automated polling as a result.:-(

Some subs shut down for merely a day or two (as mine did). A few more shut down for a little longer - measured in days to weeks.

But several subs, including some of the top ones on the entire site, shut down for MONTHS. And some even shut down permanently, only to have their decisions overturned by Reddit who sent in scabs to open them back up, months later.

So... it was a spectrum ofc, and perhaps the subs you were interested in were primarily affected for a couple weeks. But on the whole, the long tail of the protests lasted much longer than a mere few days, or even weeks, and the likes of John Olivier pic spam lasted for months.:-)

Valid, but from a truth-in-reporting standpoint, those protests went on for MONTHS and MONTHS. Which I suppose could technically be reported as "weeks", but they could also be reported as "femtoseconds" and yet... seems to lose accuracy that way? :-P

And like, I understand that the title of the article means that it is focusing narrowly on third-party apps not the state of Reddit as a whole, but (1) the scope still includes anything that it does choose to say, e.g. how long those protests lasted, and (2) it does not mention anywhere how e.g. third-party apps compare to the official Reddit app, or what their market share is with respect to one another, which seems the two most relevant questions of all?!

Continuing on, a third question could be: do people like those apps? From the comments even in the article, it seems not... but without usage stats, even an app used by a single person counts the same as e.g. the former Apollo.

i.e., How DOES the third-party app market look nowadays, after the protests? After reading this article, I still have no idea whatsoever... All I know is that there is a list of apps, which sounds like a singular detail devoid of any context that Reddit would very much like us to know, rather than anything that I would actually care about knowing in order to get a better picture of the situation as a whole.

But that's just my two cents.:-)

TLDR: not worth reading the article, it's just a long list of third party apps that are no longer free anymore, totally ignoring matters such as their usage stats and more importantly the content itself that is now flat-out missing from Reddit. Go to any old thread and you'll see the "this content has been removed by" (whichever of the automated software to remove posts was used in that case) messages.

Honestly it reads like a shill to promote Reddit as in "hey, all that fuss was for nothing - you should totally come back now". It got fairly obvious even at the start when it said that the protests ~~lasts~~ (edit: lasted) for "weeks" - not the more truthful "months", not "permanent changes", but the minimum amount they could halfway reasonably get away with stating.

I am biased, and this article is far more so, and less forgivably so bc mine is a personal opinion while this is touted as "news".

I loved seeing it - it was like a cross between DS9 and TNG, it allowed explorations all over the Earth but yet still centered on the Earth (except when it left that behind and went to the stars:-).

It also tells a story of skepticism b/c these angelic, gender-neutral beings descend from the stars and yet... not all as is people might wish for it to be. It kinda went DEEP into exploring some of those concepts that were harder to do in the Star Trek universe - b/c the Federation was just so culturally evolved, it being in the future, while EFC was essentially the present, heck it's likely the past even by now, if alien technology were just suddenly handed to people.

One thing that really intrigued me was the focus on more biotech than physical tech, and also the updated technology to show special effects allowing the aliens to be literally beings made of energy (these ofc existed even back in TOS but... it's nowhere near the same), which put on a fleshy shell most of the time for convenience but often reverted ~~to show off the cool special effects~~ for uh... "reasons". And since you see these beings day-in and day-out, not once in an episode and then gone, you really get to explore how such a thing would influence their thought processes, like did their ancestors hunt for food or like... what? (btw you not knowing next to anything about them is very much a part of the experience of watching the show, so I will not spoil it here:-P) DS9 did a lot of that with the shapeshifters and a little bit with their genetically-modified servants, but in EFC Gene Roddenberry did it differently, with these energy(plasma?) beings.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy at least checking it out!:-)

Jesus had even harsher words, calling the hypocrites like tombs full of rot and worms inside, and the people like a camel in heat chasing after everything stubbornly & selfishly but not giving one single damn about one another. Everyone claiming that the words mean whatever they want, instead of bowing to the will of the universe.

Anyway, Gene Rodenberry was a great man of true integrity, and we won't see his like in Hollywood again anytime soon I expect - everyone else seems all about how to cash in without putting in the effort to make GREAT shows like his all were:-(. As just one modern example, look at Stranger Things that showed such potential, but cashed in immediately after the first season:-(.

Btw Gene Roddenberry had another sci-fi show put on by his wife after he died, using his notes for it, and while she was in charge of it (before the last few seasons when iirc her health got poor) it was pretty good too: https://gamerant.com/star-trek-fans-gene-roddenberry-sci-fi-series-earth-final-conflict/. It is still highly worth checking out imho.

moonleay is already fairly cool - maybe use that!?:-P

Irl saints do exist!? :-D