For example the /r/Netherlands subreddit is ran by trolls who are not from the Netherlands, and does not allow the usage of the Dutch language in the subreddit at all. Instead /r/theNetherlands is the proper subreddit.
The fact that reddit allows moderators to hide the modlist nowadays only makes things worse. You have absolutely no idea who is running things anymore.
Powermods are a real problem with reddit. Letting whoever was the greasiest nerd in 2007 and registered some common word, phrase, or brand name as their personal domain (including in some cases, commercializing it for personal gain) is an obvious problem, and there is no mechanism whatsoever for removing them. The only option is to try and restart the community using another name instead - hence the proliferation of real_x or true_x subreddits. And you will never do anything about the newbies who just search "kleenex" and get the sub with the powermod instead of the true_kleenex one with the actual community.
you have some mods who are notionally in charge of dozens of subreddits - and reminder that one of those powermods was most likely Ghislane Maxwell lol. And at that point you have to be getting some financial or personal benefit from it, because at that point it's a job, you can't moderate a dozen major subreddits in your spare time. So you either make a deal with the brand, or you do it to shape public discourse, etc.
In some respects that's what's going on here too, is powermods see an actual threat to their power, and would rather take their subs dark and raise a pitchfork mob than go quietly. But something has to be done about it sooner or later.
It's this awkward compromise where powermods do a ton of unpaid work for reddit, but they also are not entirely a benevolent force either, there are a lot of them that are really shitty and are kind of namesquatting on important turf. But there's nothing that can be done about it without them all taking their subs private, and if you just eject them then you better have a system in place to replace them afterwards. And you better be ready to replace all of them because they'll all go dark in "solidarity". The usual problems of a coup, really.
The real answer is that you should use Lemmy and if there's two r/kleenex's then oh well, let search optimization direct people to the "good one" and the powermod can be king of the bad one. But Lemmy can't be commercialized for (pinky in mouth) one billion dollars! and SEO doesn't work properly inside a single domain like this, so this is the status quo.
I'm sure there's some lessons there for founders... if you are going to rely on unpaid labor you need to do the 4chan thing and make it clear they're janitors and not stakeholders in your platform, and hammer down any significant power-centers that start to form. Because at this point the reality is they are de-facto stakeholders, whether Reddit likes it or not.
The month before you sell the company is just the absolute wrong time to pick a big fight with your union. And I’m saying this as someone who is not a fan of this particular union.
If they want people to care about mac dev they should get rid of the fee entirely and supply build tools for Linux/Windows. At the very least CLI tools that can perform the actual compilation. Cross platform compilation should be possible, especially for CI but also to reduce friction of onboarding new devs.
It's absolutely ridiculous that you have to pay to add value to a platform.
I don't understand this. Why is it that we pay for the computer, storage, cloud services, etc. for a hobby but a $99 fee is somehow terrible? People spend thousands of dollars on all kinds of hobbies. Even if you get someone else to pay for the computer etc., a $99 dollar hobby is ridiculously cheap.
I started programming when I was 13. I did not have anywhere close near $99 to spend, so Apple was completely inaccessible to me. Eventually I did make a few thousand from an Android app at 16, which was huge. But at that point I had moved on to other things and never wound up giving Apple their $99. And I also didn't generate several thousand dollars in revenue which they could've taxed 30% of.
But for every person like you, that fee probably keeps out orders of magnitude more abuse, spam, trolls, other nonsense.
Apple isn't dumb (their evilness is debatable). I'm sure they have tested price points and giving free dev accounts and looked at results. If it produced more harm than good, they'd remove it.
And yet somehow Android, Windows, Linux and even MacOS itself all manage to be just fine while still allowing sideloading. Of course MacOS is going down the same dark path by hiding the install option in an obscure menu and lying to the user about potential security issues, but still.
iOS is the only platform that supposedly NEEDS to extract this fee. Stop believing Apple's lies, they've been grifting everyone for years.
We shouldn't forget that hobbyist programmers can write and test apps without paying the $99 fee. The tools are freely downloadable.
"You can learn how to develop apps for Apple platforms for free without enrolling. With just an Apple ID, you can access Xcode, software downloads, documentation, sample code, forums, and Feedback Assistant, as well as test your apps on devices. If you don’t already have an Apple ID, you can create one now. To distribute apps, join the Apple Developer Program."
But they won't. Nobody wants to work on something that they know they have no chance of sharing with their friends without paying a (for them, in that point of their life) significant sum of money for that privilege.
Apple is against open source marketplaces, they would fight tooth and nail that something like F-droid could never happen on iOS. They spread FUD on their conferences that open source hobbyist software is full security holes and people should be afraid to use those, the "device owners" are actually renters for them.
Please don't and just keep the noreferrer, but if you do insist on banning the domain then you could perhaps add an explanation that it was at the request of the site author. Preferably with a link to this post or something else showcasing the insanity.
They think they get to control who visits their website without putting up authentication controls, and choose to fight this battle by breaking Google's rules for deceptive websites (white text on white background).
