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Reddit confirmed they were hacked back in February. TechCrunch and a few other publications covered it. So, I doubt Reddit is lying.
BlackCat claimed responsibility for the hack. They also didn’t expect Reddit to pay the ransom. Selling the data on the dark web is the most likely outcome. They want a payout after all.
Slightly sarcastic response: “What’s this federation thing? IDK but Facebook has it. I guess I don’t need to go anywhere. Thanks Zuck!”
My take is they see federated protocols as a threat, but they can’t compete directly with them. The next best thing they can do implement them to try and keep people in their walled garden. Even if it means punching some windows into those walls. However, they won’t implement the full protocol, only a subset. They may not even implement them correctly. Causing problems for anyone on the outside. Basically providing a support yet inferior experience for anyone still in the walled garden.
Those people will be none the wiser too. The average person doesn’t understand technology or protocols. As far as they know, they’re still be in Facebook.
They’ve also made a lot of shitty decisions. Reddit decided to invest in NFTs when they had cheap money. That’s been about as successful as a lead balloon. That also burned a bunch of user good will in the process. Meta went all in on VR and the Metaverse. They’ve admitted that’s been a bust. This seems more like an A and B with A being cheap money evaporating and B being bad decisions.
I’m reluctant to call the latest Reddit thing enshittification, but it really seems like they’re between steps 2 and 3.
On a slightly different note, does any think enshittification will be the word of the year?
We haven’t learned anything new since June. The BlackCat ransomware group claimed responsibility for the hack. They didn’t expect Reddit to pay the ransom. So, like trifictional said, sold on the dark web is the most likely outcome. But there’s no public indication that’s happened yet. My best guess is they’re waiting for Reddit’s IPO to get closer to try and get a bigger payout for the data.