How is reddit post protest, did it really win over protesters? Did the ones who left make a dent? Or like all things before, did it ultimately do nothing?
Reddit didnt crush the protest, redditors and mods did. Mods acted like mods (their stereotypes mostly deserved) and users were so addicted to the site that they lost their shit that their favorite sub went dark for 2 days. The mods never had leverage and 99% of the users have no desire to lift a finger to meaningfully protest.
Reddit doesnt have any real competition (yet… hopefully lemmy does well) so they dont really care if what theyre doing pisses off users. The site is thoroughly in the enshittening phase of its life cycle and the apathy of its users ensure that reddit has no incentive to reverse this.
The mods never had leverage
Of course the mods had leverage: they could have just walked away.
The reality is that there’s no difference between mods and users: everyone is just too addicted to their routines and habits and mindless opening of Reddit and doomscrolling that the vast, vast, vast majority of people just wanted to go back to how things were.