Comment on Reddit is dropping subscriber counts on subreddits

• lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Why should they show subscribers of dead accounts?

  Because the number of subscribers gives you a better idea of the size of the community than a vague “visitors” - that includes every single clown who stumbled upon the subreddit after googling or clicking a random link.

  Also note the issue of the number including dead accounts could be easily solved.

  I think they only kept that to “prop up” numbers before the IPO.

  I think they’re actively trying to hide the number of lurkers, by conflating it with casual visitors.

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  • someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Because the number of subscribers gives you a better idea of the size of the community than a vague “visitors”

    I say it’s literally the exact opposite. Subscribers from dead accounts aren’t active, they aren’t part of the community, they aren’t discussing. They are dead accounts.

    The people that ARE in the community are the actual users that show up on a regular basis. THAT is what shows the actual size of the community. Not that it was once a default sub for hundreds of thousands of accounts that are no longer active.

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    • lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Subscribers from dead accounts aren’t active, they aren’t part of the community, they aren’t discussing. They are dead accounts.

      I already addressed this: “note the issue of the number including dead accounts could be easily solved”.

      The people that ARE in the community are the actual users that show up on a regular basis.

      Emphasis mine. That is not what the “visitors” metric is about.

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      • someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Yeah but it’s not solved JFC. Could could could isn’t accomplished by their currently showing subscribers of dead accounts. JFC.

        And it couldn’t be solved easily anyway. What’s a dead account? Log in once a year? That’s certainly not active in that community. But hey let’s count that anyway, right? Subscribed but all you do is browse all? Not active, but let’s count that too, right? A game is popular for a while and gets tons of subscribers, then peters off and the people don’t unsub and just browse all. Again: not active, but fuck it let’s count that too.

        Enjoy the last word if you want it.

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• scintilla@crust.piefed.social ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Because there is a level of stability in subreddits with >50k ish subscribers that subs smaller than that just don't have. You might have a lot of MAU because a sub hit r/all multiple times but goes back down to a much smaller number following that because it's out of the news.

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  • someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The point is they don’t actually have 50k subscribers if 30k of those are dead accounts. They have 20k. Showing 50k accomplishes absolutely nothing. What stability? Stability in use? No. Stability in shown numbers? Yay but it’s fake. Any and all default subs that are auto subscribed have pumped up numbers when users leave.

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