We're encountering several little phenomena here.

1. Many of the people who were passionate or concerned about this issue are here and elsewhere - but they're no longer on reddit. The anti-protesters are those who didn't understand, didn't care, and are just annoyed that their opium hit is suddenly asking them to give a shit. They're consumers, and in the absence of those who care, they've gotten bolder and a larger proportion of representation on the site. In the ~2 times I have checked in on Reddit, I've noticed a drop in comment quality.
2. This is a classic Conservative reaction. Not exactly the Donkey/Elephant kind, but that raw conservative instinct endemic to humanity. It's the fear that change is a zero-sum game, where is people move up, other's status degrade, or if it doesn't. that someone will create a new environment that they themselves are less familiar and adept at navigating. Some people are so insecure that they'll lash out at anyone as long as it makes them just sit still in their chairs, please. These people are fear-driven ghouls, it could have been anything and you'd get a similar reaction.

i mean, i'm pretty sure the majority of people who are still on reddit are the ones who don't care about the protests. So this doesn't surprise me.

It's a provocation, don't fall 4 it!

Reddit is full of contrarians. A lot of the smaller subreddits in particular likes to be contrarian to anything they saw as mainstream Reddit

Also, the people who are really pissed at Reddit probably have left so the remaining population has a larger proportion of people who don’t care or even support what Reddit does.

Finally, let’s be honest /r/piracy was dominated by casual pirates at best as shown by the posts and comments “what’s a seeder” “what’s Usenet” “OMG Rarbg down what do I do”. So they’re not hardcore pirates with a dedication to piracy/warez ethos just casuals looking for links and shit

There's something extremely pathetic about complaining about a problem that only concerns you, but wanting to pull everyone along

The literal definition of a protest. A protest that isn't disruptive to others is just a parade.

Anyways, in the last few days I’ve noticed that for some reason, especially on the r/piracy sub (although other subs are of course no exception), that there has been a more positive sentiment towards spez (the CEO of Reddit) and a very negative one against the mods and the protest.

I could swear this is the bot campaign run by Reddit.

So much irony especially coming from a piracy sub. You'd think pirates would support decentralized communities. It's also just another example of reddit's complete inability to understand how protests work; they're supposed to be an inconvenience, that's literally the point.

Oh well, I'm kinda glad a lot of them are staying there, there's a noticable lack of toxicity here vs. reddit. I just hope the decent ones will make their way over.

They can do whatever they want. I expect to see the quality of the subreddit go down very quickly as the people that made r/piracy worth visiting and ensured the quality have either left or being called mod bootlickers have all either left or will leave. So it's gonna be fun to watch.

Well, you're here so to hell with Reddit. There's so much garbage there you have to filter, so many shitposts. Totally different environment here so welcome and enjoy.

But yeah you'd think the piracy sub would be in more in support of the mods and devs, but I don't know, they're probably just being selfish about the protest. Anyway, doesn't matter. I think it's been a week or two since I've logged into Reddit and I'm never going back.

BTW I see you're on Kbin, how do you think that compares to Lemmy.

Huh. This is kinda weird... but I think I'm done protesting Reddit. It's not that I approve of any changes, but rather... I'm happy here on Lemmy? Protesting would kind of imply that I want to go back to Reddit and I think I might be good here...

As more of us move to Lemmy, the less push back you'll see on Reddit cuz we're all over here. I guess that's expected.

Most of those are bots, some of them are just casual users who dgaf.

Anyways, in the last few days I’ve noticed that for some reason, especially on the r/piracy sub (although other subs are of course no exception), that there has been a more positive sentiment towards spez (the CEO of Reddit) and a very negative one against the mods and the protest.

Do we even know if these are actual real humans (aka: not reddit bots, admins, or shills)?

We know 100% that spez made hundreds of bots in 2012 to fake "busy-ness", and that was when reddit was started.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/reddit-founders-made-hundreds-of-fake-profiles-so-site-looked-popular/

That’s the mainstream users, they don’t really care about anything else other than updoots and cat pics. They like to get used like a rag and thrown away but they would still come back. Don’t worry about them.

I'm confused too, but my interpretation so far is that some people are choosing piracy because they want to get a fast and easy access to the things they're looking for, and that the protest is making things harder so they are just mad because it's not easy anymore

Your probably seeing more anti-protest sentiment there because pro-protesters are not on the site now to defend themselves, were all on lemmy/kbin or taking a break from social media.