Reddit is removing the Direct Message feature, and all active conversations will be archived so you won’t be able to continue ongoing conversations. Reddit also deleted all bad reviews for their app awhile ago. Its rating went from 3.4 to 4.5 stars overnight.
I hated both features honestly. I’m there to converse in public, anything you say you can add in a public reply to one of my comments. If it was ever used for honest chat or messaging, I never saw it.
It was useful for asking questions that neither you nor the other person would want to put in a public post. For example, someone posted a picture in the bad real estate sub that looked very familiar, and I sent a DM asking “is this X location?”. I might not want people to know I’m familiar with X location, they might not want people to know they’re familiar with X location, but maybe we’re both ok with each other knowing.
But I’m pretty sure its main use was sending hate to people without getting banned.
I would use it for some video game LFGs. I wouldnt want to post my game name in a public forum and have my game account be flooded.
But then how can we ask for nudes? /S
I don’t mind DMs for one-off things. Like if I see something sketchy and want to tip off a user without alerting the sketchy one.
Also, everybody already owns a named subreddit that they mod, don’t they? So can’t you just send modmail there and still sidebar the chat in lieu of modmail DMs?