Thousands of moderators overseeing the site’s subreddits are on strike. It’s a wrinkle in Reddit’s plan to go public, and a sign that plan is premature, columnist Anita Ramaswamy writes.
The primary excuse for the API change, to charge AI companies for Reddit’s data, doesn’t hold water. After the change goes into effect, AI companies can just switch from the API to web scrapers for continued free access. It’ll require marginally more processing power, which AI companies already have in spades.
Ironically, if Reddit were to adopt a reasonable pricing scheme for the API, the more reputable AI companies would probably just pay it instead of switching to web scraping, and Reddit could actually make something from it.
I’ve been a software developer in corporate America long enough to have some guesses as to why they really want everyone using the first-party app.