took a deep dive into how CEO Steve Huffman went from being Reddit’s co-founder to its much-needed savior at a difficult moment—and how he then became the villain at the center of Reddit’s still-raging protests: https://slate.com/technology/2023/06/reddit-protests-steve-huffman-api-chaos.html
You misspelled “CEO Steve Huffman”, it’s just “Spaz”.
While I’m generally not one for this sort of thing, I feel like comparing him to someone with cerebral palsy (the origin of “spaz”) is a bit harsh.
At least most of them try to be nice people.
I’m so over reddit now. After 14 years on Reddit, I haven’t been back in weeks. Lemmy is giving me everything I want.
All of this PR probably could have been fixed very easily if they gave a 6 months notice and were going to charge a reasonable fee. I would have paid 3rd party a small fee to use their app to not see ads, but spez had other IPO plans.
All they needed to do was change how they handled the API for third party apps. Charging for it isn’t the issue, it’s the prohibitive cost they decided to attach to essentially ALL API access regardless of use, as a response to Large Language Models scrapping the site.
They could have introduced separate pricing for confirmed 3rd party app usage for individuals. Or they could have introduced individual API tokens for 3rd party app use, and locked it behind something like a reddit gold subscription. Even that would be better than effectively killing all of it off.
It’s clear they did absolutely no brainstorming about other options before deciding to nuke it all.
Fully agree. I’m cautiously going to assume (they have 2000 employees) that they did enough analysis to assume that they would come out of this on the right side. The problem is, they didn’t expect spez to be a complete jack off and Apollo to release info that this whole thing was bullshit.
That’s what’s most mindblowing to me. Like, I would gladly (well, maybe not gladly. There would be grumbling, but still) pay for Reddit Premium if it meant I could still use third party apps. A LOT of people would, even if it’s a relatively small percent overall. And the rest would be in the exact situation they are now. Instead of the most dedicated users potentially leaving the platform entirely, they’d be earning Reddit wayyyyy more money than before.
as a response to Large Language Models scrapping the site.
This might be Reddit’s argument, but it doesn’t hold much weight. You don’t need API access to read a website, a scrapper does that. The 3rd party apps were always the target, since 1) they attack their ad revenue and 2) show the lacks of the official app, which is a liability before the IPO. Also, don’t forget that spez went to the media with the “threats” of Selig before he made any public comment.
The solution is right there in the article and in front of (fuck) /u/spez…make it a part of Reddit Premium. I was on Reddit almost every single day for a decade and not only did I never even think about subbing, most of the time I forgot it even existed. The ridiculously low number of subscribers is Reddit’s fault entirely. They could have killed two birds with one stone by saying “members will get an ad-free experience in our app and can try these other apps as well”. Win for Reddit (actually gaining subs for their Premium service), for the apps (they stay working), and the users (more options).
But I guess just destroying everything you spent your life building is a tempting option as well.
Huffman’s public reactions to Redditors’ outrage haven’t helped. While he once appeared even-keeled yet decisive while dealing with online mobs, he appears to have alienated a far wider swath of users by coming off as hard-nosed, condescending, and stubborn.
This is the big thing that is different this time around, to me. His behavior, towards the community and towards developers, has become more aggressive amd openly hostile. I don’t know if his earlier “saving Reddit” moments emboldened him to the point of arrogance, or what.
Hasn’t he almost always been like that? It just helped that it wasn’t aimed at users before, but either controversial people, or something that could at least be excused.
His database-editing negative comments talking about him wasn’t anything less controversial, or indicative of a thick skin.
It might be less his “saving Reddit”, and more Elon Musk and Twitter that might be doing it. He basically proved that as a billionaire CEO, you can waltz in and do whatever you like. Even if it’s unpopular, a big platform (like Twitter) isn’t going to implode immediately, so he can just squeeze out what money he can, and make out reasonably wealthy (or at least, that’s the idea), in spite of user unpopularity. “Saving Reddit” seems more like a flimsy justification.
This seems weirdly positive about Spez. I didn’t really get into Reddit until 2018, but he’s had a bad reputation for as long as I was on.