From the article:
In response to Huffman’s comments, moderators are trying to find ways to make blackouts effective. Alternatively, some communities are also setting up servers on alternative sites like Lemmy and Kbin.
Everyone’s talking about enshitification, but they’re also just extremely late to the game. The rest of big tech monetized a long time ago and pissed off their users, but managed to keep a solid amount of their users and the rest went… to Reddit. I guess I understand a corporation’s need to monetize, but when you built a platform that was meant to be different than the rest you’re definitely going to experience some pain when you decide to be like them.
Reddit will most definitely survive this and maybe even be profitable in a few years, but they’ll have completely given up what they originally stood for to do so. Personally, I’m just happy this whole thing gave me a push out the door and a place to migrate to, Reddit was already turning into a place I didn’t want to be long before this.
I could smell the change in the air as Reddit was gearing up for an IPO, months before. I knew 3rd party apps’ days were numbered.
What I didn’t expect is how much they undervalued their core audience, power users and the collective trust of Reddit users and volunteers. When they announced the ridiculous pricing and timeline I thought it was one of those “announce something terrible then walk back acting like a hero” kind of deals.
Boy did Redditinc and Huffman ever prove me wrong. They doubled down, made clear they have no intention of listening to anyone, and made lots of shit-slinging and shade-throwing comments. They are squandering all the good-will and trust that they had earned over the years, for bottom dollar at that.
“If you’re a politician or a business owner, you are accountable to your constituents. So a politician needs to be elected, and a business owner can be fired by its shareholders,” he said.
“And I think, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.”
Pro-business people always have the craziest ideas of democracy. Does he really believe that shareholders making decisions is, in any way, democratic??
well, he also believes he’s a natural leader - clearly, the delusion runs deep.
I came here because of the article
I just hate that Spez continues to act like 3rd parties didn’t offer or cite reasonable examples and costs for api access. No one was saying cost was not an option but it was a ludicrous cost and an amazingly short timeline that started the whole fiasco.
If I recall the Apollo dev’s comments, he said someone from Twitter told him that the pricing was designed to kill third party apps in the same way Twitter killed them. The pricing is doing exactly what was intended and has nothing to do with the API costs to Reddit.
No one was saying cost was not an option but it was a ludicrous cost
Yes, the “fuck you price” as a vlogger recently called it. A price you put up if you actually don’t want to make business with someone, but can’t say that openly without losing face. So you put up a price no one in their right mind is willing to pay to get what you want (they leave), without technically excluding anyone, so you don’t lose face. Glad how this backfired.
As a user, I would have even shouldered my own cost. $2.50/mo for a no ad experience on the app I prefer? Seems reasonable.
I’ve been a Reddit subscriber since 2014. Hell. Tie in api access to your sub.
On npr he said the api price was the price. Like what a non answer. He then cited the entire running cost for the cite but nothing about how apis use it. Nor how google and MS have had to have their own infrastructures built out for them.
It’s just stupid. I unsubscribed and deleted all my content for 16 years. I may be a minority but I will just abuse their system now with blockers and use them as a one way resource when I’m led there. I did not appreciate his characterization of the users or Christian.
no ad experience
I suspect this is the real reason spez wants third-party apps gone.
I think if they just wanted to serve ads to third party apps they would have worked out a deal with them to revenue share at the very least and do this.
My guess is that they want to pitch Reddit as this huge datasource for AI in the upcoming IPO and they can’t do that if they’re giving it away for free.
I looked at the reddit premium and balked at the cost. I would have paid $10 or $20, but $60? For what? It’s not the ads or the benefits but the experience. Demonstrably, third party apps provide a better experience at a lower price. And when I wanted to put my money where my mouth was, I walked away thinking Reddit is being the unreasonable ass hole.i could care less about Reddit Gold or whatever, Reddit just thinks too highly of itself and it’s place on the internet.
I mean, that is a thing apps could have done to resolve the situation, the fact they chose not to take that route wasn’t Reddit’s decision. (Not that I blame devs for not wanting to play ball after seeing how Reddit’s team slandered the Apollo dev, that was inexcusable and likely burned a lot of bridges. I wouldn’t want to negotiate with them either.)
He can’t be citing real statistics. I don’t know 3% of their reported 57 million users but I do know that every person I know that uses reddit uses third party apps.
Someone on data is beautiful found that all third party apps accounted for only 10% of the official app downloads. Taking that into account, it is likely that the vast majority of Reddit users only use the official app and don’t know what the fuss is all about.
But then, that mirrors the idea that most people are lurkers on Reddit.
I don’t know, I think it could be true. 57 million daily users according to the article; older numbers claim 400 million monthly users.
Apollo claims 1.5 million users (monthly, I think) and is one of the biggest (if not the biggest?) third party apps.
That may be true, but it is still presenting a distorted picture. The power users who interact with Reddit most are almost certainly more likely to have at least tried other (i.e. 3rd party) apps - furthermore it doesn’t seem to be being debated that the official app is missing key tools moderators find useful which would suggest moderators are are more likely to use 3rd party apps too.
Not all users are equal, some are more equal and others!
