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Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

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Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#251

Post by [deleted] »

paulddraper wrote: post #87
raydev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they want more ads, they can change the APIs to inject them. Reddit wants freedom to arbitrarily change the design of their app and placement of ads, etc. Ads are a huge (primary?) source of revenue for them. If they are tethered to supporting third party clients, it's harder to make reasonable estimates of how many captive users will see ads or new features. Reddit could enforce ad presentation in third party c…

Exactly. Same reason why Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. don't have alternative clients. Nothing unusual. Reddit is proceeding along the well-trodden path to monetization optimization.

[deleted]

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#252

Post by xg15 »

HansHamster wrote: post #210
Zetice wrote: post #162

I blocked the reddit.com domain from all of my devices a few weeks ago, because until recently I didn't feel like I could keep my finger on the pulse of "The Internet" without Reddit. That's no longer the case. Google's "For You" gets me my niche subject-specific content, Google News/Memeorandum (and its sibling sites)/Apple News gives me the mainstream media perspectives, HN (and maybe Bluesky occasionally) my urge…

> but what they've left Reddit with as a differentiator are the communities And I'm honestly not very fond of how the communities on reddit work. Sure, there is some overlap between the peoples on different subreddits, but there is little 'community' across subreddits and it feels very different to the 'good old' discussion boards that cover a very general topic and then have many more specific subsections. I'm espec…

The "hive mind" effect is also much more pronounced than on traditional forums, sometimes bordering on being creepy.

Not sure if it's caused by power-hungry mods, the upvote/downvote dynamics or political polarisation, but you can often quickly make out specific "opinions" that are somehow magically shared by everyone posting in a particular subreddit.

The UX also actively supports this by de-emphasizing individual users and emphasizing subreddits as the primary "personalities" of the platform. This goes so far that on r/all, the names of the individual users who posted the threads aren't even shown anymore. All you see is subreddits.

That together with some "supermods" moderating large fractions of the popular subreddits and a recent post on HN of another redditor who experienced shadowbanning makes me seriously wonder how authentic the discussions you see on r/all really are.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#253

Post by killingtime74 »

lastangryman wrote: post #243

That API pricing, for what is mostly static content, is just insane. I've created pricing models for write heavy APIs that come out at a fraction of that, while still maintaining a margin. If that's a genuinely "fair" price then Reddit have some serious technical debt. It feels like this is intentionally overpriced to discourage any serious use.

I see your point but mostly pricing is not based on cost, it's what the market will bear. Could be way above cost or way below

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#255

Post by kgwxd »

dcchambers wrote: post #234

If the primary complaint from Reddit is that they are losing revenue (no ad impressions/lack of user data and metrics gathering) why don't they just keep the API free/affordable but require developers to show ads and send usage metrics back to reddit? I feel like it's incredibly short sighted for these companies to limit their APIs.

Doesn’t thins kind of do that while putting all the work and risk on to the third parties? Apollo will either find revenue to support the cost, or someone else will, or no one will and then Reddit can maybe lower the price.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#256

Post by skrause »

aquova wrote: post #157
sverona wrote: post #151

Nobody mention that their RSS feeds still work...

While I use RSS for many things, I find Reddit's RSS feeds rather useless due to the large volume of posts, even on moderately small subreddits. If there is some way to limit it to just the top posts of the day I would consider using it, but AFAIK it's all or nothing.

You can subscribe to the "top" page of the last week, on average this feed will only have 3-4 new entries per day.

Example RSS feed: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/top/.rss?sort=top&t=week

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#257

Post by qwytw »

kodah wrote: post #134
raydev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they want more ads, they can change the APIs to inject them. Reddit wants freedom to arbitrarily change the design of their app and placement of ads, etc. Ads are a huge (primary?) source of revenue for them. If they are tethered to supporting third party clients, it's harder to make reasonable estimates of how many captive users will see ads or new features. Reddit could enforce ad presentation in third party c…

There's an obvious solution here, which is to stop participating on platforms that are ad-funded. Charging user subscriptions and fees to businesses should be sufficient to cover costs. If it's not, maybe it shouldn't exist.

People generally tend to use the platforms which other people are using and it's virtually impossible to build an audience unless you're "free".

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#258

Post by Spoom »

cheshire137 wrote: post #65
Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 wrote: post #13

Their pricing is just absurd. Reddit's official app and webpage is garbage, and instead of working with amazing developers like Christian to add whatever functionality they need to increase their revenue, they're doubling down on bad decisions and alienating their users. Pure hubris... they've forgotten their own history and why the Digg exodus happened. Seriously, _what_ are they gaining by eliminating access to thi…

What I don’t get is they acquired Alien Blue, which was an amazing app, yet the official Reddit app is nowhere near the quality that AB had years ago.

They're not optimizing for quality.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#259

Post by yamazakiwi »

thewataccount wrote: post #226
Banbeck wrote: post #171

Well, looks like this is the end of any social media use for me. Reddit was already hanging by a thread for me. Not being able to use Apollo for this will be the last nail in the coffin.

Serious question and I don't mean anything negative - Do you consider HN to be social media? Using it as just a news source seems really valid. And it feels different from other social media platforms because of the focus on full discussions. But surely this still counts as social media? Genuinely asking because I see you made your account just to post this comment - why did you do that? It's not a bad thing (I'm her…

I think the main argument is to avoid Social Media that comes along with the baggage of the big platforms. I think the downsides to HN are so much smaller and few, that it's easy for me to consider "forum-like" social activity completely separate from typical Social Media.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#260

Post by freedomben »

irusensei wrote: post #244
rickreynoldssf wrote: post #194

Reddit Permabanned me (13 year old 450k karma account) after I went after crypto scammers, calling out the scam with details etc. I got tons of coins or whatever gifted to me and even more thanks and way to go from users. Evidently reddit considered it harassment (of the plain as day scammers) and won't budge after an appeal. So, f reddit.

I’ve had an old account which I deleted since there was no easy way to clean up the post history. Created a new one and couldn’t do shit. Can’t post. No Karma. Account got closed due to “suspicious activity” a week later. Combine that with the obviously hostile user interface. It’s a terrible terrible website and nowadays I don’t really miss it that much.

Yep, creating a new reddit account nowadays is pretty tough, and forget participating in the current conversation as your stuff won't show up until a moderator approves it, which can take days.
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