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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

#661

Post by AndrewKemendo »

This is directly related to going public and is completely predictable what will happen next.

Investors want to get paid for the last 15 years of waiting… and they want as big of a paycheck as possible and nothing matters but that. All the free labor mods did? I’m sure the board and investors all agreed that moderator labor can’t legally demand anything, meaning they don’t matter.

So, I expect Reddit, one of the best forums on the internet, will deteriorate after all the trust gets squeezed out via increasingly intrusive ads shutting down of the (old.) subdomain, an increase in user profiling and user acquisition.

Sad but it was good while it lasted

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#662

Post by dom96 »

gaudat wrote: post #480

I have a story to tell, about the demise of one of the largest internet forums in my language. About ten years ago, when smartphones just started appearing, the forum did not have a mobile version, and there are various 3rd party clients on the App Store or Android Market. Later on, one of the largest 3rd party client was blocked, because of they hammering the forum's servers too hard,. Or something about caching and…

This was precisely my first thought when I read this. For the price that Reddit will charge, Apollo's author could easily recreate Reddit and take advantage of Apollo's user base to seed that community.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#663

Post by TkTech »

donmcronald wrote: post #649
armchairhacker wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a good idea even without Reddit's monetization and potentially blocking NSFW content. To me it seems obvious. It's also something that's actually likely to succeed and within the community's control, unlike getting Reddit to change their stance. Like, there's nothing stopping this from developing right now. - "There won't be as many people." That's ok, probably even a good thing. 1.5-2.5 million users ar…

I've always thought it would be neat if there were loosely affiliated communities that host as an API only with a standard front end for the UI. So I run 'example.com', but only serve (ex:) content via JSON. Allow competing implementations of the API on AWS, Cloudflare, self-hosted, etc.. Then let UIs like Apollo act like an aggregator and an OIDC provider for their users. The API side could moderate their own conten…

You just described the ActivityPub universe. There are quite a few servers that are minimal ux or api only, and there are a ton of clients that allow you to use multiple servers on whatever platform you want, with mobile, desktop, and web clients.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#664

Post by MengerSponge »

WWLink wrote: post #22
MengerSponge wrote: post #11

I deleted the Twitter app a while ago, and if my only way to access Reddit is with their official app... I guess I'll be a little more productive this year.

You'll still be able to access the website, for now. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried killing that, too. If I were a profit-above-all bastard that was trying to squeeze my users for telemetry, I'd force them to use the mobile app exclusively to access my service.

Hard pass

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#665

Post by tornato7 »

the_snooze wrote: post #483
Eji1700 wrote: post #418

Everyone saying their pricing is absurd had better get ready for the new wave of API pricing. Like every other industry, there's a growth period where things are new and prices are reasonable, and then there's the "squeeze" where bean counters come in, make charts that are likely bs, and explain how much easier it'd be if we charged 4x as much for half the customer base. Twitter was one of the first to give access to…

>I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two-sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them. https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctor…

In economics they call this rent seeking[1]

> Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society.

You can see Reddit as a landlord, owning the land (or website) that the value grows on. They don't contribute value themselves, instead they make money by charging rent to everyone who wishes to grow value on their land.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#666

Post by spyder »

api_or_ipa wrote: post #346

The reality is that Apollo doesn't serve intrusive ads, and thus, every user using Apollo instead of their own first party apps is lost revenue. Unfortunately, reddit is in that late stage monetization step where they need to prove they are capable of big revenue to justify a high IPO share price. One can only hope there'll be a watershed moment like the one that killed Digg. So far, reddit has been very careful rais…

Even without ads the users that post content (or manage their subreddit) through third-party apps are still valuable for Reddit. Sure they are a smaller percentage, but that small percentage is more valuable than a regular ad watching user.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#667

Post by RoyGBivCap »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #661

This is directly related to going public and is completely predictable what will happen next. Investors want to get paid for the last 15 years of waiting… and they want as big of a paycheck as possible and nothing matters but that. All the free labor mods did? I’m sure the board and investors all agreed that moderator labor can’t legally demand anything, meaning they don’t matter. So, I expect Reddit, one of the best…

What?

Reddit has been privately owned since 2006: https://www.crunchbase.com/acquisition/condenast-acquires-re...

And it's been a shitshow since they pulled their free speech bait & switch in 2015, so good riddance.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#668

Post by brookst »

halJordan wrote: post #606
Eji1700 wrote: post #418

Everyone saying their pricing is absurd had better get ready for the new wave of API pricing. Like every other industry, there's a growth period where things are new and prices are reasonable, and then there's the "squeeze" where bean counters come in, make charts that are likely bs, and explain how much easier it'd be if we charged 4x as much for half the customer base. Twitter was one of the first to give access to…

If you go into that thread there are people begging Selig to charge them 4x what Apollo Ultra costs. And they're begging him to charge it to everyone all the time. This can't just be laid on the feet of faceless bean counters or old men in the executive suite.

Good point. We must lay this at the feet of people who want the product and are willing to pay for it.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#669

Post by imiric »

Eji1700 wrote: post #418

Everyone saying their pricing is absurd had better get ready for the new wave of API pricing. Like every other industry, there's a growth period where things are new and prices are reasonable, and then there's the "squeeze" where bean counters come in, make charts that are likely bs, and explain how much easier it'd be if we charged 4x as much for half the customer base. Twitter was one of the first to give access to…

Good. It's about time for more people to move on to better platforms. Twitter is a cesspool, and Reddit has some good communities that will be better served from a platform that's not ruled by a greedy corporation that couldn't care less about its users.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#670

Post by lapcat »

saagarjha wrote: post #621
lapcat wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in life is risky. Show me the 100% reliable path to financial prosperity and happiness. You could get laid off tomorrow by your current employer. The stock market could crash, and any investments you made could amount to nothing.

Nope, you don’t understand. You make apps for macOS. I understand that there is risk there. I’m not one of those people who go around telling you it’s your fault when Apple pulls the plug on you, because you understand the risk you operate in and I think it’s fine for people to do this. Now, if you paraded around telling people you trust Apple and that they would never hurt you in any way, and that you had conversati…

> Now, if you paraded around telling people you trust Apple and that they would never hurt you in any way

This feels like exaggeration. Unless there's something I missed?

"My thoughts: I think if done well and done reasonably, this could be a positive change (but that's a big if). If Reddit provides a means for third party apps to have a stable, consistent, and future-looking relationship with Reddit that certainly has its advantages, and does not sound unreasonable, provided the pricing is reasonable." https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/12ram0f/had_a_fe...

> you had conversations with their management and they want you to succeed, now we have a problem.

If this did happen, but later management double-crossed me, would you then rip on me?

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