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Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

old.reddit.com

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Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#982

There are a large portion of moderators who will quit if they cannot use RedditIsFun because the official app is complete crap for moderators. I really don't know why it has to be API use based anyway. We all log in to our individual accounts through the API. For clients they should be able to determine requests/account or let users pay for their own usage or something. They're in full batshit MBA mode.

I rely on "nuke comment tree" from Apollo to kill flame trees.

Modding is about to get a lot harder.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#983

I'm looking forward to this outcome. Reddit and Apollo both need to get paid, on a recurring basis, for their recurring services that require recurring maintenance and updates. Reddit gets paid either through ad revenue displayed to non-paying visitors to the website, or through API calls for access to their dataset. Apps that enable user access via the API will need to pass along this charge to their users. Apollo m…

Believe it or not it’s actually totally feasible to come up with a one-time number, paid upfront, that represents adequate compensation for future services. Obviously it’s going to be a multiple of periodic pricing, but equalizing a one-time payment versus a series of cash flows isn’t rocket science. And though it’s easier to price a subscription, those also tend to be more user-hostile and occasionally not that grea…

What lifetime service do you sell and what have you priced it at?

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#984
post #99

I think it's very clear that the recent LLM boom is directly responsible for Twitter, Reddit, and others quickly moving to restricted APIs with exorbitant pricing structures. I don't think these orgs really care much about third-party clients other than a nuisance consuming some fraction of their userbase. Enterprise deals between these user generated content platforms and LLM platforms may well involve many billions…

I don't think the LLM boom caused Twitter's first API lockdown in 2012, nor do I really think it's anything to do with the more recent final nail which seems much more in tune with Elon's twitter trying to increase ARPU/engagement while also dealing with a 90% reduction in headcount.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#985

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 actually think that Reddit is more "mass market" than tech-savvy. I never associate Reddit with techies in my entire life, unless you mean the people who move into tech for money.

A recent link on HN was the archives of Reddit comments from pushshift.io; of the first year of Reddit (December 2005 to December 2006), the comment counts on subreddits with >100 comments were:

       115 ru
       129 de
       215 tr
       380 nsfw
       765 ja
       932 freeculture
       985 request
      1487 joel
      1784 lipstick.com
      2022 features
      4208 science
     31266 programming
    322776 reddit.com
Where "joel" was Joel Spolsky's programming blog. That's quite programmer-heavy. Some of the comments on "reddit.com" in 2005 were:

> "One thing I've noticed is that the bulk of reddit's content is usually IT-related or at least culturally related, while digg is more generalized in its content (perhaps this is a product of time?). My point is that it seems to me that the fact that the "who" uses the site has a greater influence on usability than "how" the site is used." -

> "In the beginning, digg was pretty much all tech-related links, and whenever someone posted anything else you'd get a flurry of "this is a tech news site"-type comments. As the userbase grows and you get a more diverse demographic using the site, it becomes less "elite" and expands into other areas."

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#986

Yeah, I'm out. I'm not using Reddit on its own app nor the browser. The app is huge and clunky. The browser is turtle slow. Neither gives me the granularity that Apollo gives me. The swipe controls are slick and so are the filters. If I can't consume it with Apollo then it ain't worth it to me. And I already paid for the app. I refuse to pay more for something that is not a necessity. Apollo would have to become a su…

> The browser is turtle slow. Are you using old reddit? [1] Do you find that slow as well?? [1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/o67vzg/how_tro_get_ba...

Hmm, didn't know about old reddit. Guess I'll use that maybe. But yeah, current reddit is slow. Chrome always revs up

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#987

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what everybody thinks, until they grow large enough to care about the amount of money they’re burning and get tired of it. Then they try to not lose so much money, and their loyal users turn out not to be so loyal.

All reddit is doing is storing text and serving it to people. This not expensive or a hard problem. You grab a bunch of servers, you set them up properly, and then you write your app properly. No resume-driven bullshit; no hype-driven bullshit; no “we need to be galaxy scale now ” bullshit. No email notifications, besides basic “thanks for registering, here is your login” and “here’s a password reset link.” No cloud-…

"I could build a Reddit clone in a weekend" says person who hasn't taken over from Reddit. "Cost a few thousand a month, it's not hard" they continued, turning down an easy shot at Reddit's $10Bn valuation with admirable restraint. "It's just self delusion" they said, describing "numerous" failed attempts and "thousands and thousands" of previous mistakes they have convinced themselves they wouldn't fall into should they try, which they carefully avoid having to by dismissing it as "not interesting".

"Take my word for it, I'm just superior" the comment, which would be as fitting on r/SneerClub today SlashDot 15 years ago or Usenet 30 years ago as a dismissive geek putdown-cum-status grab, could have been summarised as.

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#988
post #743

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 believe HN has around 1.5-2.5 million HN has about 5M unique monthly users depending on how you count them.

how do you distinguish bots and real users?

Re: Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing

#990
post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or maybe we are past the excess of a 0% interest rate environment and people are now expected to pay for shit.

That sounds like a reasonable factor on all of this.

Lock API access for apps behind reddit gold and now your power users are happy. You wouldn't even need to hold their hand when they set it up. I'd be willing to pay for reddit to some degree.

Because this isn't what they did, I suspect third-party apps are just collateral damage in a policy aimed at gating access to reddit content: from LLM developers, AI researchers, and anybody who can derive value from it.

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