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Reddit will exempt accessibility-focused apps from unpopular API pricing changes

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Re: Reddit will exempt accessibility-focused apps from unpopular API pricing changes

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>alright, we'll let you fix our broken shitty site but only if you take a vow of poverty. What a fantastic way to put it, thinking about it so much of the 3rd party tools for reddit are about fixing the site. Bots, because moderation tools aren't powerful enough for the job, RIF in the browser because even old.reddit is kinda crappy, and 3rd party mobile apps because the 1st party one is notoriously bad.

I wonder why people keep going to such a trash website, just leave it to die already.

It's not a trash website, it's a trash company - it's a forum used by tens of millions of people regularly.

I am not looking forward to its demise, and I am sure there are many others looking on in horror at what they're doing to it.

Re: Reddit will exempt accessibility-focused apps from unpopular API pricing changes

#102
post #46

Reddit really is desperate for this IPO isn't it. This pricing decision is a total debacle. They're clearly going to try and tell a story about how their data set is massively valuable for AI (it isn't) and that they've got it under lock and key (it's already been crawled by every major player in AI) so that they can get a totally unrealistic valuation at IPO. It makes sense, imagine how incredible it would be if you…

> The relationship between Reddit and it's community is very delicate, so it seems pretty silly for Reddit to decide to crash it into a wall shortly before their IPO. They might get the IPO pop they want - I doubt it, they're smashing the long term viability of the company. I'm guessing someone looked at the data and figured that losing x% of users is worth it if they can extract an extra y% profit from the remaining…

> If I was in their position, I would just restrict 3rd party app access to Reddit gold subscribers

I'm a Relay user, and was gold until I cancelled yesterday... will not be re-subscribing if things continue on their current trajectory

Re: Reddit will exempt accessibility-focused apps from unpopular API pricing changes

#105

But this wouldn’t make any difference for Apollo right? Pretty much every sub I’m on has decided to strike for at least 2 days and there’s quite a weight behind indefinite

Yeah, I think they're just not saying indefinite because apparently that'd give reddit an excuse to just replace the mods using the excuse of inactivity.

A clever way of getting around this would be the mods posting every 30 days (I believe that was the cut-off for inactivity) so that Reddit has no valid excuse to replace them.

Re: Reddit will exempt accessibility-focused apps from unpopular API pricing changes

#106

The way reddit seems to be unable to implement useful and complex new features leads me to wonder what their development practices are like. It's like they can only create simple new things, but more complicated stuff is beyond them. Complex features like moderator tools, rate limiting, accessibility, a working video player, and a rich text editor. Are they only hiring the cheapest least experienced developers? Too f…

Kind of gives me pre-aquisition Twitter vibes. Although I think Reddit is less bloated than Twitter was as an organization.

Hmmm… really makes you think, if you spend all day focused on the wrong things and hire based on your own biases you may not end up with a company full of A’s.

Re: Reddit will exempt accessibility-focused apps from unpopular API pricing changes

#107
post #77
post #21

This is interesting. I wonder if this is future hope for accessibility and will be legislated by the Americans with Disability Act. There’s already a portion called “section 508” [0] that requires software and web sites to be accessible, but it only applies to federal procurement. An extension could be that apis are required for accessibility and that they apply to all businesses over a certain size. While Section508…

I doubt it. There is nothing that states API is required for accessibility. There are common, easy to implement design tools to improve accessibility. Look at the WCAG guidelines ( https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/ ) for exactly what you should be doing (also for a look at what a truly accessible site looks like). These are not difficult things to implement and do not require third party, or even first party apps to do.…

It’s not a requirement now. I meant that there would be new legislation to expand ADA to cover API requirements.

APIs aren’t expensive to implement, but they reduce revenue since people bypass ads and weaken moats as data is more portable. Companies are choosing to drop and not build because of revenue, not cost.

Re: Reddit will exempt accessibility-focused apps from unpopular API pricing changes

#108

Is Elon running this company? It's straight out of the Elon/Twitter playbook. Announce a new policy so horrid almost everyone is appalled. Wait a short period of time and then make a small/token exception for a sympathetic community and reap the media rewards. Wait a short time and then roll out former said horrid policy with less outrage because of fatigue and the newly muddied waters. Brilliantly evil.

I was thinking it was more of a Zuckerberg strategy. At various points in Facebook's early history, users would voice protest about new features, such as news feed. They pretty much ignored the feedback and let it keep growing beyond the size of the critics.

Reddit probably doesn't have as much growth as fb did of course.

Re: Reddit will exempt accessibility-focused apps from unpopular API pricing changes

#109
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason Digg has been mentioned so much around this story. Reddit ate Digg's lunch because Digg made bad decisions. Reddit is making the same flavor of bad decisions and their lunch will be promptly eaten by someone else. It's obviously a losing strategy. Everyone can see it except for the greedy execs seeing dollar signs rather than the real world.

If anyone else is like me, I'm just looking for the next community so that I can ditch reddit. I'm looking for a site that can maintain free speech,limit the bot noise,draw in real users and foster a real community spirit and attitude without selling out to corporatism, over moderation, and overall corrupt tendencies.

Are you willing to pay?
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