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Won't machine learning largely solve this problem? Fine, don't provide an API, but I can extract a useful JSON document from your HTML representation.
No LLM required.
"It must provide APIs" isn't an argument. It can't be taken literally because it's clearly false. And it can't be taken in any other form because the author doesn't tell us what those forms might be.
It continues, equally poorly stated: "Millions of users create the content expecting it will be widely available. Locking down an API breaks that social contract." Now that IS an argument, but it's not a good one for a surprisingly large number of reasons, the simplest of which is that websites like Reddit are widely available regardless of a free API.
Finally, we get to the only actual statement of merit: "The short sighted thing about these API fees is they will harm the company in the long term." Yes, that's quite likely true. Is that the whole argument? That this is a short sighted plan? Companies are free to make stupid plans. They do it all the time, and you are free to stop doing business with them. "Must" doesn't enter into it.
I like vehement arguments even when I disagree with them. Based on this man's logic, if I were to run a web forum then I must provide an API or data dump to download the posts created by the users? How about a comment section on my blog? How about a community Discord server? Why not Facebook posts? Or Instagram stories? I often get the feeling that in these circumstances people derive first principles from specific d…
Realistically you're using Open source forum software like discourse that itself could provide an API interface at an amortized cost.
Expecting individuals to code it themselves (and follow standards etc) is a big ask. I don't think its a hard sticking point and the majority of the encouragement is for large providers.
Good luck lobbying YouTube to make their API free. I'd love to have a version of the YouTube app that didn't cost me any money and also didn't have ads.
Nobody posts on Reddit just to access the content via an API, it's not a finality of using Reddit, it's a nice to have.
I like vehement arguments even when I disagree with them. Based on this man's logic, if I were to run a web forum then I must provide an API or data dump to download the posts created by the users? How about a comment section on my blog? How about a community Discord server? Why not Facebook posts? Or Instagram stories? I often get the feeling that in these circumstances people derive first principles from specific d…
but you can access every single shitpost from the website, so why not from API? it's lighter
My take is slightly more nuanced - if you're paying a company to access their content, it shouldn't matter how you're accessing that content. More concretely, as a (former) subscriber to Reddit Premium, I should continue to get access to Reddit via their APIs for free. But that was never an option, since Reddit only wants to charge the application creators and not the actual consumers.
Your argument is the same as saying that if I buy a can of Coke I should be allowed to use the CEO's company car for life.
I like vehement arguments even when I disagree with them. Based on this man's logic, if I were to run a web forum then I must provide an API or data dump to download the posts created by the users? How about a comment section on my blog? How about a community Discord server? Why not Facebook posts? Or Instagram stories? I often get the feeling that in these circumstances people derive first principles from specific d…
But that's exactly how laws are made. E.g. why do we have consumer protection? Because it helps us! It's democracy in action.
It's not like nobody would ever build another forum if there were laws like the ones proposed by GP.
And if you're worried that every little forum should comply to complicated laws: we could make it so that the laws only apply to large players, e.g. >1M users.
The most accurate/charitable interpretation of the content, despite the abysmal title, would be: If users provide content for free, then a platform must allow users to consume that content freely , as in "as they wish", not "for free". The author supposes that this is a fundamental social contract between users and platforms that needs to exist for platforms to work well. The author does not cite any evidence or exam…
The platform is paying me with distribution and letting me take advantage of network effect. Anyone can setup a free blog and post all they want, and make everything available via RSS, but instead people choose to post on Reddit (and on HN!) because Reddit has built a platform that provides additional value vs posting on one's own blog.
Platforms need to make $ to stay alive, Reddit's problem is they took VC money for a product that, it turns out, doesn't generate VC returns.
Without the need to pay off VCs, Reddit could likely easily become profitable (as they reportedly were in 2019) and everyone involved could become comfortably-but-not-filthy-rich.
Won't machine learning largely solve this problem? Fine, don't provide an API, but I can extract a useful JSON document from your HTML representation.
As far as I'm aware, Reddit still allows you to append .json to any of their pages and you get the results as a nicely formatted json document. No LLM required.