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APIs for content sites must be free

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Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#201

Post by pessimizer »

zoogeny wrote: post #13

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…

> They then attempt to invent moral axioms that they believe will lead to that outcome. They also seem to reinvent history such that there was some "implicit" agreement between Reddit and the users of Reddit.

I notice this also when people are talking about "the spirit of open source." No, open source licenses are licenses, not spirits, and you were contributing huge amounts of time and effort to fill a platform with content that you have absolutely no control over. People don't owe it to your OSS project not to fork it or not to become more successful than you at distributing it as a service, and Reddit can do whatever they want with your content that doesn't violate any obligations to you set out in their ToS.

Next time, do AGPL or proprietary, and don't give away any content that you value to someone else's platform for free. If you want them to be obligated to distribute it for free forever, you really should be paying them.

Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#202

Post by zoogeny »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #174
zoogeny wrote: post #13

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…

If you operate in GDPR land there is a requirement to provide all that data (by the user) by law already. It's not unheard of.

Now that is something I agree with (the principle not the particular law).

If we're opening it up to our own opinions - I believe I should have total control over all of the content I generate in all contexts. That would include removing the content I provably generated from any platform at any time. Note that HN doesn't even allow me to do that ... I can't delete posts after some time frame.

But my understanding of GDPR is it doesn't go that far. It applies to PII (Personally Identifying Information). That would include things like mailing address, email addresses, full names, phone number, government ids, etc. I may be wrong, but I do not believe it would apply to the content of shitposts on Reddit.

Where I disagree with the articles vehement moral stance ... is my right to the publicly generated content of other people.

Also, if we want to get all technical, and I'm surprised no one has, there is some analogy to be made between the philosophy of free access to information provided by public libraries and this debate ...

Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#203

Post by randomdata »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #25

This assumes that the API is the reward provided by the website to "buy" the user-generated content, as if the website did not provide value otherwise. 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.

1. It is impossible to use Reddit without an API (a webpage is just another API).

2. No API is ever truly free. There are always tradeoffs that come with a cost.

3. Not all APIs have the same cost.

The question is, at what point does an API become a cost too much?

There is a lot of indication that changes at Reddit will mean that some APIs that were previously considered to be acceptably priced will no longer be acceptably priced. The cost of using the API will exceed the value derived from using the API.

Other APIs are stated to remain unchanged. In theory, users using the APIs in flux could migrate to these price-stable APIs. But, that does not mean that all people find those APIs acceptably priced, even where they did find the previously mentioned APIs in flux to be acceptably priced previously.

An API is not why someone uses Reddit, but it is a necessary precondition in order to use Reddit. If one finds the cost of a Reddit API to be too high, one will not use that API. If one finds the cost of all Reddit APIs to be too high, they will not use Reddit. To retain users, is necessary for an API to be "free enough".

Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#204

Post by clmckinley »

LeeroyWasHere wrote: post #187
throwaway49274 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain to me where Reddit is no longer free for Joe Consumer? It's the subreddit mods who are making the data inaccessible to you, NOT Reddit.

The people working for free are the villains, not the multibillion dollar corporation. Got it, thanks.

Are they a multibillion dollar corporation though? I know they have had crazy valuation's, but we are moving past a time of value based on eyeballs and to a time of value based on monetization. Where does the monetary value of reddit really lie? It seems like most of their creative monetization strategies like gold, donations and custom avatars have failed. This leaves the more mundane avenues of advertising to users, and selling the content that users creates. Both of those are severely handicapped by a free/low cost api. If they cannot monetize a user or their data then that user is bad for their bottom line.

reddit is doing this because their investors want them to be a multi-billion dollar company, not because they already are.

Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#205

Post by jamietanna »

clnq wrote: post #126
PaulHoule wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The average discussion on Reddit/StackOverflow/etc is full of wrong answers and it is hit or miss if the "accepted" answer is correct, never mind any of the other ones. These sites are a great model for convincing bullshit but if you wanted something worth training an A.I. you'd need to filter out 90% of the content.

Sadly very true. Most threads are very comparable to ChatGPT 3.5. I think one could recreate Reddit mostly with a LLM.

Fortunately /r/SubredditSimulator has been a thing for a while https://www.engadget.com/2019-06-05-subreddit-simulator-gpt-...

Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#206

Post by pessimizer »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #96
keneda7 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes? I don't think it's a very radical, unreasonable or difficult thing to provide: this is available as a first class feature on most blogging/forum software (RSS feeds) and wasn't even remotely controversial 10–12 years ago. I think demanding someone pay server bills so you can freely access data they have stored on their hardware (to make yourself money) is radical and unreasonable in every way. If it is an educa…

You've hidden a subtle semantic shift here. This discussion is centered around personal use, yet you're drawing a line outside commercial use as if they were the same thing. For instance, Askhistorians posts were all intended educationally and many of them were produced via API access, some long before Reddit had an app. Is it not reasonable to expect those to still be accessible to others the same way, even with a n…

Speaking of semantic shifts, "reasonable to expect" has nothing to do with obligation or whether people deserve anything. It's "reasonable to expect" that it will rain tomorrow, based on what I've seen on the weather maps and in the forecast. The rain has no obligation to me to fall.

Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#207

Post by chihuahua »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #22

The use of the word "must" (in both the title and the body) is uninformative. What on Earth does it mean? Does it mean there's a law? A moral imperative? A strategic necessity? A technical requirement? Is the author claiming some form of jurisdiction? "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 tel…

I agree. The way the article is written is basically just a guy throwing a tantrum because he wants something. That doesn't make it a law of the universe that he must be given what he wants.

Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#208

Post by pessimizer »

choudharism wrote: post #137
keneda7 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes? I don't think it's a very radical, unreasonable or difficult thing to provide: this is available as a first class feature on most blogging/forum software (RSS feeds) and wasn't even remotely controversial 10–12 years ago. I think demanding someone pay server bills so you can freely access data they have stored on their hardware (to make yourself money) is radical and unreasonable in every way. If it is an educa…

This is a false dichotomy - no one is protesting for a free lunch. The vast majority of app developers and users are okay with incurring a fee (and many solutions have been proposed - for example, users needing to subscribe to reddit's premium tier to use 3rd party apps) - reddit management has shown in their conduct (refusal to listen to users / potential customers, applying changes with a staggeringly short notice)…

What if they don't want to be in that business?

Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#209

Post by clmckinley »

miah_ wrote: post #141
mkoubaa wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little inconvenient but you could Ask/answer it on stack overflow and then link it in the reddit reply?

Stack Overflow is under a moderator strike at the moment too! The company has disabled the data dumps of the content after a recent layoff. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/390106/moderation-s...

I predict that all sites like this which thrive on community generated content will be getting rid of apis and bulk exports. This is because ai companies have used those tools to build their systems on data that prevents the need to the source website. This is an existential threat to sites like StackOverflow and a huge, missed opportunity for reddit.

Re: APIs for content sites must be free

#210

Post by tedunangst »

chc wrote: post #158
zoogeny wrote: post #13

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…

> I often get the feeling that in these circumstances people derive first principles from specific desired outcomes. That's a pretty normal way derive principles, isn't it? You start with an observation, and then you recursively ask "why?" It's possible that your answers are wrong , or even that your observation itself is flawed, but the concept of deriving principles from outcomes isn't really flawed. Where else are…

People don't seem very good or interested in assessing how their newly derived principle will apply to situations other than the one they want it for.
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