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Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

theverge.com

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Re: Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

#21

Post by ravenstine »

partiallypro wrote: post #15
mmiliauskas wrote: post #6

Reddit is garbage these days anyways. Even communities that are scientific/technical seem to be toxic these days. If you want to get to a comment that has any substance regarding some topic or article, you have to scroll all the way down.

/r/politics has leaked into virtually every subreddit.

The pandemic also ruined a lot of subreddits, especially ones for municipalities. Over 3 years of "OMG COVID" and "we ar liek literally in a pandemic" and "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DON'T SUPPORT MORE LOCKDOWNS" made me give up on a lot of subreddit communities, especially the Los Angeles one. But yeah, the metastasization of Reddit's broad politics also made things worse.

Re: Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

#22

Post by tgv »

last_responder wrote: post #18
jacooper wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not about the revenue, its about forcing everyone to get ads, with endless tracking.

Do you think this desire is out of the goodness of their hearts and they genuinely think that it is the best? I cannot believe anyone would think that.

Possibly (but it's just a guess) it's about ads and/or data harvesting. If you access it via another app, they cannot get everything they're getting now.

Plus: a subscription would drive many users away.

Re: Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

#23

Post by beezlewax »

jacooper wrote: post #9
paxys wrote: post #5

I will never understand how Reddit bungled this so badly. I'm no Harvard MBA, but here's an easier way out – instead of asking small-time app developers to pay millions, put API access contingent on the account subscribing to Reddit Premium. That way users get to keep the experience they enjoy, independent developers can keep doing their thing, Reddit gets to make up for the lost ad revenue in the form of subscriptio…

Its not about the revenue, its about forcing everyone to get ads, with endless tracking.

What for profit company is doing anything and not thinking about revenue?

Why would they force users to do something they're not too pleased about if it wasn't entirely for generating revenue of some description?

Re: Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

#24

Post by George83728 »

jacooper wrote: post #9
paxys wrote: post #5

I will never understand how Reddit bungled this so badly. I'm no Harvard MBA, but here's an easier way out – instead of asking small-time app developers to pay millions, put API access contingent on the account subscribing to Reddit Premium. That way users get to keep the experience they enjoy, independent developers can keep doing their thing, Reddit gets to make up for the lost ad revenue in the form of subscriptio…

Its not about the revenue, its about forcing everyone to get ads, with endless tracking.

The same official experience? So they're going to take away user choice in which subreddits to read too?

Probably not. It's about money, not enforcing a uniform experience.

Re: Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

#26

Post by anankaie »

partiallypro wrote: post #15
mmiliauskas wrote: post #6

Reddit is garbage these days anyways. Even communities that are scientific/technical seem to be toxic these days. If you want to get to a comment that has any substance regarding some topic or article, you have to scroll all the way down.

/r/politics has leaked into virtually every subreddit.

The issue is that the admins only selectively enforce their rules, and are very ideologically driven at that (see the general rule of not allowing bans for other subreddit participation). This sets the tone for the moderation.

Re: Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

#27

Post by shmatt »

paxys wrote: post #5

I will never understand how Reddit bungled this so badly. I'm no Harvard MBA, but here's an easier way out – instead of asking small-time app developers to pay millions, put API access contingent on the account subscribing to Reddit Premium. That way users get to keep the experience they enjoy, independent developers can keep doing their thing, Reddit gets to make up for the lost ad revenue in the form of subscriptio…

That small time developer who discussed paying millions also said it came out to $2.5/month on average[1]. Which actually isn't that bad for the service Reddit is providing

One of the problems mentioned in the many Reddit threads discussing the issue about Apollo, is that its creator was selling ULTRA LIFETIME MEMBERSHIPS[2]. Yes, they were charging people money, taking it, then using a free API to deliver paying members their value. The developer now feels he cannot charge lifetime members an extra $2.5/month because he promised them he wouldn't

Beyond the discussion of is Reddit about to die or not, selling LIFETIME access to someone elses free API is a dumb move, which will always end badly

I think Reddit charging $2.5/month for API access is more than fair

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/31/23743993/reddit-apollo-cl...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/r3npbm/last_call...

Re: Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

#28

Post by newaccount74 »

mmiliauskas wrote: post #6

Reddit is garbage these days anyways. Even communities that are scientific/technical seem to be toxic these days. If you want to get to a comment that has any substance regarding some topic or article, you have to scroll all the way down.

The nice thing about Reddit is that you can scroll down. Even if the top voted comments are garbage, you can just continue reading, and read answers from a very diverse audience, even if they are downvoted.

It's a lot more diverse than Twitter, where it seems that only right wing bullshit is shown any more, or HN, where 90% of posters are men aged 20-40.

Re: Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps

#29

Post by miroljub »

jacooper wrote: post #12
dsm4ck wrote: post #7

I really hope one of the bigger third party apps finds a way to just point their front end to a reddit clone and eat reddits lunch.

I keep hearing this, but how many of reddit users actually use third party apps? If Twitter proved anything, its that its really hard to kill a popular social media network, no matter how badly managed or drama filled it is.

Twitter is not badly managed. It managed to grow to the point of being indispensable, and drama is just one of the reasons why it keeps being popular.
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