APIs for content sites must be free

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 8:44 PM UTC

incone123 wrote: post #107

rcoveson wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting something valuable for free sounds weird in the physical world but it's not weird at all in the information world, where costs can diffuse so thinly that many users never even see them. I see no reason why a non-profit reddit couldn't be free if they didn't try to host video or images (links and comments only). Server costs could absolutely be covered by donations (like "reddit gold") and intra-site advertisi…

I know of one long-running message board site which is free of advertising and free for users. A number of users make regular donations and occasionally when funds are low they make an announcement and some other users make a one-off donation. I am very doubtful their model would scale to Reddit's size, and certain they don't have any wish to.

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 8:48 PM UTC

johnday wrote: post #106

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 fail to follow your chain of reasoning. How can the claim both be "clearly false" and unclear in its statement? The use of "should" as the very first line of the body text actually makes the argument extremely clear, which is that there is a non-legal, non-technical imperative for API access [leaving only a moral/social imperative, as you determine]. I think you are probably smarter than the very low reading compre…

Post by jstarfish » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 8:54 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #130

dvt wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A ceasefire during a battle is an example of a social contract. This is absolutely false. A ceasefire is not a social contract. It's just bizarre to even claim this, as ceasefires are most often enacted in the context of ceasefire.. uh, treaties . > Not eating your coworkers' food in the office fridge is another example of a social contract. This is a better example (though still a very poor one, as we have laws ag…

"Why would free API access be an implication of using reddit's service?" Because they offered free API access for 17 years. Same way Heroku breached a social contract when they got rid of their free tier: if you offer something like that for more than a decade, people will reasonably expect it to continue and will be angry with you if you pull the rug on them.

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 8:55 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #157

cm2012 wrote: post #86

All of your labor should be free also. What do you mean you want a six figure salary? How incredibly greedy of you. It's fair to pay you only what you need to survive.

> All of your labor should be free also. Yes, it is, and that's ultimately the contention here. Reddit has taken many millions of man hours of free labor. Now it wants to charge for the fruits of that free labor. Legally, they are within their rights to do so. Socially, however, it's thought to be uncouth to exploit workers like that.

Post by zrm » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 8:58 PM UTC

dietr1ch wrote: post #182

simonw wrote: post #53

I've found myself resisting posting comments on Reddit recently - things like answers to simple questions people have about SQLite - partly because I don't want to cross the picket line but also because I realize that I was relying on a very light social contract that was in place there: I would share my knowledge for free, in exchange for which I knew that I was contributing to a larger dataset that myself and other…

Same, I wish we could contribute content (posts, comments, votes, etc) in a redistributable way. I'd like to a P2P-backed service to exist, where people can own all the data. I guess that abuse would be a challenge, but there's probably enough good ideas around bittorrent and cryptocurrency to make sharing and trust/voting possible. My dream is that people could have a ~raspberry at home helping host the internet in…

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