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With the networks separated, users should, theoretically, be able to switch content networks at will.
A large portion of reddit contributors use 3rd party apps. Will reddit even be worth using if those people leave? That’s a huge risk, and I’m not confident Reddit has fully evaluated the second order effects of this API change.
How large is a "large portion"?
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…
Reddit probably did the math and figured the churn was worth it to get everyone seeing ads. Facebook is much more optimized for ads, but optimizing Reddit's ads is probably easier than getting more people to pay. The latter would probably require paywalling more which is just as icky.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The aim is not _just_ to make money, but to force users to use their crappy app so they can track users better. Sort of like what Twitter did. It’s also why they had like one dude working on their mobile website one hour a month for the last few years.
What’s so crappy about it? I’ve seen some bad apps and it’s definitely not that bad. Can you elaborate?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Seems that if there is a way to unlink social networks (users, friends, etc) and content networks, we would have a better time keeping the goals of users and end corporations aligned. With the networks separated, users should, theoretically, be able to switch content networks at will.
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.
Not really, there are a bunch of small reddits that really is a good source of information and community. E.g. r/leathercraft, r/learnmath, r/godot and so on...
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 mem…
That's my point though. Reddit is NOT charging $2.5/mo for API access. It is charging a set amount per app (based on overall usage), and the developer has to now be in the business of creating and charging for a whole new subscription themselves to make up for what they have to pay Reddit.
We are building communities on closed platforms that we don’t control. We need to move from Feudalism to a Free Market:
https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/
When you choose where to host your Wordpress or whatever, you don’t worry about someone shutting off the API keys. On this page is a video explaining how that would work:
On the other hand we see this all the time:
https://twitter.com/nk1tz/status/1197347554201133056?s=46&t=...
Isn’t that lovely? The screenshot of HN complaining bitterly about someone controlling their own giant platform that we have all come to rely on. And the only solution is “switch to {{their competitor}}” as if that will solve it. This is just one of thousands of examples.
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.