Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by Eisenstein » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

shmatt wrote: post #27

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 mem…

Key word here is 'on average'. Most people are not going to spend $25/year for access to a third party reddit app. That leaves the hardcore users who are going to cost the dev much more than $2.50/mo, and when ads are no longer able to be served and NSFW content is also gone where is the profit then?

Putting aside the bad salesmanship and planning of selling a forever license, it is absolutely way too much money.

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

#72

Post by KptMarchewa » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

wmurmann wrote: post #49

chillbill wrote: post #34

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?

Does it look remotely like this site? No? Then that's not the reddit experience I want.

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

#73

Post by chillbill » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

shmatt wrote: post #27

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 mem…

It’s reductive to say Reddit is providing the service, the app developer is also providing a service. The value originally is provided by the communities, then Reddit adds something on top, and the indie app devs add some more value.

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

#74

Post by paxys » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

wayne wrote: post #53

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…

Facebook's North America revenue is around $50 a quarter per user ("ARPU"), which is ~$15/month. You'd have to charge quite a bit to clear that, given most users won't pay. (Plus 30% to pay for App Store fees.) 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 p…

They are planning to charge third party apps ~$2.5/mo per user (aggregate amount based on average usage), so that is already quite a bit less.

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

#75

Post by rileyphone » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

chillbill wrote: post #34

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…

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.

The bigger joke is their “open in app” links don’t work for me on mobile safari. At least old reddit still works on desktop.

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

#76

Post by CamelCaseName » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

snide wrote: post #17

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…

Yes! Speaking as a heavy Reddit, but non-sub user, this is exactly what would have gotten me to pay them $50 a year. Not NFTs, stickers and avatars. I think the problem is that the API concerns are more around LLMs having easy access points to their data than anything else. Still, this could have been avoided by providing free-use keys to trusted developers. It's not like there are that many of them. Just seems odd h…

Can someone explain what value new Reddit data has for LLMs?

Presumably the entire 2005-2023 (up to March) dataset which is (was) freely available on Pushshift / torrents is enough?

Also, not that Sam Altman is unbiased, but he did say that social media (Reddit, Twitter) were not super important for developing LLMs (But of course, that's exactly what he would say if they were useful!)

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

#77

Post by moneywoes » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #40

snide wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Speaking as a heavy Reddit, but non-sub user, this is exactly what would have gotten me to pay them $50 a year. Not NFTs, stickers and avatars. I think the problem is that the API concerns are more around LLMs having easy access points to their data than anything else. Still, this could have been avoided by providing free-use keys to trusted developers. It's not like there are that many of them. Just seems odd h…

> Still, this could have been avoided by providing free-use keys to trusted developers. This approach mostly doesn't work because, for third-party client apps that don't go through the developer's own server, scrapers could snag those keys from the client. Scraping has always been a thing and I don't see a foolproof solution that allows good actors to use the product without bad actors getting to scrape content (not…

How would those api keys be exposed if it’s an app?

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

#78

Post by Aaargh20318 » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

Simulacra wrote: post #8

I presume that going dark means that there will be less traffic on the site, which ostensibly would put pressure on the ad revenue. How long would this have to go on before it was a noticeable effect on read its balance sheet?

I don’t think the ad revenue for these two days is the important bit here. Reddit wants to IPO later this year and this protest highlights a very real existential risk behind Reddit’s business model.

Reddit is entirely dependent on a large number of unpaid volunteers to moderate their site. Without moderation the site will turn into a cesspool of spam and other unsavory content. No brand is going to want to put their adds next to that.

The problem is that unpaid volunteer have no obligations towards Reddit. They aren’t employees so you can’t fire them, they aren’t depending on Reddit for their livelihood and you can’t easily replace them (you’d have to find another sucker to provide free labor for you). They certainly can’t afford to hire enough people to replace the volunteer moderators.

So Reddit is now pissing off the very group of people they depend on for their existence, a group of people that can walk away from Reddit with zero consequences. They have shown time and again to not care about the people they need the most to remain in business. They are one dumb-ass move by the admins away from going belly up. Does this company sound like a good investment opportunity to you ?

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

#79

Post by bastawhiz » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:05 PM UTC

chillbill wrote: post #34

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…

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.

> but to force users to use their crappy app so they can track users better

That's the point: let the users pay you to make up for the (potential?) revenue you're not making from tracking them. Estimates put reddit at something like $0.25 per user. Pushing them to the official app might _generously_ triple that number. Versus the user paying $5/mo? It's a braindead business case to say that users in your official app are materially better than the same users directly paying for the service they actually want.

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

#80

Post by anonred » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 3:05 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #58

shmatt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

With the cost per request model, third party apps have more autonomy to dictate how much users pay per month.