this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Do You Think There Would Have Been a Large Protest if Steve Huffman Just Said We're Charging to Use the API to Increase Revenue? (beehaw.org)
submitted 2 years ago by curt@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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I've been a long time Redditor and an Apollo user for about a year. I even paid for it. The main draw for me was the lack of advertising. In the back of my head I kept thinking that it couldn't last. Reddit is losing revenue from the lack of advertising views. It didn't

To me, Reddit's sky high pricing for the use of the API is intended to kill off apps like Apollo and for its users to move to the advertising filled web site or its own app, which I've never used.

If Huffman came out and said this was a revenue move right off would everyone be as upset as they are? Are people upset because Huffman completely mishandled the move or because they got their ad free experience turned off? If Reddit had an app the same quality as Apollo only with ads, would they be OK with it. I've only used Apollo so I can't speak to the other apps.

I can't blame Reddit for wanting to make money. It doesn't make a profit. Investors have to keep pouring in money to keep it going. They're going to want to see a return on their investment at some point. Usually they cash in on an IPO, but IPO's are generally only successful if the corporation looks like it will be profitable or at least the stock price continues to go up. That's how capitalism works.

In my case, I probably would have left regardless. I can't stand adds in my feed. I probably wouldn't have heard of lemmy or kbin if there hadn't been such an uproar. So I'm glad it went the way it did.

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[–] xray@beehaw.org 14 points 2 years ago (4 children)

While essentially killing off 3rd party apps is disappointing, I could’ve understood and been willing to switch to the official app and maybe even pay monthly for no ads and more features.

What made me leave is how poorly Huffman and the company treated the developers, moderators, and users.

For developers:

  • Reddit went back on their word about no API cost changes this year
  • Lied about making the API cost reasonable
  • Gave developers very little time to adjust
  • Treated developers and their apps as freeloaders instead of as a source of growth for Reddit when they didn’t even have an app yet
  • Blatantly slandered Apollo’s developer

For moderators:

  • Reddit treated moderators as if their input didn’t matter despite providing free labor for the site
  • Framed them as being power hungry for disagreeing and protesting Reddit’s decisions

For users:

  • Reddit treated users as if their input didn’t matter despite Reddit being a user-generated content site
  • Treated their contributions to the site as Reddit’s property, not their own
  • Essentially said users are just a bunch of whiney babies who are powerless, have no willpower, and will visit the site no matter what we do

Also, even besides Huffman showing his true colors as being a total asshole, it just makes Reddit’s poor leadership SO evident. How do you become such a popular site with free content and free moderators, and still can’t make money? How do you manage to turn a great Reddit third-party app into a buggy mess of an official app? Why are you constantly prioritizing what you think users want instead of just listening to them? And now you essentially just told all of us: “fuck you, I own you and your content, and I am entitled to to make money off of you.”

[–] spoopyking@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (4 children)

If I put on my tinfoil hat, I think Reddit might have a long-term plan here.

  • Hike up the API price to a point where 3P apps like Apollo will have to shut down, making them worthless, after so much was invested in them

  • Get users upset with the lack of features on the official app

  • Make the 3P app developers look like bad guys

  • Wait a month or so

  • Publicly offer to buy a popular, and now worthless, 3P app ^for way too little money^, in order to use the features for the official app

  • Point out that the 3P dev is a monster if they don't sell, since it would help users so much, and Reddit is a Community, after all

[–] dudewitbow@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

They couldnt do this because apollo dev already offered to sell apollo for 10m, half the cost it would have costed them for continued api usage.

The precedent is already there to buy one and reddit missed it.

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Didn't they buy alien blue before that?
It was the most popular, before Apollo even existed I think.
They bought that, turned it to shit despite it starting from a beloved, yet now unrecognizable mess. Even if they bought Apollo, RIF, Relay, Sync and Baconreader tomorrow, their goal with the site conflicts with what people enjoy about using it and anything they do will be shittier and shittier.
People would always flock to another community focused app as long as that's a possibility, so they decided to nuke the whole concept.

[–] kartoffelsaft@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

If you are to believe that Reddit is setting the API pricing as high as proposed to eliminate 3rd party apps, rather than to recoup costs of allowing their existence (which I wouldn't put it past them to lie like that to make it sound more palletteable), then it's reasonable to believe Apollo's existence doesn't cost them 20M$. In fact I'd be surprised if it even costs them the 10M$ figure because Reddit's reaction implies a number that high must be extortion.

[–] curt@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

Large corporations regularly buy up small firms to get their product. You may be less tin foil hatty than you think on that one.

[–] TauZero@mander.xyz 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

From a game theory of greedy agents point of view, what is the number value of a worthless app? As in, if Reddit offered to buy Apollo for $1 right now, what greedy reason would there be to refuse?

[–] Shinhoshi@infosec.pub 1 points 2 years ago

“How can I trust you to even give me the $1 if you resort to slandering my character?”

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 1 points 2 years ago

they hurt themselves here though because Apollo's dev gave them the buyout option and they said he was trying to extort them. I doubt any of the app developers would be too keen on this now without covering their ass to pretty extreme extents

[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 2 points 2 years ago

And to pile on top, Reddit has been around since 2005. Why is there a SUDDEN and sloppy push towards profitability? It's like someone clued them in just recently that an IPO means you'll have to publicly show profit/loss. The way they've gone about it suddenly and sloppily doesn't scream long term plan, but instead a crash change.

[–] administrator@lemmy.pro 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Excellently said! Can I nominate you to represent me in the fediverse?

[–] xray@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

Thank you! Sure, I’ll do my best lol.