Reddit pulls a Twitter. Third Party Apps will cost some developers $20 MILLION/yr.

[BobVonBob]

15 hours ago, Spotty said:

I'm interested in reading/viewing the full interview. Anyone have a link to the original interview or where the CEO said this? It wasn't in the interview he did with The Verge. Apparently it's from this NBC article but that doesn't have the full interview either.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/15/23762868/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-interview

 

A lot of annoying half answers, deflection, ranting, and lies. All in all a very aggravating read.

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, BobVonBob said:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/15/23762868/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-interview

 

A lot of annoying half answers, deflection, ranting, and lies. All in all a very aggravating read.

Oops it was the verge article I just completely missed it.

 

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Gee, that worked soo... soooooo... well for twitter. /s

 

Just let the reddit ship burn. It's not critical internet infrastructure, like twitter managed to make itself into, before it started knocking out the foundation to build a parking lot.

 

 

I would argue that Reddit is more beneficial to the internet than Twitter. At least Reddit has a bunch of good information in it organised in to posts and communities making it easy to find. Twitter is just a completely cluttered mess of whatever random thoughts ran through somebody's head at the time they posted.

 

If the internet lost Reddit everybody would complain about not being able to find information. If we lost Twitter people would complain about not being able to complain.

[williamcll]

10 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

some billionaire needs to buy reddit and unshackle the site

i'm not talking about the protests

Isn't the largest shareholder being tencent?

 

That would be hilarious if they took over. I can already taste the salt.

[Arika]

22 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Isn't the largest shareholder being tencent?

Nah that's Advance Publications (30%), tencent only owns like 5% of reddit

[Doobeedoo]

Meh don't even care for Reddit or use it really. Only if something leads me to it for something that usually is also elsewhere too.

[jagdtigger]

7 hours ago, Haaselh0ff said:

it clearly did nothing and reddit does not care

If it did not hurt them and didnt cared they wouldnt be force-opening subreddits.....

[Alcarin]

Honestly good. Many mods have a huge elitist complex, and they abuse their power too much. Case in point, this foolish protest.

 

These misguided protests really do not hurt Reddit's bottom line, as there's undoubtedly millions of users who straight up don't care about the API changes (I'm one of them), but are forced into abiding by the full blackouts of so many subreddits, many of which have good content that can't be reliably found elsewhere. As far as the API changes are concerned, the gravy train of free API access for these 3rd party apps had to have come to an end sometime. They should have prepared for this eventuality.

 

Plus Reddit has already stated that mod tools and accessibility apps won't be subject to these API access charges. So what's the problem now? Oh, it's just "cOrPoRaTIoNs bAD!"

 

That is to say, Reddit isn't entirely blameless in this either. Their API rates are definitely predatory, and their app is pretty meh. But I feel the onus also lies on the app developers for failing to prepare for this, and maybe strike up a compromise as far as API access is concerned.

 

BTW Discord is a very poor substitute for Reddit. It's for chat and streaming, not for discussion or looking up information.

 

 

[RejZoR]

Reddit's CEO is a moron. Now, I get it why he's pushing for this API pricing shit (to kill off 3rd party apps and fuel their own), but he's so far up his ass he doesn't even understand how platform he's a CEO of even works. Also the data scraping for Ai companies everyone is raging about, has everyone forgotten how web crawlers work for search engines? API is just a more direct way to plug into your shit. If someone really wants your data, they'll just modify your original client and plug into your platform or just use external means to do that.

 

Firstly, people HATE the Reddit app. I could use it on both iOS and Android, instead I used Apollo on iOS and am using Infinity on Android. Because they are both WAAAAAAY better than their own app. Ads weren't even the reason, it was how interface is structured and how I could tailor it to my needs, I especially hated how Reddit's own client just kept shifting elements around and just when I got used to it, it shifted menus around a bit just enough to be super annoying. And this is just from user perspective without any mod tools involved, that's whole other thing.

 

Secondly, he seems to think he OWNS the data. Well, he owns jack shit. Without the user data, there would be no Reddit. You may own the platform on which the user data is, but without users, there would be no data. Shitting on users and removing the tools they love to post said content won't win any hearts over it, you'll just make everyone hate you.

 

Thirdly, he seems to think the mods just decided on their own. Some did, some voted, ultimately, majority of people support their decision because their decision to private the subs is benefiting me, the regular user in the long run if I'll be able to use superior clients to use Reddit like Apollo or Infinity.

 

Fourthly, he seems to be praising Elon Musk for all his wonderful work he did on Twitter. I guess that's why Twitter lost 2/3 of it's value and why they got kicked out of their offices because absolutely stable genius Elon Musk is operating it so great. And this Huffy guy is looking up to Elon thinking, yup, this guy is a genius and I must copy him to make Reddit successful. LOL?

 

Sure, there are millions of users who don't care about any of this drama, but those people aren't invested in Reddit, they are just casuals who stroll upon it here and there. They are not ones providing the content that ultimately gives Reddit a purpose to exist. It's no different with LTT forum here. Casuals who stumble upon it on occasion don't make this forum, it's the people generating content on it who give it a purpose. Without them, even those casual occasional visitors don't really have a purpose to visit it. And that seems to be the issue its CEO doesn't seem to grasp. Like, at all. Which is no wonder since he's a corporate suit now and all he cares about and all he's pressured about is money.

[Bensemus]

56 minutes ago, Alcarin said:

snip

You are very misinformed. 
 

there is some questions on how legit the polls were but most subs voted to go private. The mods didn’t decide on their own. 
 

No one says the API has to be free. It just needs a reasonable price. Reddit is going from free to ~$12k per 50k calls. Imgur apparently charges $166 for 50k calls. 
 

Reddit can claim whatever it wants. The Apollo dev recorded his calls with the CEO. They blatantly lied about basically everything in the call. 
 

You criticize the devs for not preparing for this but they were told by Reddit in January/February that NO changes to the API were being planned. Any changes were at least a year out and likely more. Then they did start a conversation with the devs in March about changes but refused to say what the price was going to be. They waited two months to reveal pricing and they only gave a single month’s notice. 
 

The Apollo dev tried for over a week to get back in touch with Reddit to try and negotiate a more reasonable timeline. They completely stonewalled him. Come July 1st Apollo was going to start racking up a few million in API fees. When Apple bought a company that had a widely used API they told everyone it was being shut off in 18 months. They then extended the deadline about another 12 months. 
 

The devs can’t change sub prices on the fly. Apollo premium users were locked in at $10 a year. Having to wait a year to change the price was impossible. 
 

Reddit had every opportunity to keep third party apps and get them to pay for API access. Instead they purposely priced them out and tried to make themselves the victims. 
 

The Apollo dev has documented all this if you want a more thorough explanation. 

 

[suicidalfranco]

20 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

You will own nothing and you will be happy

Probably the worst take you can have on this matter.

Just start something new if you don't like it. Let Reddit die by it's own volition.

Reddit is not the gov, it's not taking anything away from you, nor forcing you To use them.

It doesn't take a genius to start a similar website to Reddit. And it doesn't cost you as much as they claim it does to keep it running. Image boards have been thing from the beginning of the internet

[AlTech]

2 hours ago, Alcarin said:

Honestly good. Many mods have a huge elitist complex, and they abuse their power too much. Case in point, this foolish protest.

 

These misguided protests really do not hurt Reddit's bottom line, as there's undoubtedly millions of users who straight up don't care about the API changes (I'm one of them), but are forced into abiding by the full blackouts of so many subreddits, many of which have good content that can't be reliably found elsewhere. As far as the API changes are concerned, the gravy train of free API access for these 3rd party apps had to have come to an end sometime. They should have prepared for this eventuality.

I think you misunderstand the nature of the API access of 3rd party apps on a platform like Reddit.

 

The value of Reddit increases because of how 3rd party apps make it easier to add value to Reddit's platform.

 

Far from being on the gravy train, these apps basically cost Reddit very little and contribute to people continuing to use Reddit who might not otherwise do so.

 

The whole reason Reddit is charging them money is 1) Ideological reasons: They seem to think App developers owe them something 2) Reddit is broke and can't get more investor money.

2 hours ago, Alcarin said:

Plus Reddit has already stated that mod tools and accessibility apps won't be subject to these API access charges. So what's the problem now? Oh, it's just "cOrPoRaTIoNs bAD!"

The mod tools that are dedicated mod tools are not the things mods were actually using. They were using Apollo and other 3rd party apps cos the Refit app didn't have the moderation features they need.

2 hours ago, Alcarin said:

That is to say, Reddit isn't entirely blameless in this either. Their API rates are definitely predatory, and their app is pretty meh. But I feel the onus also lies on the app developers for failing to prepare for this,

They only found out the new pricing a few weeks ago. They had no idea what it would be prior to Reddit announcing it publicly.

 

A few weeks is not enough time to update an application to reduce the number of API calls significantly.

2 hours ago, Alcarin said:

and maybe strike up a compromise as far as API access is concerned.

Reddit's not interested in a compromise. They see 3rd party apps like Apollo as leaches and wanted them to pay.

 

The only things exempt from the new ridiculous API pricing are non commercial accessibility apps and non commercial mod tools.

2 hours ago, Alcarin said:

 

 

BTW Discord is a very poor substitute for Reddit. It's for chat and streaming, not for discussion or looking up information.

 

 

 

[AlTech]

As an update: Reddit users are still showing Reddit's CEO that they're in charge and he's just along for the ride.

 

The front page of Reddit is apparently now John Oliver in various "sexy time outfits" as Louis describes it along with John Oliver as Zazu, a character from the Lion King.

 

Some users have also decided they will show Reddit's CEO what noise is (Reddit's CEO claimed the protests were just noise) by uploading 1GB files of video with noise to Reddit so that Reddit has to pay more to store the videos.

 

 

[RejZoR]

On 6/17/2023 at 4:05 AM, Spotty said:

-100 karma on that post haha. I think that's only going to get worse. Reading some of the comments it seems Spez supposedly said they wouldn't reopen subreddits that closed which is why them doing it is even more controversial.

 

It's incredibly tone deaf of Reddit to ignore the reason why those moderators shut down those subreddits in the first place. Ultimately I think Reddit should have listened to the overwhelming feedback from the community and announced some changes, and then only replace moderators in large communities that still refused to reopen/were inactive/deleted their accounts. But, the show must go on. At the end of the day I don't disagree with them replacing mod teams who shut down large communities indefinitely. 

 

Now before everybody hates me for saying that, I just want to explain where I'm coming from. As a moderator of this forum (who could close the forum) I fully expect the LTT forum to continue on without me. If it ever came to that then kick me off the mod team and keep on truckin. I'm under no delusions that I'm pivotal to the community's existence. The forum was fine before I joined and it'll be fine after I'm gone. Everything will just carry on normally with new mods. Moderators don't make subreddits or forums - the community does.

 

Though, I will laugh if all the new mods Reddit appoints to these communities also take them offline. 

You and me not, but as collective, that does matter. Forum without users to post interesting content is worthless and forum without some sort of order is also worthless because it'll just get clogged by harassers and spam.

 

There is however a small difference between LTT forums and Reddit. LTT forums do have own generated content aka videos recorded by LTT team. Even if you wipe all other sections and threads, just discussion about that content is a driving force that can sustain it. Reddit has NO content of its own and entirely relies on users to post something interesting. And while one can discuss things on Youtube, I find Youtube comment sections horrible to make conversations, on top of the fact I don't use Youtube with account anymore which means I can watch but not comment anyway so I either used LTT's Reddit sub or this forum. Because I ain't gonna give Google my personal data that easily.

[Fasterthannothing]

11 hours ago, Erebuxy said:

Despite the current situation, this is completely positive for the community. I encountered several bad mods, and it required enormous efforts and the entire subs going crazy to replace the mods. The mod system is completely totalitarian. 

And as for the blackout, a lot of the subs simply informed the subscribers there would be blackout, whether the majority of the subscribers liked it or not.

I agree 100% the mods on Reddit can be power tripping fruit loops. I personally am very happy they are allowing people to vote out mods.

[LAwLz]

13 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

A not insignificant number of mods were using 3rd party apps like Apollo and other apps because the Reddit app didn't have suitable moderation tools.

 

They now have to make do with inferior tools whilst Reddit has equated their moderators to effectively unpaid internet janitors. The Reddit mods don't appreciate being called such things or having their ability to manage moderation in apps taken away.

13 hours ago, starsmine said:

Not true. some may be, but there are many that are not.

The tools that are specifically for moderating are excluded from the API changes. This is the truth, not a lie.

The only way a mod might be affected is if they happen to be using a non-moderating tool to also do some moderating. Calling that "killing mod tools" is disingenuous at best. It's like saying "Youtube are killing video creator tools" when they shut down Youtube Vanced, just because some people might have used the YouTube Vanced app to access the video creator tools.

 

 

13 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Reddit is the one that handled the situation badly, not the developers or the moderators.

I also think a lot of people are handling the situation badly, by repeating things that are not correct (half-truths or flat-out lies) and in general just being mad and shouting without rime or reason.

The whole "fuck spez" line reminds me of the sheep from Animal Farm that are basically brainwashed to shout catchy one-liners to kill any and all civil conversations about the actual issues, of which I think there are plenty but that doesn't get any attention because people believe in made up issues instead.

 

I think the real issues are:

• The pricing of the API access makes it basically impossible for anyone to make third-party tools, which in turn means the APIs are rather useless. Or well, not exactly useless because apparently 90% of the tools using the API do less than 100 queries a minute, but those are probably only homemade stuff used by a single person or two.
• The fact that the APIs can no longer access NSFW content even if they pay.

 

Those are the two issues I can see with this change, and those are very serious issues that I think are worthy talking about. All other arguments I have seen, which are plenty, have been utter bullshit that stems from either people not understanding the situation, people lying through their teeth, or just people wanting to be mad at something and this month it happens to be Reddit.

 

 

Personally, I'll be patching my Boost client with its own unique client ID, because I think the official Reddit app is awful in comparison. Please note that the official reddit app is extremely popular though. I don't like it, but the official Reddit app is roughly 90% of all Android users, with all third-party apps combined making up the last 10 or so percent. Those numbers are probably generous as well, since for example I downloaded 4 different Reddit apps and as a result counts as 4 people in the "third-party users" pool.

 

 

13 hours ago, starsmine said:

that is the most unacceptable thing Reddit can do. 
If they want to change the necessity of mod tools, they need to do that FIRST, before breaking mod tools so the transition can happen as painlessly as possible. 

Come on... It is far from the most unacceptable thing Reddit can do. Turn down the hyperbole. Maybe you meant to write "the least Reddit can do" or "the most acceptable thing"?

I agree that they should have done those changes first, but please note that they haven't broken the mod tools yet, and we don't even know if any of the mod tools will be broken. I think you are mad because you are jumping to conclusions that might be completely wrong.

[AlTech]

27 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The tools that are specifically for moderating are excluded from the API changes. This is the truth, not a lie

 

The only way a mod might be affected is if they happen to be using a non-moderating tool to also do some moderating. Calling that "killing mod tools" is disingenuous at best. It's like saying "Youtube are killing video creator tools" when they shut down Youtube Vanced, just because some people might have used the YouTube Vanced app to access the video creator tools.

It's a cherry picked true statement. Most of the moderation tools that Moderators actually use are in 3rd party applications not provided by Reddit.

 

The Mod tools provided by Reddit are rudimentary and not nearly advanced enough to do what the Moderators want them to do. They are mod tools because they are the de facto tools used by mods.

27 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I also think a lot of people are handling the situation badly, by repeating things that are not correct (half-truths or flat-out lies) and in general just being mad and shouting without rime or reason.

The whole "fuck spez" line reminds me of the sheep from Animal Farm that are basically brainwashed to shout catchy one-liners to kill any and all civil conversations about the actual issues, of which I think there are plenty but that doesn't get any attention because people believe in made up issues instead.

 

I think the real issues are:

• The pricing of the API access makes it basically impossible for anyone to make third-party tools, which in turn means the APIs are rather useless. Or well, not exactly useless because apparently 90% of the tools using the API do less than 100 queries a minute, but those are probably only homemade stuff used by a single person or two.
• The fact that the APIs can no longer access NSFW content even if they pay.

There's also how the Moderators and App Developers have been treated throughtout this: badly.
 

Reddit has shown that they do not care about the people who add value to their platform.

27 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Those are the two issues I can see with this change, and those are very serious issues that I think are worthy talking about. All other arguments I have seen, which are plenty,

Such as?

 

27 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

have been utter bullshit that stems from either people not understanding the situation, people lying through their teeth, or just people wanting to be mad at something and this month it happens to be Reddit.

 

Come on... It is far from the most unacceptable thing Reddit can do. Turn down the hyperbole. Maybe you meant to write "the least Reddit can do" or "the most acceptable thing"?

I agree that they should have done those changes first, but please note that they haven't broken the mod tools yet,

In other words: the arsonists at Reddit haven't burned it down yet. Somehow I don't quite see this as the standard we should be aiming for, especially for a large technology company. Reddit's actions have been amateur hour and frankly I would expect this from a solo dev or a tiny startup, not a company the size of Reddit.

27 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

and we don't even know if any of the mod tools will be broken.

We do know that Reddit chose to act with reckless disregard as to whether the tools will be broken or not. Reddit decided they wanted to play chicken with the app developers out of a misguided ideological hatred for them and the app developers lost the game of chicken.

[LAwLz]

10 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

It's a cherry picked true statement. Most of the moderation tools that Moderators actually use are in 3rd party applications not provided by Reddit.

Yes, and those third-party tools will not be affected by the API changes.

When I say mod tools won't be affected, I am not talking about the official mod tools. I am talking about third-party tools. They will not be affected by the API changes.

[rrats]

What's up with the trend of ruining every single bloody social media. first twitter, then discord now reddit?

[AlTech]

6 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yes, and those third-party tools will not be affected by the API changes.

When I say mod tools won't be affected, I am not talking about the official mod tools. I am talking about third-party tools. They will not be affected by the API changes.

Apollo was tool widely used by mods and yet it's being shut down due to Reddit wanting to charge insane prices for API access.

[vetali]

45 minutes ago, rrats said:

What's up with the trend of ruining every single bloody social media. first twitter, then discord now reddit?

Because they aren't profitable, actually very far from being profitable. This also overshadows what imgur did a month ago.

 

Have to wonder if its possible for mods to nuke a sub of all its past post, then reopen the community blank slate. Personally I have no idea about what abilities Reddit mods have, but I can see that happening to some subs. You delete all the valuable data that shows up on google searches, which would hurt Reddit much more than posting pictures of John Oliver. Even if its reversible, and likely is. It would cause a panic.

 

I am personally on #teamnoside. Screw the power trip mods, and screw spez. Deleted the Reddit app and I haven't upvoted, downvoted, or replied since they announced these API changes. Ultimately thats what hurts Reddit (and any other community driven site) the most.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

Apollo was tool widely used by mods and yet it's being shut down due to Reddit wanting to charge insane prices for API access.

Yes, but Apollo is not a mod tool. Some mods might have used it for moderating, but that's not the same as being a mod tool.

See:

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

The only way a mod might be affected is if they happen to be using a non-moderating tool to also do some moderating. Calling that "killing mod tools" is disingenuous at best. It's like saying "Youtube are killing video creator tools" when they shut down Youtube Vanced, just because some people might have used the YouTube Vanced app to access the video creator tools.

 

 

Let's be honest here. You didn't know that third-party mod tools were excluded from the API changes. Many people don't know that, and that's a problem. People should know what is actually happening so that they can accurately decide what they want to believe for themselves.

[rrats]

26 minutes ago, vetali said:

This also overshadows what imgur did a month ago.

what did they do a month ago

[AlTech]

25 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yes, but Apollo is not a mod tool. Some mods might have used it for moderating, but that's not the same as being a mod tool.

See:

 

 

Let's be honest here. You didn't know that third-party mod tools were excluded from the API changes. Many people don't know that, and that's a problem. People should know what is actually happening so that they can accurately decide what they want to believe for themselves.

I did know and I think it's more than fair to call Apollo or other tools helpful to moderators as mod tools. I don't appreciate having words put in my mouth.

 

People on Reddit do know what's happening and they've decided they don't want to allow Reddit's greed to continue unchallenged. If you disagree with them that is your perogative but it is disingenious to say that people don't know what's happening. Reddit is advancing a narrative and you seem to believe them, which as I said is fair enough and it is your perogative, but not everybody will share that view and people have the right to their own opinion.

[jagdtigger]

24 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yes, but Apollo is not a mod tool.

So a tool used by moderators isnt a mod tool because it doesnt allign with your views, very deep and intellectual reasoning... /s

[KnoT]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

The tools that are specifically for moderating are excluded from the API changes. This is the truth, not a lie.

 

False: https://mods.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/16693988535309