It is June 12 2023 and you’re watching the code report
If you try to go on to the subreddit to look at adorable pictures of puppies and bunnies, you’ll notice that that subreddit has gone private, forcing 34 million people to confront the harsh reality of our existence. As of today, nearly 7,000 different subreddits have gone private, and that means tens of millions of users won’t be able to generate ad revenue for Reddit Inc.
The Business Model of Reddit
Reddit has an incredible business model where people willingly create content for free that it can then monetize with advertisements. However, it recently pissed off a lot of its mods and power users by jacking up the price of its API. Back in April, they announced that API pricing was changing from totally free to 24 cents per 1000 API calls, going into effect on July 1st. That’s a pretty steep increase, considering that serving 8000 get requests should cost them a fraction of a penny.
Reddit has to put food on its family, but they’re not doing this to make money, as they make their money from advertisements. It’s a problem when you have apps like Apollo that provide a much better user experience than the official Reddit app. The best way to get rid of third-party apps is to simply cut off the water supply, or in this case, make the water supply extremely expensive.
The Implications of the Price Increase
The Apollo app makes 7 billion requests per month, which means the API would cost them 20 million dollars per year. They don’t have that kind of money, which means they’re officially going out of business June 30th. Reddit learned this trick from Elon Musk, who recently jacked up the price of the Twitter API, killing off a bunch of third-party apps.
Third-party businesses being killed off by a platform is nothing new. Apple can boot you from the App Store anytime it wants, Google can update its search algorithm so nobody ever finds your website, Instagram can turn you into a famous influencer then erase you the moment you post something that doesn’t align with the regime, and YouTube has complete control over content creators’ fates, and could easily end everything they’ve worked for with the click of a button.
The Power of Software Platforms
The bottom line is that when you build a software product, any third-party APIs or platforms that you rely on have you by the balls. Reddit knows this, and they’re starting to twist hard to get rid of apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Sync, and Red Planet, which seems like a move to eliminate competition on mobile.
The Alleged Blame Game
The Reddit CEO blames large language models like ChatGPT for using Reddit extent offensively as training data, but there is skepticism about this claim. Reddit is tied to most of these AI companies through the same VCS, via people like Sam Altman, Mark Andreessen, and Peter Thiel, who coincidentally all became investors in 2014, after the death of Aaron Schwartz.
The Value of Content
What’s crazy about a website like Reddit is that you have millions of people providing high-quality content and moderating it entirely for free. People do that because the content, in many cases, is more valuable than money. Reddit has the power to knock things up and provide a minimal platform that keeps the gravy train running.
The bottom line is that it is critical that the users of Reddit do not find out that the content they create on the internet has value. If they did, they might want to take that content to their own platforms, where it would be far more difficult for vulture capitalists to feast upon.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, due to the protest, there are no memes available for this article. This has been the code report, thanks for reading and we will see you in the next one!
Reddit sucks I wanted free API !!!
Apollo is definitely not better than the Reddit app. Who told you that?
I think some subs were using 3rd party apps to brigade and harass other subs
This was genuinely funny while informative 😅
A lesson to all, if you have a dream project and it makes you money and reputation.
Then a bunch of people convince you to go public, stakeholders/etc/etc, you lose control of the product and they literally make choices for financial gain, not the product and the customers.
Yada yada, screw you greedy pigs, you ruined everything!
I miss you OG Blizzard and OG Rockstar Games.
I think Apollo shoot make their own database they has already user and user experience so they use their own database
Good I hope it dies
What are APIs?
Can you tell people about alternative popular Fediverse platforms like Lemmy for example?
any mods who set their subreddit to private are r word mentally challenged
Nice job by Reddit, because the 3rd party app Apollo is unable to change my username on the site, Everything is stuck with hot lettuce until I find a financially better platform, One that doesn’t even have advertisements, Reddit has advertisements, and Reddit can’t compete on mobile!
Pure genius 🎉
Good riddance!
The irony of Reddit charging developers to consume data through its APIs while it itself gets FREE data from its users!
But imagine not using an ad blocker in the year 2023
The thing about Apollo many people simply don't realize is that it actually cost Reddit money. First of all, it doesn't display any reddit ads to freeloaders who don't pay for Reddit Premium, secondly it makes several features too accessible. Features that cause strain on the servers when accessed, and are therefore hidden behind several menus both on the website and in the app to make people think "wait, do I REALLY have to use it?".
Reddit gives you the information you need and its wrong about 50% of the time. Then the second search you get the answer. Maybe it's designed this way. Its really damn annoying when the largest english speaking forum is controlled by trash humans and foreign imbaciles.
reddit has fallen
With RIF gone I can finally give up on that uber toxic leftist sthole called reddit.
Reddit has all of the relevance and longevity of … MySpace or AOL or Tumblr … it is crucial to the furtherance of humanity. NOT!
For the big subs going private for a few days didn't make Reddit back down :/
this whole reddit protest has been extremely cringy and showed how pathetic most of the mods of these subreddits are. they said the blackout was until Reddit met their demands like its some hostage scenario so Reddit said "ok we'll just remove you and instate new moderators" and every one of them instantly kneeled when they realized their internet power was at stake. they didnt give a fuck about the API, they were just going alone with it because it was a trend and Reddit called their bluff which was obvious but instantly giving in? really? its so pathetic that they couldnt even fight it for a week or even a couple more days, reddit threatened to take away their internet forum power and they bent the knee instantly, game of thrones style.
You mean to tell me that People on reddit actually have to go out and get a life?!? I think that's the best thing that could happen to these people. Shame it will only last for about 48 hours before they drag themselves back to the pit. As you correctly figured out, these people's dependency on Reddit prevents whatever useful stuff they MAY actually put into their own platforms. Instead of going to the "easy way to popularity"
Just stop using Reddit
peotesting for 3 days will get you nowhere, and those who continue might get replaced
You should cover Android slowly going closed source
Reddit didnt give a shit when plenty of subs got banned, fuck em
So… couldn't users of the apps just pay for it? I mean it works out to a couple of dollars per month per user, that doesn't seem to be unreasonable on the face of it.
I support anything that pisses off redditors and mods
Fuck Reddit, one of the shittiest platforms ever
What's wrong with the regular reddit app? Genuinely asking
As a non-redditor who ends up on reddit because apparently reddit is a viable alternative to wikis, forums, and everything else all of a sudden (it isn't and never will be), the only thing I care about is making the side bar being hideable and the actual content filling the page without having to use javascript and CSS hacks. I'm glad they're employing fees on the grifters and groomers. Maybe they will get rid of them and the people who actually use reddit/have to use reddit's voice will be heard over the jannies. A win for all (probably.)
First
Mods need to get over themselves.
I never thought thatr deleting my account would be so satisfying
This is a blessing in disguise and will let so mamy poor, unfortunate redditors find out what touching grass feels like.
Did the mods ask the community if they wanted to be a part of the
protesttemper tantrum or did they do what they wanted as if they owned the site? I’m failing to see how blocking the users who want nothing to do with this as good. What is it all y’all used to say about stuff like this? “DONT LIKE IT GO MAKE YOUR OWN”All these subreddits are now open. They shut down for a few days, but then they remembered that they didn't care and just reopened, having achieved nothing. These third party apps would make enormous amounts of requests, run their own ads and cause reddit to lose money. "Reddit has an incredible business model where people willingly create content for free, that it can then monetise with advertisements." Ok? Welcome to the business model of every social media company. This guy gives me strong "all companies are evil" vibes.
I'm just glad the mods got a sobering reality check that they are not god and they can be replaced at the blink of an eye. Reddit told them to unprivate their page or be replaced and most folded like the cowards they are but the ones that held out got kicked off their mod chair and the sub was opened anyway
Reddit pulling a certified reddit moment
Reddit is a cesspit of conformity, degeneracy, and theft. Make up a BS story about “muh wage slavery”, or steal someone else’s meme from another subreddit or website, then upvote it because the hive mind approves of it, and downvote any heresy into oblivion because the hive mind disapproves.
Oh no they have to pay for a service! They can just build their own reddit.
Nostr fixes this
I support reddit because how annoying it his when a search engine result is inaccessible due to their cancerous "protest"
"to put food on it's family" is so close but so incorrect that I love it.
Opportunity to go outside
i don't get why anyone is complaining. it's their site. if you don't like it, build your own.
This is exactly why decentralization is the future of the "free" internet
reddit’s response to this protest, made by many of these subreddits, was forcing them to go public again by threatening to take away control of their subreddits, and REPLACE their mod staff with more compliant mods.
A lot of subreddits are free content, made on the backs of people doing it because they enjoy doing so.
Reddit has made it very clear what a content meat grinder they have become. They will do anything to keep the subreddits spewing content, even if it kills the content of those subreddits.
Once the owner/mods of the affected subreddits are replaced, and control taken away, no new content will be added to those subreddits. Just recycled content, rendering the subreddit taken over this way effectivly dead. This has to stop.