Reddit 3rd-party apps face shutdown over pricing

[Kyng]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/...-protests/

Reddit is getting ready to slap third-party apps with millions of dollars in API fees, and many Reddit users are unhappy about it. A widespread protest is planned for June 12, with hundreds of subreddits planning to go dark for 48 hours.

Reddit started life as a geeky site, but as it has aged, it has been trying to work more like a traditional social network. Part of that push included the development of a first-party app for mobile devices, but the 17-year-old site only launched an official app in 2016. Before then, it was up to third-party apps to pick up the slack, and even now, the revenue-focused official app is generally considered inferior to third-party options.

Reasonable API pricing would not necessarily mean the death of third-party apps, but the pricing Reddit communicated to some of its biggest developers is far above what other sites charge. The popular iOS client Apollo announced it was facing a $20 million-a-year bill. Apollo's developer, Christian Selig, hasn't announced a shutdown but admitted, "I don't have that kind of money or would even know how to charge it to a credit card."

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Yeah... I've never used any of these 3rd-party apps, but it's hardly surprising to hear that this will drive many of them out of existence. I can't imagine any of them have a business model that accounts for "Reddit suddenly imposing massive charges" .

Hopefully, they can get this decision reversed (or at least get the charges reduced to something more realistic).

[Lurkerish Allsorts]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/...-protests/

Reddit is getting ready to slap third-party apps with millions of dollars in API fees, and many Reddit users are unhappy about it. A widespread protest is planned for June 12, with hundreds of subreddits planning to go dark for 48 hours.

Reddit started life as a geeky site, but as it has aged, it has been trying to work more like a traditional social network. Part of that push included the development of a first-party app for mobile devices, but the 17-year-old site only launched an official app in 2016. Before then, it was up to third-party apps to pick up the slack, and even now, the revenue-focused official app is generally considered inferior to third-party options.

Reasonable API pricing would not necessarily mean the death of third-party apps, but the pricing Reddit communicated to some of its biggest developers is far above what other sites charge. The popular iOS client Apollo announced it was facing a $20 million-a-year bill. Apollo's developer, Christian Selig, hasn't announced a shutdown but admitted, "I don't have that kind of money or would even know how to charge it to a credit card."

---

Yeah... I've never used any of these 3rd-party apps, but it's hardly surprising to hear that this will drive many of them out of existence. I can't imagine any of them have a business model that accounts for "Reddit suddenly imposing massive charges" .

Hopefully, they can get this decision reversed (or at least get the charges reduced to something more realistic).

There is more to the story:
Years ago Reddit bought out one of the most successful third party Reddit apps of the time (Alien Blue), they discontinued it, and came out with an App that is universally seen as 💩.
It (and the "new" reddit) crashes screen readers and other accessibility software for the blind.
The Reddit Admins in the Reddit Developer subreddit basically told the Appollo app dev to go F himself, and that they would not provide support to make apps more efficient in API useage saying Google and Amazon don't (but they do, and often you will be given access to staff member whose entire job is to help you make your API useage leaner).

Reddit told people that its API would be forever free to use,

This feels like the Digg Implosion when Digg V4 came out, and everyone moved to Reddit.

I suspect /. and fark may become popular again. (/. and fark are basically protoversions of Digg (back in its heyday) and Reddit are/were).

[Kyng]

Well, I was under the impression that this would be a one-day protest - but, it's extended into a second day (probably because there's been no satisfactory official response from Reddit themselves... indeed, they seem pretty confident that the blackout will eventually pass).

I'm not so sure... how long before some of these subreddits start migrating away permanently?

[Deleted User 1213]

Lols, funny how everyone was criticising Twitter/X Corp for charging reasonable fees for third party apps to use their APIs, yet their competitors follow suit anyway. Good irony.

Big Tech companies are full of irony. Remember when ChatGPT begged lawmakers for regulation? Oh, they don't mean it. They just want some help from their friends to take out the competition by making it impossible for others to compete in an excessively regulated environment.

Criticise, then do exactly what you criticised, like good hypocrites. 😁