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Reddit risks losing its identity in pursuit of profits
(www.techzine.eu)
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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The blatant astroturfing is what really icked me out. From day one of the API changes, it was clear that Reddit had spun up the spin machine and had begun to misrepresent the issues.
The main one was how they tried to push the "they just want the API for free", "we're entitled to charge for our services" narrative.
I legitimately would've paid for the reddit subscription if it meant keeping Reddit Sync. It's nonsense. They just wanted the apps out of the picture.
My Reddit use has declined 70% because I only access it from my computer or through Firefox for Android (which is damn near unusable).
My reddit use has declined 100% because I refuse to go to that website. And I was spending hours on it a day.
My usage has declined to "surveying the situation" because !TIHI@reddit.com is now forced back unprivate and is made to look like all is ok
I would have happily paid $5 a month for baconreader, probably as high as $10.
In both time and quality, I used it far more a month than netflix, hbo, or hulu.
I don't know what it would have cost to keep baconreader active with the API changes, but from what I read the price was intentionally design to be unsustainable.
It wasn't about making 3rd party access to the api profitable, it was about making 3rd party apps go away to push ads and harvest user data.
In the final weeks, myself and many others said we'd be happy to pitch in to keep baconreader alive, and the feeling I got was that just wasn't an option.
Oh well, I'm here now, and can watch the whole mess from the sidelines while getting to be part of a new and growing community, instead of a bloated dying one.
$10/mo is probably in the ballpark.
I honestly don't think the pricing was unreasonable. The main issue was the execution.
Only reasonable for an individual, bulk tools need more juce than a reg user, reddit holds a lot of cards for what to do to adress the power users
A lot of the mod tools were exempted. I imagine the ones that weren't didn't even try in protest.
A lot of power reddot has over mod tools that want to stay now. No wonder devs left
You just reminded me to cancel my Reddit Premium subscription. It was $30/year. Not sure what to do with my 75K coins.
Maybe go find some comments recommending Lemmy and gild them?
Make your own comments promoting lemmy and guild them
Thats terrable... l like it
Looks like it's on sale! How's that profitablity coming along spez?
Blow them in r/modcoord
I gladly would have paid $2.50 per month to access reddit as it was. But I guess they didn't want my money or because they couldn't have all of my money they weren't interested.
I was paying $2.50 since Reddit Premium is $30/yr and they still block your API access.
I cancelled it and won't be going back. I no longer believe in the platform.
TIL reddit premium is a thing... What do you even get? My gut reaction is it's a waste of money..
Ad blocker and gold. It is mostly a waste of money, but if you believe in the platform, it's a way of paying back (which is why I cancelled it).
That was super disingenuous and turned me off, too. Like you're saying, Selig noted that by reddit's stats, each user cost .12 cents a month and reddit was asking for $2.40. The 3rd party developers provide a service to reddit that reddit could have monetized through various arrangements, such as requiring their ads to be displayed, requiring premium as you said, or a profit sharing arrangement. 3rd party developers were not taking advantage of reddit or demanding free access... they objected to reddit pulling out the rug suddenly and then lying and misrepresenting everything about it.
This has been like going to a restaurant or working somewhere for 8 years and then you finally meet the owner and are WHAT? Fuck that.
It was the setup as well.
Conversations in January saying API and API T&C were not changing anytime soon (clarified to mean multiple years).
The change announced shortly after with 0 concrete details.
Then 6 weeks notice of the details to then implement the changes before costs incurred.
6 weeks notice is fine for consumer stuff, but not business-to-business, and not at the scale of $20m.
Yes, I loved it when Christian Selig let Hoffman (fuck spez) know his lies were exposed because he (Christian) had recorded their conversation.. and provided proof. Would love a video of Hoffman's reaction.
Care to share a link if you have it readily available? Otherwise I can hunt around for it :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RnYana-q6g
Christian is not talking to Huffman there.
Also, fuck spez, but Christian looks pretty bad in that sound bite. The $10 million thing really looked like a threat, and Christian tried to back pedal only after he got called out.
I always interpreted it along the lines of
"Apollo is losing you 20m per year. Buy me out for 10m. You save 10m the first year, and 20m the following years. I make a one-off 10m, which is 50% of what you value my app to be worth per year."
But I agree that whole exchange doesn't go great.
Easy to misunderstand without hindsight!
However, it is quickly clarified and agreed upon (from both sides) that it's not a threat.
So, spez takes part of that conversation massively out for context and said Christian threatened Reddit. Which isn't in good faith
I know the full context. It doesn't really make it any better. Bringing it up in the first place is bad, regardless of any "clarification" (a.k.a. damage control).
Besides, do you really think your interpretation wouldn't be considered a threat? Reddit won't say publicly they considered it as one, but it is very clear they took it that way (and, probably, correctly).
Not sure one even exists, but would love if it did.
The narratives you mention in your last para are completely true, that's what annoys me, IF they had engaged in good faith with users. As it is, it's like a shopping centre that's been free to enter saying "right, it's now €100 to enter and any underwear shops are closed to you unless you wear our uniform."
Just completely crazy prices for a poor service. No shit that's unworkable. Just be honest and say you want to bring those users in-house, just fucking say that rather than trying to gaslight everyone into believing that all these competent developers are all unreasonable arseholes who are screwing you, a multi-billion-dollar corporation over.
Yeah that's my point. The fact they were suddenly asking for astronomical fees was conveniently skimmed over in favor of this 'greedy 3rd parties want stuff for free' narrative.
There are probably multiple factors going on. First, there is the belief that you can't take away functionality people already expect. Second, while there would be a number of people willing to shell out money, they probably believed a majority of folks would not. Look at what people are willing to put up with at Facebook. I hate it, but most of my friends and family are on it so I'm there. Third, their backers would never approve because of point two.
There was one comment that really gave me the 'holy shit, ick corporation' reaction... in an article about reddit's traffic going down, a reddit spokesperson said "we do not comment on incorrect statistics from third parties". Like please, calm down, you're not a lawyer for a politician on trial here.
They said this about The Verge. Big "you're liars" energy when journalists reported factually.