4 ms·

Why would they need their own app when they have good APIs and enough people to create perfectly good third-party apps for them? The only reason I can see is m

by bojan 4y ago

Why would they need their own app when they have good APIs and enough people to create perfectly good third-party apps for them? The only reason I can see is monetization, with your own app you can control the user engagement better. I specifically don't use their app because I explicitly don't want all the fluff features they've added over the years. That's also why I still use old.reddit.com.

exreddit 4y ago
koshergweilo 4y ago
Also ads. Specifically more data to better target ads.
LewisVerstappen 4y ago
It's incredibly important for so many reasons. Just as a reminder, users have been shifting from desktop to mobile so the world is now mobile-first. Facebook had a bet-the-company shift in the early 2010s from desktop to mobile and the Instagram app is a huge part of why Meta is valuable today. Reddit makes money through ads. Charging for API access and expecting third-party app developers to build an entire ad platform is not possible. The tech is incredibly difficult to build and then you have to actually get advertisers to use the platform (btw - this is something that Reddit is still failing at versus Facebook/Google/Twitter). Something like 50% of Reddit's traffic is from mobile users. If Reddit wants to add new features for these users, it's impossible to do so if all the users are using third-party apps. Bunch of other reasons that I can enumerate in a bit.
munificent 4y ago
APIs are fundamentally at odds with an ad-based revenue model. If you let third-party apps provide a UX for your data, the app developer will naturally try to make the bext experience they can for users. The first step to doing that is to ditch all the ads. Now you're paying all the cost to host and serve the data, but the third-party app is killing your income.

4 ms·

Why would they need their own app when they have good APIs and enough people to create perfectly good third-party apps for them? The only reason I can see is m

by bojan 4y ago

exreddit 4y ago
koshergweilo 4y ago
Also ads. Specifically more data to better target ads.
LewisVerstappen 4y ago
It's incredibly important for so many reasons. Just as a reminder, users have been shifting from desktop to mobile so the world is now mobile-first. Facebook had a bet-the-company shift in the early 2010s from desktop to mobile and the Instagram app is a huge part of why Meta is valuable today. Reddit makes money through ads. Charging for API access and expecting third-party app developers to build an entire ad platform is not possible. The tech is incredibly difficult to build and then you have to actually get advertisers to use the platform (btw - this is something that Reddit is still failing at versus Facebook/Google/Twitter). Something like 50% of Reddit's traffic is from mobile users. If Reddit wants to add new features for these users, it's impossible to do so if all the users are using third-party apps. Bunch of other reasons that I can enumerate in a bit.
munificent 4y ago
APIs are fundamentally at odds with an ad-based revenue model. If you let third-party apps provide a UX for your data, the app developer will naturally try to make the bext experience they can for users. The first step to doing that is to ditch all the ads. Now you're paying all the cost to host and serve the data, but the third-party app is killing your income.