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How Reddit became the enemy [video]
- no_wizard 3y agoI wonder if Reddit will take the pricing feedback and just make it more reasonable. I’m surprised they haven’t done so already
- nilsb 3y agoMaybe that‘s been their strategy all along? I.e. demand the impossible and then back down to more „reasonable“ prices to appease the masses.
- TehCorwiz 3y agoMy take is that their goal is to destroy third party apps because they can’t control the advertising or get metrics on advertising back. Their in-house app is annoying, buggy, and geared towards maximizing advertising space. It’s not a user friendly app.
- cellularmitosis 3y agoI’ve been surprised by the bugginess. I open up a thread and as I scroll, some of the comments are already collapsed, despite having 50 or more upvotes. I can only assume this is a cell reuse bug. If that’s true, that is seriously amateur hour. Edit: and their video playback has been notorious for years now
- messe 3y agoTheir app and website also hog battery life like crazy in my experience on iOS and iPadOS.
- BoxOfRain 3y agoReddit's official app is one of the most blatant examples of 'enshittification' to date in my opinion. I definitely would like to see Reddit be replaced with decentralised forums, I'd genuinely be happy with phpBB with threaded comments and an optional centralised login.
- ASalazarMX 3y agoThe sad part is, they bought a good app, Alien Blue, and made it worse.
- kitsunesoba 3y agoBetween the trainwreck that is "new" desktop reddit and the bad mobile apps, it's clear that quality is not a priority when hiring engineers or there's some organizational factor that's preventing their engineering teams from delivering quality. Wouldn't be surprised if it's a result of the marketing department and non-engineer C-suites running the show.
- some_random 3y agoI don't think they will because of how extreme the increase in pricing has been. They know what they're doing.
- cmiles74 3y agoIf they wanted to be reasonable, they would have just bought Apollo entirely.
- yurishimo 3y agoIn the video, he literally says Reddit offered him a job shortly after the Apollo public release. He politely declined 6 years ago and said they have had an amicable relationship until now.
- srameshc 3y agoBy now we have seen many times how platforms have turned their back on developers. Twitter, even in the past gave good reason to not do build solely on that platform. At the end, it's their platform and they can choose how they want to run it and developers have no say in that decision.
- dehrmann 3y agoI wonder if the API change was more about third-party clients than slowing LLM progress. That horse has already left the barn, and when you have important partners, you reach out before the public announcement about the API and give them a deal well below the rate card, if not free. Or maybe internal teams weren't aligned on this, and the partner/BD team was caught off-guard.
- mdasen 3y agoI'm guessing it's more about going public. Anyone who is using Apollo (or similar apps) isn't seeing ads and isn't giving Reddit lots of stuff they can track. For a long time, Reddit had allowed much more user-friendly access than most places. Their API offered great access for free and their ads were trivial to block with ad blockers. If you look at Instagram or Facebook, you'll be getting tons of ads even if you have an adblocker because they've spent a lot of time getting around those. YouTube has been working hard to get around ad blocking and Google is even trying to limit adblocking in future Chrome releases. This has left Reddit with less revenue than other popular sites. If they're trying to go public, they're going to want to show revenue growth and show that they're able to get more money per user. You've called Apollo an "important partner", but are they a partner for Reddit or a rival? In terms of Reddit's revenue, they seem to be a rival. This is certainly terrible for users and I'm sure Reddit will face a decent amount of backlash over it. At the same time, I'm not really sure about categorizing Apollo as an important partner. Is Apollo kinda like YouTube Vanced? A better app for users that also means less revenue for the service? To an extent, who wants Reddit's ad-infested app when they could have Apollo? If you're Reddit and looking to have a good IPO and grow your revenue, Apollo and other apps are standing in the way of that. They're offering a better, ad-free experience of Reddit. Over time, more and more people would want to use ad-free apps like Apollo instead of the official Reddit app as more people realize they exist so it's not like the problem would be shrinking for Reddit. I think LLMs might be a convenient excuse, but I think the bigger issue is likely that they want to grow the revenue they're getting from their user base and they can't do that when people are using apps that get around their monetization. Reddit is following what most similar sites have done.
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- PrimeMcFly 3y agoI genuinely hope Reddit ends setting up their own demise with this. It's a good infrastructure (at least old.reddit is), but the sheer amount of power hungry mods who abuse their power is out of control. There needs to be a system where mods can be reported and held accountable. Or, alternatively, have everything be decentralized lie the fediverse, although until that becomes more user friendly I don't see it taking off. A lot of people were suggesting the apollo developer write his own backend and setup an alternative to reddit, and I sure hope he considered doing so.
- ceejayoz 3y agoWhy shouldn’t mods be able to run their communities the way they want? It’s not like you can’t open a competing /r/newsButNotModeratedVeryMuch.
- tayo42 3y agoThe same reason every make your Twitter fails, the people are already there.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- krono 3y agoThey are servants of those communities, not their owners. Or at least that's how things used to be.
- ink_13 3y agoThis is a romantic view but completely false. Reddit admins over the years have always completely backed the view that subs belong to their moderators.
- Mindwipe 3y agoBecause /r/news has a massive, massive advantage over /r/newsButNotModeratedVeryMuch. If there were multiple /r/news pages and none were a default that might work, but that has always been Reddit's big structural weakness.
- 0xr0kk3r 3y agoI still don't see the fuss. People were using one free tool to access another free tool, and are now mad that they have to use a different free tool to access the original free tool that offers its own free tool? And the tool is largely a platform for disinformation and bigotry, and cats? And we know the complainers will just keep using it because they are addicted. 0% of them will leave the platform despite their complaining.
- cellularmitosis 3y ago> disinformation, bigotry and cats If you want to find the gold, you need to get off of default reddit and onto niche interest reddit.
- circo 3y agoWhich are mostly moderated by 1-2 user teams. I mod three small (at most 5k) subs. I'm alone on two of them, and there's two of us for the third one. We've already decided that the subs will be locked and closed once 3rd party apps lose access.
- slashtom 3y agoI'm not sure how Christian couldn't have seen this coming. Corporations want control over their brand, image, and experience. How Reddit is accessed and viewed is 1:1 to the experience. It's unfortunate, but when you hitch your wagon to a corporation's API, you are taking the risk that one day they wake up and say ok we're ready to control our narrative and turn off the API (or set exorbitant prices to access) Writing was on the wall when facebook/instagram did this years ago.
- ink_13 3y agoPeople have been using third-party clients to access Reddit for more than 13 years. When you have that kind of history, a change like this is difficult to seem like anything but a rug-pull.
- wldcordeiro 3y agoThe third-party apps predate the first-party even. Reddit had been a website only for years then bought the most popular iOS third-party client as a starting point so like you said it's very much a rug-pull.
- majormajor 3y ago> then bought the most popular iOS third-party client as a starting point If you're ever in a situation where this happens, consider it you're big flashing warning sign about trying to run a competing offering! (Mac users of a certain age will remember Apple buying SoundJam MP.)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- plorkyeran 3y agoAlien Blue was bought out nearly 9 years ago, so that wasn't actually a sign that bad things were coming soon for other third-party clients.
- AshamedCaptain 3y agoHow Reddit became the enemy -- available (for now) on YouTube!
- web3-is-a-scam 3y agoSerious question - what companies are actually able to afford these egregious prices?
- TeeMassive 3y agoGovernments and organizations with close relations to power - for surveillance and influence operations. Some default subs and moderator accounts probably constitute a billion dollar industry.
- flyingcircus3 3y agoI've heard of such tactics referred to as the "polite Japanese no". It's a price so high that it will definitely be refused.
- chx 3y agoAs an off topic side note: the most important thing I learned in my consultant years is you never say no. Instead, quote an outrageous price. What's the worst that can happen? They pay it.
- suddenclarity 3y agoWouldn't Apollo be able to? According to Reddit admins, they use 3.5x more requests per average user than their competitors. Optimize and add a user limit or tier subscriptions.
- sithlord 3y agoexcept their "biggest" competitor, the official app that makes hundreds of requests a minute.
- webdoodle 3y agoWhen Reddit closed it's source code, that was the first warning. The second was the execution of its warrant canary, followed closely by a drunken Spez re-writing peoples comments. Later Spez gave an interview where he proudly extorted how he had all his users darkest secrets, with a maniacal laugh for effect (now deleted). The blatant hazing and censoring of certain groups was the final act that killed Reddit.
- 7373737373 3y agoThe interview: https://youtu.be/uSVqoW1rz6w?t=837 https://youtu.be/uSVqoW1rz6w?t=837
- neilv 3y agoSounds like this app is scrod because they need Reddit's permission. https://www.amazon.com/Without-Their-Permission-Reddit-Blueprint/dp/1455520012 https://www.amazon.com/Without-Their-Permission-Reddit-Bluep...
- Animats 3y ago[flagged]
- oatmeal1 3y agoI'm surprised I haven't heard plans for these 3rd party developers to create a reddit clone, and instead of hitting api.reddit.com, hit api.apolloapp.io. Users of these 3rd party apps seem quite loyal, and would at least forgo uninstalling to test out a reddit alternative.
- dom96 3y agoThey are likely still hoping Reddit will back down. But if they don't this is a very real possibility.
- solarkraft 3y agoHaving it is a good negotiation tactic anyway. I hope someone is working on this.
- tgv 3y agoFirst, it's not trivial, and won't be production ready before Apollo runs out of money. Second, it's been tried, multiple times. Saidit was one, I think. Ruqqus was another, and there have been more, all claiming to be censor free and all failing to achieve a solid following. Saidit was (and still appears to be) a cesspool of trolling, conspiracy theory and anti-everything-ism. Third, it'll miss moderation, so it will probably follow in saidit's footsteps.
- lesuorac 3y ago> all claiming to be censor free and all failing to achieve a solid following Possible related? People don't actually want censorship free.
- oehpr 3y agoSomething worth considering is potentially just jumping ship to a reddit alternative like Saidit, like you mentioned. The trouble these alternatives have is their userbase have to be, in bulk, the users banned from the centralized social media apps. But if Apollo takes THEIR userbase, then those people arn't negatively selected. They're just people who have phones. It's a better alternative to dying. Diversifying support for multiple backends could serve to protect you. Non trivial but it seems necessary at this point.
- dang 3y agoRecent and related: Update 3: Reddit effectively kills off third party apps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36170143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36170143 - June 2023 (21 comments) Reddit sparks outrage after it demands app developer pay $20M/yr - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36166236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36166236 - June 2023 (75 comments) Third-party Reddit apps are being crushed by price increases - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36162235 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36162235 - June 2023 (404 comments) Ask HN: Could Usenet get revived, to replace the soon to be unusable Reddit? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36153565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36153565 - June 2023 (148 comments) Teddit – An alternative Reddit front-end focused on privacy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36144211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36144211 - May 2023 (91 comments) Historical code from reddit.com - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36142971 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36142971 - May 2023 (64 comments) Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36141083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36141083 - May 2023 (1273 comments)
- poorbutdebtfree 3y agoThese people cheered reddit when they banned /r/the_donald and /r/NoNewNormal and now the Eye of Sauron is on them.
- relix 3y agoI personally don’t understand the outrage. Reddit obviously has costs, and if it wants to make a profit it should not subsidise third party apps that cost double - both no revenue and no ad views. The cost of 0,00024 per request seems reasonable, and according to Apollo’s creator the cost per app user would be just 2,5 a month. Keep in mind that currently this app probably has no incentive to go light on the requests, so with some tinkering the creator could probably get that down. Maybe some proxy caching or what not. Of course free is going away, but paying users at say 5/mo or 50/yr should still work for Apollo.
- thx-2718 3y agoThat's assuming that Apollo brings in enough revenue to cover the costs and they want to run a business. I'm not a user of that App so excuse me if I am mistaken, if Apollo is currently free and without ads then the developer had a lot less to worry about then than now. Additionally the outrage, as far as I am aware, has less to do with Reddit needing to make money rather it's way of going about making money is killing the user experience which kills the point of the website.
- relix 3y agoNo, that's not the thing, they are already a business. They sell three tiers of the app, one of which is a subscription. The current price of the subscription is $13/year. > Additionally the outrage, as far as I am aware, has less to do with Reddit needing to make money rather it's way of going about making money is killing the user experience which kills the point of the website. It's not killing the user experience, it's making the nice user experience "just" more expensive, which I covered in my first comment.
- thx-2718 3y ago" It's not killing the user experience, it's making the nice user experience "just" more expensive, which I covered in my first comment. " So there's a point where that price is too high for people to bother paying. 13/year maybe acceptable, is 26/year? This will lose Reddit users which loses the point of the site (for the users). Which is killing the user experience.
- abcd_f 3y agoWouldn't the most obvious solution be to charge Apollo users for the API access? This will spread the $ load down to peanuts per user and be similar to the original ($1/mo) WhatsApp pricing model.
- brycewray 3y agoThe interview deals with this possibility and others like it. The short answer is that he is left hanging due to the fact that many of his existing paying users have already paid for the year and thus, when the new API rate hits, will be costing him money long before he can recoup their costs through a subscription hike --- presuming 100% of them renew at the higher price, which would be an extraordinarily optimistic presumption.
- abcd_f 3y agoThat's not quite what I meant. Basically a dev would sell a Reddit client for a fixed amount and when the user would fire it up to view Reddit, then that would trigger a native Reddit's API subscription, paid by the user directly to Reddit. This can be streamlined to be nearly zero-friction IF it's supported on the Reddit end.
- globalreset 3y agoPSA: Companies (especially public and even more so VC funded startup's) have no principles other than profit. And they routinely hire and fool otherwise, passionate idealistic but native young people who do not understand it.
- rmdes 3y agoIt's time to join the fediverse with Lemmy.
- kitsunesoba 3y agoNice in theory, but I don't see it happening until there's a Lemmy instance that's reasonably neutral with enough users to fuel steady growth. From what I can see the only instances with a decent number of active users are off one deep end or the other on the political spectrum which most people don't have the stomach for.
- solarkraft 3y agoReddit is just so funny. People have gone through the pain of finding a third party client explicitly because they don't like the first party one. Do they think taking that away will suddenly make the first party app attractive? Delusional. Especially for heavy users which literally produce what Reddit is trying to sell.
- guerrilla 3y agoWill we ever have a culture that is not this naive? I find it difficult to understand how people still fail to see this coming every single time. No matter what companies say (and they'll say anything), they're for profit and on average must grow or die. Why is this not part of common sense and basic education by now? It's time for the world to grow up and stop playing pretend.
- DowsingSpoon 3y agoThis fiasco may push me away from Reddit altogether. Though, it seems Reddit could greatly improve the situation by allowing individual users to buy API access for their account. For example, make this a perk of Reddit Premium or a separate purchase priced appropriately.
- Lapsa 3y agodo it. I have no regrets
- buzer 3y agoOne thing I do wonder is that if the issue was the ads, why wouldn't they just say that Reddit Gold users would still have free access to the API and charge the rest? Then app developers could implement more restrictions/paid access to non-gold users while gold users wouldn't directly be impacted at least by Reddit itself.
- lwansbrough 3y agoCouldn't Apollo just have users sign into a webview and then scrape that webview in the background?
- bullen 3y agoCan somebody explain how 1 request per second matches with 7 billion per month? 2.5 million != 7 billion. So how is Apollo not on that chart?