6 ms·

I think we've beaten this horse to death now.

by acheron 3y ago

ehPReth 3y ago
Apollo et al. are still under threat
- bmarquez 3y ago
  Also, this article talks about a protest (which is new information, unlike previous HN submissions which only reported the changes.)
- paulcole 3y ago
  Can’t they just charge an amount sufficient to cover their costs plus whatever profit they want and find out if they have a viable business?
- anonred 3y ago
  The devs could spend more time optimizing their apps to make fewer requests rather than coordinating a strike and running to the press.
  - jyxent 3y ago
    It is not entirely clear how they can change to make less requests, or if the Reddit employee even compared apps fairly. There is a floor count of API calls needed. The Apollo developer tested the official Reddit app, and it makes a similar amount of API calls: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/jmnj9xc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_upda...
    - anonred 3y ago
      Caching requests for feeds and comments would probably work. Reddit already does this at the server level with a low TTL. Benchmarking Apollo against the official app is not that useful since we don’t know for certain what APIs they use.
Nullabillity 3y ago
Problems don't go away just because you're bored of thinking about them.
- pugworthy 3y ago
  Do you see the problem as being the third party apps are superior? Or is it the pay-walling off of an API by a private company?
  - hnick 3y ago
    These and more. By releasing an API, and letting third party developers pick up the slack, the community grows and the main company doesn't have to invest as much themselves into this annoying UI stuff. And even if their own efforts are misguided, there are other options, so people stick around. Once they've decided they got all they need from the third parties, and users are too attached to leave, they cut off access. It's a rug-pull from under the people that helped build the community up so I can see why it feels like a betrayal. While they have technically not 'cut off' access, they chose their pricing for a reason, and it will have this effect. As to whether third party apps are superior, to me that's a side issue - if main-Reddit makes a user-hostile decision, their site and app won't support ameliorating that since it goes against their plans. Third Party apps can and do, which is beneficial to users.
    - anonred 3y ago
      Do any other large social media companies allow third party clients in the same unfettered capacity that people seem to be expecting from Reddit?
      - kitsunesoba 3y ago
        No, and for many that's one of the selling points of Reddit. It's one of the few social media services that lets you use the client that suits you best instead of having no choice but to be force-fed whatever the marketing department and C-suites have had the engineers shoddily build into the first-party app. I see the argument that this openness makes the service harder to monetize, but it's not as if Reddit (or Twitter) ever gave it any actual effort. For example they could mandate that API usage past some threshold requires the app using it to present ads delivered by the API, and if users want to get rid of them they could subscribe to Reddit Premium. I don't think there'd be much resistance to this from heavier Reddit users — most realize that the free ride wasn't going to last forever, but the prices being asked for now are outrageous and many times greater than what Reddit is losing to users not seeing ads.

I think we've beaten this horse to death now.

ehPReth 3y ago

Apollo et al. are still under threat

bmarquez 3y ago
Also, this article talks about a protest (which is new information, unlike previous HN submissions which only reported the changes.)
paulcole 3y ago
Can’t they just charge an amount sufficient to cover their costs plus whatever profit they want and find out if they have a viable business?
anonred 3y ago
The devs could spend more time optimizing their apps to make fewer requests rather than coordinating a strike and running to the press.
- jyxent 3y ago
  It is not entirely clear how they can change to make less requests, or if the Reddit employee even compared apps fairly. There is a floor count of API calls needed. The Apollo developer tested the official Reddit app, and it makes a similar amount of API calls: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/jmnj9xc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_upda...
  - anonred 3y ago
    Caching requests for feeds and comments would probably work. Reddit already does this at the server level with a low TTL. Benchmarking Apollo against the official app is not that useful since we don’t know for certain what APIs they use.

Nullabillity 3y ago

Problems don't go away just because you're bored of thinking about them.

pugworthy 3y ago
Do you see the problem as being the third party apps are superior? Or is it the pay-walling off of an API by a private company?
- hnick 3y ago
  These and more. By releasing an API, and letting third party developers pick up the slack, the community grows and the main company doesn't have to invest as much themselves into this annoying UI stuff. And even if their own efforts are misguided, there are other options, so people stick around. Once they've decided they got all they need from the third parties, and users are too attached to leave, they cut off access. It's a rug-pull from under the people that helped build the community up so I can see why it feels like a betrayal. While they have technically not 'cut off' access, they chose their pricing for a reason, and it will have this effect. As to whether third party apps are superior, to me that's a side issue - if main-Reddit makes a user-hostile decision, their site and app won't support ameliorating that since it goes against their plans. Third Party apps can and do, which is beneficial to users.
  - anonred 3y ago
    Do any other large social media companies allow third party clients in the same unfettered capacity that people seem to be expecting from Reddit?
    - kitsunesoba 3y ago
      No, and for many that's one of the selling points of Reddit. It's one of the few social media services that lets you use the client that suits you best instead of having no choice but to be force-fed whatever the marketing department and C-suites have had the engineers shoddily build into the first-party app. I see the argument that this openness makes the service harder to monetize, but it's not as if Reddit (or Twitter) ever gave it any actual effort. For example they could mandate that API usage past some threshold requires the app using it to present ads delivered by the API, and if users want to get rid of them they could subscribe to Reddit Premium. I don't think there'd be much resistance to this from heavier Reddit users — most realize that the free ride wasn't going to last forever, but the prices being asked for now are outrageous and many times greater than what Reddit is losing to users not seeing ads.