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If you watch the video you find that he has valid complaints, and he's not opposed to paying Reddit but thinks these terms are designed to sink 3rd party apps.

by htag 3y ago

If you watch the video you find that he has valid complaints, and he's not opposed to paying Reddit but thinks these terms are designed to sink 3rd party apps. Some highlighted points. * The API access charges about 10x the price compared to the revenue per user they would expect if the users accessed reddit via web or official app. * There was 30 days notice of the new pricing. He has many customers that pay per-year that he is going to lose money on until renewal. * The price is too high. Compared to similar platforms that charge for API they are charging way more. * An individual from the company called him out for having 'inefficient' code, which he took personally and mounted a good defense of his usage. * The API is losing feature parity with the first party website/app. * Reddit is itself building a bigger business on the backs of reddit users generating content. Many of those users use a 3rd party app. In fact, 3rd party apps were largely responsible for transitioning reddit into mobile usage. They seem to be overstepping their position in the ecosystem.

anonred 3y ago
His “defense” for using the API inefficiently is that the official app makes a similar amount requests as Apollo, ignoring whether those are actually API requests or just telemetry (as mentioned in the linked video). Apollo makes 3.5x more requests than other third party apps. That’s a lot.
- geekrax 3y ago
  Not really "a lot". When you think about providing absolutely best user experience, you gotta leave the engineering efficiencies out at the doors and live with the redundant API calls. The over optimization often comes with sacrificing the UX.
  - anonred 3y ago
    It’s possible to make fewer requests without negatively impacting the user experience. For example, batching requests would result in a more responsive app.
    - cmsj 3y ago
      He specifically cited situations where the opposite is true - for example when first opening a subreddit, he requests only 25 posts so the UI can render something quickly, then requests a further 100 posts to prepare for the user scrolling. He could just request 100 posts first, halving the API requests, but the app would be less responsive. Your comments seem to have a confidence level that their content doesn't justify.
      - anonred 3y ago
        That’s a great example of something that could be optimized without impacting the user experience. For example, just request the next page of posts when the user starts to reach the bottom. The reason for my confidence is that I’ve worked with Reddit’s API before and I know exactly where the pitfalls are.
        cmsj 3y ago
        > when the user starts to reach the bottom That’s too late to be sending the request if you want the premium feeling of no loading times while scrolling, especially if you also want to do rich thumbnails of media.
- cmsj 3y ago
  I'd suggest reading his original comment on this particular matter: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/comment/jmnj9xc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/comment/...
raydev 3y ago
> The API access charges about 10x the price compared to the revenue per user they would expect if the users accessed reddit via web or official app. This is just the third party developers' made up estimate and is not confirmed at all.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  If anything, his estimate of revenue per user is more generous than I've seen elsewhere

by htag 3y ago

anonred 3y ago

His “defense” for using the API inefficiently is that the official app makes a similar amount requests as Apollo, ignoring whether those are actually API requests or just telemetry (as mentioned in the linked video). Apollo makes 3.5x more requests than other third party apps. That’s a lot.

geekrax 3y ago
Not really "a lot". When you think about providing absolutely best user experience, you gotta leave the engineering efficiencies out at the doors and live with the redundant API calls. The over optimization often comes with sacrificing the UX.
- anonred 3y ago
  It’s possible to make fewer requests without negatively impacting the user experience. For example, batching requests would result in a more responsive app.
  - cmsj 3y ago
    He specifically cited situations where the opposite is true - for example when first opening a subreddit, he requests only 25 posts so the UI can render something quickly, then requests a further 100 posts to prepare for the user scrolling. He could just request 100 posts first, halving the API requests, but the app would be less responsive. Your comments seem to have a confidence level that their content doesn't justify.
    - anonred 3y ago
      That’s a great example of something that could be optimized without impacting the user experience. For example, just request the next page of posts when the user starts to reach the bottom. The reason for my confidence is that I’ve worked with Reddit’s API before and I know exactly where the pitfalls are.
      - cmsj 3y ago
        > when the user starts to reach the bottom That’s too late to be sending the request if you want the premium feeling of no loading times while scrolling, especially if you also want to do rich thumbnails of media.
cmsj 3y ago
I'd suggest reading his original comment on this particular matter: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/comment/jmnj9xc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/comment/...

raydev 3y ago

> The API access charges about 10x the price compared to the revenue per user they would expect if the users accessed reddit via web or official app. This is just the third party developers' made up estimate and is not confirmed at all.

Rebelgecko 3y ago
If anything, his estimate of revenue per user is more generous than I've seen elsewhere