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I've seen the suggestion "why not let Reddit Premium subscribers access Reddit through third party apps" which seems like a fair compromise - Reddit gets cash i

I've seen the suggestion "why not let Reddit Premium subscribers access Reddit through third party apps" which seems like a fair compromise - Reddit gets cash in exchange for not being able to serve ads at that particular user.

teeray 3y ago
Because some MBAs always want to double-dip: collect the premium fee and serve ads at that user.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  Make it a triple dip. Third party apps don't provide any analytics back to Reddit which is what Reddit really wants - they're A/B experimenting all the goddamn time and to be honest it's annoying that stuff always shifts around or gets shipped in a half broken state. Also, clearly defined APIs take a lot of flexibility away from them, which is yet another thing that beancounters don't want.
  - Terretta 3y ago
    Third party apps are just a client. My web browser doesn't provide them analytics back either, nor do I see their ads. I dislike Reddit's narrative -- the Apollo dev himself is visibly gaslit by this one -- that the apps are "generating" API calls. Nonsense. Users generate API calls over client(s) of choice. As soon as you understand that, you can apply first principles to the rest.
- DownGoat 3y ago
  The users that pay for premium is probably also the most profitable ad viewers
- jedberg 3y ago
  Premium users get the option to turn ads off. It's one of the main features of premium.
mrtksn 3y ago
That's very reasonable actually. Pay for the product or be the product, whatever suits you. I'm curious how the laud power users would react to this though. I suspect they won't like it because it's not the same as using the product on VCs dime. The good old internet that we all love and adore was built on VC money or creative people's content. Unfortunately, the VCs are not into philanthropy but in money making and the creative people need to be compensated too, so this can't last. I really really hope that we can leave this behind and have good quality paid platforms as standart. Paying through extra steps(advertisement) or paying through political power transfer(free curated content with agenda) is bad for the society.
- adrianN 3y ago
  Most of the content on the good old Internet is made by people who don’t expect any money for it. This comment for example.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    That's true but it wasn't a static situation. As it evolved, new cool things came because VCs poured money in it. With Web 1.0 people were sponsored by their parents or institutions and they created the early tools and content. They were not personally looking to profit from it. However early VCs were pouring money into infrastructure or bets, so the thing was getting professional and serious, so can evolve. The most demanded content was content created prior-web, and that content was shared freely(the mp3 and divx era) on platforms created by people who were looking for clout and not necessarily monetary compensation. With Web 2.0 the content was created by people for free but the platforms were completely VC paid. In this stage everything become professional and as it matured we ended up in this horrible state. Arguably, HN is a reminiscent of the early stages of Web 2.0 and the place has good quality because it's paid by VC who expect to have reach(to the talent and market). IMHO HN is possible because it's not optimised to it's full monetary potential.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      HN could easily be run as a classic forum. The VC money just makes it possible to have one (?) FTE which makes it alot simpler to not mess up concessions when admins get tired. But ye it is suprising that Ycomb don't want to mess it up. Someone somewhere has good judgement against short term profits for long term?
politelemon 3y ago
It isn't about ads exclusively, that's a common misunderstanding though. A lot of issues are down to moderation tools as well as accessibility.
blantonl 3y ago
This is the exact model that I use on RadioReference.com. We have an API that exposes our entire radio database to end users, but they must be premium subscribers to access the data through the API. This spurred the development of tons of radio programming and other apps in the ecosystem. It's literally a win-win for all of us. It's easy to detect "abuse" or "commercial use" and we contact those users and license them accordingly for such use cases. We also went one step further and completely eliminated advertising on RadioReference.com. Given the user base is very niche and highly technical, the goodwill alone we got from that move gave us a sizable increase in premium subscription revenue. Plus, the quality, of Internet advertising has become so poor it's barely worth opening the space up to advertisers.
goda90 3y ago
Taking something free and putting it behind a paywall of any size is going to anger users.
olivierestsage 3y ago
I've often wished for this (a system where some users pay to circumvent tracking/ads, others get the "general experience"). One theory I've heard as to why companies don't go for this idea is that the paying users are the ones that that are valuable to advertisers, because they are actually willing to pay money, vs. the free users who would be endlessly mined for little gain.
devsda 3y ago
You can create a reddit account without giving out email but when payments come into picture you are not anonymous anymore.This will limit anonymous or throwaway accounts to official apps which again have tons of tracking. I hope they also figure out a way to use apps while preserving the anonymity like revenue sharing or ads etc.

teeray 3y ago

Because some MBAs always want to double-dip: collect the premium fee and serve ads at that user.

mschuster91 3y ago
Make it a triple dip. Third party apps don't provide any analytics back to Reddit which is what Reddit really wants - they're A/B experimenting all the goddamn time and to be honest it's annoying that stuff always shifts around or gets shipped in a half broken state. Also, clearly defined APIs take a lot of flexibility away from them, which is yet another thing that beancounters don't want.
- Terretta 3y ago
  Third party apps are just a client. My web browser doesn't provide them analytics back either, nor do I see their ads. I dislike Reddit's narrative -- the Apollo dev himself is visibly gaslit by this one -- that the apps are "generating" API calls. Nonsense. Users generate API calls over client(s) of choice. As soon as you understand that, you can apply first principles to the rest.
DownGoat 3y ago
The users that pay for premium is probably also the most profitable ad viewers
jedberg 3y ago
Premium users get the option to turn ads off. It's one of the main features of premium.

mrtksn 3y ago

That's very reasonable actually. Pay for the product or be the product, whatever suits you. I'm curious how the laud power users would react to this though. I suspect they won't like it because it's not the same as using the product on VCs dime. The good old internet that we all love and adore was built on VC money or creative people's content. Unfortunately, the VCs are not into philanthropy but in money making and the creative people need to be compensated too, so this can't last. I really really hope that we can leave this behind and have good quality paid platforms as standart. Paying through extra steps(advertisement) or paying through political power transfer(free curated content with agenda) is bad for the society.

adrianN 3y ago
Most of the content on the good old Internet is made by people who don’t expect any money for it. This comment for example.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  That's true but it wasn't a static situation. As it evolved, new cool things came because VCs poured money in it. With Web 1.0 people were sponsored by their parents or institutions and they created the early tools and content. They were not personally looking to profit from it. However early VCs were pouring money into infrastructure or bets, so the thing was getting professional and serious, so can evolve. The most demanded content was content created prior-web, and that content was shared freely(the mp3 and divx era) on platforms created by people who were looking for clout and not necessarily monetary compensation. With Web 2.0 the content was created by people for free but the platforms were completely VC paid. In this stage everything become professional and as it matured we ended up in this horrible state. Arguably, HN is a reminiscent of the early stages of Web 2.0 and the place has good quality because it's paid by VC who expect to have reach(to the talent and market). IMHO HN is possible because it's not optimised to it's full monetary potential.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    HN could easily be run as a classic forum. The VC money just makes it possible to have one (?) FTE which makes it alot simpler to not mess up concessions when admins get tired. But ye it is suprising that Ycomb don't want to mess it up. Someone somewhere has good judgement against short term profits for long term?

politelemon 3y ago

It isn't about ads exclusively, that's a common misunderstanding though. A lot of issues are down to moderation tools as well as accessibility.

blantonl 3y ago

This is the exact model that I use on RadioReference.com. We have an API that exposes our entire radio database to end users, but they must be premium subscribers to access the data through the API. This spurred the development of tons of radio programming and other apps in the ecosystem. It's literally a win-win for all of us. It's easy to detect "abuse" or "commercial use" and we contact those users and license them accordingly for such use cases. We also went one step further and completely eliminated advertising on RadioReference.com. Given the user base is very niche and highly technical, the goodwill alone we got from that move gave us a sizable increase in premium subscription revenue. Plus, the quality, of Internet advertising has become so poor it's barely worth opening the space up to advertisers.

goda90 3y ago

Taking something free and putting it behind a paywall of any size is going to anger users.

olivierestsage 3y ago

I've often wished for this (a system where some users pay to circumvent tracking/ads, others get the "general experience"). One theory I've heard as to why companies don't go for this idea is that the paying users are the ones that that are valuable to advertisers, because they are actually willing to pay money, vs. the free users who would be endlessly mined for little gain.

devsda 3y ago

You can create a reddit account without giving out email but when payments come into picture you are not anonymous anymore.This will limit anonymous or throwaway accounts to official apps which again have tons of tracking. I hope they also figure out a way to use apps while preserving the anonymity like revenue sharing or ads etc.