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It's interesting to watch Reddit lose control of the narrative on this. If you read the relevant threads Reddit admins swear up and down that the new API pricin

It's interesting to watch Reddit lose control of the narrative on this. If you read the relevant threads Reddit admins swear up and down that the new API pricing is reasonable and not intended to kill third party apps. Whatever their intent, it's definitely a failure on the PR front.

guidedlight 3y ago
The timing is interesting. I’m convinced their API’s are either being abused, or will be imminently abused by LLM training. I wonder how much third party apps are being caught up in this other issue.
- skeyo 3y ago
  My initial thought on the timing is how much it coincides with the timing of Twitter's API becoming ridiculously expensive ($42k/mo). That maybe Reddit thought they could hop on that bandwagon and make some coin. But LLM also makes a ton of sense.
  - nicce 3y ago
    LLM does not make much sense anymore to be fair. Too late. They should have closed the APIs years ago. Biggest parties have already mined the data, which is enough for models for long time. Unless you want the model to find some specific comment yesterday.
    - d11z 3y ago
      It makes sense to me, but for LLM spam bots, not training. I’m assuming it’ll only increase as time passes.
    - CTDOCodebases 3y ago
      Reddit is good for product recommendations and in that regards recency matters e.g ask ChatGPT what ODE you should get for a Sega Saturn. By allowing LLMs low cost or free access to their users data companies like Reddit are essentially helping companies like OpenAI choke their traffic. Over time as people realise it’s quicker to ask ChatGPT a question than it is to post a question on reddit they will start losing content also. Also think about the difficulty of policing content generated by swarms of LLM bots with API access for PR campaigns.
      - nicce 3y ago
        At which point you need API access, and the crawled indexes are not enough enough? Is Google also required to start paying for API access for indexing pages and showing them in the search results? I am just wondering, where is the limit, since in that case the model might not be trained anymore and instead it is used for similar purpose than search engine. I guess Bing is already doing this, without Reddit API.
      - pbj1968 3y ago
        Fenrir.
        CTDOCodebases 3y ago
        For price and ease of install sure I would agree. I just asked Chat GPT this very question and it didn't mention the Fenrir. It mentioned the other contender (MODE) but it failed to differentiate it from all the other offerings i.e it has the ability to connect a SATA SSD and hold the entire Sega Saturn library on the device.
    - Frost1x 3y ago
      I'm not sure this is true in all cases. As far as grabbing enough language data to produce useful language, it's probably enough for awhile until cultural and language shifts happen (slang, word usage distribution, new terms, etc.). The cases LLM will need this data in is compiling together more modern useful human knowledge as our knowledge base grows. Information in existing LLMs could shift. This is sort of the issue even academic textbooks deal with when publishing what is considered foundational knowledge: sometimes we discover something new that makes it either not quite correct or invalid. These are the sort of obvious failures and disconnects that should become apparent if training lags behind. LLM services interested in revenue without plans for continuously updating training data are somewhat betting that not too much will change from most end users perspectives for awhile and for some use cases that might be true but the limits of training data over time for public instances of GPT for example have already hindered some. Much of prompting, from my anecdata, needs to take that into consideration as one of the base constraints (does this model even have up-to-date information it could query and dump something useful from). To some degree those training limits also help expose "hallucinations" or interpolation/extrapolation attempts of LLM models. If I know it doesn't have this information in the training set and test the system against it, I can observe how well it interpolates, extrapolates, and is transparent about when that's happening. For example if I ask existing models about new syntaxes and structures introduced in Java 21, most should return something back like it doesn't exist, it lacks that newer information, or something to that effect. If instead it starts producing code samples that it couldn't possibly have knowledge of, then I know it's passing back garbage. If it's being continually updated at some frequency, I'm no longer so sure and it may actually be providing new useful information.
    - throw_nbvc1234 3y ago
      How many of those biggest parties do you expect to give/sell the data to new players if it'd even be legal for them to do so. Closing the gates can still provide a revenue stream for Reddit, especially if they do it early enough into the hype cycle.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  LLM trainers can just scrape the content. It would only slow them down. I wonder if reddit imagines they would pay for the data.
  - dageshi 3y ago
    There's maybe a handful of sites that people explicitly append to their google search results in order to cut out the SEO spam, reddit is probably the one that covers the most subjects. So I think they are thinking that and I don't think they're wrong.
    - tensor 3y ago
      I think they're wrong. I was building a product search app using the reddit api, but with their API pricing it isn't remotely feasible financially so I shuttered it. They may see $$$$ but I suspect they'll find very few takers. Yes, the data is valuable for product recommendations, but not at the price they are asking. And if they ever block traditional scraping then all those "append reddit to google" searches will be gone too. Google is not going to pay them either.
      - saynay 3y ago
        Unless they are entirely delusional (which is possible), they have to had priced it with a specific few customers in mind. If they think they can get a cut of ChatGPT money going forward, I think they would be entirely willing to sacrifice all 3rd party apps and a decent chunk of their mobile users.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Why would you train with the API? Just render the site to scrape it.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    After killing the old reddit. I don't think scrapping is very effective, at least for the comments. Visibility of comments on web site is pretty horrid.
    - _-____-_ 3y ago
      The API is still there, and it must still be usable without paying, since the mobile app is using it. So setup mitmproxy on your iPhone and sniff the traffic to figure out how it gets its key, and then replicate that in your scraper.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    No need, there are already several projects that have been scraping and downloading posts and comments for archival reasons for years. It's just a one click download.
- Sol- 3y ago
  If that's the case, whitelisting the most popular apps might be somewhat of a solution, no? Also I think being transparent about the fears that LLMs take from your site without returning any value would probably be met with understanding from the userbase.
  - saynay 3y ago
    On the flip side, if they wanted to kill the popular apps, why wouldn't they just block them directly instead of doing so indirectly through crazy API pricing?
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Maybe they think an obscure way to close down apps will lead to less dissent?
      - saynay 3y ago
        Clearly it isn't. Could be a miscalculation on their part, but I still think it more plausible they are hoping to find a big customer who will actually pay those prices.
  - philjohn 3y ago
    The issue is, Reddit is ad supported. The popular apps bypass showing ads. The problem goes away if the apps charge for a subscription, which covers their API access.
    - graftak 3y ago
      This could have been solved by only allowing Reddit premium users to make use of the API (they don’t see ads). in addition, the API cost is about 20 times more lucrative than a user seeing ads, which is an insane upsell. Then there’s the issue that Reddit won’t allow NSFW content over the API, which is just total BS in the picture you drew.
- bloopernova 3y ago
  How difficult is it to rate limit API requests? Just Fibonacci the increasing slowdown. And require something like a public key to access the API so you can track requests coming from multiple hosts. Then any rate of access above that of a power user can be charged for appropriately. And make it so that activating API access is something that can't be automated so people can't create thousands of API dummy accounts.
  - manmal 3y ago
    > track requests coming from multiple hosts The problem here is that many users are behind CGNAT, meaning many end users share a single IPv4. Unfortunately the days of counting distinct users by their IP(v4) are over.
    - bloopernova 3y ago
      I think that could be mitigated by using a public key of some variety.
      - manmal 3y ago
        Every user would need one.
- celestialcheese 3y ago
  While the APIs make it significantly easier to ingest for LLM training, scraping will still work. Unless they put 100% of content behind a login-gate, it's currently legal* to scrape and use for derivative works, as long as you have the money and the chutzpah to deal with lawsuits that may or may not come. - https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/12/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-web-scraping-laws-guest-blog-post-part-2-of-2.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/12/hello-youve-be...
- saynay 3y ago
  This is my read as well. I don't really understand the argument that Reddit wants to kill 3rd party apps, so makes an unaffordable API. If they want to kill 3rd party apps... why wouldn't they just kill them directly? Why leave any ability to purchase API access unless they have a customer in mind that can afford to buy it at that price?
sorenjan 3y ago
Reddit's messaging is focusing a lot on how moderators aren't going to be affected. Reddit derives value from the unpaid moderators' work, but they doesn't seem to care about the user experience for the regular users, so it still feels a bit self serving whenever they swear mods will still be able to use certain tools.
tjpnz 3y ago
That might be true for the admins but for people further up the chain things are going exactly to plan. Third party apps absolutely aren't going to be part of Reddit's future, as evidenced by their ridiculous pricing model. My only criticism is that they didn't announce the sunsetting of the API, although the two are functionally equivalent.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I mean I'm sure the number crunchers have Declared that it's reasonable, but if the effect is that it will kill third party apps, then the net result is the same. "I didn't mean to" is a very weak defense.
- Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
  > I'm sure the number crunchers have Declared that it's reasonable They would have to come up with a very hard to understand reason behind it though. Even napkin math shows their numbers to be undefensible and malicious. The very obvious reason behind them is to kill 3rd parties and force people into the official app. The apollo dev for iOS said 50 million queries was 166$ on imgur which is owned by the same company as reddit and has higher server costs due to images being more expensive to host. Reddit is asking for 12,000 for that many queries. 166 < 12000 and that 2 orders of magnitude are incomprehensible in terms of any technical reason to serve some comments and text posts...
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Heh maybe they are giving us insight into how out of control their operating costs are.
    - krageon 3y ago
      Such corporations don't price things based on operating cost. They price them based on what they want to have. The two are only tangentially related (though you can bet that if the costs go up, the price will too. It's just that the price also rises if a middle manager was annoyed with their toilet paper that morning).
  - riku_iki 3y ago
    > The apollo dev for iOS said 50 million queries was 166$ on imgur which is owned by the same company as reddit and has higher server costs due to images being more expensive to host. Reddit is asking for 12,000 for that many queries. imgur costs $3k per 50m requests: https://rapidapi.com/imgur/api/imgur-9/pricing https://rapidapi.com/imgur/api/imgur-9/pricing
masklinn 3y ago
> the new API pricing is reasonable and not intended to kill third party apps. It’s quite obviously not the case given the numbers involved, but it’s completely implausible when you add that NSFW content will be removed from the API entirely, and that third party client will not be allowed to be ad-supported.
- burntsushi 3y ago
  > NSFW content will be removed from the API entirely Wow. I didn't know about that. That would prevent browsing /r/cigars via API calls. Because every post in /r/cigars is marked as NSFW. Why? I'll give you one guess. https://old.reddit.com/r/cigars/comments/ubu6b2/why_is_rcigars_marked_nsfw/ https://old.reddit.com/r/cigars/comments/ubu6b2/why_is_rciga...
  - masklinn 3y ago
    > Wow. I didn't know about that. According to the Apollo dev's recounting of the call this is "sexually explicit content only, not normal posts marked NSFW for non-sexual reasons". I assume there's a flag at the subreddit level or something, because Narwhal doesn't show the "cheeky narwhal" on /r/cigars (something it does on NSFW subs). I don't know how they'll handle SFW subreddits where NSFW is used for both spoilers and dodgy content though. That's assuming they even care.
  - elil17 3y ago
    It is really strange which drug-related subs are NSFW and which aren't. Like why not alcohol related subs? I think they probably all should be marked NSFW but it is weird.
    - burntsushi 3y ago
      None of them should be IMO. It's dumb. "I smoked a lovely cigar over the weekend" is fine safe-for-work chit chat.
      - esperent 3y ago
commandlinefan 3y ago
> control of the narrative This also kills off apps like 'removeddit' that sheds light on rampant moderator abuse - it will be even _harder_ to see what the moderators have been up to behind the scenes after this, which is an aspect of the narrative that reddit has been trying to get a handle on for quite a while now.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  And also kills all bots working through the API in a legitimate way. I hope reddit likes being spammed by puppeteer.
ariym 3y ago
it's fascinates me how social platforms are never able to control their own narrative, most YouTuber's hate YouTube, most Redditors complain about Reddit. the volume of negative sentiment must be enormous for them not to have configured their recommendation algorithms to suppress content that is anti-them
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  There's just no need. Negative sentiment doesn't hurt the balance sheet, and users will be back to get their fix tomorrow, every time. Youtube keeps making ads more intrusive and people keep watching. What people say they care about, and what they are actually willing to take action to change, are extremely disconnected.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    >Youtube keeps making ads more intrusive and people keep watching. How many of the complainers are actually watching the ads? It's trivial to block ads on YouTube; just install uBO, or use an app like Revanced.

guidedlight 3y ago

The timing is interesting. I’m convinced their API’s are either being abused, or will be imminently abused by LLM training. I wonder how much third party apps are being caught up in this other issue.

skeyo 3y ago
My initial thought on the timing is how much it coincides with the timing of Twitter's API becoming ridiculously expensive ($42k/mo). That maybe Reddit thought they could hop on that bandwagon and make some coin. But LLM also makes a ton of sense.
- nicce 3y ago
  LLM does not make much sense anymore to be fair. Too late. They should have closed the APIs years ago. Biggest parties have already mined the data, which is enough for models for long time. Unless you want the model to find some specific comment yesterday.
  - d11z 3y ago
    It makes sense to me, but for LLM spam bots, not training. I’m assuming it’ll only increase as time passes.
  - CTDOCodebases 3y ago
    Reddit is good for product recommendations and in that regards recency matters e.g ask ChatGPT what ODE you should get for a Sega Saturn. By allowing LLMs low cost or free access to their users data companies like Reddit are essentially helping companies like OpenAI choke their traffic. Over time as people realise it’s quicker to ask ChatGPT a question than it is to post a question on reddit they will start losing content also. Also think about the difficulty of policing content generated by swarms of LLM bots with API access for PR campaigns.
    - nicce 3y ago
      At which point you need API access, and the crawled indexes are not enough enough? Is Google also required to start paying for API access for indexing pages and showing them in the search results? I am just wondering, where is the limit, since in that case the model might not be trained anymore and instead it is used for similar purpose than search engine. I guess Bing is already doing this, without Reddit API.
    - pbj1968 3y ago
      Fenrir.
      - CTDOCodebases 3y ago
        For price and ease of install sure I would agree. I just asked Chat GPT this very question and it didn't mention the Fenrir. It mentioned the other contender (MODE) but it failed to differentiate it from all the other offerings i.e it has the ability to connect a SATA SSD and hold the entire Sega Saturn library on the device.
  - Frost1x 3y ago
    I'm not sure this is true in all cases. As far as grabbing enough language data to produce useful language, it's probably enough for awhile until cultural and language shifts happen (slang, word usage distribution, new terms, etc.). The cases LLM will need this data in is compiling together more modern useful human knowledge as our knowledge base grows. Information in existing LLMs could shift. This is sort of the issue even academic textbooks deal with when publishing what is considered foundational knowledge: sometimes we discover something new that makes it either not quite correct or invalid. These are the sort of obvious failures and disconnects that should become apparent if training lags behind. LLM services interested in revenue without plans for continuously updating training data are somewhat betting that not too much will change from most end users perspectives for awhile and for some use cases that might be true but the limits of training data over time for public instances of GPT for example have already hindered some. Much of prompting, from my anecdata, needs to take that into consideration as one of the base constraints (does this model even have up-to-date information it could query and dump something useful from). To some degree those training limits also help expose "hallucinations" or interpolation/extrapolation attempts of LLM models. If I know it doesn't have this information in the training set and test the system against it, I can observe how well it interpolates, extrapolates, and is transparent about when that's happening. For example if I ask existing models about new syntaxes and structures introduced in Java 21, most should return something back like it doesn't exist, it lacks that newer information, or something to that effect. If instead it starts producing code samples that it couldn't possibly have knowledge of, then I know it's passing back garbage. If it's being continually updated at some frequency, I'm no longer so sure and it may actually be providing new useful information.
  - throw_nbvc1234 3y ago
    How many of those biggest parties do you expect to give/sell the data to new players if it'd even be legal for them to do so. Closing the gates can still provide a revenue stream for Reddit, especially if they do it early enough into the hype cycle.
plagiarist 3y ago
LLM trainers can just scrape the content. It would only slow them down. I wonder if reddit imagines they would pay for the data.
- dageshi 3y ago
  There's maybe a handful of sites that people explicitly append to their google search results in order to cut out the SEO spam, reddit is probably the one that covers the most subjects. So I think they are thinking that and I don't think they're wrong.
  - tensor 3y ago
    I think they're wrong. I was building a product search app using the reddit api, but with their API pricing it isn't remotely feasible financially so I shuttered it. They may see $$$$ but I suspect they'll find very few takers. Yes, the data is valuable for product recommendations, but not at the price they are asking. And if they ever block traditional scraping then all those "append reddit to google" searches will be gone too. Google is not going to pay them either.
    - saynay 3y ago
      Unless they are entirely delusional (which is possible), they have to had priced it with a specific few customers in mind. If they think they can get a cut of ChatGPT money going forward, I think they would be entirely willing to sacrifice all 3rd party apps and a decent chunk of their mobile users.
rightbyte 3y ago
Why would you train with the API? Just render the site to scrape it.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  After killing the old reddit. I don't think scrapping is very effective, at least for the comments. Visibility of comments on web site is pretty horrid.
  - _-____-_ 3y ago
    The API is still there, and it must still be usable without paying, since the mobile app is using it. So setup mitmproxy on your iPhone and sniff the traffic to figure out how it gets its key, and then replicate that in your scraper.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  No need, there are already several projects that have been scraping and downloading posts and comments for archival reasons for years. It's just a one click download.
Sol- 3y ago
If that's the case, whitelisting the most popular apps might be somewhat of a solution, no? Also I think being transparent about the fears that LLMs take from your site without returning any value would probably be met with understanding from the userbase.
- saynay 3y ago
  On the flip side, if they wanted to kill the popular apps, why wouldn't they just block them directly instead of doing so indirectly through crazy API pricing?
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Maybe they think an obscure way to close down apps will lead to less dissent?
    - saynay 3y ago
      Clearly it isn't. Could be a miscalculation on their part, but I still think it more plausible they are hoping to find a big customer who will actually pay those prices.
- philjohn 3y ago
  The issue is, Reddit is ad supported. The popular apps bypass showing ads. The problem goes away if the apps charge for a subscription, which covers their API access.
  - graftak 3y ago
    This could have been solved by only allowing Reddit premium users to make use of the API (they don’t see ads). in addition, the API cost is about 20 times more lucrative than a user seeing ads, which is an insane upsell. Then there’s the issue that Reddit won’t allow NSFW content over the API, which is just total BS in the picture you drew.
bloopernova 3y ago
How difficult is it to rate limit API requests? Just Fibonacci the increasing slowdown. And require something like a public key to access the API so you can track requests coming from multiple hosts. Then any rate of access above that of a power user can be charged for appropriately. And make it so that activating API access is something that can't be automated so people can't create thousands of API dummy accounts.
- manmal 3y ago
  > track requests coming from multiple hosts The problem here is that many users are behind CGNAT, meaning many end users share a single IPv4. Unfortunately the days of counting distinct users by their IP(v4) are over.
  - bloopernova 3y ago
    I think that could be mitigated by using a public key of some variety.
    - manmal 3y ago
      Every user would need one.
celestialcheese 3y ago
While the APIs make it significantly easier to ingest for LLM training, scraping will still work. Unless they put 100% of content behind a login-gate, it's currently legal* to scrape and use for derivative works, as long as you have the money and the chutzpah to deal with lawsuits that may or may not come. - https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/12/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-web-scraping-laws-guest-blog-post-part-2-of-2.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/12/hello-youve-be...
saynay 3y ago
This is my read as well. I don't really understand the argument that Reddit wants to kill 3rd party apps, so makes an unaffordable API. If they want to kill 3rd party apps... why wouldn't they just kill them directly? Why leave any ability to purchase API access unless they have a customer in mind that can afford to buy it at that price?

sorenjan 3y ago

Reddit's messaging is focusing a lot on how moderators aren't going to be affected. Reddit derives value from the unpaid moderators' work, but they doesn't seem to care about the user experience for the regular users, so it still feels a bit self serving whenever they swear mods will still be able to use certain tools.

tjpnz 3y ago

That might be true for the admins but for people further up the chain things are going exactly to plan. Third party apps absolutely aren't going to be part of Reddit's future, as evidenced by their ridiculous pricing model. My only criticism is that they didn't announce the sunsetting of the API, although the two are functionally equivalent.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

I mean I'm sure the number crunchers have Declared that it's reasonable, but if the effect is that it will kill third party apps, then the net result is the same. "I didn't mean to" is a very weak defense.

Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
> I'm sure the number crunchers have Declared that it's reasonable They would have to come up with a very hard to understand reason behind it though. Even napkin math shows their numbers to be undefensible and malicious. The very obvious reason behind them is to kill 3rd parties and force people into the official app. The apollo dev for iOS said 50 million queries was 166$ on imgur which is owned by the same company as reddit and has higher server costs due to images being more expensive to host. Reddit is asking for 12,000 for that many queries. 166 < 12000 and that 2 orders of magnitude are incomprehensible in terms of any technical reason to serve some comments and text posts...
- pixl97 3y ago
  Heh maybe they are giving us insight into how out of control their operating costs are.
  - krageon 3y ago
    Such corporations don't price things based on operating cost. They price them based on what they want to have. The two are only tangentially related (though you can bet that if the costs go up, the price will too. It's just that the price also rises if a middle manager was annoyed with their toilet paper that morning).
- riku_iki 3y ago
  > The apollo dev for iOS said 50 million queries was 166$ on imgur which is owned by the same company as reddit and has higher server costs due to images being more expensive to host. Reddit is asking for 12,000 for that many queries. imgur costs $3k per 50m requests: https://rapidapi.com/imgur/api/imgur-9/pricing https://rapidapi.com/imgur/api/imgur-9/pricing

masklinn 3y ago

> the new API pricing is reasonable and not intended to kill third party apps. It’s quite obviously not the case given the numbers involved, but it’s completely implausible when you add that NSFW content will be removed from the API entirely, and that third party client will not be allowed to be ad-supported.

burntsushi 3y ago
> NSFW content will be removed from the API entirely Wow. I didn't know about that. That would prevent browsing /r/cigars via API calls. Because every post in /r/cigars is marked as NSFW. Why? I'll give you one guess. https://old.reddit.com/r/cigars/comments/ubu6b2/why_is_rcigars_marked_nsfw/ https://old.reddit.com/r/cigars/comments/ubu6b2/why_is_rciga...
- masklinn 3y ago
  > Wow. I didn't know about that. According to the Apollo dev's recounting of the call this is "sexually explicit content only, not normal posts marked NSFW for non-sexual reasons". I assume there's a flag at the subreddit level or something, because Narwhal doesn't show the "cheeky narwhal" on /r/cigars (something it does on NSFW subs). I don't know how they'll handle SFW subreddits where NSFW is used for both spoilers and dodgy content though. That's assuming they even care.
- elil17 3y ago
  It is really strange which drug-related subs are NSFW and which aren't. Like why not alcohol related subs? I think they probably all should be marked NSFW but it is weird.
  - burntsushi 3y ago
    None of them should be IMO. It's dumb. "I smoked a lovely cigar over the weekend" is fine safe-for-work chit chat.
    - esperent 3y ago

commandlinefan 3y ago

> control of the narrative This also kills off apps like 'removeddit' that sheds light on rampant moderator abuse - it will be even _harder_ to see what the moderators have been up to behind the scenes after this, which is an aspect of the narrative that reddit has been trying to get a handle on for quite a while now.

moffkalast 3y ago
And also kills all bots working through the API in a legitimate way. I hope reddit likes being spammed by puppeteer.

ariym 3y ago

it's fascinates me how social platforms are never able to control their own narrative, most YouTuber's hate YouTube, most Redditors complain about Reddit. the volume of negative sentiment must be enormous for them not to have configured their recommendation algorithms to suppress content that is anti-them

mrguyorama 3y ago
There's just no need. Negative sentiment doesn't hurt the balance sheet, and users will be back to get their fix tomorrow, every time. Youtube keeps making ads more intrusive and people keep watching. What people say they care about, and what they are actually willing to take action to change, are extremely disconnected.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  >Youtube keeps making ads more intrusive and people keep watching. How many of the complainers are actually watching the ads? It's trivial to block ads on YouTube; just install uBO, or use an app like Revanced.