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Reddit's Recently Announced API Changes, and the future of /r/blind

• IAmGraydon 3y ago
  Some products can’t be monetized. Sometimes monetization kills its host. Reddit will be a case study in how this dynamic can unfold. I’ll miss it, but a replacement will eventually come along.
• rektide 3y ago
  Reddit is doing so much injury to the free labor mods. They are so massively disproportionately injured by these changes, as people who direly need advanced changes. Absolutely wild own goal.
  • not_a_shill 3y ago
    It's not an own goal if the mods will continue to keep doing it because that's all they have.
    • georgeburdell 3y ago
      A lot of mods try to diversify their communities across platforms (Discord, Mastodon)
    • Clent 3y ago
      Keep it in what form? How little will it take for the communities to spiral? How would a developer's performance be if you removed their tooling? Could they still develop, sure. Will they want to? Is there some where for them to move. If not, how long until the pain forces a thousand clones? I've been around long enough to see the decline of Reddit. Predicted many times but eventually, the bottom will fall out and with the sentiment of the world towards big business and reddit wanting to IPO. I see this as a place people may make a stand. Because what better place than the place itself.
    • ruined 3y ago
      there is a class of power moderators who are monetizing their position, who are dependent on the population of reddit. but most topic-focused communities on reddit are only there because reddit is the most convenient platform. as soon as that is no longer the case, the community will move on, and ultimately that is the same population that supplies the larger monetizeable subreddits.
      • zem 3y ago
        as a mod of a few topic focused subreddits, yeah, if they ever get rid of old.reddit I'm probably gone. I'll miss the communities but not enough to put up with the interface.
  • gaoshan 3y ago
    I'm a mod (of an insignificant subreddit), have been active for 15+ years, 6 figure karma, even had the single most upvoted comment on all of reddit one day...they notify you and give you an award when that happens in case you wonder. My feelings about the site have evolved so much over the years but in the past couple of years the vibe has been turning consistently negative. I'm getting fed up and I imagine a lot of others are as well and I can't imagine this will end up benefiting Reddit in general.
    • pierat 3y ago
      Congratulations for working for free for a for-profit company? Might I recommend you to turn towards places like Lemmy or other less-commercial and less exploitive websites? Reddit relies on free work, but doesn't value or help the mods. And now, they're doubling down on screwing everyone and manufacturing fake content for what appears their IPO. I think it's time to skedaddle.
      • autoexec 3y ago
        I think I'm out of the loop... what is this about manufacturing fake content?
        • EamonnMR 3y ago
          Probably referring to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/13p889x/reddit_admins_were_just_caught_using_bots_or_fake/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/13p889x/red...
          • morkalork 3y ago
            Can't fault them for following a tried and true strategy from the same platform: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/reddit-founders-made-hundreds-of-fake-profiles-so-site-looked-popular/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/reddi...
      • unethical_ban 3y ago
  • surgical_fire 3y ago
    As someone who moderated a couple of communities in the past... Good.
  • treis 3y ago
    Mods are as much of a problem as they are a help. They rule subreddits like gods and (lots) abuse the shadow ban/delete system to silence opinions they don't like. Lots of others sell out to various influencers/advertisers and help promote whatever they want.
    • Seattle3503 3y ago
      Mods cannot shadowban users. Only admins can do that.
      • ink_13 3y ago
        Enh, sort of. You can write an Automod rule to always remove content from one or more specific users.
        • 0xffff2 3y ago
          That's not a shadow ban. The differentiator that makes it "shadow" is that the user does not know that it has occurred.
          • treis 3y ago
            The user doesn't know their posts were deleted. Other users don't know that mods removed the post either. It just shows as deleted.
• jareds 3y ago
  As someone who's blind I never looked at Reddit because it was not particularly easy to use with a screen reader. Now's a heck of a time to discover there are accessible ways of accessing it for the next two months.
  • jahsome 3y ago
    Outside of some niche communities, it's been a real crap shoot for many years though. I think you may have been spared a lot of garbage. I can't really put a finger on when or what changed but feel it definitely lost the sheen.
    • tarboreus 3y ago
      r/blind is a great community, however.
      • jahsome 3y ago
        That's a great counter point. I wouldn't know from first hand experience in that case but there are some GREAT communities. I feel overall though, the tone of discussions and echo chamber sentiment just feels different now. Especially on say, r/all. I usually only browsed occasionally in anon mode when seeking a respite from "reality", and overall it seemed to go from lighthearted discussions and a lot of really cool, "check this out"-style posts to a sea of outrage baiting, word for word reposts, and outright flamewars. Eventually that seeped in to a number of subreddits in my meticulously tailored logged-in experience. I was so disappointed by the erosion of something that once filled me with immense joy and from which I have gleaned a wealth of valuable information, I just wrote off the entire thing. I'm not even sure if it's manufactured in my own mind. A while after I found reddit went through some things that have substantially reformed my general outlook; I am a lot softer now. I'm probably just too sensitive but in my experience, most people there just don't treat each other well. I can certainly understand how those in a community like r/blind would be predisposed to kindness. I'm not sure if there's any factual basis in my reasoning, but I feel in general groups facing greater than average adversity tend to value treating others well. On the other hand, those in more advantageous positions seem to lean in to entitlement, and are disproportionately enraged when they feel taken advantage of... It's funny/sad how that happens.
• benced 3y ago
  It's a real bummer that computers should be strictly superior to non-digital technology for accessibility (a book is a book and doesn't change after it's printed) but for economic reasons, it won't be. I can't even super blame Reddit - they're just capitalists trying to make money. It just feels like an own-goal by humanity.
  • SilasX 3y ago
    Yep. Every time someone suggests a special blind-friendly API, I remind them that HTML was that API, and it just got bastardized over time, so you need to figure out how you’d keep it from going through that same process with whatever new thing you propose. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30727672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30727672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224961
    • pierat 3y ago
      As an example of how this has beeen completely perverted.... Here's a snippet of HTML from Facebook advert https://imgur.com/Wx8rIOm.png https://imgur.com/Wx8rIOm.png Just for "Hydrow <blue_checkmark> Sponsored" is the following HTML <div class="xb57i2i x1q594ok x5lxg6s x78zum5 xdt5ytf x6ikm8r x1ja2u2z x1pq812k x1rohswg xfk6m8 x1yqm8si xjx87ck x1l7klhg x1iyjqo2 xs83m0k x2lwn1j xx8ngbg xwo3gff x1oyok0e x1odjw0f x1e4zzel x1n2onr6 xq1qtft"><div class="x78zum5 xdt5ytf x1iyjqo2 x1n2onr6"><div class="xjm9jq1 xg01cxk x47corl x10l6tqk x1i1rx1s x13vifvy"></div><div class="x1xmf6yo"><div><div><div data-visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px;"> Also, attempting to highlight "sponsored" also jumps back and forth because their scripts basically jigsaw the letters together from bits. And, almost all of their content on pages look like this. My guess is to jam up adblockers. But it also screws over anybody with visual difficulties (reduction of visibility to blindness).
      • pixl97 3y ago
        Yea, randomized to avoid adblockers catching the div.
  • 3y ago
• jmclnx 3y ago
  This is interesting, I did not realize (but should have) APIs were used to help blind people. In this case, I think reddit could face legal issues, at least in the US. So now to me, looks like this change was not fully analyzed.
  • BeetleB 3y ago
    I doubt it: What laws are they violating? If you get federal grants, your site needs to be accessible. There are other categories (e.g. OTA broadcasts). Not sure there is anything that would apply to a site like Reddit.
    • EMIRELADERO 3y ago
      > I doubt it: What laws are they violating? The ADA?
      • BeetleB 3y ago
        Specifically which clause?
        • EMIRELADERO 3y ago
          Courts have found websites to constitute "public accomodations".
          • ncr100 3y ago
            for websites? https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/ https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/ HOLY HELL: https://archive.ada.gov/peapod_sa.htm https://archive.ada.gov/peapod_sa.htm You can sue Reddit ! ! ! DO IT!
  • tiedieconderoga 3y ago
    There might be precedent, if their site and app don't make reasonable accomodations. https://casetext.com/analysis/national-association-of-the-deaf-et-al-v-netflix-inc https://casetext.com/analysis/national-association-of-the-de...
• dbg31415 3y ago
  How is Reddit not required to be WCAG compliant?
  • tarboreus 3y ago
    They are, but lawsuits take years, and management is often ignorant about their responsibilities.
    • twh270 3y ago
      Are they? Link I pasted above (https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/ https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/) tells me they aren't. Happy to correct if I'm wrong.
      • paddw 3y ago
        The definition for public accommodation is purposely ambiguous, but so far, it seems no one has tried to make the case that a site like Reddit would count as one.
  • twh270 3y ago
    They aren't a "public accommodation" (https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/ https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/).
    • themerone 3y ago
      From that page: Title III prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by businesses open to the public (also referred to as “public accommodations” under the ADA) Reddit is definitely a business open to the public.
    • tiedieconderoga 3y ago
      According to that link, it sounds like they are: >Title III prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by businesses open to the public (also referred to as “public accommodations” under the ADA). The ADA requires that businesses open to the public provide full and equal enjoyment of their goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to people with disabilities. [...] >A website with inaccessible features can limit the ability of people with disabilities to access a public accommodation’s goods, services, and privileges available through that website—for example, a veterans’ service organization event registration form. >For these reasons, the Department has consistently taken the position that the ADA’s requirements apply to all the goods, services, privileges, or activities offered by public accommodations, including those offered on the web. The courts also found that Netflix was a public accomodation in 2015 as part of a lawsuit, and Netflix was forced to provide subtitles on 100% of their programming.
• jhatemyjob 3y ago
  These protests are pointless. Let reddit kill itself. It had its time.
  • bagels 3y ago
    They directly cut into ad revenue. It won't change Reddit's mind, but is noticed.
  • Dudester230602 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • asdff 3y ago
    I think they might actually help kill reddit faster. A lot of people have joked already that these protests will finally be the kick to get them to quit wasting time on the site. I'd bet that numbers do drop a lot after the protests and at least a few users end up leaving for good.
• prmoustache 3y ago
  The funny and ironic part is seeing people kind of contesting decision of a proprietary service, then flee to another proprietary service like discord. Like, will they ever learn?
  • deely3 3y ago
    You are currently made a comment using a proprietary service. Your pc and phone also partly proprietary service. You make calls, send and receive money by using proprietary service.
    • fsflover 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy Sent from my Librem 5, which runs an FSF-endorsed OS.
      • johnnyanmac 3y ago
        I would indeed say that hoping for a perfect open source free (as in freedom) scalable web solution with a bustling community is an unrealistic, idealistic alternative. At least, as of now.
        • fsflover 3y ago
          I disagree: Mastodon works quite well and has an amazing community: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36185731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36185731
    • iLoveOncall 3y ago
      But he's not contesting the decision made by Reddit as far as I can tell?
      • prmoustache 3y ago
        Exactly. If I really feel I need a space following rules I control, I host it.
• endisneigh 3y ago
  Unpopular opinion but I bet Reddit survives this just fine. Those complaining probably aren’t clicking the ads and there are enough people who are addicted to Reddit to replace any mods who leave. The energy is better spent getting Reddit to improve their official app imho
  • parasti 3y ago
    It seems a safe assumption that nobody is clicking the ads.
  • Beached 3y ago
    I think Reddit will continue, but I see it getting worse. moderation with bots already sucks enough, I can't imagine how horrible reddit without bots will be.
  • gnulinux 3y ago
    On a second thought, I completely agree with this. I think people have a lot of hope because reddit sucks but the reality is way too many people are addicted to reddit. I know because I struggle not to check reddit all the time. People will likely need a good replacement for reddit to go down.
    • rightbyte 3y ago
      Install the Leechblock browser extension. Begin with timeslotting Reddit and then just make it permanent. It is just muscle memory to go there. I did not miss it.
  • netfortius 3y ago
    If the survival is of the Twitter type, then good luck with the IPO
  • raverbashing 3y ago
    But the power users are the ones who feed the community (and do moderation, etc) On a second thought, maybe that's Reddit's idea, just turn it into a GPT generated and Astroturfing maelstrom and see what happens
• flangola7 3y ago
  I know the popular sentiment is that Reddit is doing this to look good for IPO but won't investors google the business they're about to invest a lot of money in? 10 minutes of research makes it completely obvious they're endangering their core business. Reddit doesn't work without functional moderation. Despite years of asking, the native mod tools are no where close to parity with 3rd party tools. This alienates good mods who are not generic gears you can just swap out, building a strong subreddit culture and rapport takes years of good faith effort. Then they're alienating a sizeable block of the most engaged users, and on top of everything they're shameless discriminating against the disabled. Who looks at all that and thinks "yes this is definitely a stable venture ran by competent management and a reliable place to expect RoI." Investors are soulless but they are not stupid.
  • throwaway202351 3y ago
    I would guess that they'll sell it as "we were able to monetize our api and all it cost us were a small subset of users, which are more likely to use ad blockers anyway" and then try to hand it off to the public before the long term effects of those changes happens.
  • JohnFen 3y ago
    > Investors are soulless but they are not stupid. To be honest, tons of investors are stupid, don't research anything, and/or just go with whatever sounds cool to them. The idea that "investors" as a group are any more rational than other group is a myth dearly held by investors.
    • flangola7 3y ago
      You're right, and I thought about that too. But even the average idiot can use google and see there is page after page of near-unanimous consensus on how bad of an idea this is.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • lelanthran 3y ago
• DoreenMichele 3y ago
  One of the comments: Yes, modding is where the biggest problems are. When moderating, most of the buttons are unlabeled. It would be quite easy to delete a comment when I meant to lock a thread or whatever, if I forget the exact order I've memorized for the buttons. And adding stuff to sidebars or changing the layout of the sub isn't really possible at all. There are also a lot of dialogues, alerts, etc, that pop up without getting focus. There's also a lack of headings, landmarks, or other mark-up in modmail, making it slow and difficult to use. This stuff really matters when you're helping mod a sub with thousands of users. If all you're doing is reading, and leaving the occasional comment, it's...fine. Not good, but fine. ---- It's important for a sub for disabled individuals to have mods with that disability. I didn't care about this protest and haven't much followed articles and such about it, but this feels like a kick in the gut. People with disabilities can have their lives substantially enhanced by the internet, if accessibility isn't a bar to them connecting with people, finding info they need, taking actions online (like bill paying), etc. I hope this gets satisfactorily resolved for blind users of Reddit. Ugh.
  • mrj 3y ago
    It's especially shameful that a large company like Reddit can't manage to.. do HTML right? It really doesn't take that much extra time to do the basics. They need buttons with _labels_. How did they not get sued already? Was it just because users had access to 3rd party apps?
    • geraldwhen 3y ago
      Product owners don’t care about accessibility. They care about time to market for 99.999% of your users, or for many products 100% of the users. The products I build are not accessible. Designers work hard to ensure they’re not or quite hard to make accessible at best. Modals on modals on modals with important content changing all over the place!
      • kshahkshah 3y ago
        Is it on a "product owner" to care about accessibility? Or engineers to build things properly? If this was any other engineering field - civil, mechanical, electrical, there would be standards which we seem to lack / fail to enforce
• dopa42365 3y ago
  /r/blind going dark?
• thih9 3y ago
  The community seems to overwhelmingly support the protest. Perhaps this is an opportunity for a coordinated move elsewhere?
  • wvenable 3y ago
    Need somewhere to go. There is no second-tier reddit alternative that's good enough for everyone to migrate to. Seems like there's a good opportunity for a single service that is a Facebook/Twitter/Reddit alternative.
    • MrBruh 3y ago
      Lemmy looks to be the main contender currently
      • wvenable 3y ago
        I repeat: there is no second-tier alternative good enough for everyone to migrate to.
  • MrBruh 3y ago
    Lemmy looks to be the main contender currently
• RobotToaster 3y ago
  It's infuriating how these massive companies refuse to make their apps accessible.
• timf 3y ago
  Related: Reddit is creating an exemption to its unpopular new API pricing terms for makers of accessibility apps, which could come as a big relief for some developers worried about how to afford the potentially expensive fees and the users that rely on the apps to browse Reddit. As long as those apps are noncommercial and “address accessibility needs,” they won’t have to pay to access Reddit’s data. “We’ve connected with select developers of non-commercial apps that address accessibility needs and offered them exemptions from our large-scale pricing terms,” Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt says in a statement to The Verge. From https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/7/23752804/reddit-exempt-accessibility-apps-api-pricing-changes https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/7/23752804/reddit-exempt-acc...
  • digging 3y ago
    So if reddit's official app is difficult to use, at what point can regular 3rd party apps claim to be accessibility tools?
    • cwkoss 3y ago
      Society needs 'allergic to UX dark patterns' to be included in the next DSM
      • nerpderp82 3y ago
        There needs to be a preferences setting sent in the HTTP header to activate high contrast and low motion modes. Just having "dark mode" is not enough.
        • chaosharmonic 3y ago
          Would high contrast not be a CSS thing? I know `prefers-reduced-motion` is...
          • notatoad 3y ago
            yes, high-contrast is a CSS media query just like prefers-reduced-motion is
• lxe 3y ago
  Reddit is having a Digg v4 moment
• nonethewiser 3y ago
  These subreddit blackouts are so dumb. All it does is reinforce that Reddit can do what they want and communities won't go anywhere. It's like a teenager running away then showing up for dinner. If you want Reddit to get the message migrate your community and nuke the subreddit.
  • alephaleph 3y ago
    /r/me_irl is doing that, they’re going to permanently go private if the changes aren’t reversed.
    • vultour 3y ago
      That’s one of the most pointless subreddits out there. They need to nuke the default ones to have any meaningful effect.
  • ink_13 3y ago
    The goal here is to negotiate. You don't open a negotiation by going scorched earth.
  • 58x14 3y ago
    I pretty strongly disagree with this take. I’ve used Reddit for over a decade almost entirely as a “lurker” meaning without an account. The majority of what I watched and read has depended on that reaching the “front page of the internet.” While I’ve followed these recent changes since the Pushshift shutoff, it’s really only been in the past week that I’ve seen this gain “mainstream” attention. The more of these subreddit-going-dark announcements reach the page, the more people realize this is a widespread issue - even if they don’t click, read, or even think about what’s going on or why, they’re aware of it. I’ve seen several dozen of these posts reach the front page, plus a litany of media outlet publications. That legitimately matters as an input to financial projections in the context of their upcoming IPO, and it matters even more as a signal to prospective investors, retail or institutional. Our modern reality is often served to us via algorithms that are trained to optimize for things; the most common thing for content platforms to optimize for is engagement, and the most common signal for these platforms is the upvote. In over a decade I’ve never seen any topic reach front page across such a variety of posts and subreddits, and that is a direct result of individuals upvoting these posts. I think this demonstrates, already, the collective ability to mobilize action across communities, even if the action is reduced to the simplest Boolean upvote. And that’s an indication that widespread collective action can be coordinated.
• whyenot 3y ago
  Reddit is shooting itself in the foot by effectively banning the tools that moderators use to do their free labor. I'm surprised Reddit didn't take a slower and more gradual approach instead of a drastic change like this. I guess Steve Huffman has IPO fever.
  • jerglingu 3y ago
    And it's not like they don't understand the importance of mods' free labor to keep subreddits clean of filth and users visiting/contributing. I know somebody who worked there years ago, and it was understood that they had to preserve the good will and trust from mods of subreddits to keep Reddit in a functional and orderly state.
• EdSchouten 3y ago
  Interesting! TIL there is a Windows desktop application called "Reddit for Blind" that can be used to access Reddit with a screen reader: https://www.redditforblind.org https://www.redditforblind.org My instinctive reaction was: "No screenshots on the page!" A couple of seconds later I realised how silly that was, but now as a non-blind person I am interested in knowing what the overall user experience is. Respect for the person maintaining this app!
• yieldcrv 3y ago
  disruptive, but you can pay for it……… like the costs are absurd… for existing communities… but if there is utility then…… I dont know I can tell I’m stepping on eggshells here for something thats clearly going to happen the way I describe, and not how the protest describes
• paulcole 3y ago
  > On May 31, 2023, Reddit announced they were raising the price to make calls to their API from being free to a level that will kill every third party app on Reddit, from Apollo, to Dystopia, to Reddit for Blind, to Luna for Reddit, to BaconReader This is what I don't get. Nothing's been killed. They can keep existing, they just have to pay. Why is nobody talking about just passing the cost along to the consumer and seeing how objectionable the cost really is?
  • alephaleph 3y ago
    We know the costs and they’re ridiculous. Under the new pricing the average user of one third party app (Apollo) uses $2.50 worth of requests per month.
    • paulcole 3y ago
      OK so charge people $9 a month to use Apollo?
      • petersellers 3y ago
        Doing that is going to kill a huge percentage of Apollo's user base. It's not a foregone conclusion that the app will die, but the chances of that happening are much much greater now than they were before. If you were the developer of Apollo I think you'd have every reason to be worried about that, and any opposition to this change would be justified.
        • paulcole 3y ago
          > Doing that is going to kill a huge percentage of Apollo's user base Wait until you find out what happens to Apollo’s user base if they pay less than the API costs.
          • petersellers 3y ago
            Not sure what your point is here? We're talking about the fact that Reddit's API prices are going to be extremely high going forward. Your response was a dismissive "just charge 9 dollars". Obviously that is going to cause a lot of pain for all third party developers, which is the whole reason why everyone is complaining about this.
• Havoc 3y ago
  Shout out to reddit execs for spectacular job tanking your rep ahead of IPO.
• ok123456 3y ago
  Since this change makes a service less accessible to the disabled, is there way to bring injunctive relief under the ADA?
  • ncr100 3y ago
    Maybe the Mods could claim they are denied service. Some references https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36234827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36234827
• dom96 3y ago
  I still hope that Reddit will reverse its plans to charge money for its API, but with every passing piece of news like this it just feels less and less likely. In the interest of preparing for the worst and offering an alternative. I have created https://api.reddiw.com https://api.reddiw.com. If you're an app developer that is affected by this price increase please consider adopting it, feel to reach out to me if you have any questions and we can work together.
  • iLoveOncall 3y ago
    What's the point of this API? Those endpoints (and many more) are accessible without API token anyway. You can basically read all of Reddit for free without authentication already.
    • dom96 3y ago
      Reddit is planning to make their API endpoints cost a lot of money. This is a (near) free alternative.
      • iLoveOncall 3y ago
        If you go to any Reddit thread and add .json at the end, it gives you the data as JSON and is not behind any authentication. This is what I meant. This API is useless because you'll still be able to use that.
        • pfg_ 3y ago
          .json pages are part of the API and will likely be taken down eventually
• USB5 3y ago
  [flagged]
• BigElephant 3y ago
  Kind of off topic but are there any tools that blind people use that developers can help contribute to?
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• xenadu02 3y ago
  The percentage of people who use a third party app to read reddit is likely relatively small. They're also the most likely to be invested in the platform. Why make these users angry? Why even take the risk that some of your users might leave for another platform? If the issue is displaying ads or gathering analytics you can deal with both of those without cutting off third party apps. If you are concerned that others are building big data tools or bots off your free API you can also just grandfather the existing popular clients as free or with a very large discount. For that matter you can also just set different price tiers for API clients that are used interactively by real people to interact with subreddits vs anyone else. The social media game is all about network effects. Putting up barriers to making reddit a core service is only a bad thing. What positive gain is reddit expecting from killing third party clients here? As I said ads and analytics can be handled by the license agreement. You can even require them to link a library you provide that does the ad displays and analytics by pulling code from your servers so if you really must have deep control of that experience you can.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • matthew28845 3y ago
    People who use third-party apps are the most likely to be invested in the platform but they don't matter at all to reddit, the company. I would assume that they are also the most likely to use old.reddit, the most likely to use adblockers on desktop, etc. Reddit would rather replace them with people that will just use the default mobile/desktop experiences because they're the easiest to set up. That is the gain. NPCs are easier to develop apps for because they don't care if the apps are actually good.
    • moneywoes 3y ago
      Bingo, all they care about is monetization. Simple
  • deminature 3y ago
    The official app collects far more data points to identify users for ad targeting than the third party clients do (check the permissions asked). They may have decided there's no way to effectively monetize third-party app users to the levelling of targeting that their ad platform requires, so these users will always be a cost center instead of a profit center. Then again these users are likely to disproportionately be posters and commenters, the people who create free content that keeps the broader userbase engaged, or are moderators keeping the site running for zero compensation, so pissing them off seems ill advised. Based on this thread [1], where an admin accuses 3rd party apps of being inefficient API consumers but refuses to explain why, it's clear Reddit just wants these apps gone and isn't interested in whether anyone is alienated or upset by it. The looming IPO and showing as positive user monetization numbers as possible is undoubtedly the motivation for this, unfortunately goodwill with the userbase that has taken years to build is getting trashed in the process. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_upda...
• smrtinsert 3y ago
  Behold, reddits digg redesign moment.
• rochak 3y ago
  [flagged]
• kortex 3y ago
  Perhaps a naive question, but what prevents a user from running an emulation layer with a virtual browser, that pipes the data to a desired client? Term of service? Ok what if they decide to run said adversarial interface, host the code outside of judicial grasp, and cover tracks? Yeah performance would probably be subpar, but if Reddit keeps up this process, that will be the likely inevitable outcome.