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I actually believe reddit when they say the impact is small I'm using reddit for ages and never even considered anything besides their website. If the traffic

by Demmme 3y ago

I actually believe reddit when they say the impact is small I'm using reddit for ages and never even considered anything besides their website. If the traffic to their site is primarily from the web (or web mobile or the official Reddit app), the client (3th party) users are only a loud minority. Of course I think the behavior is shitty but I don't think most people really care and reddit will not see any real impact of it either.

Hoyadonis 3y ago
>If the traffic to their site is primarily from the web Of course it's not. According to this site, around 3/4 of their traffic is from mobile. https://www.semrush.com/website/reddit.com/overview/ https://www.semrush.com/website/reddit.com/overview/ HackerNews, I love you, but some of the comments in here are detached from reality. You'd be hard pressed to find any social media company that gets more traffic from desktop than mobile in the year 2023. This site is the exception, not the rule.
- layer8 3y ago
  Mobile includes mobile web browsers.
  - Sharlin 3y ago
    And I can guarantee that there are approximately five people using Reddit via a browser on mobile. Mobile means the app, to a precision of two or three significant digits.
    - tootie 3y ago
      I'd wager you're completely wrong. Reddit at this point gets a ton of traffic from search. Remember the old 90/9/1 rule. 90% of users are just browsing cat pictures and are eyeball fodder for ads.
    - layer8 3y ago
      I’m one of those five people then. Very casual use, but that’s probably the large majority of Reddit users.
      - Sharlin 3y ago
        I'd wager that most Reddit users these days, casual or not, are only dimly aware that the platform even exists as a website. Or at least a large plurality.
        layer8 3y ago
        According to [1], Reddit has 52 million daily active users (and 430 monthly users), while according to [2] the Reddit app has 17 million daily active users. Both numbers are from 2021. So only about a third of DAUs would be using the Reddit app. Apollo has 50,000 yearly subscribers, so is probably more on the negligible side. [1] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/reddit-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/reddit-statistics/ [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255714/reddit-app-dau-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255714/reddit-app-dau-w...
        internetter 3y ago
        > Apollo has 50,000 yearly subscribers, so is probably more on the negligible side overall. Note this figure does not include free users, nor the users of the plethora of other clients... But regardless Clearly, Reddit has deemed 3rd party clients pose a huge cost to their platform, otherwise they wouldn't charge through the roof. IMO, all these numbers are meaningless given this fact.
        layer8 3y ago
        I’m not sure what Reddit’s rationale is here. Third-party app users are less than 1% (can’t find the link where I read this). The most plausible explanation is that they want to get rid of a potential future threat, because I don’t believe that current third-party usage constitutes any substantial loss. Otherwise buying out Apollo as mentioned in TFA should have been an easy decision.
    - atdrummond 3y ago
      I use old.reddit on my mobile browser. The app sucks.
      - fsckboy 3y ago
        old.reddit is starting to come apart at the seams, tho. (maybe it's because r/subs don't keep the style sheets up to date or something? i dunno) in many cases you can't up or downvote, there's no search button, there's no sidebar with the flair and the rules/mods, etc.
        sentientslug 3y ago
        You might be the only person that browses old.reddit with subreddit CSS turned on
        ericd 3y ago
        Err why? The css adds a lot of flavor, generally doesn’t get in the way of functionality.
        sentientslug 3y ago
        I don't want any flavor, that's the entire point of old.reddit. I use it to consume information, not for eye candy.
        fsckboy 3y ago
        I used "style sheet" in a generic sense, rather than to mean CSS (I remember Microsoft (Multitool) Word v1.0) and I was referring to the layout of a subreddit home page which I've never played with but I'm aware the moderators have some control over. I know how to turn off Page Style in Firefox (manually for every page) which is CSS related, but otherwise have no idea what you are referring to
    - silisili 3y ago
      As one of the five, I didn't believe this so went trying to determine more realistic numbers. Per the link below, mobile web is anywhere from 15 to 60% of mobile traffic. Reddit isn't listed, and it's 4 years old, so who knows, but I'd imagine it falls somewhere in the same range, probably closer to the lower end? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1019768/us-retailers-apps-vs-websites-time-distribution/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1019768/us-retailers-app...
    - quickthrowman 3y ago
      I am one of the five. I use the Reddit website on iOS Safari and have for years. I only read one subreddit, so my usage pattern may be different than a normal reddit user. The only thing that annoys me is the ever persistent ‘website or app’ modal dialogue but I’m used to it now. I try to use mobile websites instead of apps because I feel like the tracking data a company can get from a web browser is less granular than app tracking data.
    - cyberax 3y ago
      Wrong. Their mobile crapp is well, crap. That's why they try to shove it up everybody's arse with the "Open this page in our app" blurbs.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > And I can guarantee that there are approximately five people using Reddit via a browser on mobile. Apparently all five of them use my little web browser extension with Reddit-specific features, requested by users. But I can guarantee that your estimate is totally wrong.
    - seized 3y ago
      Using Reddit via browser here, never used an app for it yet as I like tabs.
    - sebastiansm 3y ago
      Another web browser mobile here.
  - arianvanp 3y ago
    You cant use reddit website on mobile. It will force you to install the app to view most subreddits
    - throwmeaway1212 3y ago
      I use it all the time on my phone old.reddit.com
      - seesaw 3y ago
        The only way I use is through old.reddit.com. I won’t be going there if that is shutdown.
    - t-sauer 3y ago
      This is false. I only browse reddit in the browser version on my phone. It annoys you all the time to install their app, but you can read and post perfectly fine.
      - ncann 3y ago
        If you use a browser that supports uBlock (e.g. Firefox or Kiwi) you can easily block the app advertisement as well.
      - housemusicfan 3y ago
        Your rebuttal is false and the parent is accurate. Reddit will throw up a full screen interstitial on most popular subreddits preventing even viewing and redirect you to download the app. This is on the mobile (not old.reddit desktop-only) site. Their UX is shite and full of dark patterns.
        zargon 3y ago
        If you log in, the mobile site is perfectly usable. You might also have to set a preference as well (like the old.reddit preference). It has been so many years of using it this way I don't remember.
- Demmme 3y ago
  I use reddit, as I do most of my surfing, very successful with my smartphone browser. I know reddit is pushing it's all but even that is not 3th party apps.
  - radec 3y ago
    Yeah I've used reddit daily for over a decade. I just use a mobile browser. I tried a couple apps a few years back, but just when back to mobile browser after a few weeks. I just hope they don't get rid of old.reddit.com
hajile 3y ago
If they are insignificant, then it's a really stupid bad-PR hill to die on.
- Demmme 3y ago
  Oh yes absolutely but I don't think they will die on this PR hill, that's exactly my point. For me I will continue to use reddit as I have before.
mustacheemperor 3y ago
So if the impact of the change is so small, why does the CEO of this company with thousands of employees feel remotely compelled to concoct a fantasy story where the Apollo developer is an evil villain that is so unbelievable and verifiably unbelievable it doesn't last six hours before blowing up in his face? Even if you completely accept these policy changes as a long-term positive for reddit's growth, how can you have confidence in that leadership? How can you trust anything they tell you as an investor? Steve has some kind of problem. It's been apparent before with editing comments in the live db, and it's apparent now. This problem is a risk for reddit. "Don't lie on or about phone calls" is pretty basic risk management and he can't handle it.
- Demmme 3y ago
  Don't get me wrong I'm not here to defend any actions of reddit especially not their CEO. But if they have stats saying 1% and less is 3th party App Traffic it's probably more that people in reddit care just not their ceo
  - internetter 3y ago
    So 1. I feel like you didn't read the comment you replied to. It says in a compelling way that reddit wouldn't do this if they didn't feel a threat 2. > But if they have stats saying 1% and less is 3th party App A solid takeaway from the original post is that you can't trust Reddit 3. All the bad press surrounding this is infinitely worse for their brand. The subreddit strike, for instance, could force their hand into taking authoritarian control over the platform, as they've hinted at. "Reddit abandons democracy" is a pretty damming headline, and they just can't seem to stop digging their hole deeper
    - dylan604 3y ago
      >All the bad press You're forgetting the adage, "there is no such thing as bad press". If you're not a user of the 3rd party apps, then none of these decisions affect you, and most people are just not going to get upset about things that don't affect them directly.
fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
And this belief is based on what exactly? If you think critically about this, it stands to reason that the impact should not be small if it's worth it to Reddit to get people off of 3rd party mobile apps and put eyes on ads in the first party app.
- Demmme 3y ago
  Oh I can even believe that this fucked up CEO is just a liar and knows exactly that the API pricing will kill apps of and just does it on purpose. But he will be the person to increase revenue anyway. Because he can now say that whatever app survived this is now paying for it instead.
- dylan604 3y ago
  If they didn't want to support 3rd party apps, then that's a decision they are allowed to make. It sounds to me as if that's the decision they want to make but don't have the moral fortitude to make out right. Instead, they've tried to make the API unappealing for someone to want to use. In the end, it is the same result. So just because they are putting a very high price tag does not mean that's the actual cost/worth, but just a number they put out to scare people away. As contractors, we have the same option to us by responding to a request with an outrageous fee that you think nobody will pay so you can avoid having to actually say no.
Sharlin 3y ago
Uhh, I'm pretty sure that you and me and anyone on this site are extremely far from a representative sample of Reddit's userbase these days. It is a fact that their traffic is primarily from their official (and shitty) mobile app.
kedean 3y ago
You're neglecting the tools and bots that use the API, which are heavily utilized by most mod teams. One of the pillars of reddit is unpaid moderators, and if the tools that make that job doable on the scale of reddit stop working, then you will see a mass exodus of those unpaid moderators. That means the death of most of the big, well moderated communities like AskHistorians, AskScience, AITA, etc. I've already seen many of these subs having moderator led discussions about relocation options for the communities.
- bardfinn 3y ago
  Reddit has expectations of what moderators are to do, and has expectations of what they are not to do, and will remove them from roles if they fail to meet those expectations. That set of expectations would make them employees if compensated. As for liability, the Ninth Circuit in Mavrix v LiveJournal held that if an agent of a user-content-hosting ISP (social media) has the means and opportunity to moderate, they also have the means and opportunity to interdict reasonably known copyright violations, and failure to act on those would jeopardise their DMCA Safe Harbour. And there’s a lot of registered copyright holders that will 100% line up to be a creditor on statutory damages.
  - Majromax 3y ago
    Reddit moderators do not directly deal with DMCA takedown requests. If Reddit is presented with one, they will take the offending post down directly. Moderators can be suspended or removed, however, if they encourage rule-breaking behaviour in a subreddit (such as by soliciting content that results in DMCA takedowns). The primary social role of moderators is to curate the community. That involves enforcing some site-wide rules, but it also involves more local rules like "stay on-topic." It wouldn't do for a forum about NFL football to be taken over by discussion for The Bachelor, even though that's not actionable at a site-wide level.
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tootie 3y ago
Apollo says they have 50K paying users. That seems pretty insignificant. And where else are they going to go? Twitter?
- yurishimo 3y ago
  And millions of free users.
- dimmke 3y ago
  To be clear, that’s people paying a monthly subscription fee for an app that is free and has several premium one time IAP unlocks. For example, I paid for Apollo Pro as a one time thing so I’m not a subscriber. Only people paying for Apollo Ultra every month are counted. That 50k is just the most invested and dedicated of Apollo users.
dylan604 3y ago
>are only a loud minority. is this a rule of the internet about the most vocal part of the community tends to be a tiny percentage? the "people on the internet" are screaming about something again today. in a previous job, i was introduced to this first hand. that's when i learned people will just double down on an incorrect theory/comment when shown incontrovertible evidence. yet, when you look at the numbers of the people shouting online is just a tiny percentage, but causes so much work for people to defend against. they come across as petulant children throwing tantrums because they didn't get exactly what they wanted.
malnourish 3y ago
What percentage of contributors use 3rd party/API-driven tools?
fireflash38 3y ago
> I actually believe reddit when they say the impact is small I think this neglects the power struggle that would occur if its many unpaid moderators who do use apps far more than any other group, either shutdown subreddits or straight up quit.
Hikikomori 3y ago
Only if you believe that all users are equal, but just like free to play games that have whales Reddit has power users that create most of the content and are typically the mods that work for free. They are going to be the most impacted by the API cost changes, and if they leave Reddit will not work.
laserbeam 3y ago
So have I only used the official apps, and I believe most users are in the same bucket. But. I'm not a mod. I don't know what mods use. And the only reason reddit is good is because communities have tools to moderate themselves. What I use is kind of irrelevant if the people who keep the communities I visit consistent and relatively clean are pissed and walk out. A casual user won't drop the site when Apolo closes, it would be slightly later when reddit becomes 4chan in absence of moderation.
- munk-a 3y ago
  There are some amazingly good alternatives. I personally use Boost which presents threads in a much more readable manner and allows you to easily swap between different contexts. Before they disappear it might be good to give some alternatives a try and see just how terrible the native app experience is compared to what it could be.
B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
> are only a loud minority. Hmmm ...
klabb3 3y ago
> the client (3th party) users are only a loud minority The loud minority argument assumes homogenous cohorts, and that the loudness happens to cluster around inconsequential things. These criteria are almost never satisfied in practice. Any online community today has extreme differences: usually a tiny minority contribute almost all content to the site (posts, comments). In Reddit’s case, moderation is also done by human volunteers assured by 3p bots (as opposed to automated ML policing + human intervention when someone famous gets sour). The vast majority of users are passively consuming, occasionally upvoting/downvoting. Now, Reddit gained a massive amount of users in the last few years (something like 2x-4x) so bean counters start drooling over ad revenue from them. They may think that the old timers, power users and mods are a minority that can be gradually replaced by the new user pool without major incident. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m pretty sure that the bean counters don’t know either, simply because the graphs they’re looking at don’t have the predictive power they think. They’re risking the company’s main asset to find out.
nfriedly 3y ago
The thing is, I think a lot of moderators use third-party apps. So, while it may be a small percentage of users, I suspect that losing them (or even just impairing their ability to moderate) will have an outsized negative impact on reddit.
phpisthebest 3y ago
Traffic is really a bad way to look at it, Traffic exisits because there is content to view If the majority of people posting, commenting, etc are coming from the other interface it does not matter if the bulk of the "traffic" which is largely going to be non-power users that just read reddit comes from the web and the new interface. There seems to be this idea that reddit will need to see massive traffic loss to die, no they need to see massive loss of quality link submissions and comments to die, that is a very different metric
bl_valance 3y ago
I'm in the same boat tbh, website and app are good enough for me, I really don't understand the need for other apps.
- brigandish 3y ago
  Are you a mod?
ryanmercer 3y ago
>I'm using reddit for ages and never even considered anything besides their website. Same. I have never used anything other than old.reddit on a proper computer, with the exception being when I need to edit the new.reddit sidebars for subs I moderate, which I still do on a proper computer.
stefs 3y ago
the (passive) consumers may use the native interfaces, but the power users - especially the mods - use 3rd party apps. the bigger subs are pretty much unmoddable without them. they might not lose many users, but they'll lose their most important users.
vkou 3y ago
The impact will be small? I won't be using Reddit on mobile going forward, and I'll stop using it on desktop when old.reddit inevitably goes away. That sounds like a pretty big impact for me...
- Demmme 3y ago
  You are right. But I didn't argue from your point of view but from reddit.
dimmke 3y ago
I think you’re wrong - the audience that Reddit was built on is paying attention to this, and it’s going to have a lot of knock on effects. People who have been around for a while. Hell, I was one of the people that moved from Digg to Reddit in 2009 and I’m barely in my thirties. Do I think it’s going to kill Reddit? No. But I think this is going to have a large effect on their IPO and they will be treated as a hostile entity going forward than a neutral one, and that will add up over time. There’s no plausible deniability.
spyder 3y ago
Sure, and that's why they value API users around 20x more than their website users ? (based on the rough estimation in the post)
IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
Then why raise the API rates if it so "insignificant"? Short sighted GREED. See the Studios opening up their own streaming services to choke out NetFlix and observe how that is playing out even for DISNEY+.
fencepost 3y ago
I actually believe reddit when they say the impact is small In terms of user counts that's undoubtedly true. In terms of user influence I think that's yet to be determined. I think June 12-13 will be fascinating as a view of just how much of reddit and reddit content is managed by people affected by and unhappy about these changes. Mods and highly influential users aren't evenly distributed across the user base by account age. Older accounts are more likely to be in both of those categories, and they're also more likely to have shifted to third party apps at some point particularly when those apps addressed problems they were having. There are communities that will never come back from this, and there are users who've earned reputation who will react by removing all their content and their accounts. In a lot of ways HN is like a single highly-active subreddit - what would the impact be if the chronically underappreciated dang got fed up, removed everything he'd ever posted, and quit? How about if in his position as moderator he decided that it was time for the sub to go away and applied automoderation in such a way as to remove all posts?
hnick 3y ago
I've seen this argument in other places and it makes an error in assuming all users are equal in what they bring. It's common in MMO communities - why do the devs spend so much time working on high end raids enjoyed by only 1% of the player base? For Reddit, I would assume mobile users are more motivated - motivated enough to install an app at least - and probably contribute more UGC to the site. Not to mention unpaid moderators.

by Demmme 3y ago

Hoyadonis 3y ago

>If the traffic to their site is primarily from the web Of course it's not. According to this site, around 3/4 of their traffic is from mobile. https://www.semrush.com/website/reddit.com/overview/ https://www.semrush.com/website/reddit.com/overview/ HackerNews, I love you, but some of the comments in here are detached from reality. You'd be hard pressed to find any social media company that gets more traffic from desktop than mobile in the year 2023. This site is the exception, not the rule.

layer8 3y ago
Mobile includes mobile web browsers.
- Sharlin 3y ago
  And I can guarantee that there are approximately five people using Reddit via a browser on mobile. Mobile means the app, to a precision of two or three significant digits.
  - tootie 3y ago
    I'd wager you're completely wrong. Reddit at this point gets a ton of traffic from search. Remember the old 90/9/1 rule. 90% of users are just browsing cat pictures and are eyeball fodder for ads.
  - layer8 3y ago
    I’m one of those five people then. Very casual use, but that’s probably the large majority of Reddit users.
    - Sharlin 3y ago
      I'd wager that most Reddit users these days, casual or not, are only dimly aware that the platform even exists as a website. Or at least a large plurality.
      - layer8 3y ago
        According to [1], Reddit has 52 million daily active users (and 430 monthly users), while according to [2] the Reddit app has 17 million daily active users. Both numbers are from 2021. So only about a third of DAUs would be using the Reddit app. Apollo has 50,000 yearly subscribers, so is probably more on the negligible side. [1] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/reddit-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/reddit-statistics/ [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255714/reddit-app-dau-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255714/reddit-app-dau-w...
        internetter 3y ago
        > Apollo has 50,000 yearly subscribers, so is probably more on the negligible side overall. Note this figure does not include free users, nor the users of the plethora of other clients... But regardless Clearly, Reddit has deemed 3rd party clients pose a huge cost to their platform, otherwise they wouldn't charge through the roof. IMO, all these numbers are meaningless given this fact.
        layer8 3y ago
        I’m not sure what Reddit’s rationale is here. Third-party app users are less than 1% (can’t find the link where I read this). The most plausible explanation is that they want to get rid of a potential future threat, because I don’t believe that current third-party usage constitutes any substantial loss. Otherwise buying out Apollo as mentioned in TFA should have been an easy decision.
  - atdrummond 3y ago
    I use old.reddit on my mobile browser. The app sucks.
    - fsckboy 3y ago
      old.reddit is starting to come apart at the seams, tho. (maybe it's because r/subs don't keep the style sheets up to date or something? i dunno) in many cases you can't up or downvote, there's no search button, there's no sidebar with the flair and the rules/mods, etc.
      - sentientslug 3y ago
        You might be the only person that browses old.reddit with subreddit CSS turned on
        ericd 3y ago
        Err why? The css adds a lot of flavor, generally doesn’t get in the way of functionality.
        sentientslug 3y ago
        I don't want any flavor, that's the entire point of old.reddit. I use it to consume information, not for eye candy.
        fsckboy 3y ago
        I used "style sheet" in a generic sense, rather than to mean CSS (I remember Microsoft (Multitool) Word v1.0) and I was referring to the layout of a subreddit home page which I've never played with but I'm aware the moderators have some control over. I know how to turn off Page Style in Firefox (manually for every page) which is CSS related, but otherwise have no idea what you are referring to
  - silisili 3y ago
    As one of the five, I didn't believe this so went trying to determine more realistic numbers. Per the link below, mobile web is anywhere from 15 to 60% of mobile traffic. Reddit isn't listed, and it's 4 years old, so who knows, but I'd imagine it falls somewhere in the same range, probably closer to the lower end? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1019768/us-retailers-apps-vs-websites-time-distribution/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1019768/us-retailers-app...
  - quickthrowman 3y ago
    I am one of the five. I use the Reddit website on iOS Safari and have for years. I only read one subreddit, so my usage pattern may be different than a normal reddit user. The only thing that annoys me is the ever persistent ‘website or app’ modal dialogue but I’m used to it now. I try to use mobile websites instead of apps because I feel like the tracking data a company can get from a web browser is less granular than app tracking data.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    Wrong. Their mobile crapp is well, crap. That's why they try to shove it up everybody's arse with the "Open this page in our app" blurbs.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > And I can guarantee that there are approximately five people using Reddit via a browser on mobile. Apparently all five of them use my little web browser extension with Reddit-specific features, requested by users. But I can guarantee that your estimate is totally wrong.
  - seized 3y ago
    Using Reddit via browser here, never used an app for it yet as I like tabs.
  - sebastiansm 3y ago
    Another web browser mobile here.
- arianvanp 3y ago
  You cant use reddit website on mobile. It will force you to install the app to view most subreddits
  - throwmeaway1212 3y ago
    I use it all the time on my phone old.reddit.com
    - seesaw 3y ago
      The only way I use is through old.reddit.com. I won’t be going there if that is shutdown.
  - t-sauer 3y ago
    This is false. I only browse reddit in the browser version on my phone. It annoys you all the time to install their app, but you can read and post perfectly fine.
    - ncann 3y ago
      If you use a browser that supports uBlock (e.g. Firefox or Kiwi) you can easily block the app advertisement as well.
    - housemusicfan 3y ago
      Your rebuttal is false and the parent is accurate. Reddit will throw up a full screen interstitial on most popular subreddits preventing even viewing and redirect you to download the app. This is on the mobile (not old.reddit desktop-only) site. Their UX is shite and full of dark patterns.
      - zargon 3y ago
        If you log in, the mobile site is perfectly usable. You might also have to set a preference as well (like the old.reddit preference). It has been so many years of using it this way I don't remember.
Demmme 3y ago
I use reddit, as I do most of my surfing, very successful with my smartphone browser. I know reddit is pushing it's all but even that is not 3th party apps.
- radec 3y ago
  Yeah I've used reddit daily for over a decade. I just use a mobile browser. I tried a couple apps a few years back, but just when back to mobile browser after a few weeks. I just hope they don't get rid of old.reddit.com

hajile 3y ago

If they are insignificant, then it's a really stupid bad-PR hill to die on.

Demmme 3y ago
Oh yes absolutely but I don't think they will die on this PR hill, that's exactly my point. For me I will continue to use reddit as I have before.

mustacheemperor 3y ago

So if the impact of the change is so small, why does the CEO of this company with thousands of employees feel remotely compelled to concoct a fantasy story where the Apollo developer is an evil villain that is so unbelievable and verifiably unbelievable it doesn't last six hours before blowing up in his face? Even if you completely accept these policy changes as a long-term positive for reddit's growth, how can you have confidence in that leadership? How can you trust anything they tell you as an investor? Steve has some kind of problem. It's been apparent before with editing comments in the live db, and it's apparent now. This problem is a risk for reddit. "Don't lie on or about phone calls" is pretty basic risk management and he can't handle it.

Demmme 3y ago
Don't get me wrong I'm not here to defend any actions of reddit especially not their CEO. But if they have stats saying 1% and less is 3th party App Traffic it's probably more that people in reddit care just not their ceo
- internetter 3y ago
  So 1. I feel like you didn't read the comment you replied to. It says in a compelling way that reddit wouldn't do this if they didn't feel a threat 2. > But if they have stats saying 1% and less is 3th party App A solid takeaway from the original post is that you can't trust Reddit 3. All the bad press surrounding this is infinitely worse for their brand. The subreddit strike, for instance, could force their hand into taking authoritarian control over the platform, as they've hinted at. "Reddit abandons democracy" is a pretty damming headline, and they just can't seem to stop digging their hole deeper
  - dylan604 3y ago
    >All the bad press You're forgetting the adage, "there is no such thing as bad press". If you're not a user of the 3rd party apps, then none of these decisions affect you, and most people are just not going to get upset about things that don't affect them directly.

fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago

And this belief is based on what exactly? If you think critically about this, it stands to reason that the impact should not be small if it's worth it to Reddit to get people off of 3rd party mobile apps and put eyes on ads in the first party app.

Demmme 3y ago
Oh I can even believe that this fucked up CEO is just a liar and knows exactly that the API pricing will kill apps of and just does it on purpose. But he will be the person to increase revenue anyway. Because he can now say that whatever app survived this is now paying for it instead.
dylan604 3y ago
If they didn't want to support 3rd party apps, then that's a decision they are allowed to make. It sounds to me as if that's the decision they want to make but don't have the moral fortitude to make out right. Instead, they've tried to make the API unappealing for someone to want to use. In the end, it is the same result. So just because they are putting a very high price tag does not mean that's the actual cost/worth, but just a number they put out to scare people away. As contractors, we have the same option to us by responding to a request with an outrageous fee that you think nobody will pay so you can avoid having to actually say no.

Sharlin 3y ago

Uhh, I'm pretty sure that you and me and anyone on this site are extremely far from a representative sample of Reddit's userbase these days. It is a fact that their traffic is primarily from their official (and shitty) mobile app.

kedean 3y ago

You're neglecting the tools and bots that use the API, which are heavily utilized by most mod teams. One of the pillars of reddit is unpaid moderators, and if the tools that make that job doable on the scale of reddit stop working, then you will see a mass exodus of those unpaid moderators. That means the death of most of the big, well moderated communities like AskHistorians, AskScience, AITA, etc. I've already seen many of these subs having moderator led discussions about relocation options for the communities.

bardfinn 3y ago
Reddit has expectations of what moderators are to do, and has expectations of what they are not to do, and will remove them from roles if they fail to meet those expectations. That set of expectations would make them employees if compensated. As for liability, the Ninth Circuit in Mavrix v LiveJournal held that if an agent of a user-content-hosting ISP (social media) has the means and opportunity to moderate, they also have the means and opportunity to interdict reasonably known copyright violations, and failure to act on those would jeopardise their DMCA Safe Harbour. And there’s a lot of registered copyright holders that will 100% line up to be a creditor on statutory damages.
- Majromax 3y ago
  Reddit moderators do not directly deal with DMCA takedown requests. If Reddit is presented with one, they will take the offending post down directly. Moderators can be suspended or removed, however, if they encourage rule-breaking behaviour in a subreddit (such as by soliciting content that results in DMCA takedowns). The primary social role of moderators is to curate the community. That involves enforcing some site-wide rules, but it also involves more local rules like "stay on-topic." It wouldn't do for a forum about NFL football to be taken over by discussion for The Bachelor, even though that's not actionable at a site-wide level.
- deleted 3y ago
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tootie 3y ago

Apollo says they have 50K paying users. That seems pretty insignificant. And where else are they going to go? Twitter?

yurishimo 3y ago
And millions of free users.
dimmke 3y ago
To be clear, that’s people paying a monthly subscription fee for an app that is free and has several premium one time IAP unlocks. For example, I paid for Apollo Pro as a one time thing so I’m not a subscriber. Only people paying for Apollo Ultra every month are counted. That 50k is just the most invested and dedicated of Apollo users.

dylan604 3y ago

>are only a loud minority. is this a rule of the internet about the most vocal part of the community tends to be a tiny percentage? the "people on the internet" are screaming about something again today. in a previous job, i was introduced to this first hand. that's when i learned people will just double down on an incorrect theory/comment when shown incontrovertible evidence. yet, when you look at the numbers of the people shouting online is just a tiny percentage, but causes so much work for people to defend against. they come across as petulant children throwing tantrums because they didn't get exactly what they wanted.

malnourish 3y ago

What percentage of contributors use 3rd party/API-driven tools?

fireflash38 3y ago

> I actually believe reddit when they say the impact is small I think this neglects the power struggle that would occur if its many unpaid moderators who do use apps far more than any other group, either shutdown subreddits or straight up quit.

Hikikomori 3y ago

Only if you believe that all users are equal, but just like free to play games that have whales Reddit has power users that create most of the content and are typically the mods that work for free. They are going to be the most impacted by the API cost changes, and if they leave Reddit will not work.

laserbeam 3y ago

So have I only used the official apps, and I believe most users are in the same bucket. But. I'm not a mod. I don't know what mods use. And the only reason reddit is good is because communities have tools to moderate themselves. What I use is kind of irrelevant if the people who keep the communities I visit consistent and relatively clean are pissed and walk out. A casual user won't drop the site when Apolo closes, it would be slightly later when reddit becomes 4chan in absence of moderation.

munk-a 3y ago
There are some amazingly good alternatives. I personally use Boost which presents threads in a much more readable manner and allows you to easily swap between different contexts. Before they disappear it might be good to give some alternatives a try and see just how terrible the native app experience is compared to what it could be.

B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago

> are only a loud minority. Hmmm ...

klabb3 3y ago

> the client (3th party) users are only a loud minority The loud minority argument assumes homogenous cohorts, and that the loudness happens to cluster around inconsequential things. These criteria are almost never satisfied in practice. Any online community today has extreme differences: usually a tiny minority contribute almost all content to the site (posts, comments). In Reddit’s case, moderation is also done by human volunteers assured by 3p bots (as opposed to automated ML policing + human intervention when someone famous gets sour). The vast majority of users are passively consuming, occasionally upvoting/downvoting. Now, Reddit gained a massive amount of users in the last few years (something like 2x-4x) so bean counters start drooling over ad revenue from them. They may think that the old timers, power users and mods are a minority that can be gradually replaced by the new user pool without major incident. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m pretty sure that the bean counters don’t know either, simply because the graphs they’re looking at don’t have the predictive power they think. They’re risking the company’s main asset to find out.

nfriedly 3y ago

The thing is, I think a lot of moderators use third-party apps. So, while it may be a small percentage of users, I suspect that losing them (or even just impairing their ability to moderate) will have an outsized negative impact on reddit.

phpisthebest 3y ago

Traffic is really a bad way to look at it, Traffic exisits because there is content to view If the majority of people posting, commenting, etc are coming from the other interface it does not matter if the bulk of the "traffic" which is largely going to be non-power users that just read reddit comes from the web and the new interface. There seems to be this idea that reddit will need to see massive traffic loss to die, no they need to see massive loss of quality link submissions and comments to die, that is a very different metric

bl_valance 3y ago

I'm in the same boat tbh, website and app are good enough for me, I really don't understand the need for other apps.

brigandish 3y ago
Are you a mod?

ryanmercer 3y ago

>I'm using reddit for ages and never even considered anything besides their website. Same. I have never used anything other than old.reddit on a proper computer, with the exception being when I need to edit the new.reddit sidebars for subs I moderate, which I still do on a proper computer.

stefs 3y ago

the (passive) consumers may use the native interfaces, but the power users - especially the mods - use 3rd party apps. the bigger subs are pretty much unmoddable without them. they might not lose many users, but they'll lose their most important users.

vkou 3y ago

The impact will be small? I won't be using Reddit on mobile going forward, and I'll stop using it on desktop when old.reddit inevitably goes away. That sounds like a pretty big impact for me...

Demmme 3y ago
You are right. But I didn't argue from your point of view but from reddit.

dimmke 3y ago

I think you’re wrong - the audience that Reddit was built on is paying attention to this, and it’s going to have a lot of knock on effects. People who have been around for a while. Hell, I was one of the people that moved from Digg to Reddit in 2009 and I’m barely in my thirties. Do I think it’s going to kill Reddit? No. But I think this is going to have a large effect on their IPO and they will be treated as a hostile entity going forward than a neutral one, and that will add up over time. There’s no plausible deniability.

spyder 3y ago

Sure, and that's why they value API users around 20x more than their website users ? (based on the rough estimation in the post)

IOT_Apprentice 3y ago

Then why raise the API rates if it so "insignificant"? Short sighted GREED. See the Studios opening up their own streaming services to choke out NetFlix and observe how that is playing out even for DISNEY+.

fencepost 3y ago

I actually believe reddit when they say the impact is small In terms of user counts that's undoubtedly true. In terms of user influence I think that's yet to be determined. I think June 12-13 will be fascinating as a view of just how much of reddit and reddit content is managed by people affected by and unhappy about these changes. Mods and highly influential users aren't evenly distributed across the user base by account age. Older accounts are more likely to be in both of those categories, and they're also more likely to have shifted to third party apps at some point particularly when those apps addressed problems they were having. There are communities that will never come back from this, and there are users who've earned reputation who will react by removing all their content and their accounts. In a lot of ways HN is like a single highly-active subreddit - what would the impact be if the chronically underappreciated dang got fed up, removed everything he'd ever posted, and quit? How about if in his position as moderator he decided that it was time for the sub to go away and applied automoderation in such a way as to remove all posts?

hnick 3y ago

I've seen this argument in other places and it makes an error in assuming all users are equal in what they bring. It's common in MMO communities - why do the devs spend so much time working on high end raids enjoyed by only 1% of the player base? For Reddit, I would assume mobile users are more motivated - motivated enough to install an app at least - and probably contribute more UGC to the site. Not to mention unpaid moderators.