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Or they're broke and reddit is soon to be bankrupt. But even so, if they had just said that, the outcome would be so much different. Because as of now it seems

Or they're broke and reddit is soon to be bankrupt. But even so, if they had just said that, the outcome would be so much different. Because as of now it seems like they're fucking people over for the sake of fucking them over.

lokar 3y ago
Neither the cost of allowing these apps or the revenue the charge would produce could possibly matter.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  I'm not so sure - I assume the hyper-valuable users are actually generally using 3rd party apps, so forcing them back on the platform could raise their CPI enough to look good at an IPO rather than terrible.
  - lokar 3y ago
    They have to be much less than 1%, I don’t t see how the math works. Views (and ad clicks) are what matter, not posts and comments. They only need the posts and comments to have something to stick an ad next to.
    - smileysteve 3y ago
      But the api doesn't deliver ads and the clients don't pay Reddit.
      - lokar 3y ago
        But they don’t cost much. Getting the activity scaled ad rev from these users won’t make them profitable.
        pclmulqdq 3y ago
        Cost is a red herring here - the real metric is opportunity cost. These are users who spend a lot of time on reddit and give up a ton of data, so they can almost certainly get a much better CPI from these users, and give them a ton of ads.
        actionablefiber 3y ago
        It is a gamble. I am a Reddit power user in part because of the superb unobtrusive experience of old.reddit and Apollo. If you shove it full of ads, it’s no longer the experience I got addicted to. At that point I’d rather leave.
    - nullc 3y ago
      Open AI already showed that you can train an LLM on the stuff reddit's already got and produce a site with as much traffic as reddit gets... so what are the users needed for? I say this in jest, but only partially... lots of subreddits have noticed influexes of AI bots recently. Maybe spammers testing the water, or maybe you were just the product that was just helping train its replacement.
    - rgavuliak 3y ago
      In online games and newspaper paywalls you have on average 1-3 % valuable users. Even if Apollo made up less than 1%, those are probably the valuable ones so it could be a good chunk of those.
  - 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
    [flagged]
judge2020 3y ago
An influx of capital would be easier by making everyone pay $10/mo to access the API via third-party clients. Would still be unpopular but would mean people could still have the experience they want to see from reddit. but that's the issue - Reddit's been focusing on other forms of content only in the native Reddit app, like TikTok-esque live streams and promoted posts from subs you aren't subscribed to.
- a2tech 3y ago
  They have a $4/month product ALL ready that removes ads and gives you more features. Making that a requirement to use the API is by FAR the simplest and most profitable option. Its also more profit then they're proposing to get from their API charges
  - bwat49 3y ago
    Yeah I find it baffling that they didn't just do this
    - dasil003 3y ago
      Most likely it's about control, not financials.
      - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
        I found it interesting that spez admitted in his call with the apollo dev that the actual hosting cost for the api calls were pennies compared to the 'opportunity cost' of not having users use the official app. He basically admitted that harvesting data via the app and selling it to advertisers was reddit's bread and butter now.
        lenerdenator 3y ago
        People have to realize, from a standpoint of "how do I make all of the money?", this is the only way these sites can survive in a world of reasonably-high interest rates. There are only so many people who would be willing to pay $x for a Reddit subscription. Would the quality of content and discussion go up? Absolutely, but that's not what Huffman and his VC backers care about. They care about _scale_, and if you can collect the information of every person who goes so far as to even click on a Reddit post that's a result in a Google search, you can have near-infinite scale. At that point, the question isn't "how do I get Joe Schmoe to pay for a Reddit subscription?", it's "How many ads can I cram into every GET request made to Reddit and maximize the price advertisers are willing to pay to be in that GET request?"
111111IIIIIII 3y ago
[flagged]
8note 3y ago
If they're broke, this doesn't help, since instead of paying, everyone they expect to pay is shutting down
bshipp 3y ago
If they're broke than they should have first stopped self-hosting videos and images. I can't believe their API call cost is more excessive than their video and image hosting costs.
- morkalork 3y ago
  I wonder how much impact their shit-tastic video player has on bandwidth costs. On one hand, when it freezes and refuses to play, it saves money. On the other hand, constantly restarting videos to try to get them to play probably costs some since it doesn't appear to be caching properly either. The net cost could go either way.
- n1c 3y ago
  There's a subtlety that seems to be getting skipped over quite frequently. It's not "the cost of the API call". It's "the opportunity cost of that user not coming to our main website".
  - bshipp 3y ago
    I agree, but if we are incorporating the opportunity cost of free-riding 3rd-party users than Reddit also needs to incorporate the opportunity cost of losing thousands of unpaid moderators who keep the site running. I can't imagine the math will be favorable.
perrohunter 3y ago
How is charging for an API which costs them money "fucking people over"?
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  To me, there's a way that business relationships are carried out; you can deliver bad news to industry partners in a professional manner. If Huffman had called up guys like Christian Selig a while back and been like "Listen, it's been great, I love the apps you guys make, but business is business and I want to see more revenue, and to do that I'm going to charge more for the API and probably eventually shut it down, let's work on a timetable to sunset things.", he's not nearly the jerk he is today. No one's under the illusion that Reddit or Conde Nast are charities; they have revenue targets to make. What makes this fucking people over is the negotiating over API price and implementation timetable that was clearly in bad faith and meant to shut down these applications within the timespan of a quarter. Imagine being told that your way of making a living (which these apps are for their developers) is going away in a month. Sure, these devs are the cream of the crop, but that's still a major life disruption, and you don't do that to the people who helped make your website what it is today.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Giving 30 days notice for people using the API to adjust their entire revenue model. 4 months after saying "hey don't worry we're not going to charge for the API this year". This isn't just about an API becoming paid. It's clear they want to phase out 3rd party apps without saying it out loud.
nightshadetrie 3y ago
I think they’re panicking after being devalued to 6b with hopes of IPOing.

lokar 3y ago

Neither the cost of allowing these apps or the revenue the charge would produce could possibly matter.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
I'm not so sure - I assume the hyper-valuable users are actually generally using 3rd party apps, so forcing them back on the platform could raise their CPI enough to look good at an IPO rather than terrible.
- lokar 3y ago
  They have to be much less than 1%, I don’t t see how the math works. Views (and ad clicks) are what matter, not posts and comments. They only need the posts and comments to have something to stick an ad next to.
  - smileysteve 3y ago
    But the api doesn't deliver ads and the clients don't pay Reddit.
    - lokar 3y ago
      But they don’t cost much. Getting the activity scaled ad rev from these users won’t make them profitable.
      - pclmulqdq 3y ago
        Cost is a red herring here - the real metric is opportunity cost. These are users who spend a lot of time on reddit and give up a ton of data, so they can almost certainly get a much better CPI from these users, and give them a ton of ads.
        actionablefiber 3y ago
        It is a gamble. I am a Reddit power user in part because of the superb unobtrusive experience of old.reddit and Apollo. If you shove it full of ads, it’s no longer the experience I got addicted to. At that point I’d rather leave.
  - nullc 3y ago
    Open AI already showed that you can train an LLM on the stuff reddit's already got and produce a site with as much traffic as reddit gets... so what are the users needed for? I say this in jest, but only partially... lots of subreddits have noticed influexes of AI bots recently. Maybe spammers testing the water, or maybe you were just the product that was just helping train its replacement.
  - rgavuliak 3y ago
    In online games and newspaper paywalls you have on average 1-3 % valuable users. Even if Apollo made up less than 1%, those are probably the valuable ones so it could be a good chunk of those.
- 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
  [flagged]

judge2020 3y ago

An influx of capital would be easier by making everyone pay $10/mo to access the API via third-party clients. Would still be unpopular but would mean people could still have the experience they want to see from reddit. but that's the issue - Reddit's been focusing on other forms of content only in the native Reddit app, like TikTok-esque live streams and promoted posts from subs you aren't subscribed to.

a2tech 3y ago
They have a $4/month product ALL ready that removes ads and gives you more features. Making that a requirement to use the API is by FAR the simplest and most profitable option. Its also more profit then they're proposing to get from their API charges
- bwat49 3y ago
  Yeah I find it baffling that they didn't just do this
  - dasil003 3y ago
    Most likely it's about control, not financials.
    - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
      I found it interesting that spez admitted in his call with the apollo dev that the actual hosting cost for the api calls were pennies compared to the 'opportunity cost' of not having users use the official app. He basically admitted that harvesting data via the app and selling it to advertisers was reddit's bread and butter now.
      - lenerdenator 3y ago
        People have to realize, from a standpoint of "how do I make all of the money?", this is the only way these sites can survive in a world of reasonably-high interest rates. There are only so many people who would be willing to pay $x for a Reddit subscription. Would the quality of content and discussion go up? Absolutely, but that's not what Huffman and his VC backers care about. They care about _scale_, and if you can collect the information of every person who goes so far as to even click on a Reddit post that's a result in a Google search, you can have near-infinite scale. At that point, the question isn't "how do I get Joe Schmoe to pay for a Reddit subscription?", it's "How many ads can I cram into every GET request made to Reddit and maximize the price advertisers are willing to pay to be in that GET request?"

111111IIIIIII 3y ago

[flagged]

8note 3y ago

If they're broke, this doesn't help, since instead of paying, everyone they expect to pay is shutting down

bshipp 3y ago

If they're broke than they should have first stopped self-hosting videos and images. I can't believe their API call cost is more excessive than their video and image hosting costs.

morkalork 3y ago
I wonder how much impact their shit-tastic video player has on bandwidth costs. On one hand, when it freezes and refuses to play, it saves money. On the other hand, constantly restarting videos to try to get them to play probably costs some since it doesn't appear to be caching properly either. The net cost could go either way.
n1c 3y ago
There's a subtlety that seems to be getting skipped over quite frequently. It's not "the cost of the API call". It's "the opportunity cost of that user not coming to our main website".
- bshipp 3y ago
  I agree, but if we are incorporating the opportunity cost of free-riding 3rd-party users than Reddit also needs to incorporate the opportunity cost of losing thousands of unpaid moderators who keep the site running. I can't imagine the math will be favorable.

perrohunter 3y ago

How is charging for an API which costs them money "fucking people over"?

lenerdenator 3y ago
To me, there's a way that business relationships are carried out; you can deliver bad news to industry partners in a professional manner. If Huffman had called up guys like Christian Selig a while back and been like "Listen, it's been great, I love the apps you guys make, but business is business and I want to see more revenue, and to do that I'm going to charge more for the API and probably eventually shut it down, let's work on a timetable to sunset things.", he's not nearly the jerk he is today. No one's under the illusion that Reddit or Conde Nast are charities; they have revenue targets to make. What makes this fucking people over is the negotiating over API price and implementation timetable that was clearly in bad faith and meant to shut down these applications within the timespan of a quarter. Imagine being told that your way of making a living (which these apps are for their developers) is going away in a month. Sure, these devs are the cream of the crop, but that's still a major life disruption, and you don't do that to the people who helped make your website what it is today.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
Giving 30 days notice for people using the API to adjust their entire revenue model. 4 months after saying "hey don't worry we're not going to charge for the API this year". This isn't just about an API becoming paid. It's clear they want to phase out 3rd party apps without saying it out loud.

nightshadetrie 3y ago

I think they’re panicking after being devalued to 6b with hopes of IPOing.