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What is Reddit’s plan? They seem to simultaneously hold two conflicting ideas: 1. Third party app users represent significant enough lost revenue to make it wo

What is Reddit’s plan? They seem to simultaneously hold two conflicting ideas: 1. Third party app users represent significant enough lost revenue to make it worth making the API prohibitively expensive for third party apps to run, forcing those users back to the official app. 2. Third party apps users are few enough that Reddit can afford to not compromise and lose those users just to kill off third party apps. Are they expecting the third party app users will come crawling back to the official app? As far as I’m concerned the official app is borderline unusable compared to Apollo, for example, and I’d expect most users who have seen the light to find the official app completely intolerable. Perhaps the presence of unofficial, basically un-monetized third party apps was flagged as a risk for their IPO by some investor types. Still, they could have found a better route to monetize those users than just killing off the apps altogether.

paulmd 3y ago
The plan is to turn Reddit into TikTok. The site is being pivoted away from being a social message board to being a scrolling content dripfeed. Get the eyes in the native app and get the ads going. That’s the value that’s being lost via third-party apps. The only subs that really matter in this context are the frontpage top-100 subs, and it’s not like there’s any real intensive discussion over some cat pic or earthporn. The hobby subs are fine and generally adds value, it’s not like they’re going to remove them, but it’s not where the site’s primary engagement is going to be in another year or two. If they lose 25% of users and quadruple the revenue from the remaining users - that’s a massive win for them. And this is where the 90-9-1 rule works against you, because most users are going to stay, because they’re just scrolling cat pics anyway, and none of this really affects them. That’s the calculation. Most will stay, and they’ll make a lot more revenue per user that way. And in the grand scheme of things… there will be enough content in a month or two to keep people busy. This too shall pass.
P_I_Staker 3y ago
They'll come back. They'll all come back. If creating official communities for pedophiles to swap (legal) pictures isn't enough to get you to leave nothing will. (there have been notable other controversies, but I thought I'd mention a "classic")

paulmd 3y ago

The plan is to turn Reddit into TikTok. The site is being pivoted away from being a social message board to being a scrolling content dripfeed. Get the eyes in the native app and get the ads going. That’s the value that’s being lost via third-party apps. The only subs that really matter in this context are the frontpage top-100 subs, and it’s not like there’s any real intensive discussion over some cat pic or earthporn. The hobby subs are fine and generally adds value, it’s not like they’re going to remove them, but it’s not where the site’s primary engagement is going to be in another year or two. If they lose 25% of users and quadruple the revenue from the remaining users - that’s a massive win for them. And this is where the 90-9-1 rule works against you, because most users are going to stay, because they’re just scrolling cat pics anyway, and none of this really affects them. That’s the calculation. Most will stay, and they’ll make a lot more revenue per user that way. And in the grand scheme of things… there will be enough content in a month or two to keep people busy. This too shall pass.

P_I_Staker 3y ago

They'll come back. They'll all come back. If creating official communities for pedophiles to swap (legal) pictures isn't enough to get you to leave nothing will. (there have been notable other controversies, but I thought I'd mention a "classic")