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Basically they forgot they built a site built on community and then tried to sell those communities like inanimate objects. No surprise it blew up in there face

by a2tech 3y ago

Basically they forgot they built a site built on community and then tried to sell those communities like inanimate objects. No surprise it blew up in there face.

edmundsauto 3y ago
What evidence do we have that it blew up in their face? There is clearly a large backlash, but it's not at all clear how much that will impact their key metrics, which is probably all they care about moving into IPO. I agree they made awful decisions, my usage patterns will definitely be changing due to a re-enable /etc/hosts entry. However, what is the impact on a broader scale? This is like Twitter firing a ton of engineers - we can't really evaluate until much further down the road.
- willis936 3y ago
  We don't have numbers, but if it hadn't blown up in their face then we wouldn't be talking about it. What is reddit's product? The users. What happens IPO valuation when the users leave?
  - nicce 3y ago
    Reddit, like any other social media platform is worthless without users. We will see in few months what is the situation and if someone manages to advertise an alternative for millions of people. Then, Reddit IPO is doomed. If there is no new significant alternative where people will go, then IPO will probably continue as planned and API change went well from the Reddit’s perspective.
    - willis936 3y ago
      Why does an alternative need to exist? The attention economy is saturated and users are likely happy to have one less feed.
      - mattstir 3y ago
        > Why does an alternative need to exist? Because there are a great many people that have legitimately used Reddit as their "frontpage of the internet" for years and don't enjoy the form factor that other websites / apps provide. Places like Twitter and TikTok aren't everyone's cup of tea, especially if you're not the type of person that just mindlessly ingests content.
        willis936 3y ago
        >if you're not the type of person that just mindlessly ingests content My take is that this type of person is more likely to not need to replace their feed fix with another feed and is more likely to pursue fulfillment in other areas of life.
        andybak 3y ago
        I think several subreddit in my life would be irreplaceable. I don’t know another platform that would generate those kind of communities.
        nicce 3y ago
        If someone is using Reddit just for scrolling endless feeds, I would say that they have no strong ideological foundations to quit the platform based on the API changes. Unless they think that official app is really useless.
        wvenable 3y ago
        I spend 5 minutes today with some user CSS to reskin Lemmy to be more like Reddit with RES. Another half-hour of effort and at least the form-factor will be pretty similar.
      - tracerbulletx 3y ago
        The main thing Reddit has that is not available elsewhere is a massive relatively unbiased backlog of discussions and community wikis covering topics like what are the best delis/restaurants/bars in city X or car recommendations, or how to find good deals on menswear, or almost any other thing imaginable, this is truly valuable and worth having in society.
    - CapstanRoller 3y ago
      >Reddit, like any other social media platform is worthless without users. Worthless under their current model. What if their new model is to simulate other users with ChatGPT? Many users don't engage with comments beyond voting/reading. How long would it take them to notice, and if they notice would they care? Can Huffman coast to IPO, grab the money, then bail?
  - edmundsauto 3y ago
    We're talking about it because some percentage of users are very pissed, not because it necessarily impacts the business. I agree there is a line where reddit would be worried for their IPO, but we have no idea if 1% of reddit traffic will drop (not a problem for them) or 50% (big problem). We (and reddit) also don't know whether users will return, ie: will this just blow over?
satvikpendem 3y ago
> We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor. From Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-memo-api-pricing-changes-steve-huffman https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-... Nothing blew up in their face. It's almost as if the vast majority of users simply don't care about this kind of drama.
- willsmith72 3y ago
  > We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor. This is the funniest because it shows how little they're actually able to generate from people using their product
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    Yeah users on Reddit are worth on average around 30 cents each. But this is also why they're pushing the official Reddit app, to increase their ARPU.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      They could just charge $2 for "API access with enough limits for power users" and pay both for missing ads and for API usage
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        That's exactly what they are doing with the API lol, but people still got outraged at that. The Apollo dev said that he would have to charge every user $2.50 a month to cover costs of the API, so even if the Apollo dev is exaggerating, $2.50 is not that high if people really want to user third party apps.
        wasyl 3y ago
        > The Apollo dev said that he would have to charge every user $2.50 a month to cover costs of the API He did not say that, he said > Apollo's price would be approximately $2.50 per month per user which is an estimate of how much they'd have to pay Reddit for each user in API costs alone. But it doesn't take into account cost of Apollo's own servers and infrastructure, Apple's fees, or the fact that there are people with paid for yearly subscriptions that'd have to be served: > Even if I added 12,000 new subscribers at $5/month (an enormous feat given the short notice), after Apple's fees that would just be enough to break even. > > Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days. That's a lot of users to migrate, plans to create, things to test, and to get through app review, and it's just not economically feasible. (quoted from https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_w...) All in all it's a much different thing if Reddit said they want to charge the users $2.5/mo for API access, given them their own key and let use whatever 3rd party app they want. They want to charge the 3rd party apps directly, which is a whole different story that can't really be summed up as to "$2.5 is not that high if people really want to use third party apps"

by a2tech 3y ago

Basically they forgot they built a site built on community and then tried to sell those communities like inanimate objects. No surprise it blew up in there face.

edmundsauto 3y ago

What evidence do we have that it blew up in their face? There is clearly a large backlash, but it's not at all clear how much that will impact their key metrics, which is probably all they care about moving into IPO. I agree they made awful decisions, my usage patterns will definitely be changing due to a re-enable /etc/hosts entry. However, what is the impact on a broader scale? This is like Twitter firing a ton of engineers - we can't really evaluate until much further down the road.

willis936 3y ago
We don't have numbers, but if it hadn't blown up in their face then we wouldn't be talking about it. What is reddit's product? The users. What happens IPO valuation when the users leave?
- nicce 3y ago
  Reddit, like any other social media platform is worthless without users. We will see in few months what is the situation and if someone manages to advertise an alternative for millions of people. Then, Reddit IPO is doomed. If there is no new significant alternative where people will go, then IPO will probably continue as planned and API change went well from the Reddit’s perspective.
  - willis936 3y ago
    Why does an alternative need to exist? The attention economy is saturated and users are likely happy to have one less feed.
    - mattstir 3y ago
      > Why does an alternative need to exist? Because there are a great many people that have legitimately used Reddit as their "frontpage of the internet" for years and don't enjoy the form factor that other websites / apps provide. Places like Twitter and TikTok aren't everyone's cup of tea, especially if you're not the type of person that just mindlessly ingests content.
      - willis936 3y ago
        >if you're not the type of person that just mindlessly ingests content My take is that this type of person is more likely to not need to replace their feed fix with another feed and is more likely to pursue fulfillment in other areas of life.
        andybak 3y ago
        I think several subreddit in my life would be irreplaceable. I don’t know another platform that would generate those kind of communities.
        nicce 3y ago
        If someone is using Reddit just for scrolling endless feeds, I would say that they have no strong ideological foundations to quit the platform based on the API changes. Unless they think that official app is really useless.
      - wvenable 3y ago
        I spend 5 minutes today with some user CSS to reskin Lemmy to be more like Reddit with RES. Another half-hour of effort and at least the form-factor will be pretty similar.
    - tracerbulletx 3y ago
      The main thing Reddit has that is not available elsewhere is a massive relatively unbiased backlog of discussions and community wikis covering topics like what are the best delis/restaurants/bars in city X or car recommendations, or how to find good deals on menswear, or almost any other thing imaginable, this is truly valuable and worth having in society.
  - CapstanRoller 3y ago
    >Reddit, like any other social media platform is worthless without users. Worthless under their current model. What if their new model is to simulate other users with ChatGPT? Many users don't engage with comments beyond voting/reading. How long would it take them to notice, and if they notice would they care? Can Huffman coast to IPO, grab the money, then bail?
- edmundsauto 3y ago
  We're talking about it because some percentage of users are very pissed, not because it necessarily impacts the business. I agree there is a line where reddit would be worried for their IPO, but we have no idea if 1% of reddit traffic will drop (not a problem for them) or 50% (big problem). We (and reddit) also don't know whether users will return, ie: will this just blow over?

satvikpendem 3y ago

> We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor. From Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-memo-api-pricing-changes-steve-huffman https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-... Nothing blew up in their face. It's almost as if the vast majority of users simply don't care about this kind of drama.

willsmith72 3y ago
> We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor. This is the funniest because it shows how little they're actually able to generate from people using their product
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Yeah users on Reddit are worth on average around 30 cents each. But this is also why they're pushing the official Reddit app, to increase their ARPU.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    They could just charge $2 for "API access with enough limits for power users" and pay both for missing ads and for API usage
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      That's exactly what they are doing with the API lol, but people still got outraged at that. The Apollo dev said that he would have to charge every user $2.50 a month to cover costs of the API, so even if the Apollo dev is exaggerating, $2.50 is not that high if people really want to user third party apps.
      - wasyl 3y ago
        > The Apollo dev said that he would have to charge every user $2.50 a month to cover costs of the API He did not say that, he said > Apollo's price would be approximately $2.50 per month per user which is an estimate of how much they'd have to pay Reddit for each user in API costs alone. But it doesn't take into account cost of Apollo's own servers and infrastructure, Apple's fees, or the fact that there are people with paid for yearly subscriptions that'd have to be served: > Even if I added 12,000 new subscribers at $5/month (an enormous feat given the short notice), after Apple's fees that would just be enough to break even. > > Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days. That's a lot of users to migrate, plans to create, things to test, and to get through app review, and it's just not economically feasible. (quoted from https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_w...) All in all it's a much different thing if Reddit said they want to charge the users $2.5/mo for API access, given them their own key and let use whatever 3rd party app they want. They want to charge the 3rd party apps directly, which is a whole different story that can't really be summed up as to "$2.5 is not that high if people really want to use third party apps"