This post makes no argument. It is just a pile of assertions. Simply stating that there is a "social contract" doesn't make it so. What evidence does the aut

This post makes no argument. It is just a pile of assertions. Simply stating that there is a "social contract" doesn't make it so. What evidence does the author have that "millions of users create the content expecting it will be widely available"? Even if that's true, what evidence is there that they do so with the expectation that it will be widely available through an API or through third party apps? And even if they do expect that, by what logic can you conclude that there is now a social contract that that expectation will be fulfilled? I don't think any of that is true. I don't think people are thinking about third party app users or about the wide availability of content when they post things to Reddit or other social media websites at all. I don't think they're thinking about people using third party apps. I think they're thinking on a much more mundane level. The whole concept of a "social contract" is fraught with difficulty too. It's a relatively niche idea to try to explain why people follow laws, or how laws can be justified. The idea is that we obey the law for the same reason we obey a contract: exchange of consideration for mutual benefit. But that's not actually a very good explanation, for a long list of reasons, and it certainly can't justify laws of universal application given that eg. children can't be bound to contracts they've signed and we apply laws to everyone even if they don't want us to. The concept certainly doesn't make sense in the context of a web API for a social media website. Even if everyone "expects" that their "content" will be widely available, it does not follow that there is any obligation, legal or otherwise, on Reddit to make it widely available. There just is no logical connection there unless you build one. This post does not. It simply asserts that APIs for content sites must be free. Why? Because!