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"The solution for this was incredibly simple. Reddit you want to charge for the API? Go right ahead, we all want you to make money. But when the volunteer labor

"The solution for this was incredibly simple. Reddit you want to charge for the API? Go right ahead, we all want you to make money. But when the volunteer labor you need in order to function started complaining because this is going to kill the modding tools they need - you should have immediately, like next day, apologized for the oversight and promised free API credits to them until you sort this out." From the AMA by Reddit's CEO 6 days ago[1]: Mod Tools We know many communities rely on tools like RES, ContextMod, Toolbox, etc., and these tools will continue to have free access to the Data API. [1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_about_changes_to_our_api/ https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_...

b112 3y ago
This entire thing started, as far as I recall, because the above was NOT being done. You're reading misinformation / misdirection.
- cornholio 3y ago
  And once it had gained momentum, it exploded into a power struggle with the owners of the site. It's now a pure tribal war: the mod tribe will not accept any compromise short of full rollback of the proposed changes, and Reddit cannot do that because - just like all major platforms - it cannot support adblocking alternate clients that are profitable while free riding on their infrastructure. It's also very predictable who will win the war: whomever has the root keys of the servers and web domains. Major reddits like r/funny are providing very limited value in the grand scheme of things, the vast majority of the content is viral, not locally produced. So if a user is a r/funny subscriber and that goes dark, just present him with content from r/humor for a few months, they will get to see the same viral memes and 95% of the users will never notice anything went wrong. Mods vastly overestimate their power here and underestimate the number of lurkers that form the backbone of Reddit viewership and are indifferent to this issue.
  - YawningAngel 3y ago
    The price reddit is charging for API access seems much higher than the value to Reddit of the ads that are being blocked by the client using that API.
    - cornholio 3y ago
      I agree, they are clearly eying data access as a revenue source and company moat, and position themselves for the AI boom. But even a much smaller fee would have killed 3rd party clients, and they needed to do that anyway.
  - kuschku 3y ago
    There is a very simple way out that reddit could take, similar to what spotify does: Third Party Apps continue being allowed, but API access requires the user's account to have reddit gold. People would be unhappy and complain, but the protest would end, Reddit would increase their revenue, third party app developers wouldn't have to pay, and people would accept it in the end.
    - cornholio 3y ago
      This is not a fight over access fees, it's a fight for data. The fees are prohibitive deliberately, to guarantee nobody makes more money than Reddit out of user generated data.
      - pmoriarty 3y ago
        How are the fees prohibitive? From the same AMA linked above: ---- Free Data API Effective July 1, 2023, the rate limits to use the Data API free of charge are: 100 queries per minute per OAuth client id if you are using OAuth authentication and 10 queries per minute if you are not using OAuth authentication. Today, over 90% of apps fall into this category and can continue to access the Data API for free. Premium Enterprise API / Third-party apps Effective July 1, 2023, the rate for apps that require higher usage limits is $0.24 per 1K API calls (less than $1.00 per user / month for a typical Reddit third-party app). ---- So users are happy to pay, say, Netflix $15 a month, but are outraged when Reddit tries to charge heavy app users $1 a month?

b112 3y ago

This entire thing started, as far as I recall, because the above was NOT being done. You're reading misinformation / misdirection.

cornholio 3y ago
And once it had gained momentum, it exploded into a power struggle with the owners of the site. It's now a pure tribal war: the mod tribe will not accept any compromise short of full rollback of the proposed changes, and Reddit cannot do that because - just like all major platforms - it cannot support adblocking alternate clients that are profitable while free riding on their infrastructure. It's also very predictable who will win the war: whomever has the root keys of the servers and web domains. Major reddits like r/funny are providing very limited value in the grand scheme of things, the vast majority of the content is viral, not locally produced. So if a user is a r/funny subscriber and that goes dark, just present him with content from r/humor for a few months, they will get to see the same viral memes and 95% of the users will never notice anything went wrong. Mods vastly overestimate their power here and underestimate the number of lurkers that form the backbone of Reddit viewership and are indifferent to this issue.
- YawningAngel 3y ago
  The price reddit is charging for API access seems much higher than the value to Reddit of the ads that are being blocked by the client using that API.
  - cornholio 3y ago
    I agree, they are clearly eying data access as a revenue source and company moat, and position themselves for the AI boom. But even a much smaller fee would have killed 3rd party clients, and they needed to do that anyway.
- kuschku 3y ago
  There is a very simple way out that reddit could take, similar to what spotify does: Third Party Apps continue being allowed, but API access requires the user's account to have reddit gold. People would be unhappy and complain, but the protest would end, Reddit would increase their revenue, third party app developers wouldn't have to pay, and people would accept it in the end.
  - cornholio 3y ago
    This is not a fight over access fees, it's a fight for data. The fees are prohibitive deliberately, to guarantee nobody makes more money than Reddit out of user generated data.
    - pmoriarty 3y ago
      How are the fees prohibitive? From the same AMA linked above: ---- Free Data API Effective July 1, 2023, the rate limits to use the Data API free of charge are: 100 queries per minute per OAuth client id if you are using OAuth authentication and 10 queries per minute if you are not using OAuth authentication. Today, over 90% of apps fall into this category and can continue to access the Data API for free. Premium Enterprise API / Third-party apps Effective July 1, 2023, the rate for apps that require higher usage limits is $0.24 per 1K API calls (less than $1.00 per user / month for a typical Reddit third-party app). ---- So users are happy to pay, say, Netflix $15 a month, but are outraged when Reddit tries to charge heavy app users $1 a month?