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I do understand that business decision though. You don't want your business model to depend on a dominant supplier who then can extort high API fees from you...

• beowulfey 3y ago
  Ha, that’s a great point! Imgur also became a community of its own. I don’t remember when it happened, but perhaps Reddit thought they were becoming a true competitor and opted to pull away.
• spaceman_2020 3y ago
  But if the supplier depends entirely on content created by your userbase for its survival, how much leverage does it really even have?
• bentcorner 3y ago
  But those suppliers would be extorting fees from users, not reddit. You could say the same thing about any paywalled content. Reddit doesn't scrape and host web content, why do they feel the need to do so for images/video? I think there is a point to be made about a smoother user experience, but youtube is a great example where their embeds can still be monetized. Reddit not pushing ads through the API is like if youtube didn't give you ads on embedded videos.
  • paulmd 3y ago
    "but reddit is extorting fees from users, not google. why would google care if reddit wants to self-immolate and keep content inside their platform?" my brother in christ, no man is an island; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promentory were. nobody wants their website to be a linkfarm to content that's all 404'd, it's not that complex. How do you keep that from happening? Host it yourself.