In protest of Reddit’s API cost, over 8,000 subreddits went black or read-only. The exorbitant fees will shut down numerous third-party programs like Apollo, and Reddit is Fun.
Thousands of moderators and millions of Reddit users planned the 48-hour blackout on Monday. The blackout will make participating subreddits private, preventing nonsubscribers from viewing content and subscribers from posting or commenting. Read-only subreddits will protest. Participants are encouraged to leave bad evaluations of the Reddit app and boycott the site to reduce traffic.
On Monday afternoon, 28,606 moderators participated, and 8,300 subreddits promised to go private. According to r/Save3rdPartyApps, several subreddits will close forever until Reddit “adequately addresses” users’ complaints. r/funny, r/aww, r/gaming, r/music, r/pics, r/science, and r/todayilearned are the most popular blackout subreddits. The 2.8 billion members of all protesting subreddits include many who subscribe to numerous. Twitch users may see subreddits disappear live.
“The two-day blackout isn’t the goal, and it isn’t the end,” r/Save3rdPartyApps instructed. We’ll leverage the community and buzz established between now and the 14th if Reddit doesn’t correct what they broke.
A Reddit spokeswoman directed TechCrunch to CEO Steve Huffman’s AMA post on API changes last week.
“We respect when you and your communities take action, including going private,” Huffman added. “We are all responsible for making Reddit a welcoming place for community and belonging.”
API access—which lets a third-party program talk to a website—has been free until recently. Upvoting, commenting, exploring subreddits, and other third-party app activities need API queries. Reddit fulfills requests. An open letter in r/ModCoord states that API access allows third-party apps to provide accessibility features for blind or visually impaired users and allows moderators to use “superior mod tools, customization, streamlined interfaces, and other quality of life improvements” that the official Reddit app does not.
“The potential loss of these services due to the pricing change would significantly impact our ability to moderate efficiently, thus negatively affecting the experience for users in our communities and us as mods and users ourselves,” moderator BuckRowdy stated in the open letter. “We know Reddit, like any company, must balance its finances. However, keeping the rich ecosystem around this platform would ensure its durability and success.”
Third-party apps will find API access too pricey after July 1. Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync, all indie producers of popular apps, plan to close by June 30 due to cost. In a recent post, Apollo developer Christian Selig stated the new pricing would cost $20 million per year, which is “just not economically feasible” even if the appraised membership fees. Reddit’s API policy changes restrict NSFW content and allow “spam, karma farming, link-dumping and other types of behaviors that ruin subreddits,” according to BuckRowdy’s open letter.
The Reddit spokesman claimed the firm would not alter its API and that the pricing changes are based on usage levels equivalent to its costs. The representative claimed Reddit spends millions on hosting fees and needs compensation to maintain high-usage third-party apps. According to the spokesman, Apollo is “notably less efficient” than comparable third-party apps. Developers are responsible for app efficiency. Reddit API is free for unmonetized apps.
Toolbox, Context Mod, Remind Me and anti-spam detection bots will have free Reddit API access. The corporation will also exempt accessibility apps. The representative pointed TechCrunch to a last-week r/modnews post.
“If the usage is legal, non-commercial, and helps our mods, we won’t stand in your way,” the message read. “Moderators will have API access to their communities, including sexually explicit content across Reddit. Moderators will see sexually-explicit content on subreddits they don’t control.
Monday afternoon Reddit was silent. Selig’s r/apolloapp thank-you note received almost 137,000 upvotes.
“I think showing humanity through apologizing for and recognizing that this process was handled poorly, and concrete promises to give developers more time, would go a long way to making people feel heard and instilling community confidence,” Selig wrote. “Small changes can have big effects.”
