Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾Jun 12, 2023

#Reddit kills third-party apps by hiking API fees to girnomous levels.

*Me not realising that there were even third-party apps*

So I'm not sure that the narrative that Reddit will destroy its business by doing this is true, cos it doesn't affect users like me, which I suspect, is a majority of its users.

However, as a developer, I will think twice about developing anything for a for-profit platform, seeing what happened with #Twitter etc. It is ... not great that platforms are ..1/2

Show threadElizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾

... shutting the door on developers that helped build it up & make it a success. But it would seem that #enshittification doesn't just affect users but developers. Once they get you in free, they will close off features when it gets so useful that people will be forced to pay (or literally die).
IMHO it's not a good business practice & destroys trust. People are wising up & will think twice about developing third party apps.

This is my non-dev #tech opinion of course. What do you think?
#Reddit

Jun 12, 2023 at 2:51amWeb
Show threadSean BalaJun 12, 2023

@liztai Honestly, don't use any of the official apps because I find them glitchy and ad-ridden. I only use a browser with an ad blocker and the experience is clean and simple. I sometimes wonder if we need to use apps when the webpage with an ad blocker can work wonders. It is especially true of Reddit and Youtube. Even with Mastodon, I use the webpage in a browser.

But getting to your bigger point - I think these things do cause more problems with trust - that is the bigger problem. 1/2

Show threadSean BalaJun 12, 2023
@liztai I think that ultimately, beyond anything that actually has happened with Twitter, the real problem was the sense of broken trust with users and developers. Not that we probably should not have trusted such companies in the first place. 2/2
Show threadElizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾Jun 12, 2023
@seanbala "not have trusted such companies in the first place" - I think a lot of people feel like fools for doing this, and I think the damage will be long lasting. It is for me, for example. I don't even trust Substack, which so many writers adore.
Show threadAkshay | అక్షయ్Jun 12, 2023

@liztai There’s more than one set of Reddit users. There are the usual posters, lurkers etc like you and me, sure, but there are also mods who spend a lot of time pro-bono to nurture their specific niche communities. Good mods attract “good” users because there’ll be a community with in-jokes/ norms etc.

The “official” apps don’t do much for the latter, definitely not at the scale they need. Third party apps are much more user-friendly with loads of features. Remove those, and mods go away.

Show threadAkshay | అక్షయ్Jun 12, 2023

@liztai No mods, no users in communities. No users => the “long tail” of niche communities starts to trim. Larger specific ones also could vanish.

IMHO, discord is a much more “natural” home for Reddit communities in exile. Problem with discord, though, is discoverability is a biatch. You really can’t end up on a detailed Discord thread by googling your way in.