Mastodawn

Casey Newton Jun 13, 2023

I wrote about how Reddit’s years of making users responsible for content creation, moderation, and product development came back to haunt it today. https://www.platformer.news/p/reddit-goes-dark

Reddit goes dark

As it moves to shut down third-party apps, the site’s self-governing ethos comes back to haunt it

Platformer

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Mark Zimmerman Jun 13, 2023

@caseynewton Employees with stock options who want to build a nice nest egg for themselves, shareholders who want the company to drive real growth and value, and customers who want a smooth, consistent service less dependent on their own data to drive revenue.

These things run incongruently with free API calls for all. There's two sides of the trade, and if third-party app developers can find another platform that drives value for them, they should go there.

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B-rad 🏳️‍🌈👨‍💻Jun 13, 2023

@MarkZimmerman @caseynewton there is a Grand Canyon of difference between free API calls for all and the proposed pricing. This idea that they simply have to charge this amount is beyond disingenuous. They have ulterior motives with this change and people would have far more respect if they just said what their strategy and intentions really were rather than hide behind this nonsense about API opportunity cost.

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Mark Zimmerman

@itsonlybrad @caseynewton These third-party apps would have a tough time stomaching any cost because the amount of revenue they pull in for themselves is small and Reddit got jipped on the basic cost of entry.

Listen, I agree that those apps are objectively better in many ways, but charging an amount that would make sense for their developers and their users would mean Reddit makes an insufficient margin on this. I highly doubt that charging less would have garnered any less outrage.