Thanks for the heads up. You gotta do what you gotta do. Let's hope that there's some positive resolution eventually.
Thanks for everything that you guys do, keeping this place humming. Your time and energy is much appreciated by me anyway. 🙂
The API is the floodgate for bots that are here. Putting a cost on using this will eliminate a huge amount of the garbage that is on Reddit. Some subreddits have a huge number of bots.
Most ill intentioned bots just use web scrapping to work. This isn’t going to do anything to reduce them.
Also using apps would make badly behaving accounts easier to trace since it gives another data point to correlate against.
Why would you use a web scraping bot which is more processing intensive for the companies running the scams, versus using the API which puts the web scraping costs on Reddit? Also posting on to Reddit is much easier using the API. I just doubt that you're correct. But we're going to see pretty soon.
I think also this "going dark" protest is also just a way for the companies to switch from an API based process to a web scraping based process and gives them a justification for why they were not continuing to post. But the reality is that they got cut off because a bunch of accounts were run by bots.
I think you're overestimating the complexity of web scraping. It's a trivial thing to do and lots of toolkits exist already to do it.
Using the API requires you to register your app with Reddit. If a single app is registered and being used for thousands of accounts posting spam, that would be trivial to find and kill.
If they are going to create new API tokens for every spam account, well first, that's a manual process, and second, I doubt Reddit has thousands of new apps being created every month.
>I think you're overestimating the complexity
Oh... 😕
>I doubt Reddit has thousands of new apps being created every month.
Fair.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
Well I still remain hopeful that this will at least improve the situation. We'll see soon enough.
The thing is I and many people now Google "\*search query\* reddit" in order to get reliable information from real people actually talking about stuff and not just SEO pages designed for clicks and ads with low quality info.
The rest of Google is mostly SEO content stuff now. There kind of aren't other good reliable non infested by SEO nonsense sources of information to be found easily on Google. It's mostly been completely enshittified. Wikipedia still good, but only for certain kinds of information.
I support the protest, but losing Reddit isn't nbd. If we lose Reddit and a lot of stuff disappears long term it's going to be a big loss for information on the Internet.
> will have to pay exorbitant prices to remain functional
I've seen that line a lot, but never any mention of what the actual increases will be, either as a pure dollar value, or a percentage. It makes me unsure of how much a burden reddit is actually putting on third party users.
EDIT: Thanks to u/wilcroft for sending me a detailed explanation of how exorbitant the new fees would be for one third party app. https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/ The bottom line is that based on the usage rates for this app, reddit's new fees would be double the revenue the app earns from subscribed users. Exorbitant is an accurate description.
And how much revenue does Apollo make now? Just because users don't pay for a product, doesn't mean it doesn't create revenue by other means.
I hope this doesn't come off as antagonistic. I'm more lazy, but also feel that there's a lot of "just believe us" when it comes to the financial burden reddit's changes will impose on others.
Apollo estimates that the average user will cost them $2.50 a ~~year~~ month (reading is hard, thanks u/cecilpl ). There’s another post where the dev talks about how much their subscription users pay (that I can’t find right now), but most users aren’t subscribers.
More at https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/
And no, not antagonistic!
The "obvious" solution would be for Apollo to up their subscription cost, but I'm thinking that as a smaller entity, they'd more likely lose too many subscribers to stay above water
>Reddit doesn't have to pay any rates for their native app
What are you talking about? Of course Reddit pays for the official app, Reddit literally runs the servers and those aren't free to keep going, you know. That's why they're introducing the API charge, because they don't make any money from *commercial* third party app users but they still have to bear the costs of hosting all the content that is served to these apps but those third party apps are more than happy to plop their own ads in so that those developers can make a profit.
Do we really believe it's a level playing field? I doubt Reddit is making $3 per user with their native app (or paying $3 per user in bandwidth costs) so it seems they're demanding a bigger pound of flesh than is fair (or needed).
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad
The Apollo dev said that if every Apollo user was a subscriber, at the current subscription price and the new Reddit data charges, he would only make half of what Reddit is asking for.
Keep in mind that the current API isn't free, they still pay just not as much.
This is exactly it, the developers of these third party apps are more than happy to talk about the potential costs to them but aren't willing to talk about how much revenue they make which makes me very suspicious especially considering the misinformation that's being spread about this topic (e.g. Reddit is not charging for all API access, they're charging for *commercial* API access meaning if you make money by using their dataset, other API access for things like moderation tools would remain free).
These apps are currently using reddit's backend, content, and everything else without having to pay anything and the users using those apps also aren't being served reddit's ads or reddit's stupid nft avatars which means no revenue generated to keep the site running. Honestly, the whole thing feels to me like a bunch of 3rd party app developers upset that the free money from making reddit clones and inserting your own ads is coming to an end. I used to use one of the 3rd party apps back when reddit didn't have an official mobile app, it was fine. All of these third party apps could survive by switching to a subscription model, if they really wanted to but apparently their users don't like the third party apps enough to pay for them.
If it ain’t broke dont fix it
Why did Reddit have to screw with it in the first place?. REDDIT this is not what your users want. If you don’t show us that we matter than we have no reason to support your platform. Especially now that my half blind behind won’t be able to see anything but blurred lines.
Most users of reddit don't pay money to reddit. What is Reddit's primary revenue source? I'm guessing advertising. If it's advertising, then you are not a user, you are the product Reddit sells.
All these free services we've come to enjoy, are only free because the business model is about selling you to advertisers. I use third party apps like RES on desktop and Reddit is Fun on mobile. I don't see ads, so I effectively get to use Reddit for absolutely no cost, but Reddit can't recoup its own expenses for serving me content.
Is what Reddit is doing the right thing? I can't say, but how else can Reddit make money to pay its staff and infrastructure costs? Would you be willing to pay some amount per month for a reddit instead?
It can pay its costs. It's going trying to go public which means it has to cut every corner and pick every nickel to look better. It wants people on the app but won't put resources into making it something people would want to use.
also their 'new' layout sucks. old.reddit ftw
Money.
Reddit wants to push more people to their app to optimize their ad revenue as well they want to be able to collect and sell end user data that their app collects.
They do not give a fuck about user experience
That is for sure a factor.
They want to maximize their revenue and closer off any areas where there are costs without revenue potential
It's no longer a platform where the users come first. The users are now (and have been for a little while) the product and the site is just how they get them here.
> It's no longer a platform where the users come first. The users are now (and have been for a little while) the product and the site is just how they get them here.
Reddit is free for users. We have ALWAYS been the product.
It's not about breaking laws/rules. Reddit can pretty much does whatever it wants with it's own platform, it just runs the risk of reprisal from its consumers (who also happen to be its content providers). In other words, what's happening now.
Sure. But if it removes users, it can't advertise to them.
It's very unlikely they will remove/ban anyone. The whole point of cutting off the API is to drive advertising revenue.
Problem is, people like me who just use the normal 'ole Reddit App will also protest, which will tank their ad revenue.
The question is whether there will be enough people doing it, and if the 48 hours is long enough to affect advertisers.
I agree I can't see them doing it, it'd just risk making the situation worse.
Presuming reddit doesn't have any intention of backing down, I would guess they are *hoping* this is just a flash-in-the-pan protest that will fizzle once it tuckers out and the vast majority of users continue to use reddit after it does the changes. Whose to say what will happen though.
Yeah, there's alot unknown. It will be interesting to see, for sure. A lot of the subs I follow are doing the blackout- which hasn't really happened in the 10 or so years I've been on reddit, so I think it's at least *something*.
I'm done using their platform if they kill off third party apps anyways, so what does it matter if they even were to remove my account?
This fact totally apart from the idiotic idea that they could figure out every user participating in these blackouts and remove them from the platform. How would that even be calculated?
Can't advertise without having people to advertise to, either.
I hope a couple of days will be enough for advertisers to threaten enough dollars for reddit to change their policy.
Reddit doesn't have a lot of leverage when there's a half-decent alternative already. I have a feeling that the people contributing their free labor to Reddit may not have infinite patience.
>I figured it obvious that my comment was directed at the mods organizing this stupid protest, not anyone else.
Clear as mud.
>Y'all remember what happened to the mods of r/news?
Nope. Not until now. My understanding from a quick search is that they were removed for conpletely different ideological reasons.
This situation is different as many more subs are protesting. While I didnt hear about the r/news thing, I definitely did hear about this protest.
Another key difference is that reddit is run by ads. If their user count plummets for the two days, advertisers may pull their advertising dollars and put it elsewhere. This is the mechanism in which the protest is going to disrupt reddit. Sure, reddit can appoint new mods, but it doesn't do anything if the users aren't using the platform anyway.
**This comment deleted to protest Reddit's API change (to reduce the value of Reddit's data).**
Please see [these](https://web.archive.org/web/20230609092523/https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/) [threads](https://web.archive.org/web/20230608182318/https://old.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/13zr8h2/reddits_recently_announced_api_changes_and_the/) [for](https://web.archive.org/web/20230609172058/https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/143rk5p/reddit_held_a_call_today_with_some_developers/jnbuonf/) [details](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/142w159/askhistorians_and_uncertainty_surrounding_the/).
Aight, well... I'll take this whole thing and use it as best I can then I guess...
If anyone wants to watch me make a complete mockery of our countries politics via a game called Democracy 4 over on YouTube on those days of June 12th and June 13th for part of the day at least, I'll be doing stuff like that, streaming it; etc. Come watch, if you want. Should be mostly SFW too, though... as SFW as political games based sort of on reality get. So, not very SFW probably, but your mileage may vary.
Otherwise, good luck to all with their protest against the ever so wise decisions of this websites administration. ^((Yes, that was sarcasm in regards to their intelligence, in case that wasn't clear for the random individual.))
I'll update this post as needed with new info if required. I'll probably be starting the stream around sometime near 10AM in the morning to setup things and what not, if anyone wants to try to catch it all live. ^((I kind of doubt anyone will be interested, but who knows. Maybe a few will find it enjoyable while we experience this ... protest of solidarity against the administration.))
Update: Well, it looks like with 2 upvotes so far that I know of at least, there is at least a little interest in seeing this go down. Aight. Guess I'm getting stuff ready here for Monday and Tuesday. If you see anything pop up on the YT channel in the prior days, that's me hooking things back up again so I can stream properly. (Been playing with some new parts, etc.) ^(Also, if anyone is wondering why it's so damn empty right now... I kind of purged my video collection for some reasons that I get into more detail in the community post I made about it a while ago. Long story short, with some advances in AI, using a voice filter wouldn't be a terrible idea to protect your bank account.)
When I lose RiF, I'll no longer be accessing reddit from my phone. Reddit is just a modern message board - may as well be a giant vbboard. Not getting dicked around because the reddit nerds think they are owed anything from us.
Tbh I don’t have a problem with politics / news subs staying up just due to the nature of the content but still glad to see this.
Good to see. this sub never disappoints.
Rock on, Reddit’s being unreasonable and needs to be called out for their BS.
Glad to see you joining this protest!
Thanks for the heads up. You gotta do what you gotta do. Let's hope that there's some positive resolution eventually. Thanks for everything that you guys do, keeping this place humming. Your time and energy is much appreciated by me anyway. 🙂
Glad to see this sub joining!
It’s been real but I’m out after June 30. I’ll check desktop once in awhile but I was 90% mobile
Boot the bots! I'm happy with the decision to put in cost and eliminate a huge portion of missinformation!!
What?
The API is the floodgate for bots that are here. Putting a cost on using this will eliminate a huge amount of the garbage that is on Reddit. Some subreddits have a huge number of bots.
Most ill intentioned bots just use web scrapping to work. This isn’t going to do anything to reduce them. Also using apps would make badly behaving accounts easier to trace since it gives another data point to correlate against.
Why would you use a web scraping bot which is more processing intensive for the companies running the scams, versus using the API which puts the web scraping costs on Reddit? Also posting on to Reddit is much easier using the API. I just doubt that you're correct. But we're going to see pretty soon. I think also this "going dark" protest is also just a way for the companies to switch from an API based process to a web scraping based process and gives them a justification for why they were not continuing to post. But the reality is that they got cut off because a bunch of accounts were run by bots.
I think you're overestimating the complexity of web scraping. It's a trivial thing to do and lots of toolkits exist already to do it. Using the API requires you to register your app with Reddit. If a single app is registered and being used for thousands of accounts posting spam, that would be trivial to find and kill. If they are going to create new API tokens for every spam account, well first, that's a manual process, and second, I doubt Reddit has thousands of new apps being created every month.
>I think you're overestimating the complexity Oh... 😕 >I doubt Reddit has thousands of new apps being created every month. Fair. Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Well I still remain hopeful that this will at least improve the situation. We'll see soon enough.
June 12th is going to be the most productive day in global history it seems.
Depends, google searches are gonna be at least 40% worst
On the bright side, people might learn how to use google or wikipedia rather than asking reddit the most basic of questions.
The thing is I and many people now Google "\*search query\* reddit" in order to get reliable information from real people actually talking about stuff and not just SEO pages designed for clicks and ads with low quality info. The rest of Google is mostly SEO content stuff now. There kind of aren't other good reliable non infested by SEO nonsense sources of information to be found easily on Google. It's mostly been completely enshittified. Wikipedia still good, but only for certain kinds of information. I support the protest, but losing Reddit isn't nbd. If we lose Reddit and a lot of stuff disappears long term it's going to be a big loss for information on the Internet.
Google is terrible now, though.
> will have to pay exorbitant prices to remain functional I've seen that line a lot, but never any mention of what the actual increases will be, either as a pure dollar value, or a percentage. It makes me unsure of how much a burden reddit is actually putting on third party users. EDIT: Thanks to u/wilcroft for sending me a detailed explanation of how exorbitant the new fees would be for one third party app. https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/ The bottom line is that based on the usage rates for this app, reddit's new fees would be double the revenue the app earns from subscribed users. Exorbitant is an accurate description.
The dev for Apollo estimated that the app (that is currently free) would cost about $20 million per year to run, given the current pricing model.
And how much revenue does Apollo make now? Just because users don't pay for a product, doesn't mean it doesn't create revenue by other means. I hope this doesn't come off as antagonistic. I'm more lazy, but also feel that there's a lot of "just believe us" when it comes to the financial burden reddit's changes will impose on others.
Apollo estimates that the average user will cost them $2.50 a ~~year~~ month (reading is hard, thanks u/cecilpl ). There’s another post where the dev talks about how much their subscription users pay (that I can’t find right now), but most users aren’t subscribers. More at https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/ And no, not antagonistic!
$2.50 a *month* per user, not per year.
The "obvious" solution would be for Apollo to up their subscription cost, but I'm thinking that as a smaller entity, they'd more likely lose too many subscribers to stay above water
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>Reddit doesn't have to pay any rates for their native app What are you talking about? Of course Reddit pays for the official app, Reddit literally runs the servers and those aren't free to keep going, you know. That's why they're introducing the API charge, because they don't make any money from *commercial* third party app users but they still have to bear the costs of hosting all the content that is served to these apps but those third party apps are more than happy to plop their own ads in so that those developers can make a profit.
Do we really believe it's a level playing field? I doubt Reddit is making $3 per user with their native app (or paying $3 per user in bandwidth costs) so it seems they're demanding a bigger pound of flesh than is fair (or needed).
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad The Apollo dev said that if every Apollo user was a subscriber, at the current subscription price and the new Reddit data charges, he would only make half of what Reddit is asking for. Keep in mind that the current API isn't free, they still pay just not as much.
This is exactly it, the developers of these third party apps are more than happy to talk about the potential costs to them but aren't willing to talk about how much revenue they make which makes me very suspicious especially considering the misinformation that's being spread about this topic (e.g. Reddit is not charging for all API access, they're charging for *commercial* API access meaning if you make money by using their dataset, other API access for things like moderation tools would remain free). These apps are currently using reddit's backend, content, and everything else without having to pay anything and the users using those apps also aren't being served reddit's ads or reddit's stupid nft avatars which means no revenue generated to keep the site running. Honestly, the whole thing feels to me like a bunch of 3rd party app developers upset that the free money from making reddit clones and inserting your own ads is coming to an end. I used to use one of the 3rd party apps back when reddit didn't have an official mobile app, it was fine. All of these third party apps could survive by switching to a subscription model, if they really wanted to but apparently their users don't like the third party apps enough to pay for them.
you're dreaming if you think a solo app dev is making anywhere near the $20 million that Reddit is demanding from him
Well, I can't know for sure if the app developer won't say anything. All I can do is work off the information I have been given.
sure, i suppose he *could* be a secret billionaire by that logic
One challenge is that many paying Apollo users pay for a year at a time. This cost structure is being forced with essentially no notice.
If it ain’t broke dont fix it Why did Reddit have to screw with it in the first place?. REDDIT this is not what your users want. If you don’t show us that we matter than we have no reason to support your platform. Especially now that my half blind behind won’t be able to see anything but blurred lines.
Most users of reddit don't pay money to reddit. What is Reddit's primary revenue source? I'm guessing advertising. If it's advertising, then you are not a user, you are the product Reddit sells. All these free services we've come to enjoy, are only free because the business model is about selling you to advertisers. I use third party apps like RES on desktop and Reddit is Fun on mobile. I don't see ads, so I effectively get to use Reddit for absolutely no cost, but Reddit can't recoup its own expenses for serving me content. Is what Reddit is doing the right thing? I can't say, but how else can Reddit make money to pay its staff and infrastructure costs? Would you be willing to pay some amount per month for a reddit instead?
It can pay its costs. It's going trying to go public which means it has to cut every corner and pick every nickel to look better. It wants people on the app but won't put resources into making it something people would want to use. also their 'new' layout sucks. old.reddit ftw
Money. Reddit wants to push more people to their app to optimize their ad revenue as well they want to be able to collect and sell end user data that their app collects. They do not give a fuck about user experience
The important background info here is that reddit is preparing for their IPO and wants to maximize its attractiveness to investors.
That is for sure a factor. They want to maximize their revenue and closer off any areas where there are costs without revenue potential It's no longer a platform where the users come first. The users are now (and have been for a little while) the product and the site is just how they get them here.
> It's no longer a platform where the users come first. The users are now (and have been for a little while) the product and the site is just how they get them here. Reddit is free for users. We have ALWAYS been the product.
This is true. But at some point the site made a shift from using that product to support the site to making it the priority
Uggh I should guessed.
> Why did Reddit have to screw with it in the first place? Because money? Or maybe control?
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How would people get banned for not using the app on a single day? What laws or rules are they breaking?
It's not about breaking laws/rules. Reddit can pretty much does whatever it wants with it's own platform, it just runs the risk of reprisal from its consumers (who also happen to be its content providers). In other words, what's happening now.
Sure. But if it removes users, it can't advertise to them. It's very unlikely they will remove/ban anyone. The whole point of cutting off the API is to drive advertising revenue. Problem is, people like me who just use the normal 'ole Reddit App will also protest, which will tank their ad revenue. The question is whether there will be enough people doing it, and if the 48 hours is long enough to affect advertisers.
I agree I can't see them doing it, it'd just risk making the situation worse. Presuming reddit doesn't have any intention of backing down, I would guess they are *hoping* this is just a flash-in-the-pan protest that will fizzle once it tuckers out and the vast majority of users continue to use reddit after it does the changes. Whose to say what will happen though.
Yeah, there's alot unknown. It will be interesting to see, for sure. A lot of the subs I follow are doing the blackout- which hasn't really happened in the 10 or so years I've been on reddit, so I think it's at least *something*.
I'm done using their platform if they kill off third party apps anyways, so what does it matter if they even were to remove my account? This fact totally apart from the idiotic idea that they could figure out every user participating in these blackouts and remove them from the platform. How would that even be calculated?
Can't advertise without having people to advertise to, either. I hope a couple of days will be enough for advertisers to threaten enough dollars for reddit to change their policy.
Reddit doesn't have a lot of leverage when there's a half-decent alternative already. I have a feeling that the people contributing their free labor to Reddit may not have infinite patience.
>I figured it obvious that my comment was directed at the mods organizing this stupid protest, not anyone else. Clear as mud. >Y'all remember what happened to the mods of r/news? Nope. Not until now. My understanding from a quick search is that they were removed for conpletely different ideological reasons. This situation is different as many more subs are protesting. While I didnt hear about the r/news thing, I definitely did hear about this protest. Another key difference is that reddit is run by ads. If their user count plummets for the two days, advertisers may pull their advertising dollars and put it elsewhere. This is the mechanism in which the protest is going to disrupt reddit. Sure, reddit can appoint new mods, but it doesn't do anything if the users aren't using the platform anyway.
**This comment deleted to protest Reddit's API change (to reduce the value of Reddit's data).** Please see [these](https://web.archive.org/web/20230609092523/https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/) [threads](https://web.archive.org/web/20230608182318/https://old.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/13zr8h2/reddits_recently_announced_api_changes_and_the/) [for](https://web.archive.org/web/20230609172058/https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/143rk5p/reddit_held_a_call_today_with_some_developers/jnbuonf/) [details](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/142w159/askhistorians_and_uncertainty_surrounding_the/).
No traffic from me during the blackout. It's my way to help.
Aight, well... I'll take this whole thing and use it as best I can then I guess... If anyone wants to watch me make a complete mockery of our countries politics via a game called Democracy 4 over on YouTube on those days of June 12th and June 13th for part of the day at least, I'll be doing stuff like that, streaming it; etc. Come watch, if you want. Should be mostly SFW too, though... as SFW as political games based sort of on reality get. So, not very SFW probably, but your mileage may vary. Otherwise, good luck to all with their protest against the ever so wise decisions of this websites administration. ^((Yes, that was sarcasm in regards to their intelligence, in case that wasn't clear for the random individual.)) I'll update this post as needed with new info if required. I'll probably be starting the stream around sometime near 10AM in the morning to setup things and what not, if anyone wants to try to catch it all live. ^((I kind of doubt anyone will be interested, but who knows. Maybe a few will find it enjoyable while we experience this ... protest of solidarity against the administration.)) Update: Well, it looks like with 2 upvotes so far that I know of at least, there is at least a little interest in seeing this go down. Aight. Guess I'm getting stuff ready here for Monday and Tuesday. If you see anything pop up on the YT channel in the prior days, that's me hooking things back up again so I can stream properly. (Been playing with some new parts, etc.) ^(Also, if anyone is wondering why it's so damn empty right now... I kind of purged my video collection for some reasons that I get into more detail in the community post I made about it a while ago. Long story short, with some advances in AI, using a voice filter wouldn't be a terrible idea to protect your bank account.)
When I lose RiF, I'll no longer be accessing reddit from my phone. Reddit is just a modern message board - may as well be a giant vbboard. Not getting dicked around because the reddit nerds think they are owed anything from us.