Over 8,000 subreddits go dark in protest against Reddit's API fees

[midian182]

A hot potato: Almost 8,500 subreddits have gone dark in protest against the platform's decision to update its API, which requires some third-party app developers to pay millions of dollars to continue accessing the site. The protest has already caused crashes and problems across Reddit.com.

According to this tracker, 8,401 subreddits are currently taking part in the protest by going private. More than two dozen of the involved forums have over 10 million subscribers, including r/funny and r/gaming. The lockdown started yesterday and is expected to last until tomorrow (June 14).

Reddit announced new API changes in April that allow it to limit the number of API requests made by third-party clients: about $12,000 per 50 million requests. Christian Selig, the creator of the popular iOS Reddit app Apollo, said the 7 billion API requests per month it makes would mean he'd have to pay $20 million per year. As such, Apollo is shutting down on June 30.

Reddit managed to score another PR black eye after CEO Steve Huffman accused Selig of trying to blackmail the company for $10 million. The reality was that Selig jokingly tried to sell his app to Reddit for six months of API costs. Huffman took this as a threat.

Reddit is also blocking ads and removing sexual content from third-party apps, even though both are still available in official Reddit apps.

The API updates would require app devs to charge users if they want to pay Reddit's bills. The Relay for Reddit app for Android devs said they will have to end the free version of the app, though a monthly subscription price of $3 (or less) might be achievable.

The move has seen many developers confirm that they will be forced to shut down their apps unless Reddit changes its policy. In the case of Apollo and similar software, their closure will push users onto the much-maligned official Reddit app.

Huffman in a recent AMA (Ask Me Anything) wrote that the company wasn't backing down. "Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use," the CEO explained.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99042-over-8000-subreddits-go-dark-protest-reddit-api.html

 

[b3rdm4n]

I hope there are good outcomes from this, I enjoy discussions on reddit - most of the time. I also find the social balancing aspect to work considerably better than it does on forums, much higher amount of users and the upvote/downvote system tend to make for a more balanced overall discussion imo. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, we've all seen people that were actually correct get downvoted into oblivion for example, because the sub didn't want to hear it, or despite being wrong the other person argued 'better' on the day, and so on. Even with those occurrences, it's more far more balanced than most tech forums I am a part of, that have relatively low counts of very active, engaged and motivated users that can steer the narrative and feel of the entire forum, where threads often become echo chambers. Again, can happen on reddit too, but my experience has shown me it's far less common, and self-corrects much more.

 

[James Ryan]

Just another Greedflation run.
Everyones just trying to pump their bottom lines as usual....

 

[dangh]

Surely companies making money from accessing API and providing services should be charged. There is some weird bot followers issues and I keep getting some spam because of that, and I presume it is direct use of APIs. But helpful plugins should be identified and left alone, as they usually simply improves QoL of users. Unfortunately, to identify which are good and which are bad would require additional manpower. tbh, if a plugin makes a 7 bilions server request a month please check how much a hosting company would charge for that - this is crazy high additional request amount, and that have to be maintained and handled - I think the overhead of external use of API might be significant comparing to standard use and I'm not surprised Reddit do not want to double their gateway numbers to handle some nuisances...

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

Another round of Bud Light on the house.

 

[brucek]

I'm a very casual and very occasional Reddit user, but my understanding is that the Apollo iOS client is a reader app used by individual Reddit users. The traffic generated is because individual users are using Reddit for its intended purposes. The basic tier of the app cost something like a few bucks, the dev isn't getting rich off this thing. If anything Reddit got a high quality iOS app that it didn't have to pay to develop. If Reddit was truly concerned about how much its users were reading, why not make the API limit/cost apply to the user account as opposed to the application provider.

Anyway this isn't my horse race and me being turned off isn't going to hurt their total viewership by much, but I'm pretty sure a saner CEO could have resolved whatever the concern was in multiple better, different ways.

 

[Dimitriid]

No offense to hour Techspot hosts here but seeing what's happening to Facebook, Youtube, Twitch, Instagram, Discord and the mother of all bad management Twitter maybe we should start to wonder: Is it a good idea to not only frequent but almost exclusively rely on centralized services on the internet?

I know the RIAA and MPAA did a very good job at turning us away from the idea of peer-to-peer networks and open source software but is not like problems that go from the economically greedy like Reddit being desperate to turn a profit, to the existentially bad like Facebook helping rig elections and manipulate public opinion and running hate campaigns, maybe we could just work on the security issues implicit in peer-to-peer and not just for the when, not if, the next big website or social media will turn around and try to do something profoundly bad, profoundly evil, etc.

 

[Inthenstus]

This is beyond frustrating. I don’t like Reddit but googling very specific things usually takes you there. I also can’t check buildspcsales daily. I called Reddit out on Twitter.

 

[MasterMace]

Expected to last until July 14th? Article Needs some editing

 

[Timoo]

The problem with the "$3/month" idea, is that that would work if -every single user- is prepared to cough up $36 per year. Since you can expect 90% to say no, you're left with the 10% heavy users, making up for -at least- half of the traffic. So, that 10% suddenly has to cough up $15 per month, simply to pay for their traffic. Which is unsustainable.

 

[m4a4]

Lets hope they have the balls to go longer than a few days, because that won't actually mean anything if they're so willing to come back and continue as if nothing happened...

MAYBE it will send a message that the Reddit community can band together and do something worse than going dark for a few days, but the CEO sounds like a big enough a**hole to try and ignore it...

 

[Nobina]

People are upset...maybe for a month until they forget.

 

[VariableSpike]

Lets hope they have the balls to go longer than a few days, because that won't actually mean anything if they're so willing to come back and continue as if nothing happened...

MAYBE it will send a message that the Reddit community can band together and do something worse than going dark for a few days, but the CEO sounds like a big enough a**hole to try and ignore it...

Sounds like prime opportunity for a competitor to jump in, funnily enough like reddit did with digg

 

[mountains]

Stick to your guns, users! And spread the word! The entire tech industry is watching. The outcome of this showdown will affect much more than just Reddit...

 

[brucek]

Sound like the Apollo app developer should create his own new replacement backend, or partner with another firm to do so.

 

[kinetix]

Anyway, reddit has become a cespool

 

[ZackL04]

I was unaware of 3rd party apps like Apollo

So Apollo was a portal to reddit with its own ads?

If I were Reddit I would be charging too. Apollo is profiting off their platform no?