Reddit's largest Apple community will stay dark, as CEO promises to ride out shutdowns

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in General Discussion

After incurring the wrath of its fanbase, and a promise from its largest Apple-related subreddit to stay down, Reddit's CEO is telling employees that the protests in response to the site's decision to charge developers for access to its API will pass.




In April, Reddit told developers they would need to begin paying for API access in mid-June. Developers have pushed back, stating that access costs would be untenable, with some developers stating the change could cost them millions of dollars per year.

As a result, many subreddits have chosen to go dark in protest.

Reddit's largest Apple community, r/Apple, has chosen to stay dark indefinitely rather than the 24 to 48 hours other subreddits have suggested.

While I can't speak for the entire r/Apple mod team I can say that we have voted to stay closed indefinitely due to Reddit's CEO's poor decision-making. https://t.co/JyIT2qYbf4

-- Aaron (@aaronp613)



Despite this, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman tells Reddit employees to weather the storm, as he anticipates that the blackouts will pass by Wednesday.

"There's a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we've seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well," Huffman says in an internal memo seen by The Verge. "We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail."

While he's certain that the outrage will ease up in time, he warns staff about wearing anything Reddit-related in public.

"I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public," the memo said. "Some folks are really upset, and we don't want you to be the object of their frustrations."

The API changes have hit many developers hard, as Reddit plans to charge developers $0.02 per user for accessing its service.

Because of these prices, many apps have announced that they will be shutting down.

For example, Apollo, one of the most popular Reddit apps, will be shutting down on June 30.

If it were to continue to operate as normal, Apollo would face an estimated annual cost of $20 million in API fees annually.

Read on AppleInsider

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    flydogflydog Posts: 1,129member
    The API charge noted in this article is incorrect. Reddit charges $0.24 per 1,000 API calls, not "$0.02 per user." 

    https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/

    FileMakerFellergregoriusmwatto_cobraBiCbonobob
  • Reply 2 of 15
    PancakePancake Posts: 44member
    BiC said:
    GOOD for Reddit.  Best Freedom of Speach.  They have to make coin.  That's a good calculation too.  I wonder how many API calls they get per minute.  I hope they bank coin.
    That is not freedom of speech. Just like being able to type on Twitter is not freedom of speech. Please do a quick search and learn what the first amendment actually means. 
    Anilu_777marcotor949radarthekatwatto_cobrabeowulfschmidtdavwilliamlondonbonobobFileMakerFellerkurai_kage
  • Reply 3 of 15
    Anilu_777Anilu_777 Posts: 556member
    Arrogant little shits. They forget that Apple like Apollo keep people on Reddit. Some people hate the official app. 
    watto_cobradarkvaderwilliamlondondav
  • Reply 4 of 15
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,871moderator
    Did I miss an announcement?  Has Elon taken over Reddit?  Lol
    watto_cobradavbonobob
  • Reply 5 of 15
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,216member
    Well they do need to make a living, and especially cover costs, so I am not sure the right thing is to go all Bolshie because free stuff no longer is. I don’t know the ins and outs of the exact deal Reddit is imposing, but the cost of large data access calls adds up quickly.
    for our research organisation that provides databases such as climate data to other researchers, we tried to save money on in house servers by going to the cloud. Now we are looking to go back in-house because cloud services charges for data volumes are becoming crippling.  
    edited June 2023 FileMakerFeller
  • Reply 6 of 15
    strongystrongy Posts: 19member
    They specifically said it’s not about server costs if you had read any of the Reddit posts regarding this, moderators don’t get paid in fact reddit gets thousands of hours of mod time for free they couldn’t possibly handle all the work themselves
    davdarkvaderwilliamlondonFileMakerFeller
  • Reply 7 of 15
    danoxdanox Posts: 3,076member
    Someone offering you free services is always too good to be true….
  • Reply 8 of 15
    darkvaderdarkvader Posts: 1,146member
    radarthekat said:
    Did I miss an announcement?  Has Elon taken over Reddit?  Lol
    It's not the elongated muskrat himself, but it's rat-like behavior.

    Reddit is trying to go public.  They want to maximize the appearance of revenue to get a high IPO price, so they're trying to charge unworkable amounts for 3rd party apps that don't actually make any money and can't possibly afford to pay.

    Big groups going dark will help prevent that from working like they want it to, the stock will be worthless.  And because of Reddit's bad behavior, that's actually what we all want to happen.
    williamlondonFileMakerFellerkurai_kage
  • Reply 9 of 15
    FileMakerFellerFileMakerFeller Posts: 1,561member
    For some more information:

    https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/06/09/reddit-ipo

    https://sixcolors.com/link/2023/06/apollo-to-shut-down-developer-has-receipts/
    kurai_kage
  • Reply 10 of 15
    chutzpahchutzpah Posts: 392member
    BiC said:
    darkvader said:
    Did I miss an announcement?  Has Elon taken over Reddit?  Lol
    It's not the elongated muskrat himself, but it's rat-like behavior.

    Reddit is trying to go public.  They want to maximize the appearance of revenue to get a high IPO price, so they're trying to charge unworkable amounts for 3rd party apps that don't actually make any money and can't possibly afford to pay.

    Big groups going dark will help prevent that from working like they want it to, the stock will be worthless.  And because of Reddit's bad behavior, that's actually what we all want to happen.

    WOW - I have to reply to this.  Which 'Big groups' are going dark - and what does that even mean.  Seriously, put the bat down full of pint.  Drink water.
    https://reddark.untone.uk/

    Big groups.



    Gone dark.


    Do try and keep up.
    kurai_kagewilliamlondondav
  • Reply 11 of 15
    InspiredCodeInspiredCode Posts: 404member
    Famous last words. I hear the kids prefer Discord over clueless CEOs… Maybe Mastodon or Twitter will introduce a new community feature? Elon Musk has been talking about getting in to other areas of social media
    edited June 2023
  • Reply 12 of 15
    davdav Posts: 116member
    danox said:
    Someone offering you free services is always too good to be true….
    Right, but they want free content... I guess I'd feel better if Reddit paid $.01 for every upvote your post received.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 13 of 15
    InspiredCodeInspiredCode Posts: 404member
    I think this is bigger than just API access. It feels a bit like a proxy war between those that run subreddits and the suits that monetize it. It isn’t just API developers, those that run the subreddits want a seat at the table too.
  • Reply 14 of 15
    MeteorMeteor Posts: 1member
    Thursday, June 15, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman calls moderators, who've worked for free building and maintaining the site, "landed gentry".  This guy is a piece of work.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/reddit-protest-blackout-ceo-steve-huffman-moderators-rcna89544

    edited June 2023
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