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The end of Reddit? (1 Viewer)

GroveDiesel

GroveDiesel

Footballguy
Surprised that I don’t see a thread on this already.

Thousands of subreddits go dark today in protest.

The gist is that Reddit is going to now charge third party apps/services that use Reddit’s API (basically who grab the raw data from Reddit’s services and display/provide access to Reddit through their own app). The third party developers seem to understand that paying for access is a financial reality, but then Reddit’s pricing and required timeline made it clear that the real intent was to eliminate all third party access/competitors. Reddit’s leadership then lied to the developers, lied about the discussions that took place with the third party developers, and have attempted to trash the third party developers/apps.

The real issue is that all of the subreddits on Reddit are started and managed by volunteers who moderate the subreddit communities. And the vast majority of them use these third party apps/tools because the moderation tools provided by those third party apps are vastly superior to Reddit’s tools in their native sites/app. So now the work of modding a sub will be much more difficult and time consuming.

Thousands of subs have now gone “dark” for at least 48 hours in protest. After a disastrous “Q&A” that Reddit’s CEO did where he continued to trash the one big third party developer, ignored user concerns, and copy and pasted pre-drafted answers, many of the largest subs made the decision to indefinitely go dark unless changes are made. Reddit leadership threatened the possibility of removing current moderators and re-opening subreddit communities if they felt it was in the “best interests of Reddit”.

Lots of users have now claimed that they are done with Reddit unless Reddit reverses course. The table is now set for the potential downfall of Reddit.
 
Been seeing this and read a little about it - seems like the complaints are the large cost for API calls (at scale) and even more so how quickly they implemented it without giving folks time. Is that the gist of it?
 
If it’s the end, what’s going to replace it? There is definitely a sizable market for what it provides.
 
Yeah. I'm mostly on Reddit now during day. Since new reddit people have left in droves to third party apps which disable a lot of the revenue features of reddit. This seemed inevitable in some form.
 
AAABatteries said:
Been seeing this and read a little about it - seems like the complaints are the large cost for API calls (at scale) and even more so how quickly they implemented it without giving folks time. Is that the gist of it?
Click to expand...
From what I know yes. Costs are reportedly exorbitant.

I didn't know about the moderation aspect posted above. I am a regular on Reddit. Going to be much more productive at work this week.
 
AAABatteries said:
Been seeing this and read a little about it - seems like the complaints are the large cost for API calls (at scale) and even more so how quickly they implemented it without giving folks time. Is that the gist of it?
Click to expand...
That seems to be the case from the developer side, yes. The link I posted in my follow up post goes to the developer’s breakdown of all the details. In it he breaks down what Reddit’s proposed fees are versus what he estimates Reddit’s costs/valuation is on their end. He comes to the conclusion that Reddit’s costs are about $0.12 per user per month. Reddit is charging developers about $2.50 per user per month, or about 20 times more than their cost. It would come out to $2M per month in API fees for the Apollo app.

The Apollo app developer did say that he would potentially be able to figure out a way to reduce his costs a bit as well as create a new fee/price structure for users of the app, but that Reddit didn’t give nearly enough time for him to develop and implement those things. So he’d start accruing those huge bills starting July 1st without any way to pay them for several months at minimum. In that environment, he felt he had no choice but to close up shop.
 
Fwiw I use relay. The relay dev said he could get the calls down to the 100/day level with some caveats.

Biggest is he says nsfw calls being blocked altogether would chase away his core user base.
 
And the idea that reddit won't let users have their own API is ridiculous. Tesla lets every car have it's own API for third party apps and nothing bad happens. In fact you can refresh your key every 24 hrs.
 
I noticed a few of my sub redds are still active and one is quite popular. Does anyone know what is the % of subs that shut down?
 
culdeus said:
And the idea that reddit won't let users have their own API is ridiculous. Tesla lets every car have it's own API for third party apps and nothing bad happens. In fact you can refresh your key every 24 hrs.
Click to expand...

It is the cost of the API's that is the issue, not that they are not allowing them.

The reason that the API cost is going up is because reddit has realized that it's new largest source of income is as a learning data set for machine learning. It is a treasure trove of information for the large language models like chat gpt.



https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/18/reddit-will-begin-charging-for-access-to-its-api/

The move comes as Reddit looks for ways to monetize its vast array of user-generated content, which as The Times notes has been increasingly used to train high-profile, text-generating machine learning models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT-4. As of 2019, Reddit had over 430 million monthly active users across more than 1.2 million special interest communities, 138,000 are active.

Huffman told The Times that he believes Reddit data is particularly valuable because it’s continuously updated.

“The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” he reiterated. “More than any other place on the internet, Reddit is a home for authentic conversation. There’s a lot of stuff on the site that you’d only ever say in therapy, or AA, or never at all … But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
Click to expand...
 
belljr said:
I've been on Reddit maybe three times in my life..... I'm old
Click to expand...

I still love early 2000s message board interfaces like this one. I mean, this place has updated several times in 20 years -- and so have my other regular boards -- but it's still essentially the same set-up as 2002.

I should similarly love Reddit, but I could never wrap my arms around it for some reason. Having a similar experience currently with Discord. Both are kind of reversions back to that late-1990s message-board look-&-feel (at least to me, visually, and photos/videos don't help). But I don't even know if that throwback look is even really what it is that's blocking me from adopting Reddit & Discord.
 
... I've just learned that API means "Application Programming Interface", but I still can't follow the discussion.

Is an API necessary to use Reddit? Since any browser can go to a Reddit page and allow you to post and read ... what roles do the APIs have in the use of Reddit?

(Is Tapatalk an API? Some people used to [maybe still] use it for one of my other message boards. EDIT: Looks like it is. But why not access and interface via your usual browser?)
 
:shrug: I’ll check in every so often for a few subs. Haven’t really noticed a difference today and don’t care at all about this “issue”. Frankly until this became a thing I didn’t even know you could use a 3rd party app, or cared to.
 
Doug B said:
... I've just learned that API means "Application Programming Interface", but I still can't follow the discussion.

Is an API necessary to use Reddit? Since any browser can go to a Reddit page and allow you to post and read ... what roles do the APIs have in the use of Reddit?

(Is Tapatalk an API? Some people used to [maybe still] use it for one of my other message boards. EDIT: Looks like it is. But why not access and interface via your usual browser?)
Click to expand...
The API allows other apps to connect to Reddit. Here's the Appolo CEO defining it from a link above.
Some people are confused about this situation and don't understand what an API is. An API (Application Programming Interface) is just a way for an app to talk to a website. As an analogy, pretend Reddit is a bouncer. Historically, you can ask Reddit "Could I have the comments for this post?" or "Can you list the posts in AskReddit?". Those would be one API request each, and Reddit would respond with the corresponding data.

Everything you do on Reddit is an API request. Upvoting, downvoting, commenting, loading posts, loading subreddits, checking for new messages, blocking users, filtering subreddits, etc.
Click to expand...
 
Doug B said:
... I've just learned that API means "Application Programming Interface", but I still can't follow the discussion.

Is an API necessary to use Reddit? Since any browser can go to a Reddit page and allow you to post and read ... what roles do the APIs have in the use of Reddit?

(Is Tapatalk an API? Some people used to [maybe still] use it for one of my other message boards. EDIT: Looks like it is. But why not access and interface via your usual browser?)
Click to expand...
WOAH WOAH WOAH - I at least know what API is ,boomer
 
Doug B said:
... I've just learned that API means "Application Programming Interface", but I still can't follow the discussion.

Is an API necessary to use Reddit? Since any browser can go to a Reddit page and allow you to post and read ... what roles do the APIs have in the use of Reddit?

(Is Tapatalk an API? Some people used to [maybe still] use it for one of my other message boards. EDIT: Looks like it is. But why not access and interface via your usual browser?)
Click to expand...
i use reddit

login through using my chromebook. apparently there are a decent number of people that think the "old"/"original" browser interface with reddit isn't sufficient. they want more control over their feed, the appearance of pages, etc. so people created third-party apps to..... translate?... reddit to a customizable experience.

it would be like if hundreds of users created customized apps to browse FBGs from phones, tablets, etc. after Ol Yeller changed instead of just migrating to the new site with 97% of the rest of the user base.

reddit is losing money if people use these 3rd party apps to view their site because of ad blockers, etc. so they want to prevent people from using 3rd party apps. people who use these 3rd party apps don't want to lose their customized experience and the developers don't want to lose whatever money they make from people using their apps.


that's how i understand it anyways
 
I spend an hour or two on Reddit every night catching up on interests and sifting through the news updates. This is going to suck for me but I was doing something else before this :shrug:
 

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com

Communities across reddit are going "dark", also known as going private, due to concerns about reddit's proposed change in relationship to third-party apps.

Is Explain Like I'm Five going dark, too?

We share the frustrations of many other redditors regarding the changes. We have decided to join thousands of other subreddits in taking action to demonstrate our concerns are suspending normal operations to draw attention to the issue. Specifically, for two days starting on June 12 we will:

So, you’re not going dark?

Not at this time. ELI5 is, after all, a place to learn. We have decided to focus ELI5 on learning about the controversy — so that users can become informed of this crucial issue and take action or express their opinions.

Private subreddits' public pages have no space to provide detailed explanations, and so we believed it would better fulfill the subreddit’s mission if instead of going fully private, we keep this sticky available and block any new posts.

How long will this last?

The joint movement by subreddits is initially set to last two days. Some individual subreddits plan to stay dark indefinitely. r/explainlikeimfive doesn't know what the situation will look like in two days. Hopefully we will see reddit making meaningful progress to address the concerns that have been raised, and so that's what we're aiming for at this time.

What is prompting all these concerns?

We previously posted a sticky with our own version of an ELI5, but subsequently we saw that r/askhistorians did a better job of it, so we’re going to “plagiarize” much of what they wrote here:

On April 18, 2023, Reddit announced it would begin charging for access to its API. Reddit faces real challenges from free access to its API. Reddit data has been used to train large language models that underpin AI technologies, such as ChatGPT and Bard, which matters to us at AskHistorians because technologies like these make it quick and easy to violate our rules on plagiarism, makes it harder for us to moderate, and could erode the trust you have in the information you read here. Further, access to archives that include user-deleted data violates your privacy.

However, make no mistake, we need API access to keep our community running. We use the API in a number of ways, both through direct access and through use of archives of data that were collected using the API, most importantly, Pushshift. For example, we use API supported tools to:

  • Find answers to previously asked questions, including users' answers to questions that were effectively deleted by other users (the question-askers)
  • Monitor the health of the subreddit and track how many questions get answers.
  • Moderate via mobile (when we do)
Admins have promised minimal disruption; however, over the years they’ve made a number of promises to support moderators that they did not, or could not follow up on, and at times even reneged on:

Reddit admins have had 8 years to build a stronger infrastructure to support moderators but have not.

API access isn’t just about making life easier for mods. It helps us keep our communities safe by providing important context about users, such as whether or not they have a history of posting rule-violating content or engaging in harmful behavior. The ability to search for removed and deleted data allows moderators to more quickly respond to spam, bigotry, and harassment. On ExplainLikeImFive, we’ve used it to help identify accounts that spam ChatGPT generated content that violates our rules. If we want to mod on our phones, third party apps offer the most robust mod tools. Further, third party apps are particularly important for moderators and users who rely on screen readers, as the official Reddit app is inaccessible to Blind individuals. Mods need API access because Reddit doesn’t support their needs. We are highly concerned about the downstream impacts of this decision. Reddit is built on volunteer moderation labor that costs other companies millions of dollars per year. While some tools we rely on may not be technically impacted, and some may return after successful negotiations, the ecosystem of API supported tools is vast and varied, and the tools themselves require volunteer labour to maintain. Changes like these, particularly the poor communication surrounding them, and cobbled responses as domino after domino falls, year after year, risk making r/ExplainLikeImFive a worse place both for moderators and for users—there will likely be more spam, fewer posts helpfully directing users to previous answers to their questions, and our ability to effectively address trolling, and JAQing off will slow down.

Without the moderators who develop, nurture, and protect Reddit’s diverse communities, Reddit risks losing what makes it so special. We love what we do here at ExplainLikeI’mFive.

A third party app is just another way you can read and post to reddit. Before reddit had its own app for your phone, there were other apps that let you read, post and comment. These apps use something called the API ELI5:How does an API Work?. Reddit's API lets your computer or phone get posts and comments without having to use a web browser or the official app. Apps such as Reddit is Fun, Slide, Comet, Boost, or Apollo then take what the API gives them and displays it. Apps like this allow you to customize your reddit experience by changing a theme, or changing how you upvote a post. While those are just two very small examples, you can begin to understand why people like these apps. Have you ever gotten mad at the reddit app because it had bugs, or it was just weird about how it did something? Right now, and until July 1st, you have the option to try out one of these apps and see if you like reddit better this way. After July 1st, you won't have the option anymore. If reddit's app has a bad bug, and you can't read posts for half a day, you will no longer be able to pull up a second option on your phone, or a third option, or a fourth...

What are the next steps, and how long will all this last?

We’re not sure. It depends on how the broader conversation goes. As you might imagine, there are a variety of views among our moderator team. But in general, our views are, again, similar to those on r/askhistorians:

We understand Reddit’s need to change and evolve. For all we may harp on Reddit’s flaws, we do want to see it succeed! After all, we wouldn’t exist without it. So, if we’re expecting Reddit leadership to listen to us, we should be willing to work with them. In the days following the publication of the post, we discussed as a team what the specifics of working with Reddit would look like so we could clearly articulate it to you. Compromise means something along the lines of:

  • Updates to the API are not tied to a particular date but are, instead, rolled out once the roadmap shared here is successfully achieved.
  • Accessibility tools such as screen readers are part of the native Reddit infrastructure.
  • Updates are made across Android and iOS.
We think slowing down is the right thing to do. It would minimize further disruption while also generating an income stream for Reddit.
 
MTskibum said:

It is the cost of the API's that is the issue, not that they are not allowing them.

The reason that the API cost is going up is because reddit has realized that it's new largest source of income
Click to expand...
Right now it seems their largest source of revenue is all the targeted "friend" requests I am getting from OnlyFans models. I was getting multiple per day until I shut off the friend switch.
 
Sand said:
MTskibum said:

It is the cost of the API's that is the issue, not that they are not allowing them.

The reason that the API cost is going up is because reddit has realized that it's new largest source of income
Click to expand...
Right now it seems their largest source of revenue is all the targeted "friend" requests I am getting from OnlyFans models. I was getting multiple per day until I shut off the friend switch.
Click to expand...
oh there's a friend switch? I have the same thing happening to me. I'm disappointed. I thought they all really wanted to be my friend.
 
MTskibum said:
culdeus said:
And the idea that reddit won't let users have their own API is ridiculous. Tesla lets every car have it's own API for third party apps and nothing bad happens. In fact you can refresh your key every 24 hrs.
Click to expand...

It is the cost of the API's that is the issue, not that they are not allowing them.

The reason that the API cost is going up is because reddit has realized that it's new largest source of income is as a learning data set for machine learning. It is a treasure trove of information for the large language models like chat gpt.



https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/18/reddit-will-begin-charging-for-access-to-its-api/

The move comes as Reddit looks for ways to monetize its vast array of user-generated content, which as The Times notes has been increasingly used to train high-profile, text-generating machine learning models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT-4. As of 2019, Reddit had over 430 million monthly active users across more than 1.2 million special interest communities, 138,000 are active.

Huffman told The Times that he believes Reddit data is particularly valuable because it’s continuously updated.

“The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” he reiterated. “More than any other place on the internet, Reddit is a home for authentic conversation. There’s a lot of stuff on the site that you’d only ever say in therapy, or AA, or never at all … But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Which is why many people who have decided to leave Reddit are nuking their accounts on the way out by having another service/app automatically go through and delete all of their previously submitted posts/content before they then delete their account.

IMO , the real threat isn’t the average user leaving Reddit because we all know this won’t cause most people to leave Reddit. The real threat is that a heavy percentage of 3rd party app usage is from Reddit mods who rely on the moderation tools available to them in those apps. Many of those mods may choose to shut down subreddits and/or quit being mods. THAT could have a large impact on Reddit overall.

Oh, and all of this is against the backdrop of the probable attempt at an IPO.
 
mr. furley said:
reddit is losing money if people use these 3rd party apps to view their site because of ad blockers, etc. so they want to prevent people from using 3rd party apps.
Click to expand...
Aaaaaaaaah ... OK.

Didn't think of ad blockers as what an API is (now that I've learned the term) ... but thinking about it some, yeah, I guess ad blockers would definitely be APIs. I know it's not this simple, but making the mental shortcut that "API = ad blocker" makes it make sense.

Q: Why not just use the browser to access and use Reddit?

A: Because you want to block ads.
 
hagmania said:
MTskibum said:
NewlyRetired said:
I noticed a few of my sub redds are still active and one is quite popular. Does anyone know what is the % of subs that shut down?
Click to expand...

0.1% of subreddits went dark.

5,000 out of 2.8 million
Click to expand...
10+ million subs in many of those subreddits
Click to expand...
I had no idea there were subs in the subs. Are there turtles all the way down?
Sand said:
MTskibum said:

It is the cost of the API's that is the issue, not that they are not allowing them.

The reason that the API cost is going up is because reddit has realized that it's new largest source of income
Click to expand...
Right now it seems their largest source of revenue is all the targeted "friend" requests I am getting from OnlyFans models. I was getting multiple per day until I shut off the friend switch.
Click to expand...
:shrug: I’ve never accepted a friend request from Reddit and just block them.
 
-OZ- said:
:shrug: I’ve never accepted a friend request from Reddit and just block them.
Click to expand...
I wasn't accepting them, but I was sure getting them. :p At least until I found the "No, I will NOT be your friend" autoreply switch.
 
Just a reminder that 15 years ago the current CEO of Reddit was a moderator of r/jailbait.

I've used Reddit more as FBG moderation increased and population decreased, but Reddit's a lousy timesink in most cases. Hope this causes me to use it less.
 
And now it seems Reddit is having issues, or at least not loading for me. I wonder if some hacktivists are making the site unstable today. Wouldn't surprise me.
 
Gawain said:
Just a reminder that 15 years ago the current CEO of Reddit was a moderator of r/jailbait.

I've used Reddit more as FBG moderation increased and population decreased, but Reddit's a lousy timesink in most cases. Hope this causes me to use it less.
Click to expand...

You have to find the right subreddits really. I'm a gamer and it's pretty invaluable for game guides and such.

It's the natural evolution of this type of message board format. But they are going to be more populated than a place like this and with that comes the negatives.
 
Yeah, reddit is down now. I usually check it a few times a day but didn't think much of this. Usually threats of going dark or "day of protest" type things barely have any affect. I guess maybe it's different this time.
 
Doug B said:
mr. furley said:
reddit is losing money if people use these 3rd party apps to view their site because of ad blockers, etc. so they want to prevent people from using 3rd party apps.
Click to expand...
Aaaaaaaaah ... OK.

Didn't think of ad blockers as what an API is (now that I've learned the term) ... but thinking about it some, yeah, I guess ad blockers would definitely be APIs. I know it's not this simple, but making the mental shortcut that "API = ad blocker" makes it make sense.

Q: Why not just use the browser to access and use Reddit?

A: Because you want to block ads.
Click to expand...
an API can be built to block and/or allow ads but that's not the sole function

an API is just a way for two applications or computers to speak back and forth and exchange information
 
jamny said:
Yeah, reddit is down now. I usually check it a few times a day but didn't think much of this. Usually threats of going dark or "day of protest" type things barely have any affect. I guess maybe it's different this time.
Click to expand...
From what I've gathered the changes greatly impact two disparate but sympathetic groups.

The first group are the disabled who rely on 3P to provide text to speech, different fonts and other customizable access that is not available through the Reddit app. The impact to this group is a very visible insult to those who have challenges and Reddit is pretty well versed at white knighting for social justice slights, either real or perceived.

The second group are moderators who rely on old.reddit, 3P services and ease of access tools to perform moderation. If enough of these folks leave, the major communities will see more spam, lower quality posts and could impact the site usage and utility long term.

The first group is easier to rile the masses over, but if enough of the second group really does walk away the longer-term impacts are what could be scary to Reddit.
 
mr. furley said:
an API is just a way for two applications or computers to speak back and forth and exchange information
Click to expand...

Understood -- and I guess fundamentally, even a web browser itself is an API (or else contains an API).

What I was/am a bit lost on are the reasons people would use an API instead of just using their browser. Ad blocking is one reasons, and that makes sense to me.

I remember people using Tapatalk (an API) for boards.straightdope when smartphones were newer because the mobile interface for old vBulletin software was terrible. That was likely also an issue on other message boards of similar vintage.

Other than those things ... maybe for custom skins or something ... I'm not sure what the appeal of an API for Reddit users. But then, I'm not steeped in Reddit and have not encountered the problems or crossed the bridges. The Safari and Chrome browsers work just fine for all my message board doings, so I never checked out any other APIs.
 
IvanKaramazov said:
I've stopped caring about this stuff. If Twitter, Reddit, or whatever goes away, something else will come along. Unless I'm a shareholder -- I'm not -- there's no reason for me to worry about somebody else's for-profit enterprise.
Click to expand...

I’m strongly leaning into adopting this philosophy for much of everything in this reality that others have carved out for us.
 
Gawain said:
Just a reminder that 15 years ago the current CEO of Reddit was a moderator of r/jailbait.
Click to expand...
Classic. [Silicon Valley rant deleted.]

Gawain said:
I've used Reddit more as FBG moderation increased and population decreased, but Reddit's a lousy timesink in most cases. Hope this causes me to use it less.
Click to expand...
Love this (FFA) site. The only downside is no images. I hit up the cycling boards on reddit that are heavy on cool places/images. Can't replicate that here.
 
Last edited:
Doug B said:
Gawain said:
The first group are the disabled who rely on 3P to provide text to speech, different fonts and other customizable access that is not available through the Reddit app.
Click to expand...
I have heard of this, as well.
Click to expand...
It won’t be surprising when Reddit is the target of a class action lawsuit for non-compliance with the ADA. They’ve likely avoided it to this point thanks to 3p apps providing text to speech functionality. With that option gone, it’s going to open them up to a lawsuit
 
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