Poll of the Day > Someone must be losing a LOT of money with the Reddit API changes.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Very suspicous there would be such a large hate campaign because reddit wants to restrict their API usage (which is completely in their power to do).

They're killing off all of the third party apps and there's nothing more than greed involved on their end. Makes perfect sense that people would be outraged at such a stupid decision and there's nothing suspicious about it at all. Read the write-up by the apollo dev to understand more because it seems you're quite uninformed about it. here's a link to it to help you out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_call_with_reddit_to_discuss_pricing_bad/

People rejecting the actions of a money hungry company, has to be fuelled by a different money hungry company?

Keep in mind I wouldn't know as I don't use mobile phone apps that aren't firefox or google authenticator.

Nichtcrawler-X posted...

People rejecting the actions of a money hungry company, has to be fuelled by a different money hungry company?

All of those for-profit third party application vendors did nothing wrong amirite?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/1/3/AAZknmAAEijh.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/1/4/AAZknmAAEiji.png

Uhh, yes, having to pay an extra $20 million per year when that's 70+ times higher than the industry norm is indeed going to cause people to lose money, mostly because it completely undermines the business model and makes the service totally unsustainable. I'm not sure why you're acting like this is a particularly insightful realization.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/1/5/AAZknmAAEijj.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/1/6/AAZknmAAEijk.png

adjl posted...

Uhh, yes, having to pay an extra $20 million per year when that's 70+ times higher than the industry norm is indeed going to cause people to lose money, mostly because it completely undermines the business model and makes the service totally unsustainable. I'm not sure why you're acting like this is a particularly insightful realization.

Oh but yea, totally the fault of proprietary apps on an extremely toxic mobile app market that enforces the development of proprietary software. Think of the small people!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/3/2/AAOy1LAAD1Ug.jpg

I'm not sure why you're trying to present this as anything other than Reddit getting butthurt that people like third-party Reddit apps better than Reddit's own app and deciding that it's easier to price people out of making third-party apps than to just provide a better service.

adjl posted...

I'm not sure why you're trying to present this as anything other than Reddit getting butthurt that people like third-party Reddit apps better than Reddit's own app and deciding that it's easier to price people out of making third-party apps than to just provide a better service.

Because it likely is. Companies do not make changes like this unless there are legal or monetary reasons for doing them.

This is a case of Reddit not being smart with their licensing.

Want to restrict people making third-party apps? Close off your API from the start. Want to avoid people making money off of third-party apps? Slap a GNU license on your API.

Reddit were just idiots and are trying to fix it now that they are only making $550m a year instead of $600m.

Also, reading the changes, I completely understand what they are doing and why (Consumer tier / enterprise tier with rate limiting):
https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/

Dikitain posted...

Reddit were just idiots and are trying to fix it now that they are only making $550m a year instead of $600m.

Exactly. They are still working in the early 2010s mindset where API access was a cool, new and free thing. Every other major SNS provider has already locked down their API. Didn't this happen with Twitter over the last couple of years?

Judgmenl posted...

Because it likely is. Companies do not make changes like this unless there are legal or monetary reasons for doing them.

And that monetary reason is that people using better 3rd-party apps cuts down on their revenue from ads and their ability to sell user data from users of their own app, and it's cheaper to make their competition worse/non-viable than to successfully out-compete them. In turn, people are mad because that blatant cash grab is completely destroying a business model that has allowed numerous small businesses to provide a service that is in demand, ultimately reducing the quality of the service that users receive.

adjl posted...

And that monetary reason is that people using better 3rd-party apps cuts down on their revenue from ads and their ability to sell user data from users of their own app, and it's cheaper to make their competition worse/non-viable than to successfully out-compete them. In turn, people are mad because that blatant cash grab is completely destroying a business model that has allowed numerous small businesses to provide a service that is in demand, ultimately reducing the quality of the service that users receive.

You do know that reddit still collects your user data even if you use a third party app right?
Like, seriously think about what you just posted.

And do you honestly believe that they aren't more capable of collecting user data through their own app than through a third party that can monitor what they're doing?

adjl posted...

And do you honestly believe that they aren't more capable of collecting user data through their own app than through a third party that can monitor what they're doing?

...
Do you know what the following terms mean:

• API
• Oauth2

Like, I am absolutely dumbfounded by your comment right now. The only thing Reddit really gets from creating its own app vs a third party app is whatever permissions you give to your phone. Are you saying reddit has location telemetry built into their App? If that's the case you just disable Location services (you should be doing this anyways). Do you think they have access to your microphone? Now wait a second, if you suspect any of that, do you think these third party apps don't if you give them permission to? I am really scratching my head here.

Furthermore, why are you even using the internet if you are that concerned? Every site has the power to collect telemetry without your knowledge.

Judgmenl posted...

Furthermore, why are you even using the internet if you are that concerned? Every site has the power to collect telemetry without your knowledge.

As does Windows in general. It's literally been built to be spyware since the earliest builds of Windows 10.

Judgmenl posted...

...
Do you know what the following terms mean:

* API
* Oauth2
Like, I am absolutely dumbfounded by your comment right now. The only thing Reddit really gets from creating its own app vs a third party app is whatever permissions you give to your phone. Are you saying reddit has location telemetry built into their App? If that's the case you just disable Location services (you should be doing this anyways). Do you think they have access to your microphone? Now wait a second, if you suspect any of that, do you think these third party apps don't if you give them permission to? I am really scratching my head here.

Yes, you can limit the data they can collect with the right settings, and that's true of first- or third-party apps, but that doesn't change the fact that it's easier for them to make changes to the data they collect if it's only their own app they have to worry about than if they have a dozen other companies who will notice and call attention to those changes.

Judgmenl posted...

Furthermore, why are you even using the internet if you are that concerned? Every site has the power to collect telemetry without your knowledge.

They do, but I'm not saying this out of privacy concerns. I'm saying this as an explanation for why Reddit wants to push their own app over third-party ones, since being able to collect more data is more profitable.

Reddit was pretty straight forward that this change was about money:

"Reddit announced sweeping changes to its API rules last month, citing the rise of AI companies using their platform to train large language models. The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The New York Times. But we dont need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/6/1/AAfaVHAAEikR.jpg

rjsilverthorn posted...

Reddit was pretty straight forward that this change was about money:

"Reddit announced sweeping changes to its API rules last month, citing the rise of AI companies using their platform to train large language models. The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The New York Times. But we dont need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.

Well there you go, another opportunity for them to make more money by shutting down third-party access to their data.

Judgmenl posted...

All of those for-profit third party application vendors did nothing wrong amirite?

Whether any of the money hungry companies did anything wrong, is separate and irrelevant to my statement as I made it.

I use the browser on my phone, I don't care one bit about the apps

As someone who has nothing better to do while working than doom scrolling reddit, I wish these mods doing black outs would be less selfish and consider my boredom

They will burn this planet down

to force you to use their awful app.

It's 2023 and I still don't know what reddit is.

__starsnostars posted...

It's 2023 and I still don't know what reddit is.

The world would be a better place if Reddit, Facebook and Twitter were all shut down.

I think the biggest deal here is that API access at the currently planned price is just outrageously expensive. If it was reasonably priced there'd be a lot less pushback, but some third-party apps are looking at millions per month if they want to stay up.

So if I'm getting this straight, the state of social media is trash. It's all insecure and owned by 4 companies. We all relied on Twitter, and the site's been turned pay to win by some tech con artist. Mastadon tried fixing this, but Mastadon's UI is terrible.

We should have a decentralized social media tbh. I'm not talking crypto scam decentralized, I mean "everyone helps host it and no one makes money" decentralized.

Yellow posted...

We should have a decentralized social media tbh. I'm not talking crypto scam decentralized, I mean "everyone helps host it and no one makes money" decentralized.

Need to get my DeLorean fixed to travel back to 2006.

Judgmenl posted...

Need to get my DeLorean fixed to travel back to 2006.

Bring some cinnamon sticks to spice up your Weetabix.

ive never used any of the third party reddit apps so i dont know what im missing out on

I expect you all to entertain me while reddit is blacked out. Get your memes ready, phone in duckbear, whatever it takes

LaggnFragnLarry posted...

ive never used any of the third party reddit apps so i dont know what im missing out on

probably the most important thing is better moderator tools in these apps, so look forward to shittier moderation going forward whether you personally use third party apps or not

agesboy posted...

probably the most important thing is better moderator tools in these apps, so look forward to shittier moderation going forward whether you personally use third party apps or not

damn im probably going to download one now before they fuck it up just to see the difference. been a moderator on a subreddit for almost two years

And rampant greed consumes another corporation.

I really don't understand the end game for these billionaires. Once they hold the entirety of the world's wealth, where do they go from there? What do they do when they can't extract any more money from the working class? Would that just lead to a total financial meltdown that ends civilization as we know it?

VideoboysaysCube posted...

And rampant greed consumes another corporation.

I really don't understand the end game for these billionaires. Once they hold the entirety of the world's wealth, where do they go from there? What do they do when they can't extract any more money from the working class? Would that just lead to a total financial meltdown that ends civilization as we know it?

Gamers are obsessed with getting a high score in some useless game, billionaires are obsessed with getting a high amount of wealth that they can never reasonably spend in their lifetime.

Ultimately it comes down to our puritan roots where we either abstain from something or overindulge in it to the point of addiction. Most people can't handle a middle ground where we enjoy something, but only a little bit of it. Dieting, Politics, Money, Drugs, etc. Everything is made worse due to this philosophy.

Reddit sucks now mostly, all the subs, all of it