We offer the API so the vast majority of our use of the uses of the API — so not these, the other 98 percent of them that make tools, bots, enhancements for Reddit — that’s what the API is for.
It was never designed to support third-party apps. We let it exist. And I should take the blame for that, because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time. But I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities.
The ones that actually are doing good for our users — RedReader, Dystopia, Luna — like actually adding real value at their own cost? We’ve exempted. We’ll carry that cost.
I want to stop you for a second there. So you’re saying that Apollo, RIF, Sync, they don’t add value to Reddit?
Not as much as they take. No way.
90-plus percent of Reddit users are on our platform, contributing, and are monetized either through ads or Reddit Premium. Why would we subsidize this small group? Why would we effectively pay them to use Reddit but not everybody else who also contributes to Reddit? Does that make sense?
These people who are mad, they’re mad because they used to get something for free, and now it’s going to be not free. And that free comes at the expense of our other users and our business. That’s what this is about. It can’t be free.
Jay Peters
Feels strange to side with the corporate side in this fight, but Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has a good point here – it probably helps that I’m a casual Reddit user who couldn’t care less about third-party apps, especially one exclusive to iOS such as Apollo. Reddit could have undoubtedly handled the rollout better, with more clarity around pricing and timelines. And it doesn’t help that the CEO is invoking Elon Musk as a model for this swift overhaul…
The dispute has been full of irony, as each side is guilty of the same faults to various extents. Since the beginning, Reddit has relied on user-generated content and volunteer moderators, thereby outsourcing a hefty amount of costs that other social media companies need to cover; similarly, Apollo’s developer Christian Selig charged users for access to Reddit’s API through his app without paying the company hosting the content, and removing its ads. Reddit considers this archive of user-generated content ‘theirs’ to license for training large-language models; similarly, subreddit mods now refusing to end their protest against API changes act as if they own those virtual spaces, holding them hostage against the wishes of many members to satisfy their illusion of importance and power.
What I find most disingenuous in Selig’s arguments is how he’s complaining about Reddit’s pricing, while at the same time happily paying Apple’s AppStore commission – has he protested Apple’s terms of service before, or does he only have an issue with Reddit asking him to play by their rules? As a sidenote, here is the Wikipedia description of Apollo’s value-add. Does that strike people as something worth paying for?! (rhetorical question, I certainly don’t; Apple diehards will readily justify it with their nebulous claims of better design)
In comparison to Reddit's official app, Apollo does not feature advertisements for non-paying users. However, customizable gesture controls, multiple accounts, and creating posts is locked behind a US$5 minimum known as "Apollo Pro". For US$1 per month, users can pay for "Apollo Ultra", which features push notifications and custom themes.
I don’t know enough about Reddit’s internal rules to anticipate how this power struggle will end; to me, it feels obvious that members should to decide if their subreddit is open or private, and if current moderators should be allowed to make sweeping decisions in their name. Creating a new subreddit is only a partial solution, as the content in the original one would still be locked away. Some users may migrate to new products, though I suspect they will soon face the same questions and tradeoffs between hosting costs, reliability, design and community rules.
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