A large number of subreddit forums they will join the 48 hour protests starting today against the Reddit’s new pricing policy. Thousand of subreddit “blacked out“, which will then become private and inaccessible from the outside. Huge communities, like the subreddit r/funny which has over 40 million users and r/gaming which has over 20 million, but also r/iphone.
Reddit, the protests that obscure the community: what happens
Reddit has introduced a set of tariffs for its application programming interfaces (APIs), which allows other companies to use Reddit’s services in their products and services. As is the case with third-party apps that offer a customizable interface to view Reddit content, such as Apollo.
Apollo, in particular, is an application developed by a former Apple employee to provide a better experience for Reddit users on iPhone. But he announced that, given Reddit’s new payment policies, he will no longer be able to offer the app on iOS: will close on June 30th.
Reddit’s new policies behind the protests
Reddit has announced that it will start charging for big tech companies that use its data to train their AI systems. Huffman, the CEO of Reddit, told the New York Times that Reddit doesn’t want to give away its “valuable” data to those who don’t give value back to users.
In his post on Friday, he added: “Reddit needs to become a self-sufficient company and to do so, we can no longer support commercial entities that require large-scale data usage.”
But the term “Big Tech” seems to extend to much smaller developers as well. Third-party app Apollo has already announced that it will shut down on June 30. Its developer, Selig, wrote on Reddit that the platform asked him for payre $0.24 for every 1,000 requests to its API. The pricing policy will take effect from July 1st.
Redditor Complaints
One of the criticisms is the way i Reddit executives have managed, or mostly omitted, information about changes in API costs or limitsincluding prohibiting third-party applications from displaying NSFW (Not Safe For Work, such as nudity) content that is visible on the site.
When moderator Merari01 asked why the site had not experienced the new changes with users and moderators, CEO Steve Huffman responded that the company “began sharing this news in April.” Some replies pointed out that the previous announcement did not contain any information on costs and overlooked important details. This prompted users to protest, blackout subreddits, and therefore reducing the visibility of Redditwhich mainly earns from advertising on the site.
A moderator named u/Toptomcat announced in a June 2 post that many subreddits are “going blackout to protest this policy.” The Redditor adds: “Some will return after 48 hours: others will disappear permanently if the problem is not solved adequately, since many moderators cannot do their job with the limited tools available through the official app”.
The user also warned that if Reddit didn’t “fix what’s broken,” the community would take further action.
Answers from Reddit CEO Steve Huffman
CEO Steve Huffman took out a Reddit post on Friday to express his “frustration” with the situation and said he spoke to several moderators. “Mods, I appreciate all the time you have spent with us this week, and all the time before as well. Your feedback is valuableHuffman wrote.
London, United Kingdom – September 29, 2018: Close-up shot of reddit’s popular app Reddit: Trending News.
“We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, sometimes, go private. We are all responsible for ensuring that Reddit is an open and accessible place for people to find community and belong.”
Meanwhile, the Reddark site records that 6292 out of 7265 unique subreddits are blacked out, joining the protest. Impossible to access from outside, with a “sign” protesting the pricing policies for those trying to connect. It remains to be evaluated how the company will respond: we will keep you updated.